Robert Mejia

When it comes to reentry, people like to talk about giving formerly incarcerated folks “a second chance.” But one thing we understand at A New Way of Life is that many women have never even had a first chance.

Cristina is one ANWOL resident who is making the most of her first chance and is thriving now that she’s overcome adversities including addiction and homelessness.

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Cristina and her younger brother grew up with parents who worked long hours and were gone frequently, which meant that they often had to take care of themselves. Their father was also an alcoholic. Cristina believes these two factors are what led her to start drinking at age 13.

When she was 15, Cristina was sent to live with a relative in Washington, which she resented. She returned to Los Angeles a year later, feeling angry and rebellious. Just months later, she learned she was pregnant.

“For a couple of years after my son was born, I tried to get myself together,” Cristina says. “I didn’t drink. I caught up in high school, despite being a year and a half behind in credits because of failing ninth and tenth grade. By my senior year, I was working at Disneyland. I got a scholarship.”

But once she left high school, she began to party too much. “I never saw it as a problem,” Cristina says. “I thought clubbing and drinking at a young age was normal.”

She moved out on her own with her son, and things continued to spiral. Her parents split. She wound up in a relationship with a man who used drugs, and soon she started using, too. “It didn’t take long for my life to be really bad,” she says.

Cristina dropped out of college, lost her job and had to move back in with her mother. They didn’t get along, and after an incident involving the police, Cristina landed in jail for three days, subsequently lost custody of her son and wound up living on the streets.

“It got worse from there,” she says.

Her drinking and drug use continued, and Cristina found herself caught in the revolving door of the LA County jail, in and out on a string of petty charges. Eventually, she wound up facing more serious charges — the direct result of the county’s criminalization of homelessness. Her lawyer was confident the charges would be dropped, but due to Cristina’s record, she had no choice but to take a plea deal for nine months in county jail.  “I asked the judge and DA to look at my history and the fact that I had a drinking and drug problem. I asked if I could go to rehab. They didn’t care at all.”

While she was in jail, Cristina got hold of a copy of Becoming Ms. Burton. “I read it in a day or two,” she says.  “I broke down just reading Susan’s story. She came out of jail a better person. I never thought that was possible for me. I thought I would never stop drinking and doing drugs. I wrote to Susan and asked her if I could stay at A New Way of Life when I was released. She wrote me back and said I could come. Just having that letter from her gave me hope the entire time I was in jail.”

But first Cristina would have to make it safely to A New Way of Life — and Century Regional Detention Facility did everything it could to prevent that from happening. On May 15, 2019, Cristina was released from CRDF in the middle of the night with no phone and no money, a dangerous practice that puts everyone — but especially women — at risk. Because she couldn’t pay for a phone call, Cristina was forced to wait outside the jail, hoping that a stranger would let her use their phone. As she left the releasing area, she was offered drugs and alcohol by someone lingering nearby.

“I felt very scared, worried and anxious,” Cristina says.

Once she got hold of a phone, she called Susan, who arranged for a staff member to pick her up quickly.

Because of her frightening experience, Susan asked Cristina to travel to Sacramento in June 2019 to testify in favor of SB 42, the Getting Home Safe Act. The act would have required jails to provide a safe waiting place for folks leaving jail and a way for them to arrange a safe ride home. While the act passed both houses of the legislature, it was ultimately vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom.

Despite the legislative setback, like so many ANWOL residents, Cristina found her purpose and passion in policy work. She helped out on grassroots voter campaigns at Community Coalition. She took a leadership course at the Goodwill Worksource Center. And last fall, she started paralegal training at LA Valley College, which she recently completed. She eventually wants to pursue her bachelor’s degree so she can go to law school. Now she is focused on finding a stable job so she can create a home with her son, who’s 14.

“A New Way of Life has really helped me steer my life in a better direction,” Cristina says. “Having the accountability and support of the women in the house is what’s helping me stay positive, stay sober and stay on track. It’s helping my son tremendously, too. His grades and his attitude have changed. That’s all thanks to A New Way of Life.” 

