So I watched him grow. I see Marquis walk, like star walking from inside of the Cook County, like I've seen him taking his steps and stuff like that and hair grow in and touch the glass that that was the sad part, you know, so my oldest son was more developed because they've 14 months apart. So I had one baby standing, looking at through the glass, and then I had a car seat on the counter looking my way and trying to interact with them a little bit as much as you can. And that's like the situation. But I can only imagine what that was doing it in.
roughly 10% of the total incarcerated population is made up of women. However, in many states, women's incarceration rates are continuing to grow faster than men's. This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College, I'm your host, Steve fast. Today we'll hear a little bit of the personal story of incarceration from a woman who is working with those who are trying to reclaim their lives after release, and helping apply her own lived experience.
My name is Dyanna Winchester, I am a system impacted woman, I work for women's Justice Institute as a reclamation specialist for the reclamation center. And I'm also a part of the third cohorts of the Illinois prisoner project ambassadors.
Tell us a little bit about your personal experience. I know that it's very difficult for people to understand what that's like to go through that process that the folks that you work with do. How did you get to the point where you were getting involved in this work?
Good question. And thank you for asking. So 2001, I was a arrested in, charged with first degree murder, aggravated kidnapping of my stepmother. And I am not somebody that shunts away ahead the truth of the matter, because in my mess, is my message. And so I did three years in a county, six years, overall, two different counties. And then I was sentenced in 2007, to the Illinois Department of Corrections were being served the rest of a 20 year sentence, which would have been like 13 years. And that process of transportation was easy to get to in the city of Chicago where I was born and raised. And then we went to Logan in 2013. From the white, the white was closed, it was a little further away. So my family didn't have transportation to get to visit me. And so WGI now is the one who provides the bus service to be able to see your children. So that is how I got involved with the women's justice system was because they would provide the transportation to the caregiver, which would be my mother, to bring my children down to visit me, they also invest deeper into the lives of the women who they serve. Because even I was a part of the act and our troops there in the prison. And when we would perform, they will come afterwards and have a luncheon with us and celebrate that accomplishment. Also, I went to Lakeland College, and when I graduated with my associates, I turned around and I've seen two of the staff members from WJ. Yeah, because, again, they invest themselves in our lives, not only just to bring our children but they care about us overall. So our relationship was formed because of that. And they also have another part or a partnership with Cook County Health where my colleague today so these big crews, but before she was the care coordinator for me, and right before I came home, I used to get all these messages from my email on the tablet that they allow us to have and sad. That was one of who is up this late send me messages, but it was her at home just making sure that I was doing well emotionally because I was about to transition home and making sure I had a parole site to go to and able to follow through my stipulations for my parole. So WGI is fully invested in the overall well being of the individual inside while they're there and transitioning home and while they are adjusting back into society. So that is how I got into the work with W J S. So a little bit about my background. I have a mentor named Charles Perry who got me into the reentry work and so I started off at Howard Erie Community Center doing workforce training, touched a little bit with live free as an organizer, but then found my roots here because one I am a woman system impacted to I am a witness to what their services can offer someone and then what is the compassion that I have for women because of what I've gone through. So what better place for me to be but here because I'm an example of what their investment into your life can produce, which is me and it could be any other woman that is willing to do the work willing to show up and willing to just strip themselves or whatever shame, guilt, that having a crime or being a survivor or overcome a claim resulting in and just be willing to just grow from it. And so that's how I came to W Jr, they had an opportunity for a position that was available, I applied, and here
I am, well, I would imagine is probably pretty helpful for the women that are, as you say, system impacted to be working with or see someone who understands how, what that experience is like, because I would imagine that there might be some distrust is just think that this is another part of the system, they might not think that Oh, is that this process is working in their best interest.
And I think is a godsend, too. I'm not overly religious. But I do believe that God has a hand and everything that is happening, what I went through what I experienced, and what he was preparing me for, and then utilizing all of that for where I am today. So I definitely have to give some praise to that. And him for allowing me to be you to last in the spaces.
