The Great Prison Panty Rebellion of Alabama

I have a confession to make.

I do not wear panties.

As I understand it, one in three other women follow this sort of lawless, drawerless dress code as well.

I haven't worn them since my first pregnancy when my OB-GYN informed me of the many good reasons for not doing so. I also find them uncomfortable. 

My mother doesn't wear them either. She hasn't since I told her about all the things my OB-GYN said.

There. It's out.

Now, I know some of you are saying, "LORETTA!, I don't believe I would have told all that. That is more than we ever wanted to know about you or your mother. Explain yourself at once!"

Well, I never thought I would have to share that little tidbit with the public. I would have preferred to keep it to myself, truth be known, but what happened one particular day as a result of this panty-less Alabama tribe was so beyond the pale that I have to share it with you.

My brother, Joseph* lives with alcoholism. This has led him to become a frequent resident of the Alabama Department of Corrections. All of his crimes are nonviolent, and they are all alcohol-related.

At this time of this incident, he was serving time on an alcohol-related charge.

After many weeks of planning and schedule arranging, I drove my mother and my oldest brother John (a disabled Airborne Ranger and combat veteran) to see Joseph at Elmore Correctional Facility, which is just outside of Montgomery.

Incidentally, it is also in the broadcasting area of "The Morning Show," a WAPZ-AM radio show I co-hosted with Roberta Franklin. I heard we were popular at Elmore and other Alabama prisons. I was looking forward to this visit not only for being able to see Joseph, but also to meet some of the people who listened to the show on a regular basis. It had recently been revealed that prisoners in jail for drug- and alcohol-related crimes could vote in Alabama. I wanted to talk among people who were looking forward to being released, having their records erased, and participating in local and national elections.

I considered from the outset of this trip that there might be trouble because of the radio show and my prison reform work but thought, "Nah … surely not." 

We drove down a winding country road, surrounded by large vegetable gardens in various stages of harvest, cow pastures with lots of passive cows mooing softly, and small rural homes.

Eventually, we came to a sprawl of ugly, yellow, corrugated steel buildings, many covered with rust, surrounded by chain-link fencing topped with concertina wire.

It was a really ugly blight on an otherwise beautiful landscape.

When we arrived, "Visitor Parking" was not clearly marked. There was a dusty lot strewn with chunks of broken pavement and several cars were parked in it, but I wanted to make certain that it wasn't an employee lot. Best not to run afoul of the guards if it can be avoided.

A guard was standing outside the guard shack, which was a squat cinder-block building painted an awful, eye-hurtin’, booger-green color. It was surrounded on three sides by the same razor wire-topped fencing as the rest of this miserable hole.

I rolled down my window and asked the guard if this was the proper lot to park in.

He looked at me like that was the most ludicrous question he had ever heard and gave me a dismissive wave of his hand.

I took that to mean, "Yes, this is the proper lot," and parked the car.

We weren't sure what we would be allowed to take in with us but left what we knew would be problematic -our cell phones and keys - in the car. We went into the guard shack and presented our IDs to the guards behind the desk and they proceeded to cross-reference us with information in their computer database.

The guard at the computer said, "Oh, so this is your first time visiting here. Joseph will be glad to see you."

"Yes, and we will be glad to see him, too. It's been a while."

There were two female guards in the shack conducting the visitor searches. One of them informed us that shorts were not allowed. Of course, my brother John was wearing shorts. Knee-length khaki shorts, very respectable, if you know what I mean.

This was upsetting, as it was obvious they were not going to let him in and we had driven over two hours to get there. As I noted earlier, my brother is disabled, and lots of things make it almost impossible for him to sit or stand for any extended period of time.

I asked if there was any store nearby that would be open on Sunday morning. Many businesses in Alabama still operate under blue laws. One of the guards told me the closest store was in Wetumpka, which was a good 18 miles away. So, despite it being a real inconvenience, we got back into our car and headed to find Walmart.

