Patricia

At 33 Patricia received a double life sentence. Today she is 59 and currently incarcerated at SCI
Muncy.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
We'd like to acknowledge for our listenersjust upfront that what you will hear from
individual incarcerated women throughout the episode youmay find to be emotionally charged and even
disturbing. So we just want toacknowledge that and make you aware of that.
Furthermore, something that listeners probably don'trealize is that all of our individual

(00:25):
conversations with each woman was recorded insidea maximum security prison, the State Correctional
Institution SCI Munsey in Pennsylvania here inthe United States. So the noise,
there's any chatter, anything in thebackground. For our listeners just to understand
that we actually recorded inside a prisonwhere the day goes on. The women,

(00:51):
the officers, the staff, theyall have their jobs. Just because
we're there, it doesn't stop.Well, everything becomes quiet. So if
you do, as listeners here abackground noise, please understand that is part
of being inside a prison. Thankyou for listening to our podcast series Self

(01:19):
Identities Conversation with Convicted Women. Myname is doctor Catherine Whiteley. I'm a
feminist criminologist and I'm visiting today theState Correctional Institution it's called SCI Munsey,
a state prison in Pennsylvania for womenjoining me here today, and I'm thrilled

(01:40):
to say is Patricia. Hi,Patricia, how are you? I'm good?
How are you? I am great? And it's wonderful to see you.
I'm here because we've been on abit of a journey for a few
years now, haven't we. Yes, we have. Yes, you've actually
participated in a few things that I'vedone, like the book that's coming out
soon, say it exactly, youhave a chapter in that. Plus also

(02:04):
you know we've talked a lot andwritten to each other a lot as well.
Got a couple of Kola bears fromyou. You have, absolutely that's
the Aussie. Yes, absolutely.So what I'd love the listeners to hear
or learn from you, could youtake us back to how long you've been
incarcerated? How old were you incarcerated? And you know, again just a
little bit about yourself. So ifyou start with the length of time you've

(02:27):
been incarcerated, Patricia, Well,I started this journey, I was thirty
three years old. I'm now fiftynine. I'm doing a life since I
started from North Carolina, was broughtup to Pennsylvania and actually was hit with
a double life sentence on a murderof charge. Okay, And Patricia,
is Pennsylvania? Is this where youwere born or where were you born?

(02:52):
I was born in New Jersey,but I was pretty much raised in North
Carolina. I'm a Southern girl.You're a Southern girl. There we go,
And for all those Pennsylvania we won'thold that against you. How's that
all right? That's okay. Soyou know, Patricia, what I think
the listeners are always keen to learnis that who are you? And hearing
it from you as opposed to someoneelse that thinks they know you. So

(03:15):
if we go back a little bitabout your childhood, a piece of your
childhood and growing up, could youshare that with our listeners? Probably pretty
much always on a farm, prettymuch raised with horses. My mom joked,
I was born on a horse.She rode till she was nine months
pregnant. When I had a daughter, I rode till I was almost eight

(03:36):
months pregnant. So yeah, prettymuch born on a horse, raised on
a horse. Showed horses professionally forpleasure. Little you know, just always
with animals without and when you talkabout horses and so forth, and you
know, you showed the horses andso forth, and forgive me. I
don't know too much about horses,but I'm trying to learn. What was

(03:58):
it that you loved about that?What was it? Is it freedom?
Is it the animal? What wasit that you loved doing? Horses to
me are like big dogs. Theyhave personalities. People are scared of them.
You shouldn't be scared. They're likethey learn to know you. They
each have their own personality. Theylove you as much as you love them.
So they would come up to mejust like a dog would. When

(04:18):
you go out to the fence,and when you ride one through the woods,
it is just like you said,it's that freedom. If you ride
through the woods, it's seeing naturein a way that most people just forget
that's out there. You might rideup on a deer or see a butterfly,
just things that you normally would justnot see and you would forget about.
It's just relaxing. That's the naturalpart. The competing part is just

