Life After Life in Prison: Reentry examines the lives of seven women — Tracy, Evelyn, Carol, Keila, Karen, Leah, and Claude — as they return to society after serving anywhere from 17 to 35 years in New York State’s maximum security prison for women.
Here are three of their stories.
Tracy, 49, who served 24 years, waiting for a meeting with her counselor. Brooklyn, NY (2014)
“I have to go to three state-mandated programs. I like my individual counselor but all those programs is a lot of time. I feel most of it is a waste.”
“This is my third home in six months. I was at Providence House [a halfway house]. But my time was up after four months and I ended up at a three-quarter house. It was horrible. Then the uncle of my grand-children, not related to me, took me in.”
“I was glad to get the graveyard shift because it makes it easier for me to get to my programs without being late to work. Being late to work means I could lose my job. Being late to program means I could go back to prison. This way I won’t be late.”
“First, Salvation Army told me I could have this job. Then they called me and told me they did a background check and said I couldn’t have it after all. I asked them when will I get my second chance. If they won’t give me a job, who will? So then they said I could have the job.”
“The hardest part out here is the housing. A lot of places don’t take public assistance and rent is just so expensive.”
Tracy out on delivery for McDonalds. New York, NY (2016)
Tracy performing a prayer dance. Church of Gethsemane, Brooklyn, NY (2017)
Karen’s bedroom at the homeless shelter, six months after her arrival. East Village, NY (December 17, 2017)
At the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the former Superintendent of Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. New York City (July 19, 2017).
Karen at the Grand Slam Championship of The Moth. Music Hall of Williamsburg, almost a year after her release. Brooklyn, New York (March 19, 2018)
Staten Island Ferry. New York. (September 4, 2017)
“I’ve been thinking a lot about my release. I was in prison longer than I was ever free. I always hoped in the back of my mind that I would win an appeal or something, but it never happened. I had to resign and live because I was just angry and depressed for a long time and tried to sleep the time away. And then I woke up and did what I was supposed to do. I know when I walk out of these gates and am on the other side of the barbed wire fences, it will be a rebirth for me.”
“The sliding doors opened. I walked through. I took a deep breath. I thought wow, this is really happening. And I came through the door and saw my sister and my nephew and it was just like, I’m finally home!”
MARK: “We had been in touch from 2000 for four or five years, and then I wasn’t there for her when her father passed away and she didn’t take kindly to that. In 2012 I was looking around on the internet and I found an article about the college program at Marymount. There was a picture of Claude. I found Claude’s niece online and I asked her to give Claude my phone number. She called me and we started chatting everyday since on a daily basis.”
“If you had met my mom, god bless her, she always had nails. Even when I was home, I always got my nails done. When I got incarcerated, I kept on doing my own nails, my own hair. Doing that was the one thing that stated, ‘I am a woman,’ because everything about the jail was dehumanizing, was to strip a woman of her womanhood. So coming out, I was looking forward to someone pampering me.”
The two met decades earlier at the beginning of Claude's incarceration when Mark was a civilian working in the prison. Despite a prohibition on his visiting her, they continued their relationship from afar and he was waiting for her when she walked out the prison door.