 

 

 

 

 

The U.S. has a notoriously high population of incarcerated individuals, with over 2.3 million people in state and federal prisons and local jails. Of those, 41% do not hold a high school diploma, compared to only 18% of the general population of the U.S. Similarly, while 48% of the general population has received a post-secondary or college education, only 24% of people behind bars have the same education. There is a strong correlation between recidivism and the educational level attained by systems-impacted people; with no access to higher education after release and without financial resources or support systems, formerly incarcerated people are susceptible to ending up back in prison, rather than reintegrating successfully into society.

It’s the reason that Susan Barton established A New Way of Life, which has been a leader in pushing for more support and opportunity for the formerly incarcerated. More often than not, released prisoners are disadvantaged educationally, and states have responded by providing them with job and life skills and education programming. Now compelling evidence suggests that eLearning may be a more effective way to reach the prison population and reduce recidivism.

Outside the U.S., many prison systems rely heavily on eLearning to ensure that incarcerated individuals and those who have been recently released not only have access to a wide range of courses but also avoid having their studies interrupted if they’re transferred to a new facility or don’t have the means to attend physical classes after being released. A report by the European-based Learning Infrastructure for Correctional Services (LICOS) noted how eLearning expands the types of courses available and can be more easily geared to meet the needs of individuals with specific requirements or learning disabilities.

eLearning is, therefore, becoming more and more commonplace nowadays, with some of the largest eLearning platforms being accredited by tech and other institutions. More importantly, eLearning is helping people stay out of prison and create a future for themselves. In San Quentin State Prison, a Silicon Valley-backed organization called The Last Mile offers a full-scale coding program aimed at giving incarcerated people “hirable skills” when they get released. In order to get around the state prison’s strict no-internet policy, The Last Mile developed a “faux internet” using video seminars, which has allowed them to expand their coding training program as a distance learning model for other institutions such as Ironwood State Prison in Blythe. Indeed there are many benefits to distance learning, the ability to work at one’s own pace chief among them. Allowing students to complete work in their own time will help former prisoners who have parole obligations or those who can’t afford the fees associated with higher education.

In addition, eLearning through vocational certification programs geared towards technical skills training is helping reduce recidivism by providing folks behind bars with the practical education and skills they need to find employment, reintegrate into society and greatly reduce the likelihood of reoffending.

With the largest official prison population in the world, the U.S. prison system has reinforced cycles of crime, rather than reducing crime. Apart from the stigma attached to being an “ex-con,” individuals with criminal records also face significant challenges in the form of court fines, fees, and other legal financial obligations. After Florida residents passed a ballot initiative giving people with felonies the right to vote, Florida Republicans passed a bill requiring those people to pay fines before they can be re-enfranchised. While education and eLearning may not be a magic pill to solving all these interrelated problems, they are greatly reducing the number of people who walk through the proverbial revolving doors and giving formerly incarcerated men and women a new lease on life.

For many formerly incarcerated women, having to navigate a complex, hostile child dependency system is an unfortunate reality of life. Sadly, there isn’t always a quick, happy ending for these families torn apart by the justice system.

Stephanie Jeffcoat, who recently joined A New Way of Life as our 2020 policy fellow, knows firsthand the cruelty of the foster care system. 

When Stephanie learned she was pregnant after being raped, she didn’t have any intention of seeing the pregnancy to term. “At the time, I was homeless and I was using, and I was just not in a good place,” she says. When she was unable to obtain an abortion in time, she tried to stop using drugs. “I thought I would be able to quit using,” she says, “but it just didn’t work out like that. I was dealing with so much emotional stuff because I was homeless and because of the rape. So I didn’t stop using.”

The day after Stephanie gave birth to her daughter, Harmony, Child Protective Services (CPS) in Orange County showed up in her hospital room and said they were taking the baby into their custody and would place her in the foster care system.

Initially, Stephanie was able to visit her baby five days a week, thanks to a judge’s order. The situation was further improved by Harmony’s first foster mother, who had a compassionate and productive relationship with Stephanie.

But two and a half months later, Harmony was placed with a new family. “That’s when things started to change,” Stephanie says. “They would only meet me for visits at the agency. Then they started giving me a problem about the visits. They didn’t want to stick to the judge’s orders that they bring her for visitations five days a week.”

