Pamela Clare is our Guest Author today.  Her new romantic suspense, Unlawful Contact, releases today and we highly recommend it.  (Gwen and Alicia have reviewed it.)  Be sure to catch the “Goldilocks Goes to Jail” posts to read about Pamela’s experience in jail. 

Read on for Pamela’s interview with former inmate, Pamela Clifton, to get the real skinny on being a woman behind bars and how Clifton’s loss has inspired so many…

Pamela Clare plays journalist

An interview with Pamela Clifton

Pamela Clare: A long, long time ago in about June 2001, I came across your federal lawsuit against the state of Colorado. I know it’s not easy, but can you give us a quick overview of what happened to you there?

Pamela Clifton: Nothing happened in Denver Women’s.

Clare: Ah. OK. Now that we’ve settled that, I feel like a dope.

Clifton: I started out in Cañon City at the women’s facility. At the time Denver Women’s had just opened, and they did not have the capability to take care of women who were pregnant. I was about three months pregnant when I arrived. I was put on light duty and went to see the doctor every month. My pregnancy was progressing normally. The baby was due on about January 18. The week before Christmas I went in for a check up and was told that I should expect a daughter.

I woke up on a beautiful Christmas morning. I went out to walk laps for an hour, which I always did, and then went back to my room for the 11 AM count. During count you are not allowed to leave your cell, even though we had unlocked doors, except to go to the bathroom. Count usually took about 45 minutes, and then we were called for lunch unit by unit. It was Christmas dinner so things took a little longer.

I remember the first gut-wrenching pain hit about 10 minutes into count. I was alarmed, but not upset. The second one came exactly 15 minutes later and the third one about 12 minutes after that. I saw one of the guards coming down the hall and I said, “ Something’s wrong, I think I am in labor.” She said there wasn’t anything she could do right then because it was count time, but I could go to the bathroom if I wanted. I went to the bathroom and then after 10 minutes I got another one. I started to pace the long unit down the hallway. I spoke to some of the other girls, and they watched over me through each pain. I have two other children so I know what labor feels like as opposed to Braxton-Hicks. I went to the dayroom, the guard was playing a video game, and I asked her to call down to medical, and she said that she did but no one was answering the phone. Finally, they called our unit to lunch and I told the girls that we could walk down to Master Control and tell the guard down there what was happening. The contractions were still about 10 minutes apart. We walked into the dining hall and I sat down. They were coming a little faster. Just so you know my water never breaks; the doctor had to break it with both my kids. Ash was a month early, and Dalton was two weeks late. I had passed this information on to the medical staff at CWCF early on in my pregnancy.

The pains were five minutes apart, and I knew something was happening because it was more than a pushing pain; there was a struggle going on in my belly. I went to Master Control, and I told the officer to please call medical that my pains were five minutes apart. She said, “Go back to your unit. There are plenty of women down there who know how to birth babies.”

I remember standing there with my mouth open. And then the girls ushered me down the hall to my unit. I asked the guard again, and she said, “I’ll try”

I don’t remember much after that I was in my room between the chair and the bed for about 4 hours. The pains started becoming erratic at that point and when the guards changed shifts one of the girls went and told the new guard what was happening and suddenly medical was on the ball, or so I thought. They had me come down, and the nurse who was not a regular employee said that my water hadn’t broken and she couldn’t feel the distress. I asked her to check with the fetal heart monitor to make sure everything was okay, and she said she didn’t know how to use it. I made a remark about it not being that hard, and she said that there wasn’t anyone to call because it was Christmas. She sent me back to my unit.

I waited for someone to call me in the next day, but it was Sunday, and no one was there. That evening I went to an AA meeting, and I saw the nurse in the hall, and I looked at her and said, “Now I don’t feel anything.” She had me come into medical and called the PA. He came over from Fremont, checked me with the fetal heart monitor and had me rushed to the hospital. At the hospital my doctor showed up and did a battery of tests.

“I’m sorry, there’s no heartbeat,” he said.

DOC was short on staff, so they took me back to prison for the night. I told one guard what had happened, and she burst into tears and gave me a hug. She was later fired for that show of emotion. I was returned to hospital and they gave me some medicine to restart the labor. Then I just had to wait until my body was ready. No epidural, and I had to do all the work. Leah Rhiann Clifton was born at 2:50 the next morning. Red hair and blue eyes. She had wrapped the cord around her neck three times and tied it in two separate knots trying to get out.

