The Convict Chronicles: The Series Behind Chained Convict for Life PDF
Thanks must also, of course, go to the creator(s) of the Sabrina web sites, and if she is real, to Sabrina herself and her erstwhile friend (but eventually, jailer and tormentor) for being so forth-coming about her life. Without the inspiration that was spawned by her incredible revelations, none of what follows would have been written. In fact, her tale has provided me with the inspiration to write nearly 2 million more words in other stories.
chained convict for life pdf
This biography has been compiled from web sites created by and for Sabrina, and, after its demise, from the numerous letters between the author and her, written over a period of some five years. At times during the correspondence, short, fictional stories were written both for and about her in an attempt, by the author, to understand and appreciate her life and the situations she found herself subjected to. These have, in many cases, been incorporated into this narrative. For the most part, Sabrina informed the author that these were remarkably close to the environments and disciplinary regimes she actually endured, and supposedly still endures on a daily, weekly, monthly, and year-in-year out basis.
(e) For a convicted prisoner, loss of liberty and separation from society should be the sole punishments imposed by imprisonment. For a prisoner not serving a sentence for a crime, the purpose of imprisonment should be to assure appearance of the prisoner at trial and to safeguard the public, not to punish.
(b) A prisoner suffering from a serious or potentially life-threatening illness or injury, or from significant pain, should be referred immediately to a qualified medical professional in accordance with written guidelines. Complaints of dental pain should be referred to a qualified dental professional, and necessary treatment begun promptly.
(d) Visiting periods should be of adequate length. Visits with counsel and clergy should not be counted as visiting time, and ordinarily should be unlimited in frequency. Pretrial detainees should be allowed visiting opportunities beyond those afforded convicted prisoners, subject only to reasonable institutional restrictions and physical plant constraints.
The Legacy Museum provides a comprehensive history of the United States with a focus on the legacy of slavery. From the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its impact on the North and coastal communities across America through the Domestic Slave Trade and Reconstruction, the museum provides detailed interactive content and compelling narratives. Lynching, codified racial segregation, and the emergence of over-incarceration in the 20th century are examined in depth and brought to life through film, images, and first-person narratives.
Angola, named for the country where most of its slaves came from, was one of those plantations. After the abolition of chattel slavery, Angola relied on the labor of prisoners leased from the Louisiana State Penitentiary. However, in 1898, the convict leasing system was banned. The state of Louisiana then purchased the 8,000-acre plantation in 1901, establishing the Louisiana State Penitentiary on the grounds and taking control over the prisoners previously leased to the plantation.
As most correctional facilities do not have on-site obstetric care, pregnant women are typically transported to community-based providers for prenatal care, and women in labor are transferred to medical facilities for delivery. Though policies vary by jurisdiction, during transport, labor, delivery and post-delivery, women are frequently shackled with handcuffs, leg irons and/or waist chains [12]. In response to tremendous community advocacy and institutional support from organizations including the Rebecca Project and the American Public Health Association, 10 states have passed legislation prohibiting the use of restraints on pregnant women and women in labor [12]. The Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Departments of Corrections in 13 additional states have internal policies that similarly prohibit this practice. However, reports from the ACLU and Amnesty International show that such policies are not strictly enforced [7, 13]. And, in the remaining 27 states, pregnant women are regularly shackled during transport to and from medical facilities and chained to hospital beds by the ankle, wrist, or both during labor and delivery.
In addition to shackling, many pregnant women who deliver while incarcerated are almost immediately separated from their newborns after delivery. After giving birth, most incarcerated mothers are allowed only 24 hours with their newborns in the hospital; the infants are then either placed with relatives or in foster care, and the mothers are returned to prison or jail [24]. This separation is devastating for both mother and infant. For infants, maternal separation at birth can lead to multifaceted, severe emotional and behavioral problems in later life including low self-esteem, less successful peer relationships, and difficulty coping with life stressors [12, 24]. For mothers, this separation can also be psychologically traumatizing and has been shown to increase the risk of recidivism [25].