(04:44):
being a woman competing pretty much ina man's world at that time, right,
right, What was the length oftime that you, as said,
you grew up with horses and thento what when did you stop? When
did you stop? As I said, interacting with horses or looking after horse.
When did I start? Yeah,when I got arrested. When I
was arrested, I had probably twelvehead of horses and pro I'm going to

(05:08):
say ten head of goats, acouple of dogs, a cat. Yeah,
I had animals. Yeah, Sowe're learning more about you about this.
This is where we're heading in ourconversation, is that there was more
to it. There's a lot ofyour family, but also the outdoors and
the animals, and it helps uslearn a little bit more about you as
well. That's your love. Soif we go back a little bit,

(05:30):
as I said, growing up,can you also share a little bit about
you know, maybe what school orwhat is it something that you'd like to
share in your childhood and growing up, or could be siblings that you'd like
to share with the listeners to getto know you a little bit better.
To be honest, I was aonly child. My mom and dad both
had children before me in different marriages, but they always raised in the house

(05:53):
along. So the animals were mybrothers and sisters, you know, That's
how and grew so attached to them. And when I say that, when
I was arrested, you know,I had the horses and the dog and
stuff. I also had a fifteenmonth old daughter that was being raised pretty
much in the same atmosphere. Shewould go out and be around the horses,
and when I would go to ahorse show, she would be on

(06:14):
the saddle and be hard to gether off the saddle. She'd be sitting
in front of me and she'd bescreaming trying to get her off. But
that's just kind of the atmosphere Iwas raised in the same way. It
wasn't I didn't have brothers and sisters. I really wasn't that deep into sports
or anything like that. You didn'thave time when you have a barn,
you don't have time for stuff likethat. Wow. And so if we

(06:34):
talk a little bit further, removingfrom just growing up as a young person,
can you share another you know,like, what could we say maybe
a little bit more about the peopleare important and relevant in your life growing
up grown up? Of course,it'd be my mom and dad. My
dad died when I was young.The first year we moved to North Carolina.

(06:58):
He had developed cancer, and literallythe first year down there, he
had bone cancer and it took hima year almost to die. And that
was rough. So I was anadult pretty much at fourteen fifteen, I
had no choice. So my auntwas there, my mom's you know,
sister aunt Ellie was the best.She took over where Mom couldn't because she

(07:19):
had to take care of dad.And they were like the important people.
My uncle, uncle Kelly, hewas always there, and they were actually
the people that when I had probablyI wound up getting married young, which
I should not have. But it'sthe same theory where you want to just
get out of the house, andyou hear it with kids, they just

(07:40):
want to marry to get out ofthe house. And that's kind of what
I did. I ran from pain, And when I had to run from
him, I went up going upto my aunt uncles who were back in
New Jersey. So that was kindof where I was, and that was
only I was nineteen, so Iwas still really young. So thank you,
Patricia Nineteens. You say you ranfrom pain, and again we just

(08:03):
made touch a little bit when you'vegone through something, but I'd like you
to share a little bit about it. But how do you work your way,
navigate your way through that traumas yousay you went through pain, can
you share this a little bit ofinsight to what that looked like without giving
away too much information. Well,I've actually done a what we call it

(08:26):
life out loud in here where weshared it with some of the people in
the institution, the upper staff members, and it was painful, but we
went through this and I actually sharedit in this area. Being eighteen years
old, I had a son andI lost him through what is called sid's
sudden infant death, and people backthen obviously did not understand what it was

(08:50):
so losing a child and having ahusband that was mentally, physically and spiritually
abusive. It was almost to thepoint where I'm almost five to nine and
I was probably under one hundred pounds. I think I had a nervous breakdown
and didn't know it. He hadat want the last point, the last

(09:11):
breaking point, he fractured my chestplate with a karate kick. Yeah,
And that was the point. Myparents didn't even know my dad had died,
my mom had met someone else.They didn't know it, but they
knew something was really bad. Andhe demolished my car with a crowbar.
So my stepdad got me another car, and they wanted me to go back

