Oral History Program Darletha Scott Interviewed by Don Cavalli 28 August 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Darletha Scott Interviewed by Don Cavalli 28 August 1971 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Scott, Darletha, an oral history by Don Cavalli, 28 August 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Darletha Scott. The interview was conducted on August 28, 1971, by Don Cavalli at the Weber County Jail. The interviewee discusses her knowledge of drug abuse, prostitution, racism, and other crime practices in Utah. She also discusses her experiences with the Utah Justice System and shares her opinions on how they can be improved in the future. DC: This is an interview of Darletha Scott by Don Cavalli on the twenty eighth of August, 1971 at nine a.m. in the Weber County Jail for the Utah Oral History Project. The first question that I’d like to ask you is sort of a background question and I’d like to maybe have you discuss, if you’d like to, a little bit about your early years, your childhood, where you were born, how many brothers and sisters you had. DS: I was born here in the prison and I had four brothers, I had two sisters and one died in {amended} state industrial {amended}. What’d you want to know? DC: Well, had your parents, had they always been married, how long had your parents been married? DS: No, my father died when I was eight, and then my mother, she remarried when I was about ten years old. I never {amended} my stepfather. Not really. DC: Okay. What, when was the first time that you had an encounter with the criminal {amended}, the time you were picked up by an officer? DS: When I was fifteen years old. DC: Do you remember what it was for? 1 DS: They said, they called it, they said it was inciting a riot. A bunch of us was on 25th Street, and they {amended}, we was dressed in white, and a policeman came by and said {amended} in those clothing, you know, and so when he seen her doing something he thought it was me and so they referred me to Juvenile Court. DC: What happened? DS: They put me in court. We all had to go on probation. I had to go visit a probation officer about every two weeks. DC: {amended} experience in your field? DS: No, cause it was something I didn’t do. DC: So did that give you perhaps a bad attitude towards the system? DS: Towards police? DC: Uh-huh. DS: Yes. DC: Okay, what was the next experience you had with the system? DS: What was it? Oh, the next experience was when we went to a game at a stadium. We got into a fight, both of us girls got into a fight. DC: Do you remember the circumstances surrounding that experience, what happened? DS: No, not really, I just know we got in a fight with a bunch of other girls over the game being lost. DC: Oh, you mean you were in Jr. High School then? 2 DS: Yeah. DC: I see. Now what, you were referred to the juvenile court again, is that correct? DS: Yeah. DC: What happened? DS: The next time, well, they didn’t do anything to me. I just had to keep going to see them, and so {amended} there was me and this other girl was walking down the street. She said that a white girl had called her black, and so then that girl got in a fight, and I was trying to break it up. I was pulling, you know, trying to pull them apart, and that girl started fighting me. I was just trying to break it up, and she started fighting me, and so me and her started fighting, so she signed a complaint against me, and the other girl, too. Said we jumped on her. DC: So then what happened? Did you get referred to the juvenile court again? DS: Yeah. DC: What happened this time? DS: Well, Judge {amended}, every time I go there I have to explain to him what happened. So after I went, I’d been there five times {amended} he says that every time I come in I blame it on, you know, it wasn’t my fault, and so he told me, he said to go to the State Prison School. DC: So you’d been referred to the juvenile court about five times before you were actually sent to the State Industrial School? How old were you? DS: I was about fifteen at first. That was the last thing {amended} I was about fifteen. 3 DC: You got {amended} into the State Industrial School when you were fifteen years old? Now, let’s talk a little bit about detention. I assume you {amended} detention a couple of times, didn’t you? DS: Twice. DC: I see. Tell me a little bit about it, would you? DS: I hated it! (Laughter) I only went twice, and one time I stayed… about an hour and the other time, one time I stayed overnight. Had to stay in there twenty-four hours, sleep, and then come out in the morning {amended}. It was terrible, they {amended} for a juvenile, they really were {amended}. DC: You know they {amended}, don’t you? DS: Did they have it already? DC: Yeah. DS: Really? DC: Yeah, it opens up Wednesday. DS: Really? DC: Yes. In fact, that’s one of the things I get to work over, was a multipurpose room and an arts and crafts room. DS: Oh that’s great. DC: And they bought all new equipment that’s going to be {amended}. Well, tell me a little bit about what it was like in the detention room and what did you have to do? What did you do while you were there? 