From Culmine (September 14, 2011):
Someone seeing the conditions for the first time as an observer would perhaps describe them favorably. There are little rabbits in the garden, little flowers on the walls, and irony smiles in this place, specifically designed for female minors who break the Law. Moving further inside, you come face-to-face with a sterilized, imposing atmosphere: cameras; double glass; thick strong bars; bright lights that are always on, even at night. The cells are opposite one another, with heavy doors that make a deafening bang when they close. The doors have a hole the height and size of your face, so the guard can disturb the prisoners every hour during her nightly rounds through the wing. She does this by turning on the light with a corridor switch and looking inside your cell. The girls in the wing are 14 to 21 years old. Violence is a regular phenomenon, always caused by the same “irreconcilable” differences—telephones or hot plates in use—but also by deeper differences: some want to assert their authority over others to thus “move up” in the eyes of the rest. There are “neighborhoods”—in other words, different tables at which each clique sits separately. The cliques are formed mainly according to where you’re from, and sometimes one clique comes into conflict with another, given that the element of “national pride” is strong. That said, there isn’t as much apparent racism toward immigrant prisoners in the relationships between prisoners as there is on the part of the staff.
The juvenile wing will never be peaceful, since it’s not like other women’s wings. The atmosphere is marked by the characteristic tension and energy of youth, of people who were brought up on crime and were therefore excluded from the stereotypical “normal” childhood. Here in prison, little “foreigners, thieves, prostitutes, drug addicts, and gypsies,” as some simply call them, may not be living a life like other girls. But they nevertheless have vital instincts, needs, and desires inside themselves, which they try to fulfill where they are now living—some for a short period of time and others for half their lives—and which they express outwardly through their attitudes. They are constantly looking for substitutes for the things imprisonment has deprived them of, sticking magazine photos on the walls of what they lack, like clothing, makeup, and half-naked men. They throw “parties,” dance to loud music, get involved in sexual relationships with one another, or come up with schemes to get high. Of course, there are also some who don’t even try to fill the emptiness of their stolen lives, because they feel their lives are over. They close up within themselves and their cells; they swallow razor blades, batteries, etc.; they vomit blood; they make deep cuts on their hands and the rest of their bodies; they burn themselves with cigarettes. As they explain it themselves, with self-destructive logic, they are “dispersing their inner pain” by causing pain to their bodies as well. Or they’re simply doing it to get attention from the people around them. And those are the cases that often wind up in the psychiatric wing for a generous “therapy”of psychopharmacological drugs that turn them into vegetables. This certainly doesn’t just go on in the juvenile wing. It also goes on in other wings, in Korydallos, and generally in all prisons. Only here it’s more serious, given that the situation involves very young people who are still quite fragile when imprisonment comes to play its role, forming a personality that literally crushes any childhood they have left. Imprisonment becomes a such a part of their life and influences them so negatively that people who spend time in “correctional” institutions as minors generally wind up going back again later in life.
A few more words in general
Women’s prisons face the same problems as men’s: food, hot water, lack of medicine (there’s never a shortage of “stupefying” drugs; what’s really lacking are medicines that treat illness and other ailments), overcrowded cells. Apart from those, there are also certain idiosyncrasies that have to do exclusively with women—matters that require specialized care and infrastructure, like pregnancies, babies, gynecological problems, and mammographies. These are matters that prison neither takes care of nor faces up to in the manner that it should. The overwhelming majority of prisoners are immigrants, almost all of whom come from from the lower social strata—the ranks of petty criminals. This fact is a reflection of society itself, which pushes them to the margins for various reasons, whether racial, class, etc. These are degraded women who do their “work” by stealing, because quite simply that’s the only thing they learned to do or the only thing they are able to do to survive. But I don’t want to contribute to the mythologization of what goes on here, so I also have to talk about another side of prison: the situation of certain immigrants (especially gypsies) who advance economically by dealing heroin, and who have accumulated enormous fortunes. In any case, they are part of the range of people who seek their fortune on the path of so-called (by the law) “crime.” Petty theft, sex trafficking, and naturally drug dealing are thus the most “profitable” as well as the most accepted options for everyone, immigrant as well as Greek prisoners.
