That's Correct! An Interview with a Corrections Officer: Information for Writers with Harriet Fox

Amazon Author Link

ThrillWriting welcomes HARRIET FOX who comes to us today to give insight into the life of a corrections officer in a jail system in California.

Here's a handy link to my article with an explanation of the differences between jails and prisons etc.

Fiona - 

Corrections officer - can you tell us how you arrived in your career?

Harriet - 

I have been a correctional officer starting my 14th year. No one ever says they are going to be a correctional officer when they grow up. 

I wanted to be a dentist, a brain surgeon and a race car driver when I grew up. I worked 6 years in the law enforcement field prior to becoming a correctional officer. I applied for this job as a stepping stone to becoming a police officer and never left. 

I think society truly does not know what a correctional officer does. In television and movies and in stories covered on the news, correctional officers are usually heard to be corrupt, heavy handed or abusive with their authority. That is far from the truth. While there are bad apples in every line of work, correctional officers are not the bad people we've been portrayed as being.

The work on a daily basis dealing with violent and manipulative criminals is challenging but I do know I am protecting society from the evil and potential harm. The teamwork and camaraderie in law enforcement is a way of life, a brotherhood, lifelong friendships, and I have made some of the best friends I have ever had in this job.

On a daily basis, not only are we making sure inmates do not escape or harm anyone, we wear many hats. We are authoritarians, disciplinarians, parents, counselors, helpers. Our hats may change at the drop of the hat, many times through a single shift.

Fiona - 

How long does a shift last? 

Harriet - 

Some jails work 8 or 10 hour shifts. I work 12 hour shifts, graveyard. We call it the dark side. It is a very different way of life, not only working nights, but working inside the walls of a correctional institution.

Fiona - 
So you write as well, do you find what you learned from working in the jails informs your writing?

Harriet - 
I write for a nationwide corrections website, and I use my daily experiences to do so. I use my experience to write about things I think other correctional officers can benefit from. It's a stressful job, always having to be on guard, ready in the event someone wants to attack us while we are doing our daily duties face-to-face with these inmates. We can learn from each other and I am constantly learning each and every day, even after all this time.

Fiona - 

Why kinds of things does your job entail?

Harriet - 

The job itself is so complex. It includes: 

• Conducting daily duties, making sure inmates receive their necessities which are laws and regulations governed by the state that we follow, along side of our facility policy and procedures 
• Conducting Safety and Security Checks hourly to make sure all inmates are alive and not ill 
• We do investigations 
• We handle crimes committed in our jail
• Medical emergencies 
• We deal with assaults and contraband. 

Fiona - 

Does media get it right when they show a jail setting? 

Harriet - 
One thing that the media usually shows or implies is that inmates are housed behind bars. This is the old school way of jail. Since about the '90s, jails use a different style of jailing. Direct supervision is one of the terms where inmates are in a 2-man cell but when they come out for their recreation time, they are all around the deputy station where we work, type, sit, eat, etc.


Fiona - 
Can you give us an example of an "out of the blue" event a "holy cow" moment?

Harriet - 
I don't get the "holy cow" feeling during an event. If it is a really stressful situation, I sometimes feel the “holy cow” after the adrenaline wears off. Every day we have to deal with so much that you get used to just subconsciously changing your hat and diving in.

I recently had an inmate who was banging his forehead on the metal bed. He has mental issues and apparently the psychiatric medications weren't controlling this problem. You do your best to negotiate and try to get through to an inmate in crisis. This inmate did listen thankfully and stopped inflicting self harm. You learn the gift of gab in this job. We call it verbal judo, and it is fulfilling when you are able to talk someone down from a violent state.

Training kicks in (and we get a lot of it) and you get to be creative when handling situations. You try to become a problem solver in so many ways. I guess the only holy cow moment I can think of is fighting with inmates who are trying to harm you and you're attempting to gain control and restrain them as its happening.

Another holy moly moment could be something like this: an inmate who is severely mentally ill and hearing voices and does not recognize pain. He continually bangs his leg on the metal stool in his cell until there is blood everywhere just so he can get a trip to the hospital for better food or for a field trip.

Fiona - 

I'd say that would be a "holy cow" moment for sure. You're a woman working in a men's jail. What training helps you play your role successfully? And what's it like to be a woman in that position?