(09:33):
up north just to get away andtry to think they could see I was
deteriorating. They just didn't know why. And when you come back up out
of that, you can't say youactually repair as you say, or you
get better. It takes years.It takes a lot to rebuild, to
realize you're not as dumb or asugly or like Now. I know I

(09:58):
have a fairly high IQ, youknow, and I'm not ugly and I'm
not anything that I was told foryears. But women, especially women in
that situation, it takes a lotfor them to understand there is help,
there is ways to get away fromthat, but they don't understand that.
You know, you can tell somebodya hundred times and they won't understand that

(10:20):
abuse cycle is horrible and thank you, you will welcome then and then when
you you know you arrived here atSci Muncie, how would you describe who
Patricia was? Then? Uh?Very scared going back through another trauma of
losing another child, because at thatpoint it was roughly a year. I

(10:45):
went to trial in eight months waswhich is unheard of to me. It
was a long time being away frommy daughter. But I found a drug
cases take two years and to beaway from my daughter that long. Even
it was like another child, soto come here, I hadn't touched her

(11:07):
in almost a year. So itwas hard. It was scary. The
place it's weird. The place isbeautiful, it's historical looking. It's got
beautiful you know, buildings on itand surrounded by trees. It's like a
college campus surrounded by by you know, razor wire. Yes, but you're

(11:28):
still scared to have you know,I've never been to a prison. I
didn't know what to expect. Youknow, you stripped of everything that you
know, everything that makes you theperson you were out there like you're literally
stripped physically mentally of that. Youknow, it was hard. Thank you,

(11:50):
thank you. You know, whenwe look back and see as you've
just described the young woman that camethrough into the prison system, or came
to the prison system, the Patriciathat's in front of me today, how
would you describe her? Well,you have a choice when you walk through

(12:13):
the gates. You can you cango down a path where you well,
you have a few choices. Youcan give up, and we've seen suicides
in here, We've seen people godown that route. You can give up
in another way where you just comein angry and you fight, and you
wind up in what's called the richwhich is another words the hole where you

(12:39):
mentally just lose it enough that you'realways angry and you're always fighting or you
know, screaming at the staff inthe wrong way, and you go down
this horrible path that you'll never well, you can't, I don't want to
say never, but it's very hardto get out of that path, and
you just sometimes you do stuff tostaff that brings on another char and you're

(13:00):
just never going to get anywhere.Or you can fight back the positive way.
And I had a daughter out there, and I chose that path.
It took me a minute. I'mnot going to say there weren't years where
I didn't want to give up,but I chose to fight back. I
didn't know anything about law. Ididn't know anything about how to get out
of here. But I chose tofight back, and I chose to get

(13:22):
into the law library. I choseto educate myself even further. You know,
I came in with four college credits, but they were in real estate
and they were in insurance, butthey weren't in anything I needed. I
needed to learn about law. Andwhen you come here, anybody comes into
the prison or anybody deals with thelaw, you have to learn law quickly.

(13:45):
The lawyer has eight years. Wehave ninety days. That's your deadline.
You know they've now extended it toa year. Still to learn what
you have to learn in a yearis hard, but that's what I chose,
and I've been doing that for twentysix years. I spent a lot
of time in the law library.They call you the little professor. Well
they don't call me that, butthey do come to me a lot.

(14:07):
And may I and thanks again forsharing that. But Vitrisa, what about
you mentioned if you're able to talkabout you have a daughter. Is there
a relationship, a continuing relationship withyour daughter, if you are able to
speak of that? There was totalshe was five. My stepdad would bring
her up every month, once amonth, and she didn't mind the trip.