Women, especially immigrants, are confronted by the staff in the exact same way they are confronted by the State outside the walls—with disdain, racism, and indifference. Since they also have a problem with understanding and being understood, they are incapable of handling their legal cases, finding lawyers, filing petitions, and whatever else may be necessary. There is no service that can make things easier for them, no one deals with them, and they therefore remain victimized by their judicial sentence. The situation takes a tremendous toll on them and discourages them from demanding things, because rejection has put down roots inside them. Financially comfortable prisoners (yes, they also exist) from “higher social strata” are certainly not confronted the same way. Nevertheless, prisoners are a group of people one can easily compare with society. They form a heterogeneous mass comprising all kinds of people. From a woman full of the very dignity that comes from resisting the damage caused by imprisonment, to one who blatantly snitches. From a lady with aristocratic airs sentenced for embezzlement, to the poorest gypsy who stole wallets in the metro. From a drug addict, to a murderer who simply reached her limit. A mother who killed her son. One who pimped child prostitutes. Another who killed someone trying to rape her, or killed her husband, her father, her mother, a neighborhood shopkeeper. Each with a different motivation, a different conscience, or no conscience whatsoever. A complex of social contradictions and inequalities under the same roof, behind the same barbed-wire fence. Relationships between the women are typified by shared characteristics (nationality, criminal “pursuits”) or on the basis of common viewpoints, interests, or lifestyles.
The role of the political prisoner
In prisons, we are obligated to coexist with guards—in other words, a group of people, whether abusive or kind, who view us as political. But given our general position and the outside solidarity and public knowledge about our cases, it becomes clear that the political prisoner has solid ground under her feet. We don’t keep silent about anything, and the guards know that very well. We thus get a certain informal “respect” from them, which in some way facilitates our demands.
Contact with other prisoners is an opportunity for us to promote the values we hold as human beings and political subjects, values that automatically come into conflict with the established dog-eat-dog attitude fostered by the condition of imprisonment. We operate according to our own system of values, not prison’s. The radicalization of others can be achieved through our daily “friction” with them and through our behavior in practice. For example, if someone takes an interest in the wing’s problems, demands things, achieves those demands, and confronts abusive attitudes (like those of guards who are disdainful toward prisoners, or those of prisoners who snitch), then others see that person’s entire bearing methodically working toward what they recognize as dignified. That said, I don’t view political prisoners as some kind of prison elite. However, their combative experience outside the walls can be transferred inside, but also while they learn from the experiences of other prisoners, who have much to share. For total antagonism toward the regime that deprives us of liberty.
—Konstantina Karakatsani, Korydallos Women’s Prison
Konstantina Karakatsani wrote the following as her contribution to “Women Facing Imprisonment,” held on June 10 and 11 at the Patission 61 & Skaramaga squat in Athens. Karakatsani spent the first few months after her April 2010 arrest in the Thebes juvenile wing before being transferred to Korydallos, where she is currently serving an 11-year sentence on charges pertaining to the Fire Cells Conspiracy.
Someone seeing the conditions for the first time as an observer would perhaps describe them favorably. There are little rabbits in the garden, little flowers on the walls, and irony smiles in this place, specifically designed for female minors who break the Law. Moving further inside, you come face-to-face with a sterilized, imposing atmosphere: cameras; double glass; thick strong bars; bright lights that are always on, even at night. The cells are opposite one another, with heavy doors that make a deafening bang when they close. The doors have a hole the height and size of your face, so the guard can disturb the prisoners every hour during her nightly rounds through the wing. She does this by turning on the light with a corridor switch and looking inside your cell. The girls in the wing are 14 to 21 years old. Violence is a regular phenomenon, always caused by the same “irreconcilable” differences—telephones or hot plates in use—but also by deeper differences: some want to assert their authority over others to thus “move up” in the eyes of the rest. There are “neighborhoods”—in other words, different tables at which each clique sits separately. The cliques are formed mainly according to where you’re from, and sometimes one clique comes into conflict with another, given that the element of “national pride” is strong. That said, there isn’t as much apparent racism toward immigrant prisoners in the relationships between prisoners as there is on the part of the staff.
The juvenile wing will never be peaceful, since it’s not like other women’s wings. The atmosphere is marked by the characteristic tension and energy of youth, of people who were brought up on crime and were therefore excluded from the stereotypical “normal” childhood. Here in prison, little “foreigners, thieves, prostitutes, drug addicts, and gypsies,” as some simply call them, may not be living a life like other girls. But they nevertheless have vital instincts, needs, and desires inside themselves, which they try to fulfill where they are now living—some for a short period of time and others for half their lives—and which they express outwardly through their attitudes. They are constantly looking for substitutes for the things imprisonment has deprived them of, sticking magazine photos on the walls of what they lack, like clothing, makeup, and half-naked men. They throw “parties,” dance to loud music, get involved in sexual relationships with one another, or come up with schemes to get high. Of course, there are also some who don’t even try to fill the emptiness of their stolen lives, because they feel their lives are over. They close up within themselves and their cells; they swallow razor blades, batteries, etc.; they vomit blood; they make deep cuts on their hands and the rest of their bodies; they burn themselves with cigarettes. As they explain it themselves, with self-destructive logic, they are “dispersing their inner pain” by causing pain to their bodies as well. Or they’re simply doing it to get attention from the people around them. And those are the cases that often wind up in the psychiatric wing for a generous “therapy”of psychopharmacological drugs that turn them into vegetables. This certainly doesn’t just go on in the juvenile wing. It also goes on in other wings, in Korydallos, and generally in all prisons. Only here it’s more serious, given that the situation involves very young people who are still quite fragile when imprisonment comes to play its role, forming a personality that literally crushes any childhood they have left. Imprisonment becomes a such a part of their life and influences them so negatively that people who spend time in “correctional” institutions as minors generally wind up going back again later in life.
