Breaking the Cycle: Hope Beyond Incarceration

If they're telling me that they care for me and that I'm better and I know you can do better and just keep pushing me to where I believe it, you look at yourself. Oh, I am smart. Oh, I can do this. That's when the cycle breaks. A couple of members in our Rotary Club came to me and said, there is a problem with women leaving incarceration who are being trafficked again immediately upon release. Women are being released with nothing. I mean, basically all they have are the clothes on their back. They have the lack of family and friends. They have the lack of housing. So it's very difficult to try to transition into a regular life. So when I became aware of this, we decided to write a global grant to start a program called Intersection to Care. Intersection to Care is a program that helps women who are leaving incarceration reintegrate into the community. We have a movement and meditation class, a healthy living class, the colors of therapy class, and the KU technology class. I would characterize the community that has been built through Intersection to Care, women supporting women. It's a very empowering thing. Just to know that someone that barely even knows you or maybe doesn't know you at all is willing to come in and start helping you work on goals. So with the ITC program and the classes that they offered me, I'm beautifully broken. I'm worth sobriety. I'm worth a life. I'm worth a home. I'm worth a relationship. I'm worth freedom. I'm worth everything that I have. We often have stories that our minds tell us, right? Those stories are not necessarily the truth. And I invite you to think about that. So what can be helpful instead of listening to those stories and letting them define us is to tune into our bodies because our bodies tell the truth. One of the women in our Rotary Club is very into art. And so she came to me and said, hey, can we start an art class in the jail? This is one of the favorite aspects of the women who participate in the ITC program. The women who are part of the Intersection to Care program are women who've experienced a lot of trauma in their lives, whether it's domestic violence, drug addiction, human trafficking, other forms of sexual violence. Using art as a way to give safe space for these women to express themselves and to talk about their experience through creation, through creative expression, is a really powerful way to help them reform their identities, help restore their voices. We got some cameras and I got to draw and they hung it up and they showed it to everybody in Topeka. It was like, wow, I did this. It's like you've been doing something negative for so long and then you do something positive. It's like, wow. We also need to focus on housing because that is the only way to get on your feet. I had a revolving door of incarceration for over 20 years. It wasn't just this jail. It was several others, but this was the main jail. In 2019, I had to go back to my abuser's home. That's where I had to go. I didn't have money to go to Oxford, so thinking about when you are released from jail, they don't have a safe place to go and they're getting out with nothing and that's where Intersection to Care comes in. The woman gets a ride. It will take them to a safe place. We are at Willow Park, which is an Oxford house for women. What it means for me is a safe place and somewhere where I can build myself from the ground up. I don't have no deadline on when I have to leave here. It's just when I'm comfortable. It's cheap rent just so that we could get back on our feet. This program helps break the cycle of recidivism. When we started, the recidivism rate for the women was very high. What we're finding is that because of the program with the mentorship, the art therapy, the movement meditation, all of those combined have helped break that cycle for many, many women. We're doing some data tracking and only seven percent of the women have ended up back in jail. Those are astounding numbers to me. Here we are at the Healing in Color Stories of Strength art exhibit. Tonight we are having the finale event, which is a community conversation about the issues surrounding human trafficking and incarceration. It's been really exciting to see people's reactions to the women's artwork. I never thought my art would be anywhere hanging up anywhere. It's crazy. You can't wait for someone else to do something. We should be the change we want to see. The breaking of the cycle starts here with people from ITC who come in and actually care.