Getting proper clothing — a new pair of Liberty overalls — for my brother cost me $31.97 that I really did not have to spend. It was worth it to me though, because my brothers have always been very close, and both were very excited about the day. Also, you just can't beat a good pair of overalls.

After that was done, we headed back to the prison and back into the guard shack. We were told to leave our purses, any tobacco products, lighters, paper money, hats and everything but our trunk key in the car. 

While I went back out to place all of these items in the trunk, my mother and brother were searched.

When I re-entered the building my brother was nowhere in sight, and my mother was sitting on the couch looking upset. One of the female guards asked me, "Are you with her?"

"Yes. She is my mother."

"Well, she can't go in and visit."

"What? Why?" 

The guard gave me a scornful look and said, "Because she ain't wearing no panties."

As you can probably guess, I was completely poleaxed by such bizarre words and decided after a second that I must have misunderstood what she said.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Because she ain't wearing no panties."

I felt a fit of mad, cackling laughter coming over me at the absurdity of what was taking place. But I held it in and said, "And why is that a problem? No one is going to be checking to see whether or not my mother is wearing panties while we are visiting my brother. She is wearing pants! I could see why this rule might come into play if one were wearing a dress. What is the purpose of that rule?"

"It is just our rules. We don't owe you an explanation." 

"I think you do, because no rules are posted on your website about visits, nor do you give inmates a set of rules to pass along to their families, and looking around in here I see a bunch of rules posted but ‘mandatory panties’ is not among them. This has never been a problem on previous visits to the Alabama Department of Corrections." 

"Those are our rules."

My mom could tell I was about to lose my temper, and so, in a well-intentioned effort to diffuse the situation, she looked at the guard and announced all loud and proud, "I don't wear panties because they give me vaginitis." 

Oh dear, sweet Mary, Mother of God, this conversation was not, could not be taking place in an Alabama prison guard shack. I didn't know whether to shit or go blind, so great was my shock at the absolute absurdity of the scene playing out before me.

The guard fired back at my mom, "You got a note from your doctor?"

"No," my mom said. "Didn't realize I had to get my drawers checked to visit."

"It's okay," Mom said to me, although she looked as though she were about to cry. “You and John go ahead and I'll wait out here."

Then, my mother looked at the prison guard and asked if it was okay to sit on the couch in the reception room while she waited for us. It was brutally hot outside but nice and cool in the shack. 

"No. You are not allowed to be here," said the guard. 

"Well,” Mom said to me, “I guess I'll just wait out here in the car till y'all are done."

"No, you won't,” the guard replied. “In fact, you have to leave state property altogether. If you aren't visiting, you must leave."

Now, my mother is a meek, sweet, tiny, little Christian woman who has a mortal fear of driving in strange places. She will not drive in large cities, or on four-lane highways if she can get out of it — and having never been to this area of Alabama before today I wasn't about to send her off to get lost and add further frustration to this already unbelievable day.

I told them about my mother's fear of driving in strange places and a different female guard said she would direct her to a service station up the road.

I relented, reluctantly, and the two of them left the building.

I stood around and waited to be searched. The pro-panty guard stood beside me but did not motion for me to enter the search room. After a few minutes, the other guard came back in.

She looked at me and told me I was free to go on in and visit my brother.

And I almost did. I almost walked through that door unsearched, but then I thought that if they discovered I had not been searched after I had gotten through, then they might search me — as in body cavity — as well as my brother, and I did not want that to happen.

So I said, "You're sure I'm free to go on in?"

Both guards in unison, "Yes."

"But I haven't been searched," I said.

They both looked at each other and said, "I thought she searched you."

"Nope. Neither of you have searched me."

They looked at each other for a moment and one of them gestured for me to enter the search room. Unfortunately, this was the same guard that searched my mother.

"First, take off your shoes and show me the bottom of your feet."

"Now, lift up your bra and shake it out."

"Now, show me the top of your panties."

Oh, for fuck’s sake!

In all of the clamor about my mother not wearing drawers, I had forgotten that I did not wear them, either, I began to wonder if this day would ever end.

