Jade01
08-24-2005, 10:04 AM
Her organization sends prisoners dictionaries, arranges car pools to get visitors to lockups
BY CHARLIE FRAGO ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
SNOWBALL — Carol Curry first saw the relatively flat stretch of land ringed by rugged Searcy County hills that would become her home while on the arm of a long-haired husband looking for enough land to build a house and raise goats.
Over the next 30 years, she divorced, raised a son, drove a van that ferried Medicare patients to doctors’ appointments, worked as a bail bondsman, sobered up and ran for sheriff.
At age 53, Curry, once a selfdescribed "hippy chick," has found her calling: trying to make life better for as many of the state’s 13,200 prison inmates as she can.
In the process, she’s turned her 54 acres into the center of prison advocacy in the state. A plan to house ex-cons alienated her neighbors, who forced her to back away from creating a postrelease center on the property. She has instead concentrated on improving the spelling skills and the number of visitors of those still serving time.
With the help of an inheritance from her mother, Curry has bought thousands of dictionaries for inmates.
"I’m a spelling freak. And what other resource shows you how to pronounce a word, use it in a sentence and find out what it means?" she asked, seated in a room cooled by a brick propping open the door at the end of a weathered mobile home that serves as her office.
The dictionaries she buys online are cheap — $3.76 each — which helps conserve funds. "You can’t even buy a pack of cigarettes for that much," she said, gesturing to a pack of Marlboros on the desk.
Curry asks only one thing in return: a name of someone inmates want to visit them. Curry then plugs those names into a database that matches up inmates with loved ones, with whom she often shares long weekend rides to remote prisons.
Word has spread throughout the prison system. To date, Curry has sent more than 2,000 dictionaries to Arkansas inmates.
"I’m writing on behalf of the dictionary. I’ve receive[d] it. I thank you so much for it. I have no idea why you are doing this. But it is a blessing to know people care like yourself," an inmate at the Cummins Unit wrote recently.
Dressed in a long denim dress punctuated by quilted patches, Curry talks with her hands. But her long thin arms fall to her side when she’s asked how successful her car-pool program has been.
"It’s been extremely difficult," she said, adding that she’s made 45 matches since starting her nonprofit Living in Truth Inc. in 2001. "But when it happens, it works out good for the inmate. They get a visit. And it works for their visitor. People don’t go advertising, ‘I’ve got a son in prison,’ and when you spend a day driving together, you realize you’re not alone."
Curry is used to encountering difficulty when navigating the lines between the free and incarcerated worlds. After her mother died in 1998, she suddenly had enough money to concentrate full time on prison issues, something she had become passionate about after meeting death row inmate Eugene Perry, who was executed in 1997.
Her interest heightened after a friend went to prison for growing marijuana. He wasn’t the same when he got out, she said.
"His whole body was tense. We went to the supermarket, and he couldn’t decide which brand of Coke to buy, he was overwhelmed," she said.
Her friend’s re-entry shock never really evaporated, and he ended up back in prison, she recalled.
The more former inmates she met, the more convinced Curry became that someone needed to offer help getting them through their incarceration and parole.
Her first idea to build Aframe units on her land to house a half-dozen parolees ran into sizable opposition from county residents, who lobbied the Quorum Court to pass an ordinance regulating halfway houses in the county in 2002.
Keith Preuitt, who has dated Curry since his release from the Calico Rock Unit in 2000, has been a reluctant convert to Curry’s vision.
"To be honest, I didn’t think it was a worthwhile thing," said Preuitt, who served 3 1/2 years for forgery and receiving stolen goods. "But there can be a success rate."
Still, getting a letter from a former inmate who is back in prison can be frustrating, he said.
Curry’s older brother, Jim Kraft, also was initially skeptical. He thought her time might be better spent helping the homeless or AIDs patients.
"You think, ‘Do they really deserve it?’" said Kraft, 55, who lives in Minneapolis. "But you think again, and they really are thrown out on the street without much preparation. I’m glad somebody’s willing to do it."
Curry also gets involved in inmate grievances. This spring, she took up the cause of Willie Bogard, an inmate at the Cummins Unit who said correctional officers beat him after he struck a female officer. Prison officials say the case is still under investigation.
Donald Bogard, Willie’s uncle, said Curry helped the family navigate the prison bureaucracy from their home in Concord, Calif.
"She did a great job for us," Bogard said. "She helped us get through a system I wasn’t too familiar with. She became a liaison."
Prison officials also acknowledge her efforts, especially the ride-sharing.
"Not many groups make an effort to help inmates, and we applaud those who do," said Dina Tyler, spokesman for the Department of Correction. "Too often, people are locked away and forgotten. We don’t want that to happen because most of them are coming home one day, and they need something or someone to come back to."
Other states, such as California and Pennsylvania, have well-established, powerful inmate lobbies. The Pennsylvania Prison Society has existed since 1787 and has legislative power to appoint citizens as official visitors to investigate complaints. Spokesman Catherine Wise said the society has contracts with the state for about $1 million to provide services to the state’s elderly inmates.
"You’re a better advocate if you have a good relationship with government," she said.
Curry has financed Living in Truth’s operations almost entirely from her inheritance without any help from the state or private foundations. But the dwindling funds won’t last forever.
"We really need to find someone who is very rich and has a brother in prison," she said, only half-jokingly.
But if that unlikely benefactor never appears, Preuitt predicted that Curry would "spend her last red dime" helping inmates.