During this time, Stephanie ended up in jail briefly. When she got out, she still had her parental rights. But when she went to CPS to try to get contact information for the social worker or her daughter’s foster family, no one would help her. “They just kept saying they’d call me. I kept calling and going in there, and nobody ever got back to me. When they didn’t get back to me for two months, I figured my case was closed, and I fell back into my state of addiction.”

Stephanie cycled in and out of jail a few more times on probation violations. During her last period of incarceration and unbeknownst to her, CPS set an adoption plan for Harmony. Within three months, CPS had finalized Harmony’s adoption. Stephanie wasn’t notified. CPS is supposed to provide two years for children to be reunited with their birth parents, but Harmony was only 14 months old when Stephanie’s parental rights were terminated for good.

“Had they notified me, I would have been able to appeal the decision,” Stephanie says.

Now Stephanie is fighting for her daughter, who’s three and a half years old.

She has consulted with lawyers who say she has a case because of the way the adoption was handled and her lack of notification when the adoption was finalized. And she’s been meeting with members of A New Way of Life’s Family Reunification Advocacy Project (FRAP), who helped her file the paperwork necessary to request documentation from CPS. She plans to petition the court to reopen her case.

At first, Stephanie felt a lot of guilt and shame about what happened with Harmony.

“I couldn’t understand how I had let my addiction get that far. Why couldn’t I stop using? I have older children who wondered why I went to the hospital but didn’t come home with a baby. I had to explain to them that Mommy couldn’t bring the baby home because of choices that Mommy made.

“But now I’m at peace with the situation. I know that it’s for a plan and purpose bigger than me. I feel like I’ve had to go through this so that I can be a testimony to other people who are going through similar situations. Had this not happened, my life wouldn’t be where it is right now.  This situation has changed my life and caused me to want to do something different. For me, my higher power is definitely the reason I’m even on this path. I feel like without him, none of this would even be possible. It still amazes me that I’m on this path right now.”

Stephanie’s path has “changed dramatically in the last year.” Once she got into a shelter and got sober after her most recent release from jail, Stephanie realized that she could have a different life. In August 2019, she enrolled as a full-time student at Fullerton Junior College, studying political science. She’s heavily involved in her church and with All of Us or None, a grassroots organization of formerly incarcerated people who advocate on behalf of justice reform. She’s also begun working for organizations that fight for justice reform. First she joined Community Coalition, where she worked as a community organizer. Now she’s A New Way of Life’s 2020 policy fellow and helps run the All of Us or None meetings she once attended.

And Stephanie is also part of Women Organizing for Justice and Opportunity, ANWOL’s leadership lab that teaches women how to fight the CPS system.

“Had someone told me then that what CPS was doing to me wasn’t legal, I would have had it in me to fight. I didn’t fight it back then. I just accepted it and figured there was nothing I could do to change it. I didn’t know. But now I know. I’m not just going to just let these people take my baby. Even if it means fighting for the next 15 years, I’m going to fight.”

Spending 37 years in prison, anyone would be looking for an escape. Thankfully for Rikki Soria, a small escape could be found in paintbrushes and pencils.

But it didn’t come easy. Her journey took her through some dark places before she was able to find light through her art.

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In 1981, at the age of 18, Rikki was sentenced to 15 years in prison; the judge assured her she’d only do half that amount. But when she got to her classification hearing at prison, she was told to get comfortable: she would be serving a life sentence. Rikki protested, but the corrections officers just laughed at her. It appeared she would be in prison for the rest of her life.

“That was the turning point. That was the pivot. That’s when my whole attitude changed,” Rikki says. “Everything went downhill from there. I decided to do my time the way I wanted to do my time.”

For the next couple of decades, Rikki was in near-constant trouble with prison officials. And she became addicted to heroin.

“I thought I would never get out of prison. The governors we had at the time in the state kept reiterating, ‘Life means life.’ And the laws kept getting worse,” Rikki says, describing a period in the 1980s and ‘90s when California went all in on being tough on crime.

