The holidays are one of the hardest times of the year for people inside prison.
Gem Jones has never forgotten how alienated she felt during the 21 1/2 years she was incarcerated in Arkansas.
“We are reminded that we are subhuman because we’re not allowed to join in the festivities,” she said.
Since she was released from prison five years ago, Jones has made it her mission to give back and continue to support her community that remains behind bars. Every year, through a nonprofit she started called What About Us Behind the Walls, she raises funds and secures permission from prison administration to distribute goodie bags to people inside.
Earlier this month, Jones, a writer relations assistant for Prison Journalism Project, spoke with JoyBelle Phelan, PJP’s writer relations manager who also is formerly incarcerated, about why she organizes this holiday drive. Their discussion has been edited for length and clarity.
Jones: I was justice-impacted as a 16-year-old child. I was incarcerated and charged as an adult. I spent a lot of Christmases behind barbed wire and concrete walls. What Christmas looked like behind those walls is not at all what you will see on a television screen or depicted with creative licenses from movies and directors. The reality is it is a very, very hard time for us.
But sometimes we got a glimmer of hope through volunteers and other individuals, who shared not just their time but their resources too. We were given the gift of their presence during the holiday season. That spoke volumes.
Sometimes, it was a gift of just a simple card. It didn’t matter what the card said. It was a physical representation of the time that person took out of their life for me. They took the time to find out that resident’s information and their location, and handwrote those particulars on an envelope. It wasn’t so much about the pretty scenery that would be depicted; it was the hope they gave me that was the holiday cheer.
As time progressed, those individuals who volunteered began to seek permission from the head of our department of corrections to be allowed to bring us even more symbols of hope. Those things looked like snack cakes or an orange. A piece of fresh fruit. That stuff was really coveted.
When I got out, I wanted to be like one of those individuals who had given me hope while I was incarcerated. So, I created a drive during the holidays to bring gift bags to residents in prison.
Phelan: Inside prison, I think we all experience some level of feeling isolated, feeling abandoned, feeling thrown away. Even if you’ve got great family or friends who are still a support system, you don’t get to see them as much. You don’t get to talk to them as much.
At least for me, you don’t get as much mail, you don’t go outside as much, you don’t have as much happen — time drags anyway when you’re inside, but it drags harder over weekends and holidays.
Jones: When we’ve been in prison for a long time, all the mundanity runs together, where a mundane moment can turn into 10 mundane years. All of it is a cycle. I can’t pick out one difficult holiday over another because there were so many, and all of them felt the same.
Phelan: I think the hardest one for me was probably the first. I was sentenced and sent to prison in June. That first year tends to be the hardest because you miss those celebrations — the birthday thing you used to do, or maybe it’s wedding anniversaries, maybe it’s family stuff, especially if you have children.
When I went to prison, I already felt super isolated, very alone. In my life in general, I felt like I didn’t fit anywhere, even with my own family. And so then going to prison just reinforced all of that because everyone stopped talking to me. The friends I thought I had disappeared. That first year you’re reminded of all those things that you’re not doing. That was probably the hardest one. Then you get used to it.
To Gem’s point, the people who take time out to send you a card, volunteers who come in for a thing — it’s those contacts, those interactions, that can be a real turning point for someone inside.
Christmas is the one time where, at least with the facility I was in, the volunteer coordinator did a really great job of making sure there were lots of opportunities and lots of options and lots of happenings. You might have a choir come in, for example.
We also had a group of volunteers from a church group that would hand out goodie bags. And they made sure everybody got one, whether you were registered as their faith or not. And that really helped, that reminder you are a human, you do matter. Even the people that didn’t get mail, didn’t have family, didn’t have other things happening still got a goodie bag, and that was really affirming for those folks.
Jones: The first time we heard that we would be getting Christmas on the inside — a Christmas bag and Christmas gifts — we were all a little suspicious about whether it would happen.
Phelan: Maybe some were thinking, “It’s just gonna be a granola bar or something dumb, whatever the facility’s approved.”
Jones: But also [there was this] hidden hope that it was that granola bar or whatever — because we were getting something, right? I can remember the first time that we got Christmas bags. I was working in the chaplain’s office so I was able to be a part of the process, someone who helped pack the goodies. I was part of the crew that went to the sallyport to bring in all the items. And so I got to witness the joy on the residents’ faces as we brought this stuff in — like good soap.
Phelan: Do you have the brand Caress? In Colorado, we were given either a bar of the pretty-smelling Caress or a Dove bar. I don’t know about Arkansas, but almost all the hygiene stuff that’s sold at the canteen is mostly directed for men. So there’s nothing that helps you smell like a girl. Those Caress bars and those Dove bars were a hot commodity on the [recreation] yard.
Jones: In our facility, that first year when we got goodie bags, we got bottles of shampoo, bottles of conditioner — and I’m talking about the full-size. We got a face towel. A bath towel. The items reminded us that we were women. That we were actually women — soft and smelling good, like we were supposed to.
What it all meant to us was not just the physical items, but that people took the time out to do this for us. That was so pivotal. We got bags of homemade cookies. And oh, they were decadent. They were divine. We had fresh fruit. We had candy, chips, hot cocoa. We had a large brown bag full of all of these amazing presents. And for some of us like me, they were the only presents we got.
Most of us came to prison from trauma-filled situations. I was a child full of trauma by the time I came to prison, and a great white Christmas wasn’t a part of my childhood memories. Those experiences inside were some of what would begin to define Christmas for me. So that’s why I do what I do now, so I can be that same change agent, that same deliverer of hope, that same builder of bridges for those who are on the inside, who look just like me, not just physically, but inwardly are just like me.
One thing I learned with my holiday drive was that, even though you have a purpose and you want to heal and save the whole world, you can’t — you have to be strategic in your acts because there’s so much to do and you are limited by what’s possible.
So this year, a few other sponsors and I decided to go to the major women’s facilities in Arkansas. There are only two at this time: McPherson Correctional Facility in Newport, Arkansas, which has approximately 1,500 women. And we have the J. Aaron Hawkins Center for Women in Wrightsville. They are actually a minimum security facility but they’re like the overflow of the max security facility. They have approximately 300 women there at the moment.
In my drives, I mimic everything that brought me hope. I go find the pretty soaps. I go find feminine deodorant, I go get the good snacks. Whatever is approved on the list, I go and try to find the best of them to include.
For this drive, other organizations and sponsors joined in. Many of them were justice-impacted individuals. Others were community members who care about their community.
When we got to the first unit, which was McPherson Correctional Facility, it stormed the whole way there. I had a vehicle loaded with white T-shirts, white socks, deodorant, soap, toothpaste, various other items like snacks, small candies, ramen noodles, hot chocolate, oatmeal.
As I sat there in my vehicle across from the facility that was my residence for so many years, waiting for my other team members, I reflected about my purpose. I felt so privileged to be able to do this, to be a hope-bringer. As they arrived, I looked to my left. The clouds had broken, and there was a rainbow across one side of the prison [that stretched] to the other side of the prison. It showed me that I was on the right path. I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
We unloaded all the goods. They were searched before they got inside the prison. We felt so wonderful.
As we went to the second facility, it went similarly. We got checked in. And as we pulled in, some of the residents were sent to unload our vehicle. You could have transposed my face from that first Christmas that I told you about to their precious faces. They had been told that they would not get Christmas this year. They were so surprised. That morale boost — that immediate infusion of childlike glee — was restored to these women. To see that it was us, their formerly incarcerated family members, bringing it, that just did it for them. They were undone. And we were undone as well.