4 DS: Just, I didn’t do a single thing. I wasn’t there long enough to get out and watch TV. It’s worse than up here (laughter). DC: Okay, now you were sent to State Industrial School when you were fifteen years old. How long has this been? DS: Thirteen years. DC: Thirteen years. {Amended} finished school. Okay, now tell me about your experiences up there. I’m sure you could talk about that for hours and hours, so just go ahead and tell me about it. DS: It wasn’t very bad, you know {amended}. I never got into any trouble out there like that about segregation, or anything. I got along well with all the supervisors, every one of them you know {amended} the supervisors. They say I was sort of a leader. They’d treat me {amended} the games I like was their captain. I was working {amended} hard. I was a cheerleader out there… I was on committees. I went in April and my sister died in {amended} so they let me go home to the funeral, you see. DC: What’d your sister die of? DS: It was some kind of shot they gave her. She was, it was {amended} or something and they gave her a shot and… DC: She was allergic to it? DS: I guess so. And so I went out there. My mother was born in California, and so she asked them can I go with her. SO I really spent about three weeks in California. So when I come back they put me into one of the cottages, you know. I was the best thing they 5 got. They let you watch TV and, you know, it was really great. And then I mess up over there and so they sent me back over to the hall. DC: You said that you messed up. Can you tell me what you mean? What happened? DS: Well, all my friends were really over in the building, I wanted to go back. And so I talked loud and you know, behaving to the girls over there, so they sent me back over. {Amended} I didn’t like it over there. But that was about the only activity out there. I played basketball and volleyball, baseball {amended}. DC: Do you remember any experiences you had that were interesting? DS: They took us on campus one time. We camped up around… that was very nice. They took us, I got to go home every weekend. I was {amended}, I got to call home. I worked up there at {amended}. DC: Oh, that’s why you were at the State Industrial School? DS: Yeah. I worked up there (coal digging), and then I got to go home on the weekends {amended}. DC: You feel that was good? DS: I went to school half day and then the other half I went up there {amended}. I like it. I liked working up there with those people. I really did. DC: Did you continue after you were released from the State Industrial School? DS: No, it was just part time. After I got out, I went back to see if I could, you know, make {amended}. It was a {amended} hospital, {amended}. The lady before, she was pretty nice to me, {amended} she was pretty nice about having us there. 6 DC: What other type of experiences did you have there at the State Industrial School? What kind of things happened that you didn’t like? What would you recommend that we do up there to change it, to improve it? DS: The only thing I can think of is {amended}, it’s really not bad at all though. How to improve it anymore, I don’t know (laughter). It’s not that bad up there at all. DC: Now it’s been about three years since you were out there, but were drugs readily available out there? DS: No… not out there. DC: Drugs weren’t there? That wasn’t a problem? DS: I think they are now. DC: Have you heard that they are? Do you have friends that have talked about it? DS: I’ve that they were. DC: What other kinds of activities go on out there? What about socials, do they have socials out there? DS: Yeah, they have socials and they got a show, dances… DC: You feel it’s good? Do they have enough of it? DS: Yes, every week. DC: It gives you a chance to associate with the opposite sex and build relationships. I guess some of them end up dating, going together after they leave the State Industrial School, don’t they? DS: Yeah, getting married (laughter). 7 DC: When you were out there were there any girls that got pregnant? DS: No, not out there. DC: Not in the State Industrial School. Ok… now… what about the educational program out there? Do you feel that was good, helped you personally? DS: Well… yeah. It was too easy for me, really, I think, you know, too easy for me. I didn’t do any grade out there, when I come back, I haven’t done twelve. DC: Now when you finished the twelfth grade, aren’t you high school? I see, great. So you were graduated from high school then? DS: Uh-huh. DC: Did you go on to college? DS: Yeah, I went to this program at the college, the Respect Program. I went to that. I was taking data processing. I never did get to finish it. They kind of, you know, there wasn’t enough in it. They just… DC: Okay, now you were sixteen years of age when you got out of the State Industrial School, is that right? DS: Yeah. DC: And you had finished the eleventh grade? And then you went on and finished the twelfth grade. Okay, then what happened to you? What was your next experience with the system? DS: I don’t know how to answer. You mean the first time I got into something else? DC: Yes, when you got into trouble. Picked up by an officer. 