"She’s very defiant. If someone tells her that it can’t be done, she’ll find a way to do it."
BY CHARLIE FRAGO ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
SNOWBALL — Carol Curry first saw the relatively flat stretch of land ringed by rugged Searcy County hills that would become her home while on the arm of a long-haired husband looking for enough land to build a house and raise goats.
Over the next 30 years, she divorced, raised a son, drove a van that ferried Medicare patients to doctors’ appointments, worked as a bail bondsman, sobered up and ran for sheriff.
At age 53, Curry, once a selfdescribed "hippy chick," has found her calling: trying to make life better for as many of the state’s 13,200 prison inmates as she can.
In the process, she’s turned her 54 acres into the center of prison advocacy in the state. A plan to house ex-cons alienated her neighbors, who forced her to back away from creating a postrelease center on the property. She has instead concentrated on improving the spelling skills and the number of visitors of those still serving time.
With the help of an inheritance from her mother, Curry has bought thousands of dictionaries for inmates.
"I’m a spelling freak. And what other resource shows you how to pronounce a word, use it in a sentence and find out what it means?" she asked, seated in a room cooled by a brick propping open the door at the end of a weathered mobile home that serves as her office.
The dictionaries she buys online are cheap — $3.76 each — which helps conserve funds. "You can’t even buy a pack of cigarettes for that much," she said, gesturing to a pack of Marlboros on the desk.
Curry asks only one thing in return: a name of someone inmates want to visit them. Curry then plugs those names into a database that matches up inmates with loved ones, with whom she often shares long weekend rides to remote prisons.
Word has spread throughout the prison system. To date, Curry has sent more than 2,000 dictionaries to Arkansas inmates.
"I’m writing on behalf of the dictionary. I’ve receive[d] it. I thank you so much for it. I have no idea why you are doing this. But it is a blessing to know people care like yourself," an inmate at the Cummins Unit wrote recently.
Dressed in a long denim dress punctuated by quilted patches, Curry talks with her hands. But her long thin arms fall to her side when she’s asked how successful her car-pool program has been.
"It’s been extremely difficult," she said, adding that she’s made 45 matches since starting her nonprofit Living in Truth Inc. in 2001. "But when it happens, it works out good for the inmate. They get a visit. And it works for their visitor. People don’t go advertising, ‘I’ve got a son in prison,’ and when you spend a day driving together, you realize you’re not alone."
Curry is used to encountering difficulty when navigating the lines between the free and incarcerated worlds. After her mother died in 1998, she suddenly had enough money to concentrate full time on prison issues, something she had become passionate about after meeting death row inmate Eugene Perry, who was executed in 1997.
Her interest heightened after a friend went to prison for growing marijuana. He wasn’t the same when he got out, she said.
"His whole body was tense. We went to the supermarket, and he couldn’t decide which brand of Coke to buy, he was overwhelmed," she said.
Her friend’s re-entry shock never really evaporated, and he ended up back in prison, she recalled.
The more former inmates she met, the more convinced Curry became that someone needed to offer help getting them through their incarceration and parole.
Her first idea to build Aframe units on her land to house a half-dozen parolees ran into sizable opposition from county residents, who lobbied the Quorum Court to pass an ordinance regulating halfway houses in the county in 2002.
Keith Preuitt, who has dated Curry since his release from the Calico Rock Unit in 2000, has been a reluctant convert to Curry’s vision.
"To be honest, I didn’t think it was a worthwhile thing," said Preuitt, who served 3 1/2 years for forgery and receiving stolen goods. "But there can be a success rate."
Still, getting a letter from a former inmate who is back in prison can be frustrating, he said.
Curry’s older brother, Jim Kraft, also was initially skeptical. He thought her time might be better spent helping the homeless or AIDs patients.
"You think, ‘Do they really deserve it?’" said Kraft, 55, who lives in Minneapolis. "But you think again, and they really are thrown out on the street without much preparation. I’m glad somebody’s willing to do it."
Curry also gets involved in inmate grievances. This spring, she took up the cause of Willie Bogard, an inmate at the Cummins Unit who said correctional officers beat him after he struck a female officer. Prison officials say the case is still under investigation.
Donald Bogard, Willie’s uncle, said Curry helped the family navigate the prison bureaucracy from their home in Concord, Calif.
"She did a great job for us," Bogard said. "She helped us get through a system I wasn’t too familiar with. She became a liaison."
Prison officials also acknowledge her efforts, especially the ride-sharing.
"Not many groups make an effort to help inmates, and we applaud those who do," said Dina Tyler, spokesman for the Department of Correction. "Too often, people are locked away and forgotten. We don’t want that to happen because most of them are coming home one day, and they need something or someone to come back to."
Other states, such as California and Pennsylvania, have well-established, powerful inmate lobbies. The Pennsylvania Prison Society has existed since 1787 and has legislative power to appoint citizens as official visitors to investigate complaints. Spokesman Catherine Wise said the society has contracts with the state for about $1 million to provide services to the state’s elderly inmates.
"You’re a better advocate if you have a good relationship with government," she said.
Curry has financed Living in Truth’s operations almost entirely from her inheritance without any help from the state or private foundations. But the dwindling funds won’t last forever.
"We really need to find someone who is very rich and has a brother in prison," she said, only half-jokingly.
But if that unlikely benefactor never appears, Preuitt predicted that Curry would "spend her last red dime" helping inmates.
"She’s very defiant. If someone tells her that it can’t be done, she’ll find a way to do it."