Episode 3: Jane’s time in prison

S1: One of the first things that happened to me when I first went to prison. Everybody in prison smokes. Almost everybody.

S2: Jane Doe was sent to the California Institution for women , a women's prison in Chino. It was not a living situation Jane was used to. Remember , she's a nurse , a health care executive , an avid outdoors woman.

S1: And even though the rule is you cannot smoke on inside the building. But of course , 90% of the women break the rules and smoke in the cell. So here I am , stuck in a cell with smokers , and I was wise enough to realize I don't get to walk in and say , hey , wait a minute , I don't want this. You know , this is their space.

S2: Soon after she arrives in prison , she has a hearing to decide what job she'll have and what part of the prison she'll live in. Jane had it in prepared.

S1: You're not really allowed to speak in that meeting. They speak about you At you. But I decided I would. And I said , look , I , you know , 50,000 people every year die of secondhand smoke. I don't want to be one of them until I'm able to get myself out of here , get my conviction overturned. Um , so what I've done is found seven other women who are non-smokers who would like to be grouped together. And I found a room , a cell that has an eight person cell that has only one resident in it currently. So you're displacing only one person and putting eight others together in a non-smoking environment. And to me , it sounded like I was being proactive.

S2: She was being proactive , organizing , making a plan like she did in her old life as a health care executive. But this was not her old life.

S1: Well , first they said , now , Miss Doric , you know , this is a non-smoking environment. And I said , yes , I understand that's your rule , but I think you understand that everybody in here smokes. And , you know , after some back and forth argument , the captain said to me , okay , well , give your list to the , uh , sergeant on the way out and we'll try and accommodate you. So I did , and I thought , well , good , that actually went pretty well. Well , that's how naive I was.

S2: This was present. We're speaking up. And being proactive is generally not appreciated.

S1: What happened is I did get a transfer , but not into a room with seven other non-smoking women. I got put in the room with the known biggest drug dealer in the prison system.

S2: Jane didn't get her non-smoking room , and now she was sharing a room with someone who could potentially be much more dangerous.

S1: And the person was pretty angry at me and smoked. Of course Uh , so it was a tough , almost a month. I lived in that cell in fear and anytime I went out , I had to lock everything up because the the antagonism and anger became things like , if I left a library book , something I had checked out of the library , if I left it on my bunk , I'd come back and half the pages were ripped out , which meant I had to pay for it in returning it to the library. So anyway , um , you know , it was just really tough. And and the person herself was pretty abusive. I mean , I didn't get beaten up , but there were many times where I sort of hovered in the corner of my bunk thinking , please don't come in drunk and try and beat me up.

S2: Jane found herself in a situation she never would have imagined in prison for killing her husband , cowering in the corner , hoping she didn't get beat up , surrounded by angry women and secondhand smoke. But here's something about her personality she's always in motion , always taking action. Before prison , she was an administrator , organizing nurses for a health care company , and worked on businesses on the side like horse training. So even though her life had taken a drastic and devastating turn , she was still organizing and advocating I'm. Pretty quickly she began advocating for other women in prison.

S3: This is just who she is at her core , she's someone who wants to help people. She's an organizer , which I think a lot of most women are natural organizers.

S2: This is Connie Leyva , who at the time was a state senator representing Chino , where Jane was in prison. Jane was in her mid 50s , and she was a part of a group who called themselves the Golden Girls.

S3: These were all women over 55. And just to talk to them about issues that they were having and where there are things , you know , little things like , you know , we have some older women serving time , women in their 70s. And , you know , one of the issues was some of them were on the top bunk. Could we make sure they were on the lower bunk because it was too hard for them to climb up. And , you know , it's always hot. And there were issues around the heat. Uh , so we were able to work through Jane with the , uh , the prison and made sure that there were big swamp coolers to cool things down , just making sure the inmates had access to ice to cool their body heat down. So Jane was just she she was always advocating for other people. She was , of course , advocating for herself , but really cared about all the other inmates.

S2: And the more Jane talked to other prisoners , the more she saw corruption in their cases , too.

S4: When I originally got to prison , I was just absolutely blown away. Um. Like being hit in the face. But some of the stories that the women were telling me , I was thinking become this lady helping all of these women end up in prison.

S2: Even if those women were guilty of their crimes. Jane saw that societal systems had led them to trouble. She saw the system of courts , district attorneys , public defenders , and all the rest. And she saw that system giving these women unfair sentences , unfair treatment under the law. And Jane had always thought the criminal justice system worked just fine. Now she was transforming to someone who viewed it as incredibly corrupt.

S1: The truth is , I did practically zero thinking about the prison system and what little thought I did give to it. My. I thought , well , these are people who have violated society's norms. And so perhaps some time away , maybe even chopping up rocks is not too harsh for them. And that's how blind I was. I just did not realize what was really happening , that it was a whole system that took over and was self-sustaining in in those ways.

S2: And as she met more women in prison , she realized many of them were serving extra time. They were in prison for longer than they were actually sentenced because of a mistake in their paperwork. So Jane began helping them.

S1: They had an evening aerobics class that I would go to regularly , and women would come running in tears , running down their face , holding. Thank you so much , Miss Jane. Now because of this , I finally got it corrected and now I'm being released next week. And thank you.

S2: Jane started a Compassionate Companions program. Prisoners would help care for other prisoners who were dying from cancer or another terminal illness. She also started knitting baby booties for pregnant inmates , and slowly she became an advocate against the entire criminal justice system.

S4: I just I feel like In life. We all have a responsibility. No matter what circumstance we find ourselves in , we all have a responsibility to make life a little bit better. You know , I have no criminal history and will run ins with the law and basically live pretty decent life. And for all of this to have happened to me , and then to be aware , when I hear angry stories of other people and be convicted , it's just something is so very wrong with the system.

S2: Today , she talks like a hardcore abolitionist advocate to drastically change the system of district attorneys.

S4: Around and the past. To start with the power that the DA's office currently holds. We have to take that away.

S2: To abolish lengthy sentences.

S4: Everybody says these horrible long sentences that are being handed out across the country do nothing to promote No public safety. In fact , they're counterproductive. People come out of prison with a lot of negative behaviors because of the the oppression within the prison system. So we're not helping society even.

S2: To get rid of life sentences altogether. She says all of this work helped her get through the days in prison. She'd help women file paperwork to get another appeal , or get a parole hearing , or to correct an error in their files , allowing them to be released earlier.

S1: I always was dealing with my own situation , and there were certainly times where I was overwhelmed and feeling , I can't do this anymore. I just can't keep this hope alive. I mean , how long is it going to take for my conviction ? And there were times where it was pretty hopeless , but somehow also advocating for other women also was what sustained me , what kept me going. And each little victory , however little it was It was a victory and I made a big point of celebrating that victory. Here's one little tiny battle that we won so we can keep on in this war.

S2: Of course , part of her advocacy was for herself regarding her case. She was pursuing appeals , but those ran out.

S1: So I was on my own writing and learning about the law and so forth , and I kept doing it and kept getting denied.

S2: Her last hope was to get additional DNA testing of evidence from her case next time. How that DNA testing works. Free Jane is hosted by me , Katie Hazen. It's reported and produced by Claire Trager. Sound design by am FM music. Additional producing by Lara McCaffrey. It was edited by David Washburn and Terrence Shepard , web design by Brendan to Trinity. And our news director is Terence Shepard.