Signs of the Times - Dressed for the Part
June 2004
Criminal Justice: Dressed for the Part
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"Clothing defines the role: the officers wear blue uniforms and the inmates wear burgundy scrubs. So who are all these other people who are not uniformed? Administrative and medical staff, secretaries, teachers, counselors and another major category--the volunteers. Most of our programs are run by volunteers, people who go through various levels of security training with the Department of Corrections and then dedicate many hours a week to the prison population.

Most people's first comment, when I mention the volunteers, is that these are obviously sweet, simple-minded, do-gooders who have some mambypamby notion that we're just sweet girls gone astray. In fact, our volunteers are cut of a different cloth. They are newspaper editors, crime victims, multilingual doctors, professors, people who have lived all over the world including the Middle East, Africa, Asia, the Far East and South America. They are educated, sophisticated, busy and from a broad variety of racial and cultural backgrounds, political and religious tastes. They are anything but uniform.

Their single common thread is that they are down-to-earth, roll-up-yoursleeves, get-your-hands-dirty people. They are people of grit and substance. They feel a responsibility to get involved. They have taken to heart the maxim, 'if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.' So they give up their valuable time to come to the prison to teach, counsel, listen, cajole, mentor, run libraries, organize behind the scenes, and help.

At all three prisons where I have lived, volunteers have made a significant difference, but at Fluvanna their impact is enormous. Perhaps because we are a maximum security prison and for many women, all hope ends here. Our warden is, therefore, glad to accept help from those willing and qualified to offer a bit of hope. Perhaps the volunteers come to Fluvanna because it is here they are most needed: it is in these lives they can make the greatest difference.

As one volunteer confided, 'It's as if my whole life was preparing me for the work I do here.' And work it is. Imagine a job where you fail frequently, everyone underestimates you, and you have no official authority or recognition. You do it for free and at the most inconvenient of times. Our volunteers, seven days a week, are dressed in the ordinary, everyday uniform of mission impossible." (Elizabeth Haysom, Fluvanna Review, June 17, 2004)

Elizabeth Haysom is presently incarcerated at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy, Virginia. She is serving a 90 year sentence as an accessory to the murder of her parents in 1985. This column was first printed as part of a series, under the general heading 'Glimpses from Inside.'


Comments? Questions? Write me at george@loper.org.