The grandmother tries to convince her son, Bailey, and his wife to take the family to east Tennessee for vacation instead of Florida. She points out an article about the Misfit, an escaped convict heading toward Florida, and adds that the children have already been there. John Wesley, eight years old, suggests that the grandmother stay home, and his sister, June Star, says nastily that his grandmother would never do that.
Proving chain of custody can be difficult. If law enforcement does not do it correctly, chain of custody can be successfully challenged in a criminal case. Challenging chain of custody can be a successful defense strategy to eliminate evidence that might be used to convict a defendant.
If there are any discrepancies in the chain of custody and law enforcement cannot prove who had the evidence at a particular time, the chain of custody is broken and the defendant can ask to have the evidence declared inadmissible so that it cannot be used to try to convict the defendant.
Originating with the penal crisis caused by the outbreak of war with America in 1775, the hulks were intended as a temporary expedient for housing convict prisoners, but they remained in use for over eighty years. Despite the fact they were intended as places to hold prisoners before they were punished in other ways (primarily by transportation), they constituted a form of punishment in themselves, and for some convicts they were the only form of punishment they experienced before their release. The majority of the convicts whose lives are documented in the Digital Panopticon spent some time on the hulks.
Following a difficult search for a new place to send convicts, transportation was reestablished in 1787 with the new destination of Australia. The hulks continued to be used, however, as a place to keep convicts until they could depart on a transportation ship. Some convicts, who for whatever reason (often because they were unwell) were not taken up by a transport ship, remained on the hulks for long periods.
Inevitably, some convicts were discharged back into society without being transported, and their period in the hulks was their only punishment. Even in the early 1840s, the hulks held over 70 per cent of convicts incarcerated in England (McConville, p. 198). Most of the convicts whose lives are documented in the Digital Panopticon spent some time in the hulks, though it was not normally their only punishment.
The Hulks Act was periodically renewed, and in 1823 parliament authorised their use in any British colony. Hulks were established in Bermuda in 1824 and Gilbraltar in 1842; in both colonies the convicts levelled land, constructed roads and worked on dockyards. Bermuda received some 9,000 convicts up to 1863.
With the opening of Pentonville Prison and increased use of Millbank Prison from 1843, fewer convicts were sentenced to the hulks, which were increasingly only used for old and infirm prisoners and those in poor health. After 1852, only two hulks survived, and the Hulks Act was finally allowed to expire in 1857. But many prisoners were held in hulks in Bermuda until 1863 and in Gilbraltar until 1875 (McConville, p. 203).
The image of the hulks as a nightmarish place of confinement continued in public culture. Henry Mayhew reported on a visit he had made to the Defence hulk in the 1850s in his book The Criminal Prisons of London (1862). Describing the layout of the ship, he makes a stark comparison between the spacious quarters of the governor and his men and the convicts, who were kept behind bars "very like those found in the zoological gardens". Visiting early in the morning when many of the convicts were still asleep, Mayhew went on to consider what they may be dreaming about. Many, he concluded, would not be able to escape the horrors of their situation, even in their sleep. These horrors were famously evoked in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations (1861).
James Byrd Sr. and his granddaughter Renee Mullins (right) react to the sentencing of John William King to death in Jasper, Texas. King was convicted for the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. in the summer of 1998. Pat Sullivan/AP hide caption
Instead of taking him home, they took him to a small clearing out in the woods. After offering him a drink, Brewer and King set upon Byrd, beating him, taunting him, urinating on him. They used a baseball bat. Finally, they chained him by the ankles to the back of the truck. King got in the driver's seat and they dragged Byrd down a deserted rural road. After 3 miles they stopped, picked up the pieces of what was left of Byrd's body and dumped them in front of a nearby African American church to be found later that Sunday morning.
A section of Huff Creek Road in Jasper, Texas, where James Byrd Jr., a black man, was dragged to death. John William King, the convicted ringleader in Byrd's death, was executed on Wednesday. Juan Lozano/AP hide caption