Harriet - 
I am very grateful for my experience as one of the only females on the Emergency Response Team. We are basically the SWAT team of the jail; highly trained. 

We respond to natural disasters or dangerous incidents including riots, cell extractions, any disturbances too dangerous for normal staff to handle. This has taught me much about the importance of training, preparation, the importance of teamwork, and has made me better at my job. I remain more calm and handle situations differently now.

I spent a majority of my career with men. I have done a few stints at the women's facility, and it's very different. While there are few of us women in the job per ratio of employees, I am proud that I work equally with my counterparts. 

I did have to prove myself as a female - that I could do the job; not all women in this line of work can. I worked hard to be as close to equal as I can be. I will never be as strong as the big guys I work with, but I can do the job just as well, just differently. 

I don't think about being a female. I just go to work and do my job. I think sometimes I may be able to handle an inmate more easily because of the respect some inmates have for their mothers and grandmothers who raised them. But at times, I can have an issue with inmates. It is apparent when one of the inmates has an issue with women or especially as female authority. It is quite fascinating actually to observe inmates. Many have mental health issues, many come from horrible dysfunction.

I will say an annoying part of being female amongst men is the gawking, but you get used to it. Some of these inmates have been locked up for years. Aside from the nurses and few female officers, they don't see women. I guess it's human nature. Usually once the inmates know me, it stops.

Fiona - 

Can you describe a modern jail set up? How the inmates day goes, what's available to them for passing time? Work?

Harriet - 
I can't speak fluidly for day-shift (I've never worked days). However, I do know on day-shift they:

• Courts get pulled once in morning, once in the afternoon and inmates are transported to the courthouse.
• Lunch is served 10am
• Dinner at 3pm.
• Staff usually relieves each other a half hour to the start of shift allowing us time to brief the oncoming team on what happened during the previous shift.

As for jail life, it is monotonous and very routine. Jail life runs on a set schedule.... in the midst of everything that goes wrong and fires that need to be put out and reports that need to be written and investigations that need to be handled. The job teaches you to be a multi-tasker master. Some shifts can have down time and some may feel like 12 hours is not enough.

• Courts get pulled once in morning, once in the evening and transport to court. 
• Lunch is served 10am 
• Dinner at 3pm. 
• My facility works days 6am-6pm, nights 6pm-6am. 
• We usually relieve each other in the half hour window prior to 6pm allowing us time to brief on what happened during the previous shift.

At the beginning of shift, we:

• Do Count and Inspection. We advise inmates over their cell intercoms (which can be activated from either end) to
• Be awake and out of bed
• Fully dressed
• Have their armbands on (which have their picture, name and identification number)
• Their property bins opened for inspection (rubbermaid style blue bins issued at time of getting dressed in and housed)
• Nothing affixed to their walls (sometimes hang family pics or a calendar)
• Have their beds made
• Standing on the wall.
• As we go by, we are checking their welfare, their property, as well as the walls and windows of their cells to inspect for damage and attempts to break out.
• We need to check for hoarding of bread and fruit to ensure they are not making pruno (jailhouse alcohol).
• We do more thorough searches for contraband, drugs, weapons at other times.
• We have visiting and pill call (nurse comes to housing unit for medication) and the finger-stick nurse (checks diabetic levels/gives insulin, if necessary) within the first few hours of shift and the last few hours.
• We have to conduct recreation where inmates come out of their cells in which inmates have the ability to: spend time outside on the recreation yard, watch TV, make telephone calls, shower, etc.
• We have to finish before midnight because judges require inmates to have proper rest when attending court.
• We have workers that go to the kitchen and they are housed separately.
• We feed breakfast at 4am.
• On a general housing unit, recreation is twice daily, once on day, once night. Time out of their cells could range from 45 minutes to 2 hours on average.
• They can receive items off Commissary (Canteen is prison lingo) where they can purchase:
• Hygiene products
• Envelopes and stamps and writing paper,
• Food
• Some inmates stay busy with a self-made schedule for their down time.
• Family can purchase books and magazines from the publisher so many read. They share their books with each other too.
• Some have a workout regimen inside their cells

Fiona - 

What would you like writers to know before they write that character or scene about a jail and a corrections officer?

