On Monday, April 25, 2016 our guest speaker Terri Steward shared her life story in Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi in a criminal justice course named American Prison and Prisoners class by Professor Dr. Dorothy S McClellan. Terri Steward grew up in an environment as being the first child .She was the first grand baby, oldest child from her brother and sister, and oldest niece. For being the oldest one for everything, she learned how to take care of others but she didn’t know how to take care of herself. She will try to escape from her pain that was haunting her by drinking and smoking. Drinking and smoking it’s all she knew in her life. She did not know people who didn’t do drugs excited. Terri Steward is a victimized …show more content…
women behind bars and was known as an ex prostitute, ex drug user, ex drug dealer. Her dark life began when she was molested. The memories of being molested kept haunting her. Terri will keep running from her issues because she didn’t know how to live life in life terms. She will sit with tons of dope to stop the feeling of pain and anger .However the feeling still kept haunting her. She couldn’t stop thinking why this happen to her. She was molested by her own dad and other men as well. Her dad would even give her a beer bottle and make her smoke to be quiet .The dad was in the military and her mother was a dancer. When her parents broke up her mom had men coming in and out and the majority of those men molester her as well. However she was not upset with the other men that molester her she was furious towards her dad and her uncle because it’s her own blood that haunted her life. It was haunting her the most because she was trying to understand why her dad did that to her, she will always question herself why? And she still doesn’t know why. What she does know now is that she doesn’t need to know why. Years later she met her husband. Steward shared her life story to her husband when she was molested by her dad, but instead of understating her, he blamed her and told her the reason why she was molested was because it was her own fault. Terri felt hopeless and did not know how to ask for help, so she grew up helping herself. However since she didn’t have no one to help she became a cocaine attic to ease the pain of being molested and from her abusive husband. Then her life turn upside down. Stewards first case was, when they caught her shoplifting in Wal-Mart in Harligton , Tx .
Her first time in jail was when she was 38 years old in Fort Worth Texas. Then her second time in jail was when she was found at a doping house .She was also arrested for criminal trespassing. Most of her charges were misdemeanors. She went in and out of jail and she was known to always running from her issues .Living the experience in jail she mention that men get treated like royalty in jail. She gave an example that when men are cold they get like 3 to 4 covers and women get nothing. They get the best of everything, so she advice women to not to go to jail because women are not going to be treated like men do. After living in and out of jail and going to intuitions lead to a broken …show more content…
family. When Terri was out there doing what she was doing she was hurting her family. Her mom got to the point where she said good news was not hearing from her because that meant she wasn’t dead. Her husband got tired of her and he packed up and went further overseas with her children .Since she was not with him, the military could not tell her where they were. Those were the worst five years of her life because she didn’t know if her kids were good or alive. As for today she tries really hard to do the right thing for them. Terri Steward has been out of 21 treatments centers willingly until she found St. Peter. Steward gained control of her life thanks to St .Peter Saint Peter saved her life, she explained that in St .peter you have to be in time for everything. She will get up then go to bed, but in between she used to cook breakfast and lunch for 2,000 woman and never else got paid. If they catch her seeking food out that was a case. Get caught eating food that was another case. They only had 10 minutes to eat. That was her daily routine. In St .Peter she was also required to attend a lot of classes. The only way they could get out of those classes was if they were sick and were dying. She had all those classes up to 2:00am in the morning because she had to be cooking all that food for all those people. Then after that she had to attend all those classes, but before that she had to attend to a motivation class at eight in the morning .Most of her time she will be up since 2 am by 9 clock she was in a class till 12 .She said, that she will eat like a race horse since they only have 10 minutes to eat .In the beginning she was really angry, the only thing she wanted to do was fight. She explains that she would not want to go back to Saint P, but she shares that she loved it because she learned so many things that she though she knew. What she remembers the most from Saint Peter are two guards. She explained how the guards will drive her crazy. Steward was surrounded by men and women, but those two guards will wake her up every morning to check on them, and she hated that because she’s not a morning person. One day she ask one of the guards “why are you talking to this woman” and he said “because they are my pay check, because they can’t follow simple rules” .The women were not supposed to be talking and those are the ones than the guard said that most likely would come back. After that she said, that she will never go back to this place. She meant that because she never talked to him since then. The most important class she took while she was in St. Peter was the molestation class. That molestation class broke her chain of her addiction .That class saved her life. The hardest thing that she ever had to face was learning how to forgive those people who brought her harm into her life, then she had to learn how to forgive herself. Today Terri Steward is able to learn how live life on life terms .Living life on life terms meant not knowing how to let go. However now she learned how to let go. Now she has been blessed because now she’s sponsoring several women. This women she helps are attics women who go in and out of jail, for them the hardest thing is to surrender. She suggest them to learn how to let go, let God and trust the process. The hardest thing for them is to let go. As for now Terri hasn’t gone back to jail. Now she is balancing her family and her recovery. She now lives by example and sets her own boundaries. For example she told her own daughter to leave the house because she was smoking marijuana in her house. Her boundaries are no more smoking and drinking in her house. I was inspired to write this piece of Terri Steward.
Child molesting really bothers me, so I decided to write this to share how Terry dark life began after being molested. It at all began in her childhood. I believe childhood should be the most important thing in life. When Terri was molested it change her behavior. She was mad at the world, emotionally and physically hurt. Terri was mad at the world because she didn’t know why this had to happen to her. Then she became very addicted to bad habits because of her drug attic. In my opinion I believe she became a drug attic after being molested to ease her pain and run away from her problems .Her addiction caused her to make bad choices and bad decisions. I believe Terri was not thinking straight, so she tend to make wrong choices. She was trap in eradiation, which caused her problems in her family structure, and contribute to the delinquency in society. I was content to hear that she went to seek help, spiritually and emotionally. Knowing that she is now control of her life once again is a wonderful blessing to
her.