They took her and wrapped her in a blanket, warmed her artificially and brought her to me to say goodbye. I touched her cheek and kissed her forehead. I apologized. I signed her birth certificate and her death certificate. Her footprints were so tiny with 10 perfect little toes. They told me that in these instances when the family is indigent the state would pay for the cremation. I was horrified at that thought. I had nightmares for years of my baby being burned to death. I said no. I would figure out something else. It took everyone I knew, but Stoddard’s, the funeral home in Greeley, donated the money to have her buried. They [DOC] wouldn’t allow me to go to the funeral.

Clare: I’m familiar with your story, and even after all these years, I can’t hear it without getting choked up and really, really angry. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be in your cell in labor, knowing something was wrong and not being able to get even sympathy from the guards — not even the female guards. Pain and panic and a sense of helplessness… That’s what I imagine, anyway.

Clifton: It’s a knot in your throat. It’s flight or flight. It’s panic and fear and total helplessness. You can’t protect yourself or your child. You don’t want to act out and throw a fit, because if nothing is wrong then they would put you in the hole. They would give you write-ups, which would destroy your chance at going to a halfway house or on parole. You don’t want to give them the opportunity to hurt you, because what if you hurt your baby in the process. A million things go through your mind. I tried to call my family, but of course, it was Christmas and no one was home. This was before cell phones

Clare: Were you shackled at the hospital and during transport while you were in labor?

Clifton: I think so, but I honestly can’t remember.

Clare: Did you receive pain relief during the birth or any support from the nursing staff, someone to hold your hand?

Clifton: No. When they had taken me back to the hospital the next morning, they let me use the phone a lot. I called my ex and told him what happened. He picked up Garry, the baby’s father, and they were at the hospital from Greeley in four hours. He demanded to see me. They let him in the room long enough to say he was sorry, and then they made them leave.

Clare: Afterwards, how long were you allowed to stay in the hospital before it was back to your cell?

Clifton: 24 hours. I had to make funeral arrangements, and the priest wanted to talk to me.

Clare: Then you did something I think was very courageous. You filed a lawsuit against the state. It’s courageous because here you are, at the mercy of the guards, and you’ve filed a lawsuit against some of them and against their employer. You also named the medical staff (or lack thereof) that failed properly to aid you. Behind bars, that could mean a backlash with serious consequences. Did you pay for the lawsuit with mistreatment?

Clifton: The lawsuit protected me in some ways, but it was the little things. The guard from Master Control once locked me in the office and screamed at me. I don’t even remember what she was screaming about. The DOC wrote me up on a trumped-up complicity write-up and put me in the hole for 90 days. I filed against them in court for that, as well.

Clare: And of course, I wrote about this — and was fired for it. It caused a conflict at the paper. One of the editor’s favorite reporters told me that my open-records request against the Department of Corrections needed to be rescinded and that I ought to apologize because the governor’s buddy was running DOC and the paper didn’t want to embarrass the governor. My response was, “I don’t care how the governor feels or who this upsets. I’m doing my job.” Then when the story was written, my editor said, “She was in prison on a drug charge. She was probably doing drugs in prison and killed the kid herself.” To which, I, in extreme anger, shouted, “That’s not journalism! That’s speculation!” By Friday, I was unemployed. I sold the story to another paper an hour later, and then it won a state journalism award. Did you hear on the inside that I’d been fired?

Clifton: No, I didn’t hear about that until later. I had wondered why it was never in the paper.

Clare: Was there any response after the article came out either within DOC or among other newspapers?

Clifton: I was transferred right after that to Pueblo. That’s where I got the trumped-up write up.

Clare: Yikes! I hadn’t heard that part, and I don’t think that’s what I was hoping for! Your lawsuit against the state was recently settled (we can’t talk about the terms of the settlement). Did it give you a sense of completion at all?

Clifton: It did, because it was finally over. I could go to Leah and tell her that they admitted guilt the only way they knew how. I really needed it to be over. It had been 10 years.

Clare: How did you feel when you learned I was dedicating a novel to your daughter?

