Hope inside prison is a rare thing.  You can always tell which people have it and which don’t.  The inmates who don’t possess this precious gift are aimless.  They roam, trying to find the next meaningless activity to fill time.  They have a void that needs filling and anything will do: drugs, sex, cards, fighting.  They’ll do whatever it takes to not think about the circumstances of their life. I know this because I used to be that person. I never engaged in fighting or drug use so it was even easier for me to ignore what I was doing and justify my behavior as a product of me being so young. In truth, I was searching.  I was hurting.  I was guilty and ashamed.  I was overwhelmed by the pain of a 48-year-sentence.  I was disgusted by what I’d done to find myself in prison. Back then I didn’t have the skills I needed to verbalize this to anyone.  Nor was I even aware that I had a problem.  All I knew was what I knew, and in reality that was nothing.  Until one day I encountered the other group of people.

The inmates who had hope were a different breed than I had seen.  Something was strange about them, and I was drawn to them.  They were alive.  They carried themselves in a way I wanted to.  Their heads were held high, and the guards spoke to them with respect.  To me they looked like they had it together.  I didn’t realize at the time that what they had was hope.  It just seemed like they cared a little more about what they did.

It was at this time I began taking college classes and moved into the college wing inside the prison.  I suddenly found myself surrounded – by hope.  It filled the eyes of the ladies I lived with.  They had dreams, plans, and purpose.  It was infectious.  They all had jobs and told me I needed one to.  Nobody had ever told me I needed to get a job inside of prison.  I thought all we did was play cards and sleep.  I wanted what they had, so I got a job as a tutor.  I was now working and going to class and spent my free time studying. I felt myself changing.  It wasn’t an overnight process, but I knew I was experiencing a transformation.  Maybe I really could be like these other inmates, these adults who seemed so successful.

Unfortunately, I still didn’t have a purpose in life.  I didn’t know why I was doing all of these things.  What was going to keep me going?  In 2017, I graduated with an Associate’s Degree and became a certified optician.  I even gave the valedictorian speech, and I got a job working for the Chaplain.  Certainly I was now just as successful as those women I sought to be like.  

Just as I thought my life was coming together, it came crashing down.  I got into a fight, and my actions landed me in segregation.  I wasn’t there long – just 10 days, but to me it was forever.  As I walked back to the hole with hands cuffed behind me and head hung low, a guard said something to me. 

“Aren’t you the girl who works for the Chaplain?” he asked me with condemnation in his voice.  All of the shame and guilt I felt before came flooding back to me.  It was like I was the preacher’s kid who got locked up.  During my seg stay, those words played over and over again in my head.  I had disappointed so many people.  I prayed.  It was all I knew how to do.  I begged God for another chance.  I asked Him to save me, and I thanked him – and I cried and cried and cried.  Then I felt His love.  It filled me up, and I knew that this was what it felt like to be Saved.  I became a Christian in the lowest place I could find myself.

When I got out of isolation, the Chaplain showed me forgiveness and let me keep my job.  I had to work hard to earn the respect back that I had built for years.  I was determined now.  I had found hope in that empty cell.  I knew that no matter what, God would love me.  I now had a goal post, something to hold on to no matter what happened.  I was different, and people started to notice.  I began self evaluations and examining why my crime happened.  I began working on becoming whole.  I purposed myself to help others.  I wrote proposals for classes.  I started working with the Prison Dog Program.  I wanted to give my hope to everyone.  

Then, in 2019, I lost my brother to an overdose.  He was my best friend, but we had been estranged since I became incarcerated.  I never had the chance to make amends with him and that still haunts me.  I think about myself in that moment, and what I would’ve done if I didn’t have hope.  But I did have it.  I took that hope and organized a recovery summit for the prison.  It was days of testimonies, powerpoints, and overdose awareness. 

I hope I changed at least one woman’s life in that time. Two years ago, Virginia passed a bill for people who committed their crimes as juveniles.  After serving 20 years they will be eligible for parole.  I was seventeen when I committed the heinous crime that took my mother’s life.  This new development, compounded with the hope I had, lit a fire inside me.  I can see my future even more, and it is good.  It is full of change, growth, and success.  I hope I can use my life to change the lives of the people who hear my story.  So I write.  I write to impart hope to those who have none.  I write to tell the stories I see.  I write to share my muse with the world. 

Mostly though, I hope…

ABOUT THE WRITER. If you’ve read a lot of WITS posts, you will know – this is the first post that has ever been shared here by a female. For that alone, I couldn’t be happier. If anyone has ever wondered, we rarely recieve any submissions from women, not because we do not support them. I couldn’t be happier about this being written by a female, but I am also thrilled to have one more strong voice on WITS with a different perspective than we have ever shared. I hope that we hear from Ashleigh again. She also came in second place in our spring writing contest with this essay. Ashleigh can be contacted at:

Ashleigh Dye #1454863
Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women
144 Prison Lane
Troy, VA 22974