Harriet - 

As for writers, I guess I would say it would be nice to see correctional officers written in a positive light. There is such a negative stigma in the media, with law enforcement in general. People tend to forget we are normal people too, working a very hard job. We have personal lives, families, a life outside of the job. We work long hours and weekends and holidays. We miss family functions many times. You learn in this way of life to celebrate on days before or after the actual event. We spend more time at work locked up in jail then we are home, or so it feels. For writers, things to think about...

Imagine going to work every day where people hate you, want to harm you, attack you, con you. Imagine having to do this career in a negative, dank, monotonous environment. Imagine having to have two identities in a way: a superhero wearing every hat imaginable to switching it all off and coming home to being a husband, father, wife mother. Imagine always having to watch your back since it is unknown if you will run into an inmate on the street that you had a problem with inside. Imagine trying to balance family or personal life and errands when you're working graveyards and finding time to sleep. Imagine having to be responsible for the health, safety and welfare of 100 inmates at a time (in prison, maybe more per officers' responsibility).

Fiona -
Thank you so much for sharing that. At the bottom of this article Harriet has include a handy glossary for us. First, Harriet has a true crimes book out.

Amazon Link

Preying on middle-aged Native women in Vancouver's Skid Row district, Gilbert Paul Jordan's insatiable taste for drunken sex led to at least ten cold blooded killings. 

Unlike any others in the known history of serial homicide, Jordan used alcohol to murder his victims. All of these young women were found dead with blood-levels many times over the safe range. The driving force behind Jordan's evil was his egocentric desires that led him on a fifty year criminal record path causing havoc along the way. Delving into Jordan's crimes, alcoholism and mental illnesses, his life tells a story all his own, and it is no wonder why, Gilbert Paul Jordan became one of Canada's most notorious serial killers.

GLOSSARY of some handy jailhouse lingo - 

•Snitch: rat. give information/talk to staff.

•Shank: handmade knife

•Kite: small note, usually with very small handwriting passed from inmate to inmate for communication purposes, usually gang related.

•On the wire: talking on telephone or through cell vents

•PC: Protective Custody; housing unit or in terms of what type of inmate one is

•Write up: jail reports written; can be disciplinary

•The Joint: prison; we say “on the joint run” if some is leaving on bus in morning

•Hole: solitary confinement, disciplinary housing

•Mule: someone moving contraband

•Boot: new CO (corrections officer)

•Jailhouse lawyer: an inmate who knows legal stuff or has received some form of training/class, maybe in prison

•Schooled: taught the jail way of life

As always, a big thank you ThrillWriters and readers for stopping by. Thank you, too, for your support. When you buy my books, you make it possible for me to continue to bring you helpful articles and keep ThrillWriting free and accessible to all.

The Slammer: Incarceration 101 for Writers

" (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You have your character in the lock-up - but is it the right facility?














Jail is not synonymous with prison.

Jail

• not yet convicted by a court
• convicted of a misdemeanor (less than a year of incarceration)
• convicted of a felony (more than one year of incarceration) but there isn't a free bed available in the prison system, so they are waiting their turn for a prison bed.
• typically operated by a sheriff.
• Because these are usually small facilities, there is often an overcrowding issue (picture 2-3x the number of inmates than was intended)
• Jails often do not provide the same level of medical attention available to inmates in prison. Most jails have a nurse on duty, others have equipped medical care including dentistry.
• These facilities are often in quite bad repair and filthy with bodily fluids and feces on the ground and no easy access to cleaning supplies.
• Programming is typically minimal. Local churches provide religious services and groups such a AA and NA provide services as well.

Regional jail - when in rural areas where small towns cannot afford to maintain
       their own jail house, they will cooperate with nearby townships to have a
       multi-jurisdictional jail.