Well, you mentioned transportation and transportation for family is one of the services and you mentioned that your kids then that's how they were able to visit you and see a see you there once you had been moved. But you also said it was what three years from when you were initially jailed to when you were sentenced? Correct.
It was six years, actually, throughout the process. Because I had four, it was five people on my case for me and myself. And so it wasn't until after everyone was charged and sentenced and all that type of stuff, that whole process and of how the court system goes that I was able to be sentenced. Now I probably could have took the 10 and ran home and did it and everything like that. But it was a process because again, everything had to be weaved through. And that is what it is a process. And so yeah, in the county for six years before I actually went to the Illinois Department of Corrections to finish my sentence out
what issues do mother's face in that process right in the process while you're awaiting trial and their charges that I would imagine that they might even say, Well, if you do this might be discharged. Or if you do something else that will be discharged. It has to be very difficult to weigh in not only with the fact that you are separated from your children, but also what must be going through the mind of somebody when they're trying to figure out the ongoing care of their children. So I wonder if you talk a little bit how that the system impacts even the decision making when you're facing trial, especially if you're not out on bail.
Yeah, so exactly what you said I was sitting in the interrogation room and they knew I had not physically committed a murder because I was in a custody when the victim in the case my stepmother was killed. So they knew I physically had not done anything, but they still charged me with first degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, and then they played upon that with oh, well, you know, the state's attorney is going to need your help. And so that puts me in a position where I'm gonna do whatever it takes to try to get out of prison, right, especially being 19 years old and unequipped. And just never imagined I would be just graduating out of high school for the hope of life and then sitting in an interrogation room. So yes, I had a five month old son pregnant with my youngest son. Also, when I went in, I was four weeks pregnant. So that was a lot of pressure pressure, did I should I board, because am I gonna be there to raise my child, you know, but I did keep the faith. And I did have my son. And so both of my children were raised by my family members. Thankfully, they didn't have to be a part of the system, and what that could look like. But there was a lot of anxiety for me, I can remember because I didn't come from a perfect childhood. And it was a lot of dysfunctions and abuse that had transpired. So I was had a lot of anxiety about that, because I didn't want my children to go through the same thing that I had experienced. But I felt powerless. I felt powerless about those decisions, because it was either my family had them or they would go in the system. Because I didn't have nobody standing there saying, oh, we'll take your children we understand what you're going through. So I didn't feel like I had a safe place for them. I only had what I had access to. And I would rather them be with my family versus in the state somewhere where I wouldn't know what was happening with them. At least I had some idea of where they were and then have access to be able to visit them and see their faces in the county behind the glass but once I got to the penitentiary I had physical contact with them. And DNA had played a lot of it played on me in regard to taking my time to because with the circumstance So in my case, I had kind of played against myself videotaped confession, you know, just all these things just trying to get out, you know, I thought all this would get me out, and then a tear, you get to oh, we're gonna, you know, just feed you food. And oh, you know, we're not going to charge you with murder all these lads that they tell you with the intention and strategy to do exactly that. So my attorney used to be from what I believe was State's Attorney, so I don't know if he was on my Saturdays, you know what I'm saying. So he had just gave me the advice to be prepared to sit at least a year, but I was going to only get charged with possibly aggravated kidnapping and only do six years. That's what he told me. But then, as time went on, it was like, Well, you know, they're gonna need you to help them and all this type of stuff. And so they came with a plea deal, the 20 years first, it was 22 years. And it was so ironic because I say you're trying to give me my life back I in prison, because I was 22 years old at the time. And so they broke it down to 20 years, which was the minimum of the sentence that they could give me for just a murder charge, which they still knew that I didn't commit. But it's, I guess, like an accountability for what I did choose or act upon in my case. So it was like you did this, which will lead to this. And so overall, this is what you're guilty of, but this is what they tell you. But in conscious, not because I read a book or anything like that, I believe these things, because this is what was told to me. But if I had understand and law understanding, or whatever the understanding that I needed, I would have possibly played it differently. And so I just took the plea deal, because I was 19 years old, or 22 at the time, and I saw that I could get through that time, even though there would have been every year of my children's life as a toddler, adolescent, teenager, those things, I still knew that I will be home with them eventually. And I still have some type of life afterwards versus allowing them to give me 40 6080 years at 100% and never come home again, or being so old that I wouldn't have a life afterwards.