Clifton: I was overwhelmed with the thought that somehow, Leah would be remembered by more than me. That perhaps she would be able to help make a difference in the world just by being the wonderful bright spirit within me for such a short time. I still get very emotional when I think about how many lives were changed by her.

Clare: OK, now I’m in tears. I’m so sorry for what you’ve gone through and for what happened to Leah. It isn’t right, and there’s no way to make it right. But when I wrote this novel, I knew that I could at least remember her in that way.

You just read Unlawful Contact. I can’t really imagine what that experience was like for you, given the dedication at the front and the fact that my investigation of your situation is specifically mentioned in the story. Was the book hard to read?

Clifton: The book was difficult to read. There are different pieces of my life scattered through the book. What happened to me and my kids, how the system operates. All of it. I was diagnosed with PTSD, and so many memories were locked away, and the book allowed me to let out a little of that pain.

Clare: I only spent 24 hours in jail. You spent six years total in state prison. How realistic was the story in its depiction of prison and the criminal-justice system?

Clifton: You brought me to a point of honest reflection. I could feel you feel me in that cell. What a wonderful job you did, and of course, I was never in a men’s prison which is quite different from a woman’s. The feeling of humiliation is very real. You are stripped of your womanhood, your individuality and your ability to make decisions. That can destroy you or make you stronger. It takes a certain innocence from you but leaves you steelier and more wary. You develop serious trust issues. I don’t know if that is good or bad.

You were actually pretty easy on them The problem is that as in everything in life, it depends on the relationships you build. Some people are just bad, no matter what side of the cage they are on. Sometimes you have to learn to bite your tongue and speak up when the time is right.

Clare: You have no idea how happy I was when I learned you were out of prison. You’re really doing well. Can you tell us about your life now?

Clifton: After prison I decided a few things. First of all, my parental rights had been terminated when I was sent to prison, because policy states that after a certain time period kids should just be put up for adoption. About a year before I was released, Human Services asked me to write a goodbye letter to my children. I could not do it. Instead, I started looking for help within the prisoner advocacy world. I wrote to place called the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center.

My letter was read by a woman named Christie Donner. Christie and I developed an instant connection, and although she was unable to help with my kids, she gave some great advice and I was able to function with the hope that perhaps after I got out I could get them back. I focused on that. I found a job in political and nonprofit fundraising. I worked 80 hours a week for the first year. I made enough money to get out of the halfway house and into my own home. I kept writing to Social Services. They kept denying me. I kept calling. I sent letters of support from my parole officer, my boss, and my therapist. They told me to get a psych evaluation. I did. (Much to the surprise of the psychiatrist, even after all this, I’m normal), and then they told me that Dalton had been adopted out, but Ashleigh hadn’t. They gave her back eventually.

I got off of parole on June 16, 2005. The next day I called Christie Donner. She had started an organization called the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition. I told her I wanted to start writing grants for nonprofits. She asked if I wanted to just come and work with her. Within six months I gave up my other job. I now work full time with Christie. It is our mission to reduce the mass incarceration rate in Colorado, to help find funding for treatment, to advocate for prisoners and their families, and to reform sentence and policy laws. I started a blog last year that is called Think Outside the Cage. We have had nearly 70,000 hits internationally. CCJRC now has 5,200 members and 105 organizations.

Clare: It’s kind of funny that you sometimes send me press releases. I get a kick out of that.

Clifton: I like to keep you informed 😉

Clare: In your experience, how do most people feel about people convicted of crimes? How does the press in general respond to prison issues?

Clifton: It depends on the person, it depends on the crime, it depends on the politics of the day.  How hot is the issue? Is there something else hotter? Tim Masters‘s got TONS of coverage. The girls who were raped in Brush got a couple of articles.

Clare: Anything else you’d like to share?

Clifton: People should get involved with mentoring programs if they would like to help. They should contact me directly if they would like to be added to the mailing list. Every state is different, if you feel the need to be a voice, write letters to the editor, follow legislation, contact your state, local and federal legislators. More than anything else, thank you. Thank you for caring about the issue, and thank you for caring about Leah.

Now, the rest of you reading this, feel free to jump in and play journalist yourselves. Ask questions of either Pam or me, and we’ll answer.