State Prison 

• Inmates have broken state law.
• Are run by the individual states and include:
• juvenile
• low security
• medium security
• maximum security
• State prisons are either male prisons or female prisons

Federal Prison 

• Holds prisoners who have been convicted of a federal offence(s). A federal offence breaks a United States law. These include such crimes as terrorism, extortion, embezzlement, and bank fraud.
• The prisoners are serving mandatory times. There is a range within the guidelines. After the prisoner is convicted by a jury, then the judge decides that sentence.
• All crimes that happen within the limits of DC may be seen as federal offences since DC does not belong to any state.
• Overseen by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) 
• Inmates are separated by levels of security 
• Prison Camp (minimum)
• prisons without fences
• low risk prisoners
• they have less than ten years to serve in their sentence
• sometimes called "Club Feds" 
• Low - (the following quotes are the definitions as found on http://www.bop.gov) "Low security Federal Correctional Institutions (FCIs) have double-fenced perimeters, mostly dormitory or cubicle housing, and strong work and program components. The staff-to-inmate ratio in these institutions is higher than in minimum security facilities."
• Medium - "Medium security FCIs (and USPs designated to house medium security inmates) have strengthened perimeters (often double fences with electronic detection systems), mostly cell-type housing, a wide variety of work and treatment programs, an even higher staff-to-inmate ratio than low security FCIs, and even greater internal controls."
• High - "High security institutions, also known as United States Penitentiaries (USPs), have highly secured perimeters (featuring walls or reinforced fences), multiple- and single-occupant cell housing, the highest staff-to-inmate ratio, and close control of inmate movement."
• Complex - "At Federal Correctional Complexes (FCCs), institutions with different missions and security levels are located in close proximity to one another. FCCs increase efficiency through the sharing of services, enable staff to gain experience at institutions of many security levels, and enhance emergency preparedness by having additional resources within close proximity."
• Administrative - "Administrative facilities are institutions with special missions, such as the detention of pretrial offenders; the treatment of inmates with serious or chronic medical problems; or the containment of extremely dangerous, violent, or escape-prone inmates. Administrative facilities include Metropolitan Correctional Centers (MCCs), Metropolitan Detention Centers (MDCs), Federal Detention Centers (FDCs), Federal Medical Centers (FMCs), the Federal Transfer Center (FTC), the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners (MCFP), and the Administrative-Maximum Security Penitentiary (ADX). Administrative facilities, except the ADX, are capable of holding inmates in all security categories." 
• Supermax prisons (ADX):
• were designed for the absolute worst offenders
• prisoners are only allowed human contact during count time, meal time, shower time 
• Shower time:
• 20 minutes 
• 2 -3 x a week 
• hands and feet remain shackled
• guarded by at least two guards 
• Shaving happens about once a week
• no work assignment
• mail is heavily censored
• They are in a cell by themselves behind a steel door for their entire term for 23 hours a day. 
• They get 1 hour of recreation - this is a done in a cage.
• video study 
• 
  



Federal timeline US prisoners (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In both state and federal prisons

• Guns are not typically allowed inside the prison and are only held by officers in the caged turrets.
• Programs are available such as educational programs.
• Exercise often does not allow for weightlifting or martial arts practice to protect the corrections officers.
• New arrivals are kept separate from other prisoners until they are taught the rules and what they can expect out of prison life.
• Inmates are given a classification that takes into consideration length of sentence, education, probability of flight, psychological status, and medical issues (criteria differs from institution to institution). The prison keeps similar classifications together.
• The offender will be sent to the facility that is near the place where the crime took place. In the case of federal offenders, they can be sent to any of the federal prison. This may mean far from family and friends. An effort is made to keep the prisoner within 500 miles of their families.
• video study

Corrections officers (COs) run the jails and prisons.

• high job turn-over rate
• usually less training than police officers. Their operations are paramilitary so their training is training mimics a boot camp structure. Training includes among other aspects:
• handcuffing and restraints
• riot squad
• defensive tactics
• weapons including pepper spray, batons, tasers, firearms 
• prisoner supervision
• securing a crime scene and collecting evidence
• drug training (identification and spotting its use)

related blog article - Locked up

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Thank you so much for stopping by. And thank you for your support. When you buy my books, you make it possible for me to continue to bring you helpful articles and keep ThrillWriting free and accessible to all.

Cheers,

http://etikallc.com/federal-prison-camps-brief-primer/
http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-federal-and-vs-state-prison/
http://www.bop.gov
Police Procedure and Investigation - Lee Lofland

LOCKED UP: An Interview with Kelly Banaski

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fiona - Good morning Kelly. The news said

            it was going to be -36F with wind in

            your part of the world.

            Are you a Popsicle this morning?

Kelly - It's actually 9F right now, and I'm

           pretty close to frozen, yes!

Fiona - Here, I poured you some hot

           cocoa. Won't you have a seat and

           introduce yourself to my readers and

           tell us about your work with

           prisoners?