But how long did it take you mentally to kind of figure out that you said you were 22? To think about, okay, 22 years from now, the time what they said, this is when I'm finally done with that? I mean, when I was 22, I probably couldn't wrap my head around that concept. How long did it take for you to reckon that into really reasonably go? Okay, this does allow a relationship as opposed to a life completely apart. That must have been hard to think about.
I think that it's not something that I concretely accepted, but I weighed my options. And I went with what was told to me and what kind of made sense, I don't think I ever kind of liked, let it settle completely. But this was better than the ultimate or what could be. So it made more sense, then, like 40 6080 years having a fight for 20 years to give them all their time back. Possibly. That's the possibility. It's not a guarantee. So that was more of what made sense. Again, I would have been home by time I was starting and I'm still young, I still had a little life in me. And I think the main thing that kept me going was my children. Like, that's why the visits were so important. Phone calls, things like that. Even though as time went all communication was less and less because my kids were growing up and learning how to survive and developing on a own. I can just only imagine what that was like for them.
So you mentioned you were pregnant when they first arrested you and that you had another very young child at the time. Were you incarcerated or jailed when you actually to the time of term.
I did. Um, I had my son I was incarcerated from March 19. I didn't go and be booked into March 27. But I was in interrogation for March 19 2021. And I had my son December 3 of 2001.
How much time did you get with your son after he was born?
48 hours. That's what they allowed at the time.
What was that like for you emotionally? Then?
I will say very emotional. I cried the whole time just being very apologetic to him because it was like he had to go, you know, I'm saying I had to leave him and he had to go. So that was very hard.
So how long was it after that until you got to see him again.
I think right away. They came to visit me. My mother will be very intentional about bringing my children out to visit me because she knew that was important to me and That's probably a lot of my phone calls, sitting there trying to talk to a little baby over the phone, right? Hey, just listen to him breathe and stuff. And I'm getting all the stories about what my mother and my auntie was going through in that process of him developing and things like that, you know, keeping them up all night. And all those stories that are here, I see them, I believe right off, I know, it was this whole thing about letting the baby kind of get immune and all that type of stuff, because I have to be careful about bringing them certain spaces and stuff like that. And if I remember, it may not have been like, the next week. But within the next six weeks, I believe I've seen him right away.
I know sometimes when you're away from your kids, or I hear this from grandparents a lot don't live real close. They see the grandkids, maybe a month or two later. And they're like, Oh, look how much that changed. What was that? Like when you would have the visitation then you'd see your children? And would they seem Yeah, really different from time to time?
Yeah, of course, they grow. And they either asleep when they come visit to when they download or they ask open and they looking at you like what is this. So I watched them grow. And sometimes they be crammed and asked to get the bottle and all that type of stuff or smile and even and you'll just be able to have that joy, like, oh, he smiled at me, I see Marquis walk, like star walking from inside of the Cook County like I've seen him taking his steps and stuff like that and hair grow in and things like that and touch the glass that that was the sad part, you know, so my oldest son was more developed, then Marquese was, because he was five, they'd been 14 months apart. So he was standing and walking, when Marquis was coming to visit me in this baby seat and all that type of stuff. So I had one baby standing, looking at through the glass. And then I had a car seat on the counter looking at my way and trying to interact with them a little bit as much as you can and that type of situation. But I can only imagine what that was doing it in, you know that some of the stuff that you don't think about when you are sad or just being human to think a lot about yourself and thinking about like now having this conversation what that was like for you, as a kid developing? Like they're like, what type of messages was that? For them?
Have you talked to them about that?
