My name is Sabrena Morgan. I am 44 and I am currently on home confinement after serving 4 years of my 9 year sentence. I am a first time, nonviolent offender, and I served my sentence at a low security federal prison satellite camp in Pekin, Illinois. I come from an extremely loving, caring, wonderful family that has never stopped cheering for me or believing in me even through my crazy journey. I love my family with all my heart. I have always been a little different and although I am by far the black sheep, I have never been treated that way. My loved ones have always blessed me with opportunity, endless support and encouragement, and unconditional love. Throughout most of my life I have battled depression, anxiety, eating disorders, addiction, and some traumatic head injuries as a cherry on top. My life has been a roller coaster, and at times, it has been intense. It took me coming to prison and really working on myself to straighten up and fly right. I could not ask for a better childhood. I was extremely curious and not really afraid, which turned out to be a scary combination later in my

When the corona virus first started becoming a “thing” in this country, I never foresaw the madness that lay ahead. In prison you live in a tiny bubble and do not always feel the effects of the outside world. Being an inmate and watching the news is often like watching something in a foreign land, its simply surreal. So many turns of events, surprises and horrors, came from Covid 19. I certainly never expected something like a virus to lead to a pandemic that would lead to early releases of prisoners, or that we would be locked in our unit and everyone would be running around in masks. I am so glad I started journaling this from the beginning when the Bureau of Prisons locked down. It is amazing how quickly humans forget, and I am shocked at how quick the details escape my brain. Every Saturday I go to type the adventures of the previous week and I find myself stopping to look at dates and second guessing MY OWN JOURNAL on when and how things went down. I could never have kept this all straight in my head. Life in prison can become rather mundane, but not with

While the corona virus has put almost the whole globe on house arrest and changed the entire world as we know it, it is still hard to believe the drastic changes that happen every single day. As I go over the previous week of my journal, I am always shocked. I watch the news in disbelief of the havoc the corona virus wreaks. No one is untouched, and this is especially true for inmates. For millions of prisoners in this country this is another week down of solitary confinement. Any inmate behind a fence is suffering in their solitude of their tiny cage, with only a toilet, a bed, and a desk. Another week of helplessness and for some, hopelessness, because even worse than the inmates suffering in solitude, a huge amount are suffering with the virus due to negligent medical care that inmates must deal with. The virus continues to infest the prisons, and even though plans to thin out the inmate population has been put in place, the prison system continues to drag its feet and move at a glacial pace and continue to keep prisoners in harm’s way. My prayers and heart go out to all inmates,

As the Covid 19 virus shuts down the country, as an inmate we have a whole new sense of helplessness. We are concerned about our family at home, our well-being, and our community here; negativity is spreading faster than the virus itself. We rise and fall together, and because of that, we need to check our attitudes and demeanor at the door. We must learn to transcend these trying times and use positivity and love to combat the depressing news and bad reports. I know my attitude impacts those around me, and I know how greatly we influence one another. Be that as it may, I know how important it is to count my blessings out loud and to point out to others that even though there is a tremendous amount of bad, there is still a lot of good, and we must talk about it. We are all stressed out with this virus hijacking life as we know it. It is always hard to see the end from the middle. So now is the time to battle those dark demons and counteract with light and positivity. Some of us have taken this as our cue to bring out that

With prisons and inmates out of sight and out of mind, I feel it is imperative to repeat myself and state once again that millions of inmates across this nation right now, have been, and are still experiencing cruel solitary confinement situations due to the pandemic. Due to staff shortages and trying to find a way to avoid an outbreak, inmates are confined to their tiny cells with a bed and a toilet for 22 to 23 hours a day now, and some are let out less than that. A shower every day is a privilege in some places. They are only allowed to come out in small groups to use the shower and the phone, and my understanding is that does not happen every day. At this camp, we are locked in but blessed with our free movement around the unit. The lack of fresh air and being able to go out in the sun is really wearing on some people. Here is my daily journal for the week of 4/15/20 to 4/21/20, week 3. 4/15/20 Wednesday Day 15 This has been an uneventful quiet day for us at this federal prison camp and honestly, we needed a day

On Tuesday March 31, 2020 I was on a 30-minute video visit with my family when I heard the announcement for yard recall. When we hear those announcements, it’s time to go to our housing units and then they count us. It isn’t normal that they do this at random times such as this, so I knew something was going on. The computer I use for video visits is right next to the window and I remember looking out wondering if there was a tornado, it did look a bit ominous. Announcements like a yard recall at a suspicious time can quickly escalate to panic. Ladies in the room started crying, thinking there was a tornado, because people tend to freak out in storms here; there was no tornado. By the time I had completed my video visit, they had announced they would be counting us, so I went back to my cube. They counted us and then made a quick announcement that we were to stay in our units for 14 days, that we were under a stay in place national order coming from the top of the Bureau of prisons. This is pretty much my journal from week

This is not the end of the world. It is just another intermission of life and a wind of change to strengthen us all. This is where the strong not only survive but their courage becomes a life preserver to the people around them, and lately, that has been a little tough. The truth is this is a scary and stressful time to be in prison. I know in my lifetime I have never experienced anything like this pandemic. Never have I known a time when the entire world went on house arrest. I have nothing to compare it to and not being on the streets to see for myself, it’s hard to comprehend what is going on. As inmates, we don’t see outside our prison camp. We have the news to watch and reports from family and friends to gather our information. The problem is when our brains start filling in the gaps and when fear creeps in, it’s hard to see clearly. We worry about our families at home and their well-being. The guilt from our situation along with so many ladies having young children stuck at home because they are not in school and not being able

If there was ever a time to want to be at a federal prison camp, it could be now. We seem to be fine so far, quarantined in our tiny bubble. Other than our visits being cancelled, and all volunteers being suspended for 30 days, we really don’t notice too much difference. Life as we know it just keeps on keeping on, it just seems like a normal day here, we don’t see the streets or the stores, so the corona scare doesn’t seem real to some of us. There are a lot of people that are terrified and panicking here, as there are out there. If we stay away from the television, and stay away from the inmate newscasters, we can’t be hijacked by the insanity. Here is an update about what is going on here as of Tuesday March 17, 2020. As I write this blog a load of toilet paper has arrived and is being unloaded. To be completely honest, as we started to get low, and as the rest of the world just can’t seem to find any, I was becoming concerned about our toilet paper situation, but here it is. So far, we have what

When I heard about one of my loved ones struggling with anxiety, I felt so bad for him. I hated to hear that he was having to endure something that I know can be so terrible. I can empathize because I have been in an ongoing battle with anxiety for most of my life. Just hearing about it made me remember the panic and terror it brings. I started thinking about those dreaded memories of wanting to jump out of my own skin and run away from myself because I just couldn’t take it anymore. Then it hit me, what I was conjuring up was memories of feelings from the past, I realized I don’t have anxiety anymore! I came to prison and lost my anxiety. So, what changed? Is it the routine or the institutional boundaries keeping my anxiety at bay? How did I not notice it was gone? I sure don’t want it back, but I want to know what ran it off, I might just be able to help someone with my story. For most of my life I have battled anxiety. I can remember times it felt like a debilitating curse that would swallow me whole