Lucid, intensely moving, and highly personal account of author's six-month imprisonment inside Alderson Federal Prison Camp, the oldest and largest federal prison for women
Excerpt
Such a difficult day. The paranoia in me rises again. Headache. Bad water. I'm a captive of an evil system. Every woman's story is a tale of woe.
...
"Waxed floors are more important in Alderson than women, be they old, sick, pregnant or crippled," the labor organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn worte. From 1955 to 1957 she was Alderson Inmate #11710, walking these same well-trod paths. Now, fifty years later, another imprisoned woman is spreading wax on the concrete floors; the toxic smell prevades the barracks. It will drive me out of here. My patience is so short. I feel very, very sad at the condition of so many here.
Professional Reviews
Living Through Shadowland
by Michael Hopping
Clare Hanrahan's memoir, Conscience and Consequence, takes us into the head, heart, and spirit of a woman imprisoned for acting on her beliefs.
Imprisonment has always been a risk for people engaged in struggles for
social justice. Some legendary champions have been tested in the gray prison
shadows from which the polite divert their eyes, where suffering is not
acknowledged only expected. But, as Ms. Hanrahan hastens to tell us, the
torments of incarceration are not in the least romantic.
In her follow-up to Jailed For Justice: A Woman's Guide To Federal Prison
Camp, she offers a gritty and highly readable personal account of captivity
at Alderson Women's Prison, where she served a six-month sentence in 2001
for trespassing at Fort Benning, Georgia, during the annual School of the
Americas (SOA) protest action.
Hers is a tale of prison-issue men's thermal underwear, often used, and
shoes so poorly made that inmates use sanitary pads as a defense against
blisters. Alderson is a cinderblock wonderland of rancid peanut butter,
prowling male guards, and price gouging at the Commissary. To her keepers,
inmate 90285-020 is frequently "Hanerun" or "Hanran". Strip searches are
commonplace, decent medical care almost nonexistent. Displays of human
feeling amongst the captives and the cautious kindnesses of some prison
staff are risky in an institution where the letter of regulation literally
trumps the spirit. Clare Hanrahan doesn't exist. She is "Claire" because the
paperwork says so. "All your mail must be addressed to your 'commit' name,
or you may not get it," warns the Reception & Discharge officer.
Against this backdrop of grinding humiliations and disrespect, Ms. Hanrahan
focuses on the web of connectedness that protects her from spiritual
collapse. Conscience and Consequence makes the toughness, resilience, and
warmth of this network palpable for readers. We feel the strength she draws
from the letters of well-wishers, news of her twenty-five SOA co-defendants,
visits from family and friends, and the fortitude of inmate sisters at
Alderson, past and present. We walk with her where Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
walked, contemplating the Greenbrier River and listening for the train
whistle's promise of freedom. Billie Holiday also felt numb here; "I didn't
sing a note the whole time I was in Alderson." Wild herbs grow on the
prison grounds. They provide earthy, if illicit, physical support. And
always there is connection through writing, answering letters, taking notes,
remembering.
This is no gossamer New-Age fantasy. It is a rock-ribbed Earth-centered
survival system. It allows her the perspective to ask:
"What is the deeper truth here in this place? I am so unclear today ---
irritated with the noise, the crude language, crowded quarters, and bad food
--- the lot of the poor. I feel illness trying to overtake my body ---
sneezes, coughs. Yet such luxuries I have: clean showers, glorious views,
and letters and visits from friends. I breathe into this intensity and
trust, with gratitude for the sweet breeze. Here I am. What more can I do?"
Political considerations aside, Ms. Hanrahan shines a light in dark places
and lets us listen to the voices there. In my house, this is the kind of
writing which separates the books from the coffee cup coasters.
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