(14:31):
She loved it. Actually, theywould joke and play all the way
up and all the way back.Once she got used to the idea that
she could come back, she atfirst she didn't want to leave, but
you know, once she learned,she'd come back and we would talk on
the phone. And that got tobe a routine where she knew it was
happening. But when she was five, I lost my mom. She had

(14:52):
a heart attack, which, sorryto say, I blame the state.
I lost my daughter. She losthers. She testified for me, and
that made her feel like she couldn'tprotect her daughter either. There's no step
grandparents' rights, so the judge prettymuch told my stepdad, you know,

(15:13):
he's sorry, but he can't allowhim to take her across state lines.
So that ruined that at that point, where you know, she couldn't come
up anymore unless her dad would doit, and her dad had married somebody
who you know what stepmoms can be. But I don't want to fault either

(15:33):
one of them because she I havepictures and kind of stalked her on Facebook,
if it's bad word to use,but friends have sent me pictures of
her off Facebook all along, andshe's beautiful. I know what school she's
went to. She's very you know, smart and educated for what I've got.
So they've done a great job withher, and that's sometimes the only

(15:54):
way you can, you know,follow somebody, you know. We've reached
out to her a couple of times. We waited till she's eighteen and recently
rereached out again. But you know, you can only do so much.
Absolutely, thank you. And nowwe're going to sort of talk a little
bit more about what do you do? People are probably wondering, So what

(16:15):
does Patricia do day to day ina prison? You know what, you
know, you're serving this life sentence. What is a day routine for you?
It's nothing like you see on TV. You're not locked in a cell,
you know, with the bars closing. You just sit there and do
nothing all day, right, Andit's not like a newspaper portrayed where we
sit it behind a TV in aday room. Is smoke cigarettes all day

(16:37):
because that was portrayed in one ofthe local papers. It's neither of those.
Most of us have what's called adetail, which is a job.
You know, you get up fora count at six six six in the
morning, six fifteen. When countclears, you go to work, you
know, or you go to breakfastfirst. I'm sorry, but I usually
don't go. But we all havejobs. I work in the infirmary.

(16:57):
Okay, sorry to but what Patriciadoes that? Yes? What does that
entail when you say you work there? And can you explain a little bit
about it please. Well, whenwe work in the affirm, it's not.
People think we're working with the patients. We're not. You know,
we help like clean the rooms outand set the rooms up. We'll hand
out trays for them, We'll dothe laundry, stuff like that. You

(17:21):
know. I've actually been trained todo floors, to strip wax and buff
floors, so I go a littlebit farther and try to keep the floors
cleaner than normal that, you know, do stuff like that. We might
handle going out working in the garden, just trying to make the place look
nicer, because the place does havegardens in front of the most of the
buildings. Right, there is ayard people can go to and play some

(17:45):
sports if they want. You know, I don't go out there a lot.
There is some more drama out there. You know, it's a younger
scene. Right. There's a libraryif you want to go check out books.
The LIBRARYA is located in the samearea. There's some educational stuff you
can do, most of it basic. They will help you get your ged

(18:08):
if you don't have it. Yes, you know there's stuff here that can
do. It needs to be itneeds to go deeper than it is.
There's not enough here for people.I've seen people come and go too many
times because they're not leaving here withenough education. You know, education is
important, isn't it? Absolutely?You know? And the public doesn't want

(18:33):
to train an inmate or help educatean inmate. But what they don't understand
but the costs that they're paying tokeep an inmate here. You might as
well educate them because if you don'tdo it, you're going to pay for
them to come back. Your taxesare paying for it either way. So
why not stop them from coming byeducating them? Well they're here, yes,
because you don't have to work ifyou don't want. You know,

(18:55):
they literally can sit in the roomand just run the yard three times a
day. So either way, youspend that sixty thousand a year on an
emmy. So why not offer thema good training course where they can take
that out and get a good joband not come back and do another five
years. What if you thank you? What have you found with the younger

(19:18):
generation? And I'm not just sayingit's younger generation, but literally, you
know, I hear I've said thisto many other women. We've been there
in this podcast series that you know, it's very sad because the younger women
are coming in. It's like acycle or you know, and it's like
they come in, they go out, they come in. What's your advice
when you know people want to knowa little bit about you and your experience