By 1998, she was “emotionally bankrupt.”

“I didn’t recognize who I was anymore. And I hated my life,” she says.

That year, Rikki’s mother came to visit her for the first time. It only made things worse.

“She didn’t talk to me. It was like she was forced to be there — and she was. Her partner made her come just to see that I’m still there, that she still had a daughter. She came to see me when I was emotionally in an abyss, and I just kept getting deeper and deeper.”

After the visit, Rikki tried to commit suicide.

“They tried to put me on medication. I said, ‘No. This isn’t who I am. Something’s wrong, and you need to help me fix it.’ So I went to therapy, and the therapist helped me figure out that it wasn’t because of drugs that I felt so depressed: it was because of my relationship with my mom.”

Once Rikki realized what was wrong, she began to grow, and she accepted her mom for who she was. While undergoing this period of self-reflection and healing, she was also preparing to go before the parole board. It was then that her counselor found documentation in her file that proved Rikki had been right all along: the judge had only sentenced her to 15 years.

“I was just sitting there going, ‘I knew it! Why did I waste my time on drugs?’ I sat there kicking myself in the ass for the longest time.”

She returned to court for an evidentiary hearing, thinking she would finally receive justice. Things did not go as she’d hoped.

“My whole family was there to take me home because they just knew I was going to get out,” she says. “It’s there in black and white, and my sentencing judge was on the stand giving testimony that he hadn’t given me life.”

But it didn’t matter. The presiding judge called the now-retired sentencing judge “incompetent,” and Rikki went right back to prison.

“Oh, it was terrible. I was distraught. If my family hadn’t been there, I probably would have been okay.”

But instead of falling into despair, she went straight to the program office and said, ‘Lock me up. I’m tired of using.’”

“I was very serious about my sobriety and got into several programs. I got clean. I got my brain and my life back as much as I possibly could.”

By the late 2000s, lifers were beginning to go home. The laws were changing; the governors were becoming somewhat more progressive regarding criminal justice. One day in 2010, four lifers and one long-termer went home. “I told myself, ‘This is serious. This is real. Get it together.’ I had to put myself back in reality. After living in a fantasy world for so long, that was a transition.” She became more serious about sobriety than ever and, as she puts it, “came back with a vengeance.”

Through it all, Rikki drew, and she did tattoos in prison. “I liked to draw when I was young, but I didn’t think nothing of it,” she says. “Nobody told me, ‘Wow, this is nice; you need to further your education.’ Those words may have resonated enough that I might have chosen a different path.”

In late December 2017, Rikki had to have a medical procedure that put her in the Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) for three weeks. She made regular trips to the SNF Unit’s exercise yard, which she found depressing — it was encased in brick with only the sky above. She told the supervisors that they should have someone paint the walls. Rikki had long had a reputation among her fellow prisoners for being an artist. Based on word of mouth alone, the supervisors called her eight months later and asked her to do the job.

Rikki painted a beautiful undersea mural — complete with jellyfish, sea turtles, dolphins, seals and a diver — on the walls of the exercise yard.

“The women loved it,” Rikki says. “It just took them away from where they were. It took me away from where I was. To have those ladies sit in their wheelchairs and watch me paint and have it take them on a journey — that was very fulfilling. It made me want to do more.”

When asked whether she felt like art played a role in her sobriety, Rikki becomes contemplative. “Yes, as a matter of fact. I never really thought of it. But yes, my art plays a big part in my sobriety. When I wasn’t painting, I would use. But when I was painting, I didn’t. Painting was my escape. I still want to travel to those places, but now I know I can travel further because I don’t have this addiction over here waiting for me to stop painting. My travels can be extensive now, and that’s what I want.”

Rikki was finally released from prison in March 2019. And then she came to A New Way of Life.

The first week was the hardest. When Rikki had only been out three days, A New Way of Life founder Susan Burton took Rikki and another resident to a recording studio where Susan was being interviewed for a podcast. Rikki was so overwhelmed with emotions that she had to sit in the waiting room, where Susan’s interview was being broadcast live on a speaker.