So unfortunately, my oldest son was killed. Now months after I came home from prison to gun violence in Chicago. So what I will say is that in conversations that I remember having with him over the phone, or when I came home, No, we never touched on that. I would, you know, kind of try to poke at them and say like, how are you feeling? Do you have any questions for me, you know, and let them know that I was always sorry about not being there. And if I could have I would have but that was out of my control after the decision process of getting me there. Today, with my youngest son, we have one of those relationships. And I would say a lot of it stems from things that have transpired since I've been home, which is the death of my oldest son, the death of my little brother due to health problems and things like that. And so a lot of deaths occur while I was inside, even with my grandmother, the father figure that raise Marquese, which is my youngest son. So he has experienced a lot of grief and grief that I don't think he understands or has been channeled by a counselor or grief group or something like that. So he has tried to survive the best way he knows how. So to answer that question. When I have tried to have conversations with him concerning how it has affected him. He his answer to me is it doesn't matter. It's over now. So because I you know, asked him Do we want to do counseling so we can talk about that things because I know it has had an effect on him. And he says to me, it doesn't matter. It's over now.
Going back a little bit when you were then relocated leave you said was Logan County.
Logan from the white the White was close. And then we went to Logan in 2013. So that's when that was March of 2013.
So that must have really put more of an emphasis for you on the importance because I would imagine the visits couldn't be quite as frequent. How did you learn about some of the resources that were available for your family to visit was that something that was readily available to you through the press? wasn't a system or was that something that had to be found outside of it?
Inside the prison system, they had a women and Family Services Department. And so another part of me saying I was being prepared for my position, I stayed involved in a lot of the programming and leisure time services, which was like recreational gym and the visitation aspect of things. And so for someone who may not have that outlet, or got involved like that, stayed in tune to what was going on. So staying connected networking helped a lot to know what the resources were on the inside. And so before women justice, you know, did the reunification, bus rides, Lutheran Social Services had it, but then when the recession occurred, they lost the funding. And then Cabrini Green Legal Aid, had women's Justice Institute now, partners with moms united and gets the funding for the bus visits and things like that. So to answer your question, basically, it was a flyer that they were sent out to the housing unit and put on a bulletin board. And people can sign up if they had children in the Chicagoland area, and wanted them to be a part of the reunification bus visit.
When you were again, incarcerated sound like you were involved with a lot of things very, probably someone that had a goal, that least, but as an incarcerated person, have you seen, either in your own experience or others, or even some of the folks that you're working with now, while they're incarcerated? Is there an overt tool, I guess that would be used by the folks in that system there to say, hey, you better behave, or you better do this or whatever, or we're going to take away your privileges to visit with your family.
There is a disciplinarian adjustment committee. That's what you call it adjustment committee. And so there's a write up system inside of the prison system. So if you misbehave, you will get a write up and write up as a consequence of segregation or loss of privileges. No day room, no commissary visitation restrictions, certain penalties hold that they had cold to him and stuff like that, I really didn't have many run ins with it, I did have time in my sentence where I did go to sick a few times for some physical confrontations and things like that. That was before they started taking time. And it was like, Oh, they don't have to worry about me anymore. And that was just learned behavior from my childhood. That was a lot of physical abuse. And so I channeled that in as some type of behavior in my head. That was, what to do, right. But I had to learn inside that, you know, no matter what I feel, or somebody has done to me, I don't have a right to put my hands on nobody. So I think that was learn from the consequences of losing time, or the possibility of that. And I didn't want to do that. I said, one thing I wasn't going to do was lose my outdate. So that changed it for me. And then just overall, like, once you have that consequence, it's enough for me to sit back and think about not wanting to have to deal with the consequences of it emotionally and physically.
