My Presentations and a lot of Sleep

As mentioned in a previous post, I am at a conference this week. It is actually one of the largest annual conferences of criminal justice scholars in the world and this year happens to be in Washington D.C. I had two presentations - one based on my autoethnography (this blog) and one based on my summer research project around prison transgender policies. Aside from my part on those two panels, I attended numerous other sessions on such topics as effects on early decisions and programs in cases, sentencing disparities, women and crime, and so much more. I was going to attend a session around prison education, but a professor I had just met who was fascinated by my background insisted I not attend that session as it "would just frustrate me..." and then she followed up with, "you should be teaching on these issues." She had just started talking to me ten minutes earlier because we happened to sit next to each other in the hallway.

Yesterday, during the roundtable discussion on life in prison, I was pleasantly surprised to find 13 people in the room. That is a great turn out for a roundtable- especially given our 8am time slot and that we were opposite a major breakfast event for those in the Sentencing and Incarceration division (which even we on the panel should be attending!) bad timing indeed.

The three other papers being presented were fascinating and I was so happy to be among such a great group of people and research. When it was time for questions, I was surprised when people seemed most interested in my little independent research project on transgender prison policies. I answered each to the best of my ability and several people asked for my email after the session. This was exciting! Yes, I did share my personal prison experience as I am continuing this research to focus on women's prisons, as most policies appear to be written primarily for Male to Female transgender individuals, yet the Female to Male transgender individual appears invisible in most policy. Many transgender individuals (not just drag) are housed for safety reasons in female prisons, yet it is a very complex state by state policy based on several factors including surgery, hormones, and much more! I do not know of any Female to Male transgender individual housed in general population in a male prison. Like I said, complex.

Anyway, following the presentation, one of the professors on my panel walked up to me in the hotel lobby and asked if she could keep in touch with me. She also asked if I will be on the academic job market after I receive my Phd. I explained that it is a far way off... Couple years. She didn't care. She said that I BELONG in academia and that she's going to keep in touch with me. I think I really needed that boost right now with being so buried in my work! I started questioning my goals! 

The bad part of this trip, though, is my health. It's fall and I'm flaring! Fatigue at its worst and pain is awful. I was able to do about 3/4 of a day out before the conference before I could no longer handle the day. I've been in every night. Wednesday night, I passed out before 8pm and woke just in time to catch my uber for my conference in the morning. Yesterday, I only made it half the day at the conference, was asleep at 4pm and woke from 8am-midnight. I'm getting done what I must for my classes, but I'm not getting ahead, going to more of the conference, or taking in this great city of Washington D.C. These are the moments I wish I did not have a chronic illness. I know I will be better than this. I just have to wait it out.

Today, I make my way back home. The conference lasts until tomorrow, but my graduate school travel fellowship did not cover enough for me to afford to stick around. I also miss my family. Sporty is with me, but TS, Penny and the puppies are at home waiting. 

I think I made a decent first appearance at this very large conference. For Dragonfly Hazel's first public appearance, no academic immediately questioned my ability to use this site for research purposes. My life and the lives of so many others are changed through incarceration within the federal women's prison system. We are now one step closer to some new research on the subject!

Freckles TIPS Presentation

I did not have pre-sentence or pre-incarceration supervision, but a lot of federal offenders do. Freckles was under supervision before her incarceration and had some idea what to expect post-incarceration because of it. I, on the other hand, pretty much was entirely free except for being asked to turn in my passport AFTER my academic trip to South Africa which occurred a couple weeks prior to my sentencing. 

Since she was on supervision after her indictment, Freckles received various "assessments" and programs. TIPS is one of them and here she shares that it is now coming full circle...

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From Freckles:

Well - I'm not sure how many of you attended a TIPS (Transition into the Prison System) workshop at your probation office before you were sentenced or self surrendered, but I did and it was the most useless 4 hours my husband and I spent in preparing me for my incarceration.  I've recently been asked by my PO to present at the next TIPS workshop. I know I can't change the world and make the workshop the best thing ever for these future federal inmates, but I'm hoping I can at least have them leave the room thinking they gained some valuable information from me.

I know all of our experiences are vastly different.  From being on pretrial, to sentencing and even through the self surrender process.  But the fact of the matter is that once you are inside those walls, there is so much information that I wish everyone could have access to and even when preparing for release how much the BOP does not do. 

I taught many classes while I was in the system - but I'm not sure totally how to prepare for this?  Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.  Most of you have followed the blog or maybe even been incarcerated yourselves.  What would you want to hear/learn about?  

I know I won't be able to tell everyone everything they need to know - but I'm hoping to at least give them some valuable information that they can hold onto.  Unless you're a "frequent flyer" in the system - I'm hoping to see many faces as horrified as I was and even if for one minute I can give them some peace I'll be happy.  I do know one thing - there is no way to prepare for the "toll" it will take on your family. And until I was released I did not realize that my time away was much harder on my family than it was on me.  So even though we are caged in a system that makes us jump thru hoops, do back bends and flips when asked - we need to keep in mind our loved ones on the outside.  And bottom line - it's still all about our choices and our actions do have consequences long after we realize....

Wish me luck - and I'll post again in January after how everything went...

Presentation

Today Dragonfly Hazel is coming out to more than 3,000 criminal justice academics when I present at a national conference. Wish me luck... Our stories and our lives matter!