Marysville: Powder keg keg of boredom

By Jane M. Littleton

MARYSVILLE, O. The heat of the blaring sun was enough to make the women strolling to classes or work skip those chores and sit under one of the trees and try to stay cool. But that would be a grave offense at the Ohio Reformatory for Women here.

It had been about 90 degrees every day for a week, and after 4:20 p.m. there was dinner and you could play bingo, volleyball or read or wait for the bed whistle.

To work, to school, to dinner by the whistles. That is the unbroken routine for life for some of the women.

But on one hot day, July 6, a young woman in New Cottage asked the

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matron for a cup of ice. It took her too long to return without ice. There was arguing, shouting, pushing and kicking.

More than 100 women were fighting matrons in that cottage.

Soon women in other cottages were shouting, and Warden Dorothy M. Arn called the London Correctional Facility and the state highway patrol to help quell the disturbance.

There were no classes that day and only a few the next day. Staff members were not allowed to leave the 250-acre prison that night.

The monotonous routine had come to a halt. Like a sudden summer

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storm, the tension at the prison had exploded.

Twenty of the women who were considered the instigators were transferred to the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. They are in isolation in a cellblock area that was once Death Row.

"It was hot, and there were no activities, and she went off," an inmate said about the melee.

"You know 30 women aren't going to fight men over a cup of ice. There were too many women crowded up in there," a prison official commented.

"Oh, sure, we've got problems here," said Mrs. Arn. "The overcrowdedness, the women say, caused the riot here.

"By noon the next day, everything was almost back to routine. So the majority of women, I believe, just want to do their time, jobs and meet the parole board and go home."

Mrs. Arn, usually always organized and ready to stand up for the prison rules, is still unsettled about the disturbance.

"I'm still working on the disciplinary action," she said, holding up a

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stack of papers. "It keeps me from doing other important duties, and the disruption, it's just not fair to the other women who are trying to do what they are supposed to."

For every rule at the prison, Mrs. Arn said there is a reason. The women are not allowed to pass notes to each other, swap clothing or arch another woman's eyebrows. She said that was to prevent fighting and stealing.

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She admits that the current prison population about 594 women, ranging in age from 20 to 91 almost three times what it was two years ago.

Mrs. Arn doesn't like the overcrowded living quarters, especially when the prison was originally built so that the women would have private rooms. But the Marysville farm is the only state prison for women.

It is surrounded by acres of corn fields and has a reputation for being a nice place to stay if you've got some "time to do."

The women enroll in the educational or vocational programs after they have talked with their case workers. Twenty-five of the women are enrolled in college courses taught

by instructors from Urbana College.

The prison had no statistics on how many women are able to find jobs when the leave.

Job furloughs to Columbus are available for the women eight months before they face the parole board.

But even with this program, 26% of the women felons, most of whom are black, return to the farm to do additional time for other crimes, Mrs. Arn said.

Homosexuality on the farm is another problem Mrs. Arn discusses. "It's a way of life here. And it's a problem when there's a triangle and the women fight or feud over something they bought at the commissary for their lover, and it's taken. But homosexuality is not any more prevalent than it was 10 years ago," she said.

The prison doesn't allow conjugal visits, so the women design a subculture with rules and standards of behavior, mainly to pass the time. And homosexuality is part of that structure.

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Marie, 20, said she is "straight,' and the lesbian inmates never tried to force her "into the game."

"I think the hardest part for me was the waiting. It really didn't seem like a penitentiary. The only thing was being locked up every night. That's the worst part," Marie said. She was paroled from the farm last month.

She and other inmates cope with the prison routine by reading a lot, mostly the Bible."

"I've accepted Jesus in my life. I believe some of my flops before the parole board are because he wants me to grow more," one inmate said. Mrs. Arn also is a strong believer that the religious activities on the farm are vital to cleanse the women's souls. "Most of the women are involved in the church, and we push. that," she said.

Marie said she worries about the women she saw during her 11-month stay at the prison who were given medication to keep them subdued and quiet. But the sly ones hide the pills and later "swing it" or get high, she said.

She is also concerned with the medical negligence at the prison.

It was difficult for her to see a doctor, and she said she had a serious infection, which her family doctor had told her could result in cancer of the uterus.

"There's no one to talk to," she recalled. "I figured the other women had their problems, and you can't talk to the higher-ups here. They'll tell the warden. So God becomes important.

"You're lucky if you get out of the place and you don't hate life and the world, because there's just so much to hold inside."

At her home in a small town near Dayton, Marie said she plans to enter a nursing training program.

She was sentenced from one to five years for forging a $40 check and because she violated probation. “I know I can make it. I've lost a year, but no more," she said..

No more crime, she said. "It's like Baretta says, 'Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.'” ·