Kelly - My Name is Kelly Banaski. I am an inmate liaison and

           prison reform activist. I help prisoners with long terms and

           death sentences cope with life in prison. I find them educational and religious outlets

          - classes, books, etc. I find them pen-pals, and I write to

           many  myself. I visit them and help their families with whatever I can.

Fiona - Is this a job that you stumbled into? Or did you go to school specifically to train for your

            interventions?

Kelly - I went to school for a degree in criminal justice. During the course of my studies and through early

            life experiences, I found I had a knack for being able to connect with inmates. I began working with

            various nonprofits that helped inmates but nothing really did what I wanted to do. So I decided to do

            it myself.

Fiona - Fabulous. Do you mind talking about your early life experiences?

Kelly - My step father was a notorious local criminal in and out of correctional facilities from the moment he

           came into my life at five-years-old. With crimes ranging from the uber-violent to exceedingly stupid
           we often found ourselves getting the hell outta dodge and as a result I found myself in a different
           school every year of my life until I was just about to start high school.

           My mother was a consummate narcissistic enabler, and I grew up with a certain feeling that the cops

           were out to get us. We were working class stiffs, my mom would explain. We couldn't make it on the

           regular wages others were scraping by on. No. Dear old Dad loved us way to much to settle for that.

           He was supporting his family in the way he knew best.

           As I grew up, my personality morphed and meshed and went into survival mode to find a way to

           make life manageable among the criminal element that was my family, friends and peers. I was

           constantly creeped-out by some of the men my dad would have around and kept a running fear that

           one of them, or someone, would hurt me. When I was in the third grade, a mentally handicapped

           neighbor man grabbed me off the street and threw me down in the yard, ripping at my clothes. I was

           able to escape with the aid of my little brother, but the fear and the uneasiness of life in general kept

           that fear alive in me for years and years.This ingrained fear has served only to draw me closer to the

           very element that scared me.

          Over the years, my youngest brother became a criminal of the highest ilk much like my step father. His

          crimes, however, were more of the bumbling variety and I would often step in to persuade probation

          officers, police, prosecutors, public defenders and even judges to give him one more chance.

          Eventually, I became a nonfiction writer and covered the crime beat in my home town. I became

          familiar with the cops and the criminals. I interview investigators and lawyers, victims and family, and

          the criminals.

          More often than not, I see the many ways the crimes could have been prevented, the victims spared,

          and the future a little brighter for everyone. There is always a trigger; a trigger set in place by forces

          other than that person.

          I hope my actions to understand and humanize our nations inmates, moves us a step forward in

          reducing recidivism. I want the United States to be more excepting and welcoming of prisoners
          who are starting a new life.

US incarceration timeline (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fiona - Thank you. Here at ThrillWriting the aim is to write it right. Can you tell us some of the realities about

             prison life that are perhaps not understood by those who have not been inside of a prison?

Kelly -  Regimen is God. Life long inmates depend on the regime of everyday life to survive. If someone is

             used to receiving mail from someone every week, and they don't receive it, that can set off a chain

             of events that can turn violent depending on the inmate. Any little disturbance in routine is major

             major deal.

             Also, in my experiences with women prisoners, I can tell you that women on death row become a

             different breed of human all together.

Fiona - How so?

Kelly - In outside life, women can be clique-ish in certain circles. In prison it is THE way of life.

           You must have a circle to keep breathing but what happens inside those circles is even scarier.

           Women are way more devious than men

Fiona - Can you give me some examples?

Kelly - I wrote to a woman on Pa. death row. A reporter contacted me for info, and I told this prisoner
            about it.This woman was convicted of killing her boyfriend's new girlfriend. In one of her letters she
            asked me about what I had read about her on the internet. I printed the article and sent it to her.

           The next week, I received hate mail that threatened my life from every girl on the row in Pa.

           You see, the article also listed the other girls on the row and their charges. They were all pissed that

           I'd let out their secrets. It didn't seem to matter to them that it was public for everyone to read.

           They didn't want each other to know.

Fiona - How did you feel when you received those letters - Did you take them seriously?

Kelly - After a few weeks of threats, I received letters from the same girls secretly asking for help, and also  

           asking me not to tell the others.

Fiona - Interesting.