8 DS: Well, let’s see… I think it was shoplifting. DC: How long had you been out of State Industrial School when that happened? DS: About two years. DC: So, you’d been out two years, been straight for two years then. DS: Yep. DC: Then what {amended}, why do you feel like you…? DS: I mean before I got into any more trouble I was an adult. DC: Uh-huh. DS: I was about, I was about seventeen, but I was going to turn eighteen in about a week or so. So before I {amended} a close friend of mine, we went up town, we decided we’d go shoplifting, and so we… They seen us, or {amended}. So after we went to the police station they asked us how old we were, and we told them we were eighteen, and so {amended}. They said “You are seventeen, or are you over eighteen?” he said, cause he said “If you’re seventeen you’re going to juvenile court,” he said, “they don’t get out till noon.” So we lied and said {amended} you know, {amended} we were about eighteen or nineteen, so we got thrown in jail. We got bailed out of jail and went to court. We got kind of scared, so we told that was the first time I’d done anything, and so he put us on probation, you know. So we told him we wasn’t old enough. We told him we weren’t but seventeen years old, so they tried us in juvenile court. DC: What happened? Were you placed on probation? DS: I worked, I think they had us work at the library. We worked at the library. 9 DC: I see. How long did you have to work there? DS: {Amended}. About four hours every day after school. I don’t know how long that was. I think about it was about twenty-four hours. DC: {Amended} for a few weeks then… DS: Yeah, that’s {amended}. DC: You say you were doing (drugs). What age did you start doing drugs? DS: I haven’t done drugs (laughter). DC: Well, in the {amended} get involved with drugs? That’s nothing, you know, that’s nothing now. I mean, I don’t mean {amended}. DS: Oh, I smoked weed, I never shot anything up {amended}. A lot of people I was around, you know, shoot, but I never did. DC: You never did try anything? DS: Nope. DC: What kept you from doing it? DS: I don’t know. I just never did. I {amended} the way some of them were, and I didn’t want to be involved with that. DC: So it was just a decision you made? DS: They’ve even asked me, you know, how can I sit around? And they be high off of it and I just sit there, you know, smoke weed. DC: So the only experience you’ve had is smoking marijuana? 10 DS: Yeah, well I drink, I’ve dropped speed. DC: But you don’t feel like you’ve become addicted to marijuana or speed, or any drug? DS: No. DC: I guess being here in jail you see some of the girls have gone through withdrawal and how bad news it really is, haven’t you? DS: Yeah. DC: Well, as far as the young people are concerned, what percentage of them do you think are doing drugs? DS: About eighty or ninety percent. I think mostly everybody does it. DC: What do they do? DS: There’s hardly anyone that I know that doesn’t. DC: Is that right? DS: Yeah. DC: What do most of them do? Do they do just weed or speed, or… DS: Most people will shoot heroin and smoke weed and… DC: Have you seen a lot of them shoot heroin? How many heroin addicts or heroin users do you think there are? DS: Here? DC: Uh-huh. 11 DS: About fifty or sixty I’d say. {Amended}. And there’s probably more but… And most of them are white, too. Cause I know all the black people {amended}. It’s not black people in {amended}. DC: I think it’s only about three percent of Ogden that is black, and about seven percent are Mexican American {amended}. There’s about two or three that are mixed, you know, Indian, Spanish-American, and a few other races. So it’s pretty dominantly white of course. But you take across the board, counting all races and so forth, that it would probably be… You think that it would be sixty, eighty percent that are using drugs, doing drugs, that would be… DS: In Utah? {Amended}. DC: No, just in the Ogden area. DS: Yes, about that many. DC: About that many. Are drugs readily available, are they easy to get? DS: Yeah. DC: Like if I wanted to get some weed tomorrow, would it be easy for me to make contacts here? DS: Yeah. DC: No problem. Who do you find normally push drugs? DS: What do you mean {amended}? DC: Is it the prisoners addicted to drugs already do you think? DS: Sometimes. {Amended}, you know. 12 DC: It’s not hard to get a job as a pusher, then. DS: No, not at all. If that’s what you want to do. DC: How many pushers do you think there are? DS: I don’t remember who {amended}. There’s not too many. There’s quite a few in Salt Lake. DC: I guess it’s a pretty dangerous occupation, isn’t it? You’ve always got the police on your tail trying to break you or trying to prove that you’re a pusher. It’s a good way to get thrown in jail, I assume. A lot of danger involved, and I guess too, a person knows you’re a pusher. There’s a lot of people that would like to get the drugs but they don’t have the money. Guess there’s a lot of problems involved. Okay, well, now