Keep the Precious Members of Family Close to Your Breast and Heart

ByDon Railey

Keep the Precious Members of Family Close to Your Breast and Heart

I have a grand daughter in prison for drugs, and criminal damage. She is housed at the Perryville women’s facility in Goodyear Arizona where she received a 7 year sentence in a plea agreement in 1012.

She is in the hottest dessert area in Arizona. When it’s the tropical summer season the rains and dust storms add to the inmates’ misery. The daily temps in Goodyear average the in the triple digits from June through September. She writes me that the temp inside all the cells range in the 90’s at night preventing her and her fellow inmates from getting any sleep or rest. There is no air conditioning, only swamp cooling and fans which adds to their punishment. I know prison life isn’t supposed to be pleasant. She has a heart condition with a pace maker/defibrillator implanted in her left shoulder. I don’t think putting her very life and others like her in jeopardy is judicial prudence. I write to her weekly and encourage her to keep out of the prison politics and don’t loan or borrow money or things from anyone. She was witness to another inmate getting stabbed in the neck with a sharpened toothbrush over a $3.00 loan that didn’t get paid back as quickly as it should have been. She’s fortunate to have an older lady Bunkie to share her time with. They have become close friends and she is like a sister/mother figure for my grand daughter. They have each others backs and write letters home to their families.

She’s due to come home after 5 years in 2017 for good behavior. I tell her to do everything they expect and even more if she can. Our hearts are broken and we can’t wait to our baby back where she belongs. Myself and the rest of her family will stay engaged with this child and I can guarantee the ASPC will never get her again. We’ve all learned a lesson. Always keep the precious members of family close to your breast and heart. There are too many less traveled roads for them to get off on and lose their way and their freedom. She will be too busy being loved by her family and will never again be taken from us. This I can personally guarantee.

We love you Rebecca and our lives are forever changed.