"It just dawned on me that I am not wearing any panties either," I inform the guard. "Look, my brother is disabled and can hardly stand on his own. He is without his cane because you wouldn't let him take it in. He needs me or my mother in there with him. He falls a lot. I am not going to go charging through the door announcing, ‘Hey, boys, I'm not wearing any panties,’ so no one is going to know aside from you. We have come a long way, and I have already driven 40 additional miles and spent $30 that I didn't have to spend so that my brother would have the proper attire. If I have to leave again, then visiting time will be over by the time I get back. I haven't seen my brother in a long time and do not know when I will be able to make this trip again. Do the right thing and let us visit him."

She didn't even consider it.

"You'll have to leave state property," she said.

Acknowledging defeat, I proceeded to the desk and asked the guard to return my license.

He looked up at me and said, "So, you aren't going to visit today?" As if he hadn't just witnessed the whole comedic tragedy with his own eyes. No one helped my brother John. They took his cane and sent him inside to visit with no assistance.

I almost lost it at that point, but held onto my tongue until I was out the door. My mom was still outside with the other female guard because she had lost the car in the damn parking lot. You can imagine how she would have fared if she had gone driving away on strange roads.

My mother was so overwhelmed at that point that she began to cry. I hate to see my mother cry.

I loaded her up in the car, and we drove to friendlier territory, where panties were not required.

We waited for an hour while mulling over all of the possible reasons why panties were such a big deal as long as one was wearing pants.

Then she added, "I should have told that guard to let me see her panties!"

Then my dear, sweet, earnest, country, Christian mother quipped in a genuinely horrified voice, "Oh lord, Loretta, they gon’ think we're some sort of weird, non-panty-wearing cult."

"With vaginitis," I added helpfully.

Hearing my soft-spoken, polite mother say such a thing with such grim, horror-stricken seriousness sent me into gales of laughter complete with snorts, tears, and a stitch in my side.

When I regained control of myself, we drove back to the prison to pick up my brother John. On our way home, John said, "Well, nobody checked my drawers."

Authors note:

I wrote this in September 2005. Since then, my oldest brother John has passed away,  my mother is in the end stages of aggressive Alzheimer’s disease, and Joseph has been released. His alcoholism is worse than ever because, despite the moniker Alabama Department of Corrections,  the prison system corrects nothing with regard to alcoholism and drug addiction. If there's a place on Earth less conducive to recovery than a prison setting, I've yet to come across it. 

The Alabama prison system has been declared unsafe and unconstitutional by the U.S. Department of Justice. Currently, there are 21,081 people crammed into a system designed to hold 12,000. One of those inmates is Willie Simmons, sentenced to life under the Three Strikes law. His first two crimes were drug-related.  His third strike was stealing $9 from someone to buy drugs. There are others like him. 

Two groups doing great work addressing the horrors of the ALDOC are The Equal Justice Initiative out of Montgomery and The Ordinary People Society out of Dothan. Bryan Stevenson, head of EJI, has been instrumental in freeing those who are wrongly convicted and sentenced to death from Alabama's death row. He does truly amazing work. The Ordinary People Society in Dothan is run by Kenneth Glasgow, a former inmate. Kenny's group provides services for those being released, to help them reintegrate into society upon release, runs a soup kitchen and was instrumental in registering eligible inmates to vote after they wrongly lost their right to vote due to misapplication of moral turpitude laws. 

The panties rule still stands for visitation.

While this story was written with a humorous slant, there's absolutely nothing comical about the hardship families go through trying to visit family or friends in prison. These trips often take hours to make because Alabama likes to send prisoners to prisons located the greatest distance from their families. It involves expenses like gas, food, and sometimes lodging and takes planning and time. From my experiences with the system, the families of inmates are often very poor, so just getting there to visit is a struggle. Prisoners need the support of their friends and loved ones while incarcerated if they are to have any hope of success once released.

*this brother’s name is a pseudonym

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