you went to the juvenile court on this shoplifting charge, but they didn’t do anything. They just kind of slapped your hand and said “Don’t do it again.” Then they just let you go. Do you feel that was good or do you wish they would have done something. How’d you feel about it? DS: I was just glad I wasn’t in jail (laughter). DC: You were just more or less happy that you didn’t go to jail. Okay, well, what was your attitude at that time? Did you have a good attitude towards things? Were you belligerent, or how’d you feel? DS: Toward what? DC: Just towards society, you know. 13 DS: The {amended} court thought I was a menace to society (laughter). I guess, you know, because every time the police take me in I’m always talking bad to them. I got so many obscene language, you know {amended}. DC: It’s hard to believe. You haven’t said one bad word all this time (laughter). DS: Well, see, I really wouldn’t say them if I didn’t have a reason. But some of them call me nigger and others… the judge {amended} they just don’t believe that their policemen would do these kinds of things but they… When I got arrested for what I’m in here now for, this police officer, Officer {amended}, they were bringing some other girl in and so he came up to me and he said “Yes, they got you nigger, huh?” I said, I said nigger, and I called him a bad name, and I said I talked bad to him. And he called me another, he got real {amended}, he handcuffed me. He got really close in the face and called me nigger. And it made me so mad, you know, all I could do was just spit, and I spit on him and he jumped on me and beat me up. DC: You mean he beat you up then? DS: Yeah. And I had to go to the hospital. They fined him but still, you know… DC: I’ll be darned. DS: They didn’t finally let him, you know… DC: He’s at Weber State College, now. DS: How do you know? DC: I just heard about it two days ago. The Chief of Police up there told him. DS: Jacob? 14 DC: No, Chief… DS: Weber State? Does he know what kind of guy he is? DC: I don’t know if he does or not. He knows that he has five years’ experience as an officer, and I guess he felt like he’s a good officer. I don’t know if he’s aware of this or not. DS: The Chief of Police said they gave him {amended} or get fired. I should have took him to court. I had a doctor’s report. I won’t take him to court, I could have took him to court, though. DC: Well how badly did he hurt you? DS: He hurt me bad cause I was {amended}. He hit me, beat me, kicked me in the stomach. And the other police officers were standing around. They didn’t even do a thing. They didn’t try to get him off me or anything. I was really hurt and the matron up here came in, she didn’t even want me locked up, you know, so she called {amended} and said “Go to the hospital.” She told them to take me right to the hospital. DC: I’ll be darned {amended} and yet she’s a real nice kid. Well, how long did you stay in the hospital? DS: Well, I went in and they gave me some shots and some medicine and then {amended}. DC: Then they brought you back up here {amended} or did he bring you right down to… DS: No, I had to go to court, I had to go to court first. I was gonna sign a complaint, and I talked to the Chief of Police, and he said that, ah… First he gave me some pictures of some different officers and told me to pick him out. I showed him which one it was. Then he told me to call him about Friday, he’d tell me. They were going to have a staff meeting or something, he told me call on the phone. I called him, he told me he’d been 15 fired. He did because, you know he’s always messing with black people. Like me and my niece {amended}. We were up town one day and he was {amended} and he called us over like this and we thought we were in trouble {amended} police officer wants to question us. Went up to the car and he held out a double barreled shotgun and pointed it at us. You know, he {amended} thought he was being funny. Scared us to death. DC: Yeah, I imagine it would. Well, let’s talk about police officers. Now you’ve had a real bad experience, apparently, on this occasion. And maybe many others. What other kind of bad experiences have you had with the officer? DS: With this officer? DC: With any officer. DS: Well, I believe it’s my mouth or something, the way I talk to them, cause I’ve always had them, you know, had them push me around, but I’ve never had any hit me or hurt me real bad like he did. I’ve had them push me around. This officer {amended} I came in once and he sprayed some mace in my eyes, he sprayed it in my eyes. Pushed me down and sprayed it, sprayed it on… DC: Did he have to, were you being…? DS: No, he really didn’t, that’s what I couldn’t, I could see it if I was just, you know, really fighting, or handcuffed, what could I do? I was standing on my feet, I couldn’t kick him. He just pushed me down and sprayed it in my eyes. DC: What were you in custody for on that occasion, do you recall? DS: Ah, obstructing an officer. He {amended} a police officer {amended} and I was standing there and {amended} (laughter). 