(19:38):
here, what's your advice to thelisteners regarding the young the young women or
the younger girls coming through the system. What advice would you give to them
about behavior or what happens? Yeah, what would advice? Well, that's
that's part of it. Somebody hasto break that cycle. You know.
Parents, be honest, Parents aren'treally raising their children the same as you

(20:03):
know twenty thirty years ago. Bothparents have to work nowadays, So who's
raising the child at home? Youknow, the fellow kid down the road
who's probably hustling or selling drugs.So unless you find a way to break
that cycle and give that child thingsto do. When they get older,
they think it's great to be,you know, in that gang and to

(20:23):
do things that aren't good, youknow, and it's okay, I'm going
to jail. Who cares? Butonce you go to jail a few times,
you wind up in a state prison. Right, once you hit the
state prison, that's on your record, you know. And then once they
get here they almost get that attitude. Well, I already got out on
my record. I don't care,you know now now I'm a badass,

(20:44):
so I don't care. But theydon't get it because they don't have what
we have, which is a lifesentence. They don't understand they're coming and
going. They never really get itthat they're doing life on an installment plan,
that interesting life on an installment plan. Yes, yes, you know
they're they're ruining their life. You'reI've seen them come in here with me

(21:07):
do twenty years? You know you'renot. You're ruining your life, you
know. And there's so many peoplein here that would give anything to have
that chance. You know, there'sthere's you got to break that cycle somewhere
because and eventually your child's going tocome in here. And that's what I
tell a lot of them, doyou want your child to be in here?
And they look at me and they'relike no, I say, well,

(21:27):
then you have to stop coming,absolutely, you know. Yeah,
and what about you know you've beenhere for how many years? Again?
Patricia twenty six on wow, twentysix in June twenty six, My goodness.
And so when you think back orreflect back, what is aging?

(21:48):
You know, how do you frameaging for you from your perspective being here
twenty six years or twenty something years? Yeah, how do you frame aging
for you? Has it been youknow, something that you know what I'm
going to say, the word embraced. I don't know if we embrace aging
and we do or we don't.But how do you frame aging from when
you first came in? And Imean in the context of how you've coped

(22:11):
with aging or is it just beenpart of an everyday process that you know,
you just take it for granted itis what it is. And then
maybe we could touch on a littlebit about you know, death or dying,
the possibility for yourself or and manyother women. What does that look
like or seem for you? Whatdo you feel about that? It's hit

(22:33):
a lot of us lately. Thepopulation here is aging, what we call
aging out, aging out. Youknow, when I got here the population
was probably around eight hundred. I'veseen it as high as fifteen hundred.
Now, you know, the lifersthere's probably I don't know, maybe saying
this off, I'm going to seeone hundred and twenty lifers, and there's

(22:56):
two prisons, two women prisons inthis date of Pennsylvania, and they probably
have close to the same amount inboth. But as the lifers are here,
of course they're getting older. Andbecause the Pennsylvania is a life without
parole, there's no option, whichpeople don't recognize. I've had police,
I've had judges. I had tojudge in one case that I did the

(23:18):
paperwork for somebody and he didn't realizethere's no parole with life, and he's
a judge. Yes, I've hada cop that didn't know it. You
know, this state has no parole. So these lifers are getting older and
we see a lot of them dying. It's interesting, Patricia, like we've
talked about this before too, andin other Westernized countries for women serving a

(23:45):
long or lengthy or what is deemeda life sentence, it does mean that
one day that they will be paroled. But this life without parole is very
unique, or rather unique here inthe United States. Yes, it is
interesting to hear your perception there andyour thoughts, but then what do we
look out when we think about thepossibility just said, you know the death

(24:08):
or the dying here? Do youever go down that path? Do you
ever think that that what would happento you or what could happen to you
if you were to pass in here? I'm not going down that path.
I'm fighting. I'm fighting till Iget out. Thank you. Now.
If they bury me, I'm goingto be fighting as I'm buried. I
have good support out there, yes, And you know, the one thing

(24:32):
I told her is do not leaveme here right right fighting till I get
out. Is there a thanks,Patricia? Is there a faith or spirituality
or that you follow or support myask? I truly believe in the Trinity,
you know, yes, God,Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I