Barbara was born in 1948, convicted for manslaughter, due to emotional duress, sentenced for 25 years, to be suspended after 10, arrested in 1996. Barbara’s story stood out the most to me and i found it very interesting and sad. Barbara 's life has been filled with tragedy since she was young. Barbara was molested by her grandfather when she was a child, and was too young to understand what had happened at the time. Barbara ended up telling her mother about what happened recently after, but her mother told her to keep it to herself. When Barbara got older she learned that her grandfather also molested her mother as well. This made Barbara very confused and question her mother.
Elizabeth Glaser, co-founder of the Pediatric AIDS foundation, was infected with the AIDS virus during a blood transfusion when she was giving birth to her first child. Her daughter became quite ill in 1985 and after several tests and treatments the entire family was tested for the human immunodeficiency virus. Elizabeth, her daughter, Ariel, and her son, Jake, all tested positive. She then went to Washington D.C. to help fight AIDS and raise awareness for the cause. She met with several influential politicians, activists, and first ladies including President Reagan, Nancy Reagan, and Barbara Bush to discuss ways to improve HIV care and research. She worked with congress and raised the budget to help fight pediatric AIDS from 3.3 million to
When Deborah was only sixteen she became pregnant with her first child by Cheetah and boy she liked when she was younger. Cheetah and Deborah got married and then had their second child. Deborah became very unhappy in the marriage because Cheetah started drinking and doing drugs. He started abusing Deborah. Cheetah pushed Deborah so much she almost killed him if it wasn’t for Bobbette. Deborah’s brothers Sonny and Lawrence were doing well except for Joe. Joe was another case. Joe went to the military, and the family was hoping that would do him good; but he came out worse than when he went in. Joe was threatened and beaten up by a boy named Ivy. Joe was in so much rage he went and stabbed him and killed him. Joe eventually turned himself in to the law, was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced fifteen years in prison.
as Jennifer, a victim states, “I feel our childhood has been taken away from us and it has left a big hole in our lives.”
Hey, We are talking about a woman by the name of Bethany Hamilton , if you don't know who I'm talking about just listen and I will tell you.
The authors begin the book by providing advice on how a convict can prepare for release from prison. Throughout the book, the authors utilize two fictional characters, Joe and Jill Convict, as examples of prisoners reentering society. These fictional characters are representative of America’s prisoners. Prison is an artificial world with a very different social system than the real world beyond bars. Convicts follow the same daily schedule and are shaped by the different society that is prison. Prisoners therefore forget many of the obl...
As a little girl, I remember learning about Ruby Bridges. I remember being mesmerized; truly astonished by the amount of courage and strength that she showed when she persevered during times of racial discrimination, all at the age of six. During, that time America was in an era of flash points; the racial revolution of the 1960’s was televised. The image of Ruby walking up the front steps of William Frantz Elementary School sparked an interest in a famous painter Norman Rockwell, who created a blueprint that later evolved into the everlasting interpretation of that historical event for generations to come.
Harris, H. (2017, March). The Prison Dilemma: Ending America's Incarceration Epidemic. Foreign Affairs, pp. 118-129.
14 Nicole Hahn Rafter, Partial Justice: Women in State Prisons 1800-1935 (Boston: New England University Press, 1985)
Within society, more men than women are imprisoned. However, women’s incarceration rates have significantly increased since the 1980s. International Centre for Prison Studies found that more than 200,000 US women are confined in the prison population in 2013. Despite the figure, most women were serving sentences for nonviolent offenses. Women were usually incarcerated primarily for property crimes, drug offenses and victims of domestic violence. Statistic found that only one-third of imprisoned women were sentenced for violent crimes. While 56 percent of imprisoned women were sentenced for non-violence crimes. This essay will critically discuss the different experiences of female prisoners. This essay will also highlight the issues faced by
Wilma Pearl Mankiller began her journey on this Earth on November 18, 1945 in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. She would go on to become the first female deputy chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1983 and the first female principal chief in 1987, until her retirement in 1995. In a speech she gave at Sweet Briar College on April 2, 1993 she sufficiently summed up the magnitude of being the first female chief of the second-largest tribe in the United States when she concluded by saying “Finally, I guess I'd like to say I hope my being here and spending a little time with you will help to erase any stereotypes you might have had about what a Chief looks like.” More than a political figure, Wilma Mankiller was a wife to Hugo Olaya from the time she was eighteen
However, there are cases when women actually feel they are safer in prison than when they are out in the world. The removal from the outside world gives them the chance to focus on themselves. Bradley and Davino’s study conducted in 2002 collects the general feel that 65 incarcerated women have towards a southern state prison. These women reported feeling safer when compared to their adulthood and childhood before prison. Outside of prison, women are susceptible to emotional and physical pain because of problems such as domestic violence or drugs. This prison also gave women the education needed when they are eventually released. Some women had not even heard of the dangers of disease like HIV before.
Wilson, Rick. "The Growing Problems of the Prison System." American Friends Service Committee. American Friends Service Committee, 27 Nov. 2012. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. .
This reading was about how the significantly higher amounts of men in prison now creates somewhat of an afterthought for women in prison when discussing incarceration. It also provides the narrative from Olivia Hamilton, regarding issues only unique to women in prison such as: maternity rights, cross-gender supervision, and reproductive justice. Olivia gave birth to her first son while she was in prison serving a six-month sentence. During the birth, she claims that she was chained to an operating table and given a forced and medically unnecessary cesarean section. She then goes into detail about her life story starting with how her mom sent her to live with her grandmother when she was twelve years old. By the end of 2007, she had two kids
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