Columnist Susan Snyder: Prisoners face tough treatment

Friday, June 25, 2004 | 4:27 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

WEEKEND EDITION

June 26 - 27, 2004

Sharon Fletcher pulled the eyeglasses from her face and held them out.

"You want to borrow my bifocals?" she asked. "You're holding your notebook way down here."

Busted. My glasses were in my briefcase on the other side of the room. I declined. My arms are still long enough, I joked. We laughed.

For a moment we had everything in common.

Except, I could leave the Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Facility at any time. Fletcher is serving 10-to-life for second-degree murder.

"I know the therapy I've sought," the 48-year-old woman said. "I can't imagine what the victim's family goes through."

Fletcher was among 43 inmates who met Wednesday evening with Nevada Department of Corrections Director Jackie Crawford and four state lawmakers to discuss what types of programs they will need when the state takes over the women's prison this fall.

State officials already are moving into the prison so that there will be a smooth transition when the private Corrections Corporation of America's contract expires Sept. 30. Problems with food quality, medical care and other complaints prompted the state to take the prison out of private supervision.

"You are our wards. We have an obligation to make sure you stay healthy," Nevada Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, told a group of 43 inmates during a meeting Wednesday evening.

Most inmates suggested more intensive and varied vocational training and more drug treatment programs.

All would like us -- the people among whom many one day will live -- to remember that they are people who made mistakes and bad choices, but are learning to make better ones.

"If they're all afraid of us, we're not going to get anywhere," said Sheila Green, a 41-year-old woman studying cosmetology. Green is serving five life sentences for nonviolent property crimes.

Fletcher said she can't imagine how hard it must be for violent crime victims to cope with what "a sick person like me" has inflicted on their families.

But many inmates work hard to improve, she said. Still, years of therapy, drug treatment and education can amount to nothing at the parole hearing. Second chances don't come, even when the sentence says they may.

"We need a program that works with the victims' families so they are aware of the process we go through," Fletcher said. "We need access so family members can ask 'Why?' and can hear why we feel we wouldn't do it again."

The women inside the prison look like women you know on the outside. Grandmothers. Fresh-faced twentysomethings. Middle-age women with bifocals.

"I had a lot of kids whose moms were in prison," Giunchigliani, a former middle school teacher, told the women. "You're still Mom. You're still Auntie. You're still Grandma."

They're still human.

"We are people. We make mistakes, but we are not defined by those mistakes," LaTisha Babb, 25, said.

Babb was convicted of first-degree murder and received two life sentences when she was 18. They are without parole. She will never get out.

"People forget," she said, "that we're people in here."