“I’m listening to Susan’s story, and I’m fascinated by the stuff she was saying. It calmed me to know that she was just like I am. She’s the same. We’re the same. We’re cut from the same thread. So that gave me a sense of belonging, a sense of safety, and a sense of friendship. I know that I can call this place my home.”

Rikki plans to start up a tattooing business on the outside, and as soon as she takes care of the basic tasks like getting her driver’s license and setting up a bank account, she plans to start on a painting or two.

“I’m very glad that I had the experiences that I’ve had. I’m sorry it took me so long because I only have one family member left. But that’s okay. I’ve slayed my demons, and if more demons come, I’ll slay them too before they cause any damage. I’m very strong.

“Maybe I should be more afraid of life, but I’m not. I have to live. And I’ve wasted so much of my life, and now I have to get back what’s left of it. So I’m not going to limit myself.”

Click on the arrows below to scroll through Rikki’s artwork.

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Each year, crime and trauma survivors gather at Survivors Speak, a two-day event sponsored by Alliance for Safety and Justice, to find healing together. More than 700 people made the trip to Sacramento this year, and dozens of residents of A New Way of Life and members of All of Us or None – Los Angeles/Long Beach were among them.

Why exactly do we go to this event? It’s important to understand that America’s jails and prisons hold hundreds of thousands of people whose experience of trauma ultimately led them to engage in behaviors that society considers criminal. In other words, their trauma was criminalized. This is especially the case for women. The statistics vary, but researchers agree on one thing: the vast majority — anywhere up to 90% — of incarcerated women have suffered physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse during their lives.

According to Ingrid Archie, that’s the reason A New Way of Life shows up to Survivors Speak en masse.

“A lot of women have suffered from traumatic events that led to incarceration. Our system is housing trauma instead of healing it. Once we leave prison, we become retraumatized by the barriers we face to making a successful reentry. There’s no way to move forward from the trauma that led us to incarceration in the first place. Going to Survivors Speak allows formerly incarcerated women to understand where we can place our pain.”

Survivors Speak encourages attendees to talk about what it means to identify as a crime survivor, and to dialogue with people who have a criminal history of creating harm in order to foster healing for both parties. Survivors also come together in small-group discussion sessions, brainstorm new policies that could promote shared safety, and engage in leadership-building activities. On the final day of the event, everyone marches to the capitol building to demonstrate and speak with legislators.

For Ingrid, Survivors Speak is all about taking the pain of trauma and turning it into power.

“Survivors Speak has been an outlet for me, a way to understand how important it is for me to identify as a survivor. If I didn’t, I would still be angry about traumatic events in my life. Being able to understand that healing is even possible has helped me to heal. It’s helped me to become a leader and an advocate for other people who may not have the same opportunities to speak up.”

A New Way of Life is full of women with redemption stories. Women whose past traumas and their past crimes no longer define them. Former resident Angelique Evans is proof that even recent mistakes don’t have to derail the future.

Born in Oakland to drug-addicted parents, Angelique landed in foster care as a baby. Her paternal grandparents managed to gain custody, but not before Angelique was raped in a foster home at the age of 3.

Because Angelique grew up mainly around her father and his family, she had a front row seat to witness his turnaround. He became highly involved in Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous and often brought Angelique to his meetings. “I was raised in those rooms, playing dominos, listening and learning. My dad was a very powerful man. When he spoke, people paid attention,” Angelique says. “And I really loved my dad. I became a daddy’s girl.”

But Angelique’s dad was gone a lot, and she took on the role of “little mother,” looking after her eight younger siblings. Her mom would sometimes take care of all of the kids, but she was often high at the time. When she was 9, Angelique was raped by a family member, but rather than receiving care from her mother, she was beaten for telling her what had happened. As a result of the trauma and turmoil in her home, Angelique started drinking and tried powder cocaine at age 12. By age 13 she was addicted to both cocaine and alcohol, selling drugs to take care of herself and her family.

She began to cycle in and out of the juvenile detention system. After stealing and crashing her dad’s car, a judge told her, “You’re going to end up in the penitentiary. I promise you that.”

And sure enough, Angelique did end up in the penitentiary, cycling in and out for various offenses until most recently serving her longest sentence of 10 years.