16 DC: Well, what other kinds of experiences, when you were first arrested, when you were a teenager, when you were real young, what’d you think of the officer then? DS: Oh, you know, people will say they never called me any niggers or black anything, like some people will say they do, you know. I never thought they would do, were dirty, as I’ve seen some of them be. I didn’t think they’d do, {amended} do anything like that. They’d just arrest us, you know, if we had done {amended} wrong they’d arrest us and bring us in. They never drug us or, you know like some of these policemen, {amended} out here {blank spot in the tape}. Something like that, they never beat you or anything like that. DC: So actually before you even got involved with the system, you didn’t really have a bad attitude towards police officers. DS: Not until I was an adult, really. DC: And now {amended}. When you were a juvenile you still didn’t have a bad attitude, and it wasn’t really until you were an adult? DS: That I began to hate them. DC: What’s your attitude towards them now? DS: I hate them. DC: Pretty bad, huh? DS: Yeah. Cause I know a lot of them are just… DC: Course you realize that… Now don’t you think that it’s just a few of them that are this, it’s not the majority of them that are this way? 17 DS: Like I told {amended}, Chief of Police told me, he says, “Well you know not all are this way,” I says “Well, look,” I said “Look there was about six of them standing around when that one was, you know, just beating and kicking me.” I said, “Well, what did they do?” What else am I supposed to think about the police if they just stood there, you know? He could have killed me, {amended}. He said that when he asked {amended} about it, he admitted it, you know, he said he did it and everything. And he said, questioned us about it, and he said it didn’t happen so fast, you know. DC: All right, we’re talking about the police officer, and some of the problems you’ve had. You really don’t have a good attitude lately towards the officer. DS: No. DC: Is there any way that you think that could be changed? DS: Nope. DC: Do you think this is going to… Well now, let’s go back a little bit again where we left off. You told me you were picked up on petty larceny, and then you were referred to juvenile court. Okay, what was the first problem that you had as an adult? First time that you came to Weber County Jail as an adult. DS: Well, that was the first when I came up here when I was seventeen. DC: Yeah. You were still a juvenile then. When was the next time you were in Weber County Jail? DS: I think {amended} the next one was interfering with a police officer. DC: I see. 18 DS: And what happened was this, they caught this guy, and they said they caught him in {amended}. And so they asked me to get out of the store, and I said “What for?” I said “I haven’t did anything!” And I said “I’m not going anywhere.” And he said “Well, okay, you’re under arrest then for obstructing an officer.” And I said “Gosh, that quick?” And so he said, “If you get out,” he says, “We’ll {amended} but you better get out of here or you will be.” And the other one said “Well, she’s already under arrest.” And so he told me to go out, he said he told him he was taking me out to the car. So I went out, and was in the car. I just want to go, you know, really. And so {amended} wished {amended} so I went out to the car and {amended} my cousin said “You better run,” she says. And so she opened the door. I was just, you know, I was just mad. I run down the street. You know, I felt stupid cause we were up town, everybody was looking. I stopped and turned around, and I told them “Officers, this ain’t necessary.” {Unknown interruption.} DC: After our interruptions, shall we start again? DS: Yeah. I tried to stop him but {amended} I wasn’t gonna run. He grabbed me and handcuffed me, threw me out in the car, you know, and all the time I was trying to tell him that I wasn’t gonna run, you know, try anything. So he told me he was prejudice against me, and so I started calling him a bunch of names. So then I got escape. I got obstructing an officer, escape and obscene language. Three charges. You know, and I could have had that one. And so, you know, I talked very {amended} after we got in the elevator he pushed me down {amended} and anything I said to him he pushed me down and sprayed that mace in my eyes. DC: Oh, that’s where he did it, out by the elevator. I see, was there anyone else there? 