Jennifer Crosson's heart sank when the judge read the verdict: "You are to be remanded to the Louisana State Prison for Women for a period of no less than five but no more than fifteen years," he said.
Judge Rutherford was well-known for his tough stance on drugs and drug dealers. And Jennifer's was an open and shut case; she had been caught with the drugs in her house when the cops showed up.
Jennifer's boyfriend had set her up to take the fall for his drug dealing. He had gotten wind that the police were wanting to talk to him about a couple of burglaries that had occurred recently and he knew that if they started questioning him, the drugs could very well be brought out.
And because he didn't want to go back to prison, he had planted some drugs all cut up and packaged for sale along with some drug paraphernalia and some "seed money" in her house and then made an anonymous call to the local police.
The police found the drugs and money easily enough right where the caller had said and they arrested her on the spot. After her trial which she was easily found guilty despite her protests of innocence, Judge Rutherford pronounced his sentence.
She was led in handcuffs back to her cell to await transport to the prison. When the time came the van pulled up and Jennifer was put in transport chains–her ankles were cuffed, leaving only a short distance with which to walk, and her wrists were cuffed to a belt around her waist. A chain behind her back connected the two.
As she was being loaded into the van, she received yet another blow.
"Your boyfriend was the one who turned you in, you know," the guard said, "Hell, I doubt he was even who he said he was–he was probably using a fake name the whole time you knew him. It's a common trick to play up to some innocent person and win their affections so they have a convenient patsy to put the blame on if things get too hot!"
He clicked her chain into the lock on the floor to keep her in her seat during the trip. "But you were caught with the goods and that's all that matters to Judge Rutherford!" he added then moved on to the next convict.
There were two other girls in the van, and all three were headed to the same place. Jennifer didn't know why the other girls were going to prison and didn't ask.
Jennifer sat there in her seat, too stunned to speak as the van began its long drive to the prison. Because the local jail was overfull and due to the length of her sentence, she had been sent to the Lousiana State Prison for Women. Which was about a three-hour drive from the jail she was temporarily kept at.
She looked out at the countryside as it went by. Her view, however, was through the thick steel mesh covering the windows–a reminder that she wouldn't get a clear view of the outside world for several years. This only added to her sullen, frightened mood. How was she going to survive for five long years?
Jennifer had never been in trouble like this in her life. She was always a good girl; she never even skipped school when she was younger! And she wouldn't dream of doing drugs–she didn't even drink coffee for Pete's sake!
Too depressed to look out the window anymore, she instead just hung her head and looked at the floor and the chains that held her in her seat. Her thoughts went back to her boyfriend who claimed to love her.
Jenny had met him when he came into the store that spring day two years ago. She was a customer service representative at the local cell phone company and she was behind the counter when he walked in the door.
She had been lucky (or so she thought at the time) when his turn to be helped came up, that she was the one who was free to wait on him. He had just moved into town and he was looking for a new cell phone since he couldn't use his old one.
The two got to talking and he asked her where she was from originally. She told him that she was born and raised in Montgomery Alabama but had moved to Mobile after she graduated high school so she could be near the ocean.
"Ohmygod! I'm from Montgomery too!" he said. This would be the first of a surprising number of things they seemed to have in common. Looking at things from this side now, Jennifer could see now that it all seemed a little too coincidental and she kicked herself mentally for being so gullible.
But there was little she could do about it now. He was long gone–off to find some other girl to take advantage of and screw up her life, more than likely. Meantime, Jennifer had to figure out how she was going to make the next five years. She knew she wanted to just do her time and get through it the quickest and easiest way possible.
Jennifer just wanted to keep her nose clean, do as she was told, and hopefully get some time knocked off for good behavior. She had no idea what to expect when she got to prison–she'd never even watched a prison movie or documentary before so life behind the walls of a prison was as foreign to her as life on another planet.
She would be so totally out of her element and the unknown scared her half to death.
She had a lot of time for her imagination to dream up all manner of horrific scenarios and plots, where her innocence would be taken advantage of by the other, more hardcore, criminals.
She had heard stories of some convicts making sex slaves or "bitches" out of the newer and weaker cons. She didn't know how true these stories were and she hoped that they were just urban legends. But she would soon find out one way or another!
After a long, hot, miserable ride on a van with no air conditioning (it was August and the temps regularly reached the mid 90's with 80% humidity), they got close to the prison. Jennifer could see the huge monolithic prison walls from the road leading to it, and it looked every bit as frightening as her worst nightmares.
The 1,100 person prison was located in a small town a few miles south of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Lousiana State Prison for Women, or LSPW as it was also called, consisted of three cell blocks–A, B, and C–with a fourth building that contained the administration, training center, cafeteria, and other general use and operations offices. Each cell block had its own outdoor yard area with a basketball court and grassy park-like area.
The van pulled up to the enormous, twenty-foot-high gate and the driver clicked the remote to open the outer gate. Once the van pulled into the prison entryway, the outer gate shut to allow the inner gate to open and the van continued up to the main building entrance.
"Welcome to Lousiana State Prison for Women, ladies, your new home until your sentences are completed and you are released. Now, everyone out and head into the Admissions and Receiving room," he directed. There were a couple of female guards outside waiting to walk the prisoners where they needed to go.
Once they were inside, the guard at the front of the group stopped them in the hallway outside of the Admission Room. "Okay, ladies do you see the lines painted on the floor? You will walk between the wall and this line," the guard said, pointing to the line on the floor.
"If you step across the line, you will be disciplined. If you do it again, you will spend a little time in the hole. This is to keep order and prevent squabbles between inmates. Inside the cell blocks, there's only one narrow strip down the middle of the row that you will walk on, away from the front of the cells.
"We don't take to fighting here at LSPW. If you get involved in a fight–even if you aren't to blame–you will get disciplined. We are not interested in who did what to whom. And we don't have the time to investigate each incident. We have a prison to run and it's a full-time job, too.
"So we just round up those involved and punish everyone. We figure either you started the fight or you could have avoided it or reported it instead of getting involved. So either way, you are guilty of something!" she said.
"Your first offense will result in your being locked in your cell for a while to cool off. Your second offense will result in some privileges being taken away. and subsequent offenses will result in further disciplinary actions. But trust me when I tell you Warden O'Conner is not someone you want to test or trifle with! She runs a tight, disciplined ship here, and crossing her is a bad, bad idea!
There are two sides to life here at LSPW; for those who keep their nose clean and do what they are told without fuss, there is a lot to do here. We have various rehabilitation and training programs and you can even get your G.E.D. or online college degree here.
But for those who try to buck the system and are always creating chaos, well even a short 'nickel tour' here can be a long, long time!" she said. (a 'nickel tour' is a five-year sentence, the minimum sentence for an inmate at this particular prison)
Jennifer listened carefully to what the guard said. The last thing she wanted to do was cause any kind of trouble, accidentally or on purpose. Once her orientation lecture was over, she took each of the new inmates one at a time into the Admission Room and got them signed in and issued them the things they needed.
Each inmate got a pillow and pillowcase, sheets, and a blanket. They also got two orange jumpsuits which would be their clothing for their stay at LSPW. Everyone wore orange jumpsuits except for the sex crimes inmates who wore light blue jumpsuits. You didn't want to be a "blue suit"–they were the most hated and the most picked-on inmates in the whole prison.
The inmate's street clothing, jewelry, and personal effects were then inventoried, written down on an inventory sheet, and bagged in a locked bag while the inmate watched. The inmates were then taken next door to the showers where they were allowed a short, five-minute shower to wash the sweat and road grime off, and then they were to get dressed in their jumpsuits.