(24:52):
don't have a I don't have acertain you know, religion. I don't
leave so much in religion as Iam a Christian. You know, I
find little rules in each religion.And forbid me, your audience might get
mad at that, but I findlittle rules in each religion that kind of
I don't think follow the Bible,you know. I read the Bible,

(25:15):
and I trust the Bible. Andif you don't have that higher power,
you'll get lost in here. Youhave to have something to hold on to.
And when I was in County,there was a verse that was given
to me over and over, evenin a card game. It was given
to me in letters. It wasgiven to me so much I thought it
was the most popular verse in theBible. And I've stuck to it and

(25:37):
held on to it, and Ibelieve in it. And for your listeners,
read Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven throughfourteen and they may understand and keep
in mind that I came from NorthCarolina and that it is his plan and
not mine. And when you acceptthat, you'll realize, I know I'm

(25:57):
getting out of here, you know, and I feel it's coming soon.
And you know, we've just talkedabout why. But you have to keep
faith. You have to have ahigher power. When you first entered the
prison system, what was your recollectionof your faith then? Or how did

(26:22):
Yeah? What what was that?Like? It's kind of funny. I
was saved the June before my arrest, almost almost a year to the date.
And I always tell people, ifthis is not a test of your
faith, I don't know what is. Wow, Yeah, which leads you
back into Joe. But this isa test of my faith to be saved

(26:48):
one June and arrested the next isit's kind of weird? Yeah? Wow,
Yeah, I'd like to ask youthis think that you know, we
even haven't even disgusting and there's alwaysa lot because you know, you know,
as I said, we've been onthis journey for a while, many
years, and I have to sayI've always appreciated the lovely letters. You

(27:11):
know, we've conversed and yeah,a couple of Kohala bears letter heads thrown
in there and so forth. Butwhen you sort of not sort of,
but when you think back now andhere you are today, what's a message
that you would like the listeners totake away? So once there, you
know, once I sit back andstart thinking, oh now I've got a

(27:32):
bit of an idea who Patricia isor I didn't know that about this particular
woman. What's something that they stilldon't know about you, but you'd like
to leave with them as to whoyou are, who you were and who
you are today. What is somethingthat we haven't talked about but you'd like
to share the listeners. I don'teven know if it's just about me or
if it's just about the people I'vemet in here in general that are doing

(27:55):
like without pearls, and so that'skind of where we're at dealing with people
with criminal sense is yes, tokeep in mind that when they come in,
don't always look at them at thatas that person, you know,
because I'm dealing with an author onthe outside and she's like, well,
they have to be punished, andyeah, they have to be punished.
I get that, but you goto the next state and that punishment might

(28:18):
be twenty years. So there's nothere's no closure in this state. You
know, if somebody hurts your childand they've said it to me, what
if somebody hurts your daughter? Yetin the beginning, I'd want to hurt
them back, you know. Obviouslythen you go through the anger, it's
a grief cycle. But eventually I'dwant to meet them and say why,
just tell me why you hurt mychild. You can't do that here,

(28:42):
So think about that person twenty yearsfrom now. They're not the same person.
So when people look at life sentencedin mates in here, they need
to think about it because I knowthere's a lot of laws out there that
are looking at chain first and seconddegree. They need to look at the

(29:03):
women in here that there's one lady'sdone fifty years. When is enough enough?
That's a big question. When isenough enough? Do you think that
woman is the same woman she wasfifty years ago? You know, you
come in here at twenty years old, you add thirty years to that.
Are you the same person? Ifyou look in the mirror yourself, are

(29:25):
you going to be the same personat fifty that you were at twenty?
You know, when is enough enoughthat you can't put an ankle monitor on
them and say, okay, we'regoing to try this. Because they've let
juvenile lifers out, they've commuted afew lifers. Now we have a lady
out right now that's doing good outthere. I'm going to ask you a
little bit about that. We've gota few more minutes left, and I

(29:48):
appreciate what you've just said. Sowho is Patricia right now looking me in
the eye and smiling everyone? Yes, she is. I'm a fighter.
I'm a fighter for long for legislation, I am and lucky. Last,
what else can we summarize our wonderfulconversation? What do you think? What

(30:11):
are you thinking about? What's goingon through your mind now? Other than
what's going to put on this podcastseries happen? What is something that you
know a gain? As we summarize, as we bring our conversation to a
close, well, I've got something. What has made you happy in here?