19 DS: No. And he had this {amended}. He didn’t get to spray it. I just seen, I looked to see what he was doing after he pushed me down {amended} and I was talking and {amended} I said “Look, don’t {amended}.” I seen him go like that. I thought he was going to hit me, you know. I thought he was going to hit me with his flashlight, or something. {Amended} and I just got it in the back of my head, and around this eye {amended} and he sprayed and it burned me. DC: What’s that feel like? Never had mace sprayed in my face by a policeman. What’s that feel like? DS: It burned. DC: It’s really bad news then? DS: When I went to court for that thing they put me under Judge {amended} for custody and I went to school. I went to school and I went to work {amended} a nursery school teacher {amended} Weber State. In child psychology there. DC: Uh-huh. DS: Over there. I was working with Dr. {amended}. And I really liked it. I was working with three year olds. DC: So what did you do? What kind of things did you do? DS: Oh, teaching things and play with them. Read to them, read stories to them. DC: How long did you do this? 20 DS: About three months. See I got there at the end of the school term. It was almost over when I {amended} about three months. I like it {amended}. I was gonna try to get back in school in September, I was gonna try to get back in. Here I am (laughter). DC: Well now, were you arrested again after that last time you told me? You know obstructing justice and all? DS: See, that’s when they put me under the court probation. They suggested I go to school, and so… DC: You were placed under adult probation and parole? DS: No, not really. It was court probation. He just, he didn’t send me to the probation department. DC: Oh. DS: He let me just, you know, go to school. He said if I go to school, he said if I got into anything to expect trouble. So when I got in trouble this time they tied all that together. You know, they tied it all together. {Amended}. DC: Now, you hadn’t appeared before the court yet though, had you? DS: Yeah. DC: You had. And have they decided what’s going to happen to you? DS: Yeah, {amended} sent up here. DC: So how long are you gonna be here? DS: Six months. DC: Six months. 21 DS: I get two for one, {amended} probably be here {amended}. DC: When you say two for one would you explain that? DS: Two days for one. DC: How can you get that? DS: {Amended}. When they asked the judge can I get it two for one, he said yeah, and if I worked I get two for one. DC: So every day that you work, then you’ll get two days off instead of one. So you could be out of here in three months if you worked every day. I see. How’s it working out? Is it working? DS: Well, they said that they didn’t have it on my commitment. That I could get two for one. Oh, you have to say, I told the matron and she talked to my lawyer, and she says she’s going to have the judge send up a written, you know… I mean I could get {amended} and I’m supposed to start work today. DC: Great. Well, you’re working right now (laughter). And I’ll certainly verify it. Tell me about the Weber County Jail. You know when I interview people up here I like to have them talk about a jail and the people who administer the jail don’t mind because, you know, they realize that jail isn’t a hotel, and accommodations aren’t as good as in a hotel. DS: {Amended}. DC: Okay, now let me ask you that question first, too. Have you ever been in any other jail besides this one? 22 DS: I went to the Salt Lake Jail {amended}. I went to the Salt Lake Jail but I wasn’t there very long. DC: So that’s the only one you’ve been to besides this jail? DS: Yes. DC: Not including the State Industrial School and general detention? They are jails of sorts {amended}. Okay, tell me about the Weber County jail. You know, what you think about it, what you think could be done to improve it, so forth. DS: To be improved would be to get another one (laughter). They don’t have enough room, you know, {amended}. DC: How many are in the same cell that you’re in? DS: Four. DC: Four. How big is it? DS: Not big. DC: It’s about what, twelve by twelve, maybe? At the most? DS: Two sleep on the floor, two sleep on… DC: Two are on the floor? How many are in the cell back there all together? I mean {amended}. DS: Twelve. DC: Got twelve here now. Wow. How many cells are there? Forty-three cells? DS: {Amended}. 23 DC: And you’ve got four to each cell. Two and two on the floor and then two… DS: No, it’s four cells. DC: There are four cells. DS: One room has two girls. Two girls… three and four. DC: I see. Now are you one of the ones sleeping on the floor? DS: Yeah. DC: You are. What kind of food do you get here? DS: {Amended}. The food is terrible, really. DC: It’s really bad? DS: Yeah. DC: What now, as I mentioned to you before we are putting together a new gym. What would you like to see in the future? DS: Better food and {amended} like off the street, because they know they don’t have nothing {amended} like they don’t give you here, they don’t give toothbrushes or anything. You know, they’re supposed to supply all that for you. {Amended}. DC: You have to wear your own clothes, huh? DS: I’m wearing some of my friends until I can call my mother to bring, you know, to bring {amended}, you know, toothbrushes and things. DC: You don’t have any toothbrush at all? DS: I don’t have one. 24 DC: What do you do {amended}? DS: They didn’t give me no towels or anything. DC: How do you take showers then? DS: Well, they didn’t, you know, they didn’t give them to me. {Amended} just give them. DC: You mean to everybody? DS: Yeah. DC: Well, do they have shower accommodations here? Can you take a shower every day? DS: Yeah. DC: In private? DS: Well, they say in the winter the water’s just ice cold. Who wants to take an ice cold shower