Why did they shackle me? Because they could.
by Jorge Renaud
When my parole officer told me she was going to cut my ankle monitor off, I didn’t take her seriously. I didn’t actually expect her to do what she ended up doing recently—sitting on the floor in front of me, scissors gnawing away at the heavy rubber, cutting off the monitor I’d worn every day for six months since I’d arrived in Massachusetts in May.
I’m currently on parole in Texas for a 1991 robbery conviction. That was my third conviction, all of them for robbery. I’d done three years of a five-year sentence and almost eight years of a 28-year sentence before being paroled in 1987. Then I landed this 60-year-sentence, of which I had to do at least 15 before I was eligible for release. I did 17 and was paroled in 2008. Like any individual on parole, life was precarious at first. I lived on a Longhorn ranch, doing construction work in Llano, a small, dusty, very conservative and exclusively Anglo town for six months. It was a necessary interlude of peace after the chaos of prison.
I was offered a job with a criminal justice non-profit and moved back to Austin. However, the founder of the non-profit took me into a stairwell and said the job offer was rescinded because I’d be “around girls,” which was confusing given my actual convictions, but that’s another story. I went to grad school, earned my Masters in Social Work and have worked as a policy analyst and community organizer ever since.
For 10 years in Texas, I was never on a monitor. I worked as an analyst with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, writing legislation and lobbying for its passage at the Capitol and in and out of legislators’ offices. I traveled across Texas, explaining prison and parole to families of incarcerated individuals, many of whom had read my book, “Behind the walls: A guide for families and friends of Texas prison inmates,” written and published while I was still inside.
I was hired as a national organizer, flying across the country to meet with groups of formerly incarcerated people (FIPs). Texas parole officials never denied me a travel permit, never put me on a curfew, never threatened or retaliated against me for my work with FIPs — or for writing legislation and directly criticizing Texas prison and parole board policy.
In May, when I arrived in Massachusetts to begin my current job, as a Senior Policy Analyst at the Prison Policy Initiative, all of that changed. I went to the Springfield office and was met by Massachusetts Interstate Compact and parole board officials, and they said they were going to put me on a monitor until they “got to know me.” They said that I was 200 miles from the Canadian border with what was basically a life-long parole. Yet, they didn’t have much to say when I responded that I’d been 200 miles from the Mexican border for 10 years prior, had family there, spoke Spanish fluently and had a passport. They also warned me that I had to let them know about anyone I met with a criminal history, and they weren’t amused when I said everyone in my life, by design, has a criminal history, and that this is what keeps me out of cages—that I would continue to organize affected individuals.
I went to the Springfield office and was met by Massachusetts Interstate Compact and parole board officials, and they said they were going to put me on a monitor until they “got to know me.”
The parole certificate they gave me in Massachusetts said my parole officer had decision-making powers. However, the supervisor who put the monitor on told me to write her in 90 days and she’d take it off, suggesting that she made the decisions. The PO did NOT have the juice, her supervisor did, and the 90 days went to 180 without conversation or reason.
It takes someone who has worked their way out of a cage, into a position of respect — not only from those around them, but that quiet sense of self-respect that prison erodes — and who is then shackled, to understand what I felt. Rage, yes. I am a respected member of the Texas progressive community, and Texas legislators call me to explain prison and parole issues. I’ve been interviewed and quoted. It was like 10 years of achievement and literally becoming “a productive member of society” meant nothing to Massachusetts. I asked around and heard how Massachusetts parole board officials snuffed out organizing by FIPs by revoking paroles for trivial, and perhaps made-up reasons. The monitor was there, blinking and vibrating, constantly reminding me of the possibility of a cage.
It takes someone who has worked their way out of a cage, into a position of respect — not only from those around them, but that quiet sense of self-respect that prison erodes — and who is then shackled to understand what I felt. […]The monitor was there, blinking and vibrating, constantly reminding me of the possibility of a cage.
Why did they shackle me? Because they could. Because they were aware of my activities in Austin, how I’d founded a group of politically active FIPs, and how we were not afraid of attending prison board or parole board meetings, with signs and chants and anger, willing to provide testimony that challenged prison and parole policy. Massachusetts believes itself to be progressive, and maybe it is in other ways, but it oppresses people on parole in a way that Texas never has.
My girlfriend and I couldn’t go rafting or kayaking or even hiking, because she was terrified that the GPS would lose signal and they would use that as an excuse to lock me up. We couldn’t travel to New York or Boston for more than a day trip because of the curfew, and that was one of the reasons we’d decided to come up to Massachusetts in the first place — to take advantage of New England culture. And it was infuriating, because I had no exclusionary zones, nowhere I was told not to go — the only conditions were to wear the damned thing and be in the house between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
In Massachusetts, all individuals convicted of sex offenses are required to wear shackles, and I know what people thought when they saw me with one. My neighbor put up a fence two months after we moved in and my girlfriend’s grandmother, suspicious at the best of times, swears he did it because he believes I’m going to go after his kids.
Those conditions are gone, at least for now. While my PO was cutting away the monitor, however, she made sure to tell me, “This is discretionary. It can come back.” It doesn’t matter what I do, what anyone does — they have that power, on a whim, to shackle and humiliate and oppress.
Jorge Antonio Renaud is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Prison Policy Initiative. His latest work there revolves around suggestions for shortening lengthy prison sentences, and why neither prosecutors nor survivors should influence parole decisions. He lives in Westfield, Massachusetts with his girlfriend Summer Allen, her grandmother, and Che, an 8-year-old boxer.
Read the new #NoMoreShackles report on ending the use of electronic monitoring for people on parole and join the campaign here.
This is part of a series titled #NoDigitalPrisons. Learn more about the issue here.
