Blog Hostess

My name is Mary Ellen and I have decided to write this blog to honor the women who are imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit or were wrongly sentenced. I myself, was one of those prisoners. I am an entrepreneur and started my own business many years ago only to find that the State of Florida would charge and convict me of a crime that was never committed. They say I didn’t register stocks in my privately held company which I believe never had to be registered. No criminal intent was ever present and the attorneys just said “Don’t worry” even as I was being escorted out of the courtroom in handcuffs! I was convicted and served 5 years in maximum security prisons in Florida. It was there that I met these women. I am currently on probation and still have a few years left to complete my sentence. But this story isn’t about me. It is about the countless women I left behind and their stories.
I believe in my heart that I was divinely guided to serve this sentence in order to tell these stories. I am not angry but passionate to do something to make changes in a very broken justice system. You wouldn’t believe how easily women can wind up in prison in Florida. Most are victims of horrendous abuse. The laws are often archaic and reversely discriminate against women in an effort not to give them special privileges above men. But they are not men and they continue to be treated as if they were or worse. They work hard heavy labor in the hot Florida sun and are not fed the same portions as the men doing the same jobs. ( And, by the way, neither males or females get paid for their labor). These are not monsters. Most are women who were trying to protect themselves or their children and had no self defense laws in place to protect them. Some of them were convicted simply because they had knowledge of a crime and were threatened with their lives or the lives of their children if they said anything. I am not saying that there aren’t women who don’t belong in prison (and even they deserve humane treatment), but I know first hand how many truly don’t belong there or have served their time and deserve their freedom! It is my mission to make the public aware of these stories and to help make our correction system more rehabilitative and less punitive. Only then can we ever hope for a better society as a whole. We need to address the issues of poverty, abuse, and their affects on crime and change the system that fosters bad behavior into one where every person has a chance to live a successful life.