in the winter? DC: Is it… DS: It’s all right now, it’s pretty hot. DC: It’s pretty hot in here. Is it too hot? DS: Yeah. DC: Do you think an exercise yard would be a good idea, or something like that? DS: Yeah {amended} play cards and if we’re lucky we get to go out in the day yard. There’s nothing but chairs, nothing but chairs. If we’re lucky we get to go in there. {Amended}. DC: What else do you do besides play cards and go out in the day room once in a while? DS: That’s all you can do. 25 DC: Nothing else to do? DS: No. You can watch TV or listen to the radio. DC: What about books? DS: Yes, you could read them. DC: Is there ample reading material? DS: Not really {amended} I don’t know I read funny books (laughter). DC: What happened when you read all the funny books? DS: {Amended} no more yet. {Amended} I’ve only been here two days. DC: You don’t think it’ll take you three months to read them all? DS: No. DC: What kinds of… I guess you talk a lot, that’s one of the other things you can do, talk (laughter). Do you have any other recommendations that you’d like to make, for in the jail? DS: Just better food, we need more exercise… DC: Would it do any good to have group therapy here? Or have social workers come? DS: Yeah, yeah, I think so. No, the girls would be glad to have almost anything to get out of there {amended}. DC: Yeah, I don’t blame them. It’s not enjoyable being locked up, you know, even in a room. If it was in a motel and you had a {amended} it certainly wouldn’t be enjoyable, I’m sure. 26 I don’t think any of us want to be locked up. What’s going to happen to you when you leave Weber County jail? DS: I’m gonna try my damndest not to come back, I know that! DC: You think you’ll be able to make it? I mean, what do you anticipate? I’m sure you’ve been thinking about it and as time goes on you’re going to be thinking about it a lot more, I’m sure. DS: Yeah. DC: About what you’re going… DS: I wouldn’t be in all this, but see my husband, he’s in prison. DC: Oh, is that right? DS: And when he was out, you know, I never got in any trouble. I got a little {amended}. DC: Who’s taking care of your girl now? DS: My mother. DC: I see. How old is she? DS: Uh… she’s about nineteen, twenty months old. DC: I’ll be darned. I bet she misses her mother a lot. Well, okay now, you’ve been married one time, is that right? DS: Uh-huh. DC: And how long has your husband been in prison? DS: A year. He’s going before the board today. He should get a date {amended}. I hope so. 27 DC: Do you mind me asking what charge he’s in…? DS: No, grand larceny. DC: Grand larceny. Has he had a record of sorts? I mean has he been in quite a bit of trouble {amended}? DS: Some. He lived in Denver. I think he has. I don’t know. I think he has. DC: Really can’t talk about it that much, huh? DS: No, he’s been {amended}. {Amended} move over together, he never really got anything {amended} these other guys. DC: Was he doing drugs? DS: No. DC: You didn’t have that problem? DS: No. DC: And his friends that got him into the trouble, were they having any drug problems? DS: No. {Amended}. DC: (Laughter). He was right there. Well, what was his sentence, then? The one that hit him? I see. And you think that he’ll be out maybe in another year, year and a half? DS: Yeah, next year I think. DC: I guess usually on a one to ten it’s about two years with good behavior. Eighteen months is the average. 28 DS: And being {amended} board, see, he had good behavior. They say he works well, {amended} they gave him a {amended} he’d probably {amended} they think he’s on to the halfway house. DC: That’s right. Now usually it’s when they have about three months left. They let them go to the halfway house. They’re actually three kinds of people that they like to send to the halfway house. And that’s one that’s ready to come back into society. Help make the transition. They’ve got about three months left, and they got their date. And then the other person is one who’s violated the probation referral. And then they bring them to the halfway hall to try and see… instead of sending them out to prison, if they can make the transition with a little bit of supervision. Then of course the third one is the one who is having problems, or who’s broken a law, you know, committed a felony, and he’s going to go to the prison if they decide, if they don’t send him to the halfway home. DS: Why don’t they have something like the halfway home for women? DC: That’s a question that I {amended} answer. You know there are times, and all I can tell you is because there are fewer women who violate the law, have serious problems, than there are men. DS: There’s only twelve out here. DC: And you figure there are probably a hundred men here. We thought about possibly making it co-educational, and having the men out there and also maybe having, you know, some females in the same halfway home. But the trouble was it’s experimental. We don’t know if it’s going to work. You know, if you guys can make it work then we’re gonna probably have more of them. I wouldn’t be surprised to see half a dozen in the 29 next two or three years, if