Once you had your release, and you went through kind of the same system that you're helping folks with now, was it difficult to get reintegrated with your family with your grown children? And unfortunately, as you mentioned earlier, tragically, it was only as a short amount of time you got to spend with one of them. But what was that like for you? And I imagine there's a big difference between being able to see somebody for brief periods of time, and then just having that period of time all the time. Did you want to be around him all the time, they're like, okay,
if I'm honest, being around, my family wasn't bad. I went through a lot of judgment or being looked upon with certain expectations and things like that. And I am a very strong minded self willed, having my way type of person. And so I had said back along the fence that and knew what I wanted to do, which was come out and found a job, have my own place to eventually get a car you know, those type of things. I did come out and spend time with my family. My family is very orientated like they have a lot of cookouts and family gatherings, proms graduations, we got a lot of that going on this year. Actually four people at one time are coming out of high school right so we got to feel house for that. So yeah, there were a lot of gatherings and I was okay around family. It was more so a lot of anxiety around strangers. So people I didn't know because you And that's crazy because like imprison you around 1600 other women, right? So I should be used to being around other people, I think it was more so about my case, that had me a little leery. Like, I don't know these people. And I don't know what people's intentions are things like that. So over time that that got better. And just overall, my mother was a little bit like, it was a big thing about me coming back to Chicago, after my case, everybody, some people wanted me to come home, some people was like, you probably need to go to a whole nother state and start all over again, you know, but that was the other thing my attorney had suggested. When I took my time, they kind of made it a little acceptable. 20 years is a long time to be out of sight out of man, people forget, people heal. People, hopefully forgive things like that. So it was like, Go hide away for 20 years, and maybe come back and try it again. Right. But to answer your question, yeah, it was a lot of twists and turns, but unconditional love to some extent. And some, I can imagine some judgment and things like that it was some level of like boundaries with me concerning other people, the safety of the children around me, not that I'm a pedophile or anything like that. But in regards to like, having my nieces and nephews out, and then having the world out here, who still may remember things. And so the safety, that aspect of things. So I haven't had any issues. Thankfully, with all those thought patterns being there to kind of predict or, you know, assume what might happen, people have seen me and know about my case, and just was like, Oh, I'm glad you made it through that, or, you know, continue to do the good work you're doing and stay out of trouble, that type of stuff. Yeah. So I can imagine there was some precautions but love nevertheless,
was there any particular thought process or moment where you said, Okay, I want to take that a step further. And I'm going to talk about my experience, because as you said, at the very beginning, we first started talking that you are open with this, he talked about being incarcerated, and what got you incarcerated. And what led you to do that, because you didn't, you don't have to,
I think it's more transparency. So to give people the freedom to know that it's okay. It makes me relatable, some people that may be afraid to talk, it also sheds light on some of the in justices or the system that we encounter in based on a decision and your you for coming from your childhood and what that looks like. And I'm just free like, there is no shame, there is no guilt, there is no remorse, because I never want to be too puffed up to say, well, this is just what happened. No, This shouldn't have happened, someone life was taken, and that should not have happened. And then again, that just shows the level of like, I guess, restore justice when it comes down to her family, and what transpired because she has a sister adopted son or daughter, grandchildren that cared about her. And so like, show us some level of social responsibility to society saying, Hey, this is what transpired. I was young and very lost, not aware of my emotions, and what I was truly involved in totally over my head, not equipped. Not a lot of justification, rationalization or excuses is just what it was. But mitigating factors surrounding what transpired if they weren't looked at and understood. You know, it could be some level of understanding behind what happened, and life does happen, unfortunately, to us. And these circumstances, and so I don't mind talking about it, because if it can help somebody prevent their lives from leading to where man did, the biggest story now is the things that are transparent, like my son's death. You know, I tell that story a lot now to prevent gun violence. But when it comes down to my story, I don't man telling it, because I had to sit back and deal with me for 20 years concerning it. So whatever way that it can help. That's the reason why I tell it.
Well, Diana, I want to thank you so much for talking to us today. And I appreciate you sharing the story with me and talking a little bit about your experience and the experiences of others.
Thank you to feed fast. I appreciate the opportunity and faces that have come available to help in this process. And I'm always eager and ready to talk about it and help
Diana Winchester currently works as a reclamation specialist with the women's Justice Institute and as an ambassador for the Illinois Prison Project. If you are interested in other personal stories, interviews, and much more, subscribe to random acts of knowledge on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you heard this one. Thanks for listening