Kelly - If one found out I had written the other or sent her a book or put money on her records, I would get
           the threats again. Eventually, I stopped writing that prison at all. The most trouble came from a
           woman  named Michelle; Michelle starved her daughter to death, kept her chained to a chair in the
           kitchen.

           She asked also for the most help. We wrote off and on for several years. She
           denied any culpability in her daughters death, saying she [the daughter]was always sick. One day
           Michelle would be angry and the next apologetic. It was tiresome. The threats became too much.
           I never took them seriously, but they were scary nonetheless.

Fiona - What kinds of help are they looking for?

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Kelly - Mostly they want to talk about their cases and
            their lives. They look for books,
            correspondence courses, religious materials,
            pen-pals, craft supplies, money...

Fiona - What kinds of craft supplies are they allowed
             to have?

Kelly - Craft supplies depends on the prison.

Fiona - Most of my craft supplies would make
            excellent weapons.

Kelly -That is true. That's why it depends on the
          prison. Some have great classes that the
          women have to
           prove themselves nonthreatening to be in.

Fiona - How are you funded?

Kelly - Out of my pocket mostly. My blog gets a few donations a year, and I stretch that as far as it will go.
            I've considered something like gofundme.com to raise money to become a nonprofit. I'm just not
           sure enough people would support this cause.  I'm also working on a true crime book that I hope will
           aid me financially in this.

           This is a  LINK to Kelly's page and blog, if you would like to help out, become involved, advertise
           on her site

Fiona - Going back to Michelle's behavior, are most of the women you correspond with like that?
             Highs and lows and threats?

Kelly - No. Some are very normal, average women. That's the kicker. I will forget these women have
           committed these crimes because we talk about kids and movies and cross-stitch patterns, men, and
            food.

Fiona - Tell me about some of the coping mechanisms the women develop on death row.

Kelly - Women on death row are alone most of the time. They cope by keeping their cells in immaculate
            conditions, staying in touch with family and writing letters. Many will attach themselves to a particular
            television show and obsess on it. Religion of course always always comes into play. Not always
            Christianity, but some type of spirituality emerges.

           Women with life sentences are different. They are in general population often, and they cope by
           forming families and working as one.They designate mothers and fathers, children, cousins, and
           sisters - the whole shebang.

          Death row women socialize with each other. Pass notes to each other and even have outsiders mail
          messages to each other.

Fiona - Just to clarify, death row women and life sentence women are treated differently by the prisons. Can
            you explain the differences?

Kelly - Death row women are kept in solitary in most prisons (not all). If not they are kept in a separate area
            and still pretty isolated.
         
            Life sentence and long term gals are usually kept in general population unless they are violent and
           deemed a threat to the rest of the population.

Fiona- So that death sentence versus life sentence is a REALLY huge deal not just for longevity's sake but
           for life style sake

Kelly - Oh yes! Even a life sentence is different than say 99 years with possibility of parole in terms of living
            style. That with/without possibility of parole is a biggie.

Fiona - Please explain

Kelly - If you have a huge gigantic sentence that is longer than you could possibly live, it doesn't matter

           if you get a chance for parole or not, right? Wrong. If you have a chance for parole after 15 years,

           and you behave, you have a shot at it - you could be a free woman. This happens sometimes with

            the black widows. Black Widows have killed their husbands or had someone else do it.

           They get sentenced to death or LWOP (life without parole) or parole after 20 years.

           Then the appeals come along and it turns out she was abused etc. In 2008 (I think) a woman was
            taken off death row right here in Tennessee after 40 years.

Fiona -So she was in confinement for 40 years and then let into the general prison population? You would
           think that  mentally she would have snapped.

Kelly - Her sentence was commuted. She went free. I have watched many women lose their minds. It's a
           sad thing. A gal with a chance at parole will be housed in a lesser security prison with more programs

Fiona - Programs might include...

Kelly - Sewing, painting, gardening...some prisons have animal training programs and quilt making classes,
           GED and college classes. They can also hold jobs and make money in the kitchen and laundry etc.

            Death row women, violent offenders, lifers without parole - they get none of those opportunities

Fiona - So Writers, if you are writing your heroine into a court case, she better hope for sentencing that
            includes the possibility of parole. With that, our time is up. A huge thank you to Kelly for sharing her
            information, and to you for stopping by.

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