Labor of love

12.02.2020 • CIW • Full Story

This letter was written by a person incarcerated at CIW (California Institution for Women).

I have two family members left, and both are out of state, so visitation is virtually nonexistent. Two of my boys committed suicide since I have been incarcerated. And how I remain sane?

I am the bird whisperer here. I raise baby birds, fix broken wings and legs, set them free or parole them with staff. Right now I have a blind sparrow that will need lifetime care and I’m looking for the right foster.

I’ve rescued/released over 1,400 documented birds over the last 25 years. A labor of love. I was an LVN before prison. I guess caretaking is in my blood.

MORE STORIES FROM THIS FACILITY

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By providing a digital archive of stories, UCI PrisonPandemic™ is bringing greater transparency to the COVID-19 crisis in prisons and jails. Made up of faculty and students at the University of California, Irvine, it is an ongoing initiative to collect stories from people incarcerated in California carceral facilities, their family members and loved ones, and the staff who work in these facilities. We will continue to add more stories as we receive them. If you use any material from this site, please reference or link to prisonpandemic.uci.edu. In creating PrisonPandemic, our hope is that the archive will outlive the COVID-19 pandemic and serve as a resource for understanding the unequal toll of the criminal justice system in the United States.

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