A few more words in general
Women’s prisons face the same problems as men’s: food, hot water, lack of medicine (there’s never a shortage of “stupefying” drugs; what’s really lacking are medicines that treat illness and other ailments), overcrowded cells. Apart from those, there are also certain idiosyncrasies that have to do exclusively with women—matters that require specialized care and infrastructure, like pregnancies, babies, gynecological problems, and mammographies. These are matters that prison neither takes care of nor faces up to in the manner that it should. The overwhelming majority of prisoners are immigrants, almost all of whom come from from the lower social strata—the ranks of petty criminals. This fact is a reflection of society itself, which pushes them to the margins for various reasons, whether racial, class, etc. These are degraded women who do their “work” by stealing, because quite simply that’s the only thing they learned to do or the only thing they are able to do to survive. But I don’t want to contribute to the mythologization of what goes on here, so I also have to talk about another side of prison: the situation of certain immigrants (especially gypsies) who advance economically by dealing heroin, and who have accumulated enormous fortunes. In any case, they are part of the range of people who seek their fortune on the path of so-called (by the law) “crime.” Petty theft, sex trafficking, and naturally drug dealing are thus the most “profitable” as well as the most accepted options for everyone, immigrant as well as Greek prisoners.
Women, especially immigrants, are confronted by the staff in the exact same way they are confronted by the State outside the walls—with disdain, racism, and indifference. Since they also have a problem with understanding and being understood, they are incapable of handling their legal cases, finding lawyers, filing petitions, and whatever else may be necessary. There is no service that can make things easier for them, no one deals with them, and they therefore remain victimized by their judicial sentence. The situation takes a tremendous toll on them and discourages them from demanding things, because rejection has put down roots inside them. Financially comfortable prisoners (yes, they also exist) from “higher social strata” are certainly not confronted the same way. Nevertheless, prisoners are a group of people one can easily compare with society. They form a heterogeneous mass comprising all kinds of people. From a woman full of the very dignity that comes from resisting the damage caused by imprisonment, to one who blatantly snitches. From a lady with aristocratic airs sentenced for embezzlement, to the poorest gypsy who stole wallets in the metro. From a drug addict, to a murderer who simply reached her limit. A mother who killed her son. One who pimped child prostitutes. Another who killed someone trying to rape her, or killed her husband, her father, her mother, a neighborhood shopkeeper. Each with a different motivation, a different conscience, or no conscience whatsoever. A complex of social contradictions and inequalities under the same roof, behind the same barbed-wire fence. Relationships between the women are typified by shared characteristics (nationality, criminal “pursuits”) or on the basis of common viewpoints, interests, or lifestyles.
The role of the political prisoner
In prisons, we are obligated to coexist with guards—in other words, a group of people, whether abusive or kind, who view us as political. But given our general position and the outside solidarity and public knowledge about our cases, it becomes clear that the political prisoner has solid ground under her feet. We don’t keep silent about anything, and the guards know that very well. We thus get a certain informal “respect” from them, which in some way facilitates our demands.
Contact with other prisoners is an opportunity for us to promote the values we hold as human beings and political subjects, values that automatically come into conflict with the established dog-eat-dog attitude fostered by the condition of imprisonment. We operate according to our own system of values, not prison’s. The radicalization of others can be achieved through our daily “friction” with them and through our behavior in practice. For example, if someone takes an interest in the wing’s problems, demands things, achieves those demands, and confronts abusive attitudes (like those of guards who are disdainful toward prisoners, or those of prisoners who snitch), then others see that person’s entire bearing methodically working toward what they recognize as dignified. That said, I don’t view political prisoners as some kind of prison elite. However, their combative experience outside the walls can be transferred inside, but also while they learn from the experiences of other prisoners, who have much to share. For total antagonism toward the regime that deprives us of liberty.
—Konstantina Karakatsani, Korydallos Women’s Prison