Four months before she paroled in June 2018, her father died. “Being in prison and hearing that, it was like my world stopped,” she said.

When she left prison and came to A New Way of Life, she began indulging in drug use again. She had continued hanging around negative influences, and her father’s death was taking a toll on her. “It was my choice. No one made me do it,” she says of her relapse.

But using didn’t make her feel good; in fact, she felt terrible. Then she had a vision of herself dying, just like her father had. At that point, Angelique took control of the situation and made the decision to tell a housemate she had relapsed.  “She was like, ‘I knew something was wrong with you, but I didn’t know what.’ I was very discreet, but they could see a change in me,” Angelique says.

As Angelique prepared to also come clean to ANWOL staff about her relapse, something providential happened. Shortly after Angelique made her decision to seek help, Susan Burton, perhaps sensing something was wrong, made an announcement during house morning meditation. “I was supposed to go to CIW [California Institution for Women] today, but they didn’t let me in,” she said. “If one of y’all gotta tell me something, I’m here.” Angelique felt that Susan was speaking directly to her. In prison, Angelique had been a chair of Narcotics Anonymous. “What I realized was I was so busy trying to help other people that I didn’t get the help I needed. I thought I knew everything because I had this leadership role. But I still had this pain, this little girl in me that had not been cared for or nurtured. She was still miserable within my soul.”

Later that day, Angelique went to ANWOL’s office to meet with a counselor. She saw Susan and prayed: “God, show me the way. God, please help me.” She asked Susan if they could speak. “Susan, I relapsed,” she said, breaking down into tears.

Instead of getting angry or threatening to kick Angelique out of the house, Susan immediately hugged her. “Welcome back,” she said.

Susan told Angelique that she needed to go to more NA meetings and get herself a sponsor, which she did. But it was Susan’s love that changed everything.

“When so many people put me down for relapsing, Susan was the one to say, ‘Baby, it’s your story, but it’s not the end of your story.’

“I told myself I’m not doing that again,” she continues. “I don’t deserve that. I don’t want to be that person. I didn’t come out of prison to be that person. Trying to find a high through drugs after you experience joy and love — it’s miserable! I want to continue to strive and become even more of the best version of myself and give back.”

As of today, Angelique has been sober for nearly six months.

Finding her dream job

Part of A New Way of Life’s method for helping women heal after prison is to encourage them to find their voices in advocacy on behalf of themselves and other formerly incarcerated men and women. Though it’s required to be involved in organizing, some women take to it more naturally than others, throwing their hearts into the work — and that was Angelique.

Angelique has been involved with All of Us or None, the fight to end fines and fees, and the Women’s March, as well as an integral part of ANWOL’s involvement in LA County probation reform. She was drawn to the work because of her own experiences with the probation department, which provided her with no help while she was under its supervision; in fact, certain supports that she needed were unavailable to her since she wasn’t on parole.

In December, Angelique decided it was time to move out of ANWOL housing. “I felt in my soul another woman needs this bed,” she said. “I’ve gotten the tools I needed, so I felt like it was a push for me.”

She moved in with her now-fiancée Linda, whom she had met in prison and then reconnected with again at ANWOL. Linda is as dedicated to advocacy as Angelique and works as an organizer at nearby Community Coalition. “Living with Linda is amazing, to have someone else in the movement, just like I am,” Angelique says, recounting a recent morning when the couple woke up at 3:30 am to volunteer for a labor event.

“It’s a joy for me to be part of this movement. It brings me happiness to change policy,” she says.

Despite getting a landscaping job at CalTrans, Angelique has continued to hope for a role more in line with her passions. And earlier this year, her dreams came true: ANWOL offered her a newly created policy fellowship position that would allow her to immerse herself fully in advocacy and organizing.

“I know my potential to create change, and now I am working with the best of the best,” Angelique says. “Being told, ‘We want you,” is an amazing thing.

“I’m where I prayed to be. God did this! This is where I was meant to be, and I know it. As I’ve done all the canvassing and the phone banking and the testifying in meetings, I’ve just felt it. This is me.”