“Companion animals” is an alien term to those who have been in prison for decades. Animals are not allowed, and loneliness is the standard companion. Which is why my heart melted when I heard the little meow. Like a gift from the universe, wild kittens had inhabited one corner of the prison yard.
They were striped like mini tigers and walked with the same ferocity, sway and cuteness. There were 10 cats in all, and three were pregnant.
I’ve been to 12 prisons since 1999, and cats are a rarity. A few prisons have dog training programs but never for cats.
Our cats have survived by eating gophers and mice, and when the kitchen doors open in the corner where they hang out, they come running. I am one of the kitchen workers, and we bring them food. The kittens are the cutest, and when we feed them, we have to spread the food around to prevent bullying. Pregnant cats get double. That’s the rule.
Because they are wild, we can’t pet them. My friend disagrees with this decision that the cats have made. He thinks that since we feed them, they should let us pet them. I tell him not to take it personally.
There are 10 of us locked in the kitchen, where we prepare trays for 700 people to be fed in their cells. Through small windows, we can see the tiny lions licking their paws and slapping each other under the fence where one is trying to relax. It’s ironic that the cats are free but we humans are caged.
On the way back from pill call, when we go to receive our medications, we pass the cats. If we want to sneak them treats, it means the bologna saved from lunch has to survive the officers’ pat-down frisk. Some bologna might even find its way into somebody’s sock.
Up ahead, in the constant stream of returning prisoners, I can see inmates producing their treats to a chorus of meows. I can see them in the night-time stadium lights, and I can see the inmates’ faces light up like children’s. The shower of meows seems to validate our existence, letting us know we are fulfilling some purpose in this world where many of us are forgotten and sent to die.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Here are our ground rules:
- You must credit Prison Journalism Project. In the byline, we prefer “[Author Name], Prison Journalism Project.” At the top of the text of your story, please include a line that says: “This story was originally published by Prison Journalism Project” and include a link to the article.
- No republishing of photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
- No editing the content, including the headline, except to reflect changes in time, location and editorial style. For example, changing, “today” to “last week,” or San Quentin to San Quentin, California. You can also make minor revisions for style or headline size, and you can trim stories for space. You must also retain all original hyperlinks, including links to the Prison Journalism Project newsletters.
- No translation of our stories into another language without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
- No selling ads against our stories, but you can publish it on a page with ads that you’ve already sold.
- No reselling or syndicating our stories, including on platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. You also can’t republish our work automatically or all at once. Please select them individually.
- No scraping our website or using our stories to populate websites designed to improve search rankings or gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
- Any site our stories appear on must have a prominent and effective way to contact you.
- If we send you a request to remove our story, you must do so immediately.
- If you share republished stories on social media, please tag Prison Journalism Project. We have official accounts on Twitter (@prisonjourn), Facebook (@prisonjournalism), Instagram (@prisonjournalism) and Linked In.
- Let us know when you share the story. Send us a note, so we can keep track.