(30:32):
What has made you happy? That'sa hard one, maybe realizing that
people do care. I've lost everyperson that I can look back and say,
hey, remember when I was tenyears old and this happened. There's
not a single person out there anymore. I just lost the last person during

(30:55):
COVID, my uncle. He passedaway with one of my pastors. Yeah
that's hard. I'm my pastor andmy uncle within a month. Really hard.
So there's nobody left to say that. But he had remarried because my
aunt died when I was in Countytwo. But he had remarried down the
road. So I have a newfamily there. The author that came into

(31:17):
my life thinking I was guilty andnow wrote a book, she's my advocate.
So I have a new family there. They keep me going. And
to be honest, the women inhere you develop when you're in here twenty
years, you develop a different familyin here, and you have to learn
to laugh, and you have tolearn to have. You can't be miserable

(31:38):
all the time. You just can't. You will drive yourself insane. You
know you're not going to be cheerfuland happy and giddy, but you got
to have There's got to be ajoke somewhere in your week. You got
to laugh a little bit somewhere.And I have hope at the end of
the tunnel. I'm always going tohave hope. Yeah, yeah, I
do want to ask you. Youjust mentioned about friendship or the women in

(32:02):
here, can you just I knowwe're going to finish this very shortly,
but it's always there's always another question, isn't there? But when you talk
about women or that you've surrounded yourselfor you know you've built a good friendship
or a poor with can you sharewhat that looks like? Are they women

(32:22):
that are serving a long sentence orare they you know, women that are
coming and going. How does friendshipsor how does that How has that evolved
for you in the essence of servingsuch a long sentence? Do they come
and they go? Or you've foundthis a few or a couple of women
that you've bonded close to. It'skind of the same way as you would

(32:43):
make a friend out there, youdon't base it on whether they're going to
be in your life today or tomorrow. You know, you're not going to
look at somebody and say, hey, are you going to be here tomorrow.
You're going to get to know themas they are today. And that's
how you make friends in here.You know, I don't care if you're
going to be here next year ornot. You know, talk to me
today. I've been a mentor inhere for people that are coming in and

(33:05):
doing long sentences with a volunteer programcalled Sisters, and a couple of those
girls, yeah, they've kind ofbond to you. A couple of the
older lifers playing cards and stuff forthem. Yeah, you got close to
them. And the one that left, I was close to her. And
you know the problem with that andthe people that come and go, we're
not allowed to communicate with them whenthey leave, you know, without special

(33:28):
permission. So it kind of makesit where you build a wall up where
you don't get so close to somebodythat may be leaving because it hurts.
So you kind of keep closer maybeto one or two and here that you
know you can go to when youhave something serious happen. You don't get
close to a lot of people.You have one or two and then there's

(33:52):
one or two that might go home. And if you can get permission to
write a call or you might knowthey're coming back, you know. But
yes, it's you don't be soyou try. I don't base it on
their sentence. You can't do that. Wow, that's really powerful. Thank
you, Thank you, Patricia.We've I think we're going to draw to

(34:13):
a close now, and we alwayshave so much to share, but we
are going to close. But I'djust like to say thank you so much.
And if there's any more anything else, would you like to say,
or you feel that you've shared enough. I think you're pretty good. I
think so too. I think soon you, you know, and I've
appreciated our past, our current,and also our future absolutely, Patricia,

(34:39):
and I wish you all the verybest, and thank you for joining us
on our podcast of Self Identities Conversationswith Convicted Women. Thank you, thank
you, Patricia, thank you,