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| Follow the yellow brick road |
| By Sarah Etter, News Reporter |
| Published: 11/06/2006 |
In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy finds herself in peril after she ignores Good Witch Glinda and strays from the yellow brick road. Although this mistake puts her in danger, she soon learns her lesson and finds her way back to the paved golden street that carries her to the Great and Powerful Oz.
To Kim Carter, this story is an uncanny parallel to her own life, as well as the lives of incarcerated women.“Dorothy chose to step off of the yellow brick road,” she explains. “She could see the road, but she decided not to use it. Sometimes, people stray from their path and we have to help them find their way. We need to let people know that it is ok to start over, even if they step off the road.” Carter, a self described activist, has spent much of her life dealing with incarceration in some form or another. She spent time behind bars for her own mistakes, and then created the California non profit Time For Change Foundation after she experienced being recycled through the prison system. “When I go into these facilities, women who are about to be released sob for days,” she recalls. “They tell me they are being released to nothing. They just have nowhere to go, nobody to help them, nothing. That's how they end up right where they started behind bars.” Carter paints a grim picture of the void that will greet most female offenders, and she knows how devastating a resource-less release can be. So after a year of intense research and interviews, she and statisticians from the San Bernardino County Department of Health released Invisible Bars: Barriers to Women's Health and Well-Being During and After Incarceration. Carter and company developed a survey and selected 152 random California Institute for Women in Corona offenders to participate in their research. The report, called by some a scathing indictment of California's health care system for females, found that many women were forced to skip doctor's visits because they could not afford the $5 co-pay. “Women have not had their health addressed during incarceration and they are being released in bad health. They have ongoing problems; hernias, bad teeth, and lumps in their breasts that they fear are cancerous. Across the board, there is a lack of finances and insurance for these women during and after incarceration and it's just unacceptable.” Employment was another glaring problem. Many offenders reported an inability to find employment despite their best efforts because of a past they cannot change. Although Invisible Barsis critical of the, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Carter says it would be shortsighted to blame the agency alone. “This report should make the community realize that we need to help these ladies. This isn't just about health care in prison. It's also about the lack of health care in the community. What are we going to do about the people we continue to ostracize? We can't keep pointing the finger at the CDCR. After these women get out, they are going back to communities that don't want them.” Yet, those same communities are paying big bucks to care for them. Thirty-eight percent of the women interviewed said they visited emergency room for health care, while 80 percent said they could not find employment. Sixty percent said they had no health care upon their release. An additional 41 percent said they were homeless upon release, a statistic Carter hopes to change with her rapidly expanding “Sweet Dreams Houses” project. “Sweet Dreams is based on a desire to provide women with a chance to change after they are released,” she adds. “When I was released from prison, I had a desire to change, but I had nowhere to change. If these women continue to be released into dysfunctional environments with no resources, they will return to their old ways.” The houses are actually two post-release facilities for females. One is in San Bernardino, California, and the other is in North Mountain View. They are currently home to 12 women. A third will open in early 2007 and will welcome six more ladies. “These are nice, upscale homes in really nice neighborhoods. I thought it was very important to put these women in an environment that was considered normal. They have a two-car garage. They have flowers on the front lawn. This is basically the opposite of the kind of environment they typically come from, and it offers them a real chance to change.” Time For Change financially supports the homes, along with the California Endowment, a private health fund. TFC is also funded by grassroots hard work like yard sales and barbeque dinner fundraisers. Carter and her foundation are hard at work collaborating with the CDCR. Since the report's release, she says the agency has been open to her ideas, and looks forward to dissolving the invisible bars that challenge ex-offenders by bringing the community and CDCR together. “If there are people who want to change when they get out of prison, we have to give them a road to success. It needs to be a road that is clearly and boldly painted,” Carter says. “We are in the process of creating an atmosphere of change in our communities and we can put these ladies back on the yellow brick road.” Related articles: Conversations and butterfly bushes, 10/30/06 A new trail for female offenders, 8/4/06 Pen, paper and offenders, 7/31/06 |
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