Life for women inside the ‘House of Correction'

‘A’ Days, ‘B’ days, and four precious hours: Part two

(In part one — A Cape Cod Voice — we met Ashley Rorro, learned why she was sentenced to the Barnstable County House of Correction, and begin to understand why she is sharing her story of time served on the women’s unit, continuing with her growth and journey since that dark time.) 

There was a window in her cell, but it had been frosted over.

“I was told they did it in 2018, May, supposedly because the women could see the men,” Ashley remembers. “I didn’t see outside light once, not once in six months.”

There were no work release opportunities like joining a crew to pick up highway litter. There was no kitchen work. There was no outdoors. Little time for any kind of free movement around the unit. All of those were possibilities for at least some of the men.

So how did time unfold for women?

“There were A days, and there were B days,” says Ashley. “Let’s start with an A day.

“The door unlocks at 5:30 am and you go downstairs. If you don’t, you’re locked in your room for 24 hours. You grab a tray, supposedly for breakfast though not many wanted to eat at 5:30 am, so you wait for it to be over and you go back, maybe 5:45. You’re locked in your room until 10:30 which is lunchtime, when the same thing happens again. You go back to your room until 12:30. From 12:30 to 2:30 pm there is common area privilege, two precious hours. On the first floor there is an old TV, some chairs, and a desk for the CO, the corrections officer. There are some books around, a lot of them religious, some left by former inmates. You can eat, you can shower – it’s not private really, there’s a camera in there. You can make calls.

“At 2:30 pm you go back to your room and you’re let out at 4:30 for dinner. Then back to your room at 4:45 until 7:30. Then you’re allowed to come out for another two hours, until 9:30 pm. At that point you’re locked in again until 5:30 am.”

Four of 24 hours out of the cell. How about a ‘B’ day?

“There are some slight variations. You’re up at 5:30, and then back after breakfast. At 8:30 you have to be at the door when it pops, out from 8:30 to 10:30. Then back in the cell for a very short time and out for lunch at 10:30, 10:45 am locked down until 4:30 pm dinner, then two hours free time 5:30 to 7:30, then locked until 5:30 am.”

There was “MedPass,” when prescriptions were distributed. “When the meds come through everyone is locked down for an hour – this is during the free time slots. I’d say close to 100 percent of the women were taking some kind of medication. I’m not sure what, probably anti-depressants? But everyone was trying to get on something or do something.”

If anyone visited the unit, again it was back in the cells. “All that impedes on our four hours of free time.”

At night there were AA meetings, a religious class, though those were canceled when MedPass was coming through. A counselor was available, and school during the day Monday through Thursday that Ashley describes as “fifth grade level,” no curriculum or books, “you might read something, watch a movie, just a place to go.” Again, all this was scheduled during the four hours when everyone wasn’t in their cells.

Ashley believes a key reason why women were so restricted, much more than men, was that there was only one unit, which meant all of the women who were “unsentenced,” held awaiting trial in yellow uniforms, were in close proximity to women who were convicted and serving real time in green uniforms. That’s not supposed to be the case, and attempted separation created logistical problems.

“People were always being shuffled,” Ashley continues. “They’re not supposed to be speaking to each other, but they do.”

Of course men and women need to be separated too, which meant that if women had been allowed in common areas, including outdoors, the men would have to be cleared. “Moving women around was too much work,” she says. “And that’s not an exaggeration.”

Food also was a serious issue.

“If all you did is eat their three meals a day, you’d be a hungry person,” she says. “So supplementing, bartering, trading, is important.” Families would put money into the prison commissary to pay for extra food; not only was it far from healthy fare, it was outrageously priced:

“My example is Cheez-Its. You go to a store outside, you can find those little to-go Cheez-Its for 99 cents. In jail, that packet is like four dollars.”

“Everybody knew I’d gone to college, so I became the butt of every joke. I was bullied for that. They would be threatening me outside their cells, isolating me, ganging up. No one would sit with me or talk with me, they ignored me.

“Then I got a job with two months remaining on my sentence, and that’s when the bullying really started. You see, you can get good time and have your sentence reduced, but I couldn’t because of how I was sentenced. So I was taking a job that could get someone else out earlier.  All the women on the sentenced unit would be banging on doors and barking at me, everyone.  But scrubbing those showers was the best time of the day, I stuck with it. It got me out of my room for half an hour.

“I saw women in there who really wanted to change, who had children. Addiction is a disease, it’s out of your control. Some women really wanted to be better human beings, not all, but some. But they’re not looked at as human beings, that’s the first step.”

There also was a general understanding that how the Barnstable House was run is not the only way. Framingham State was an all-women’s facility, and its reputation, inside at least, was far better.

“With what they call stacked sentences, you could be in there for two and a half years,” says Ashley. “Not see the outside or breathe fresh air for two and a half years? Every single person in there for any amount of time tried to get transferred to Framingham.”

That wasn’t Ashley’s goal. The date in her head was March 15, 2019, six months and one day from being taken out of the courtroom. It had to come, and when it did, she walked into the open air, her body free but not her spirit, far from healthy:

“Jail did all the things you hear about. It broke me down, made me feel inferior, inadequate.” She was on probation, and she knew what she was looking at if she violated again; two and half years.

“Fear of God,” she says. “Fear of God, that’s how I felt.”

ON FRIDAY: RETURNING, REVIVING, AND MAYBE FINDING WAYS TO HELP OTHERS COME BACK