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Sara Jane Olson on Life in Prison

The LA Times has a long profile, gleaned from hours of interviews, on how former SLA member Sara Jane Olson is coping in prison. Even if you're not interested in Olson (formerly known as Katheen Soliah) or her case (TalkLeft coverage is assembled here), it's a great read because it really conveys the dismal, grey, barren life of a female state prison inmate.

Shortly after 8 each weekday morning, Inmate W94197 reports for work on the prison yard. She earns 24 cents an hour emptying trash cans and tidying up. She is grateful for the job.

....[Olson] is now a white-haired woman of 59, serving out her seven years. Her experience, related in letters and a series of conversations, reveals much about punishment and survival in a state system that holds 11,730 women.

[More...]

As to daily life,

Surviving in prison meant accepting what she called "enforced idleness," with one monotonous day sliding into the next. The noise is ceaseless, the facility packed to twice its intended capacity. "We live on top of each other," she said. Anything private "has to be done inside your head."

The interviewer adds:

She laments the absence of anything meaningful to do. She craves privacy. And she tiptoes nervously through each day while awaiting that moment in 2009 when she'll go home.... To be famous is no advantage. The savviest convicts strive to be unremarkable, undeserving of concern. Olson does not discuss her past, and few women living alongside her in this San Joaquin Valley town are aware of it. There is, inmates say, an unwritten rule behind bars: You do not ask an incarcerated sister what she has done.

....Amid the crowd, Olson's posture is nonthreatening, a semi-slouch. Her expression is blank. To show emotion is to attract unwanted attention -- or, worse, risk causing offense. Anonymity is best.....She laments the absence of anything meaningful to do....

Olson's husband and daughters visit from Minnesota about every six weeks. Other than that, like every other prisoner, she's doing her time and hoping she doesn't get sick since prison health treatment is so bad. Her sentence is up in 2009.

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    Re: Sara Jane Olson on Life in Prison (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Aug 14, 2006 at 09:58:01 AM EST
    the political bush prison system is what it is. I can't stand bush rat! but she is telling you the facts of hell inside the so called land of freedom and some-what justice system! ask why so many inside the hell we call prison? ask what is really behind the system that has put millions inside this evil system of mass murder? ask why so many gangs inside the land of freedom, ask why bush is still president and isn't do time inside the walls of hell. after-all bush has killed millions! and will keep killing until the third world war that he wants or all of you! are inside the prison system.

    Re: Sara Jane Olson on Life in Prison (none / 0) (#2)
    by profmarcus on Mon Aug 14, 2006 at 10:53:50 AM EST
    i used to do volunteer work in a maximum security facility and, earlier, ran a university degree program at another one... there is not the slightest trace of anything resembling "correction" inside a "correctional" institution... it's simply warehousing and an excuse for treating people as sub-human... the term "correction" is as big a misnomer as the word "justice" in our "justice" system (with allowances made for present company, of course)...

    Re: Sara Jane Olson on Life in Prison (none / 0) (#3)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Aug 14, 2006 at 11:48:52 AM EST
    Fred - What does Bush have to with the present "system?" et al - I think we need to consider this:
    Caught in 1999 after living as a fugitive for 23 years, she was convicted of murder and other crimes stemming from her link with the Symbionese Liberation Army, a violent band of radicals best known for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst
    And then consider this:
    She laments the absence of anything meaningful to do. She craves privacy. And she tiptoes nervously through each day while awaiting that moment in 2009 when she'll go home
    Her dead victim has no time at all, and her victim won't go home in 2009.

    Re: Sara Jane Olson on Life in Prison (none / 0) (#4)
    by demohypocrates on Mon Aug 14, 2006 at 11:49:59 AM EST
    Violins start playing The Kleenex comes out. She plead guilty to second degree murder and to aiding and abetting a plot to plant bombs under Los Angeles police cars. Sounds like terrorism to me. Don't look so befuddled the next time you are accused of being soft on it. Her misery is well earned, but it doesn't compare to the misery of the family of the dead victim. The real crime is that she had 23 extra years of freedom and she wasn't caged like the animal she is. Myrna Opsahl is the victim's name. I am sure you wanted to know. Here is her son's account of the his mother's murder.
    the political bush prison system is what it is. I can't stand bush rat!
    You really have lost it, but its fun to watch.

    Re: Sara Jane Olson on Life in Prison (none / 0) (#5)
    by jen on Mon Aug 14, 2006 at 12:28:31 PM EST
    This is not about what the people inside the prisons have done. It's about the behavior of The People. A civilized people have certain minimal standards of conduct - INCLUDING how they treat prisoners. And the question is are we civilized. Or do we want to be.

    Re: Sara Jane Olson on Life in Prison (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Aug 14, 2006 at 06:25:12 PM EST
    Yeah, prison sucks. But what's the alternative?

    Re: Sara Jane Olson on Life in Prison (none / 0) (#7)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Aug 14, 2006 at 06:58:46 PM EST
    Jen - If you are correct then the choice of a poster child of someone in prison for a terrorist killing has got be one dumb move. Of course we are talking about the LAT..... But leaving that aside, what punishment would you have given this person who killed and plotted to kill other innocents.

    Re: Sara Jane Olson on Life in Prison (none / 0) (#8)
    by jondee on Mon Aug 14, 2006 at 07:06:14 PM EST
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