it works. And we might eventually do away with the prison almost total, except for those who are… DS: {Amended}. DC: Well, they’ve got, they can hold up to twenty, and I think they’ve got about twelve out there now. About twelve or fourteen. But they can hold up to twenty. So if we got half a dozen of them, see, that would be… Well, say we had four, and they all— DS: {Amended}. DC: Yeah. Say we eventually had four halfway houses. So four times twenty is eighty. We could have up to eighty. So that would mean that maybe, oh, two thirds of the people that are— DS: But are they gonna have {amended}? Has anyone ever ran from {amended}? DC: They have two. Two of them here, but most of them were alcoholics and so the conclusion would be drawn that the alcoholic could not adjust to a halfway home situation. But we haven’t had any felons run away yet. So, you know, that means something, and that our own {amended} they’re all working. Now my feeling is that they’re working all the time and they’re being supervised, closely supervised, they’re not going to get into trouble. DS: And when they get out they can keep their same job? DC: Oh, yeah. You bet. Absolutely. Now, I’m guessing there are a lot of things that we haven’t talked about. Things that happened in your life. Can you think of anything else that we haven’t talked about, that you’d like to discuss? Anything else that’s happened in your life that… 30 DS: Not really important (laughter). DC: You haven’t been under a probation and parole before, have you? DS: No. DC: {Amended}. How do the people treat you up here, as far as the people? I know the jail is bad, you know, but how are the people treating you? DS: Matron? DC: Yeah. DS: Oh, there’s on matron that I really like. She’s really a… well, they all are really. DC: You think they are all genuinely concerned about you? DS: Nope. (Laughter) I {amended} you know, friends. DC: Of course while you’re up here, I guess, you have visiting privileges of course. DS: Just before I came they took away, they didn’t have to visit behind a screen. There used to be visiting in the day room. DC: Oh, they no longer… DS: Nope. DC: What’s the reason for that, do you know? DS: No. Oh yeah, they found some outfits on one of the girls and then… DC: They were shooting up again? DS: They found them in the {amended} room. And that’s what they were shooting up on. DC: I’ll be darned. So now you can only visit through the screens out here in the hallway. 31 DS: Yeah. DC: Can you think of anything else that’s happened to you that would be of interest? Do you have anything else to say about the system, ways that it could be changed, improved? DS: About the police? DC: Everything, police and of course corrections? DS: Oh now, I don’t think the judge really gave me a fair chance. DC: You think judges should be more lenient, then? Just, what, slap the person’s hand and then just let them go? DS: No. DC: What should they do? DS: {Amended} like this one guy, he hoped that he could. Some people, they do fair, okay, they treated me as if I had done an armed robbery or something, you know. And mine was only a misdemeanor, petty larceny. And this guy did an armed robbery and got thirty days and two years’ probation. Shit, and I get thrown in here for a misdemeanor, petty larceny, and get six months. DC: What do you think they should have done? DS: Well, I think he should have given me some time for that, you know. But give me six months? DC: Course for this two for one there’s a good chance that you might be out in half that time, right? DS: Yeah. 32 DC: Maybe three or four months. Do you have any suggestions though as to what you’d like… Just giving you time, do you think that would have been the solution? What do you think, if you had your choice of anything that could be done to help you, to make you go completely straight, what do you think it would be? What would help you the most? DS: Maybe this will… DC: Do you think being in jail will… DS: I’m not, I know I don’t want to be away from my baby anymore right soon. DC: So what you’re saying is you’re just going to sit your time out and do it because you know you have to and so as you get out that’s it. Is that right? DS: I’d like to say that (laughter). But I can’t, I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Cause a lot of times I won’t be going out looking for trouble, you know, just… DC: {Amended} I guess the most {amended}. DS: I want to leave here. I know if I leave here I won’t get in any trouble. And I believe I’ll leave Utah too {amended}. DC: But you’re not going to wait for your husband? DS: Yes. {Amended}. DC: Okay, well, is there anything else you’d like to say? About the System? Of course you’re not too happy with the police system after you know, what happened. I hope that’s an isolated case. And I hope it {amended} happened. And I hope that if it ever happens again by any other officer the same thing happens, they get fired, cause there’s no 33 place for that kind of officer, no place at all. I’m sure you feel the same way. Can you think of anything else at all? DS: No. DC: Kind of run you dry, huh? 34