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Kind of interesting... Captive Audience: In Federal Prison, Stewart Caters To a New Crowd; Inmates Say She Gave Guidance On Sentencing, Weaving; Letters Typed at 6 a.m.; A Potluck Going-Away Party Laurie P. Cohen. Wall Street Journal. Mar 3, 2005. pg. A.1 (c) 2005. ALDERSON, W.Va. -- On a recent morning in the dining hall at the federal prison camp here, Martha Stewart listened, banana in hand, as two inmates told her of the assets they had to forfeit before serving lengthy sentences. A frustrated Ms. Stewart pounded her banana on the table, an inmate recalls. Susan C. Spry, serving a 12-year, seven-month sentence for possession of methamphetamine, says she blurted: "Martha, you're bruising your banana!" She says Ms. Stewart responded: "I just hate these sentencing guidelines." Martha Stewart built a lucrative empire upon her ability to cater to millions of women seeking domestic perfection. For the past five months, she has tapped into an entirely different group of women, becoming an adviser and confidante to her fellow inmates at Alderson prison camp. Ms. Stewart, who will be released to home confinement as soon as tomorrow, has given inmates guidance on sentencing, led yoga sessions and offered pointers to a prison weaving class. Last month, Ms. Stewart kicked off an eight-week seminar, organized by inmates, entitled "Empowerment for Women." Her lecture topic for the overflow crowd: "What's Hot and What's Not" in starting a business. "She's been trying hard to keep up morale" for women who have little to look forward to, Ms. Spry says. In letters written to this reporter from prison, Ms. Stewart, 63 years old, discussed the plights of her fellow inmates, many of whom, she says, are "perfectly nice 'neighbors next door.'" Among those she came to know: a nun convicted of sabotaging a Colorado missile site, North Carolina's ex-agriculture commissioner who admitted accepting bribes, and a psychologist serving time for Medicaid fraud. Ms. Stewart, who was convicted of lying to prosecutors about a stock sale, initially didn't hit it off with everyone. Ms. Spry says she had a spat with Ms. Stewart early on. Both were assigned to create floral arrangements for a memorial service for a corrections officer who died soon after Ms. Stewart's Oct. 6 arrival. "Right away, she got really bossy," recalls Ms. Spry, 54, "saying: 'Go get this and go get that.'" Ms. Spry says she did as told and Ms. Stewart fashioned a "beautiful" topiary, trimmed with pampas grass. But afterward, she decided to avoid Ms. Stewart. Days later, Ms. Stewart asked Ms. Spry what was wrong -- and then apologized, Ms. Spry says, leading to their friendship. There have been lingering tensions. Some inmates resent what they call preferential treatment: Unlike other prisoners, Ms. Stewart never has had to do "hard time" in an Alderson housing unit with little privacy. Instead, she has been housed from the start in the "cottages," which are like a dormitory. A spokesman for Alderson says he can't comment on where inmates are housed or why. Ms. Stewart's tenure at Alderson has coincided with budget constraints in the nation's federal prisons. Alderson, the first U.S. federal prison for women, was co-founded by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1927. The 95-acre facility, which houses nearly 1,000 inmates, has been hit in recent months with cutbacks. Milk, served three times a day until early last month, is now available only at breakfast. Food has been cut "very insensitively," Ms. Stewart said in a recent letter, as have magazines that "can only help education." During her stay, Ms. Stewart, perhaps the nation's most famous federal convict, has become interested in prison and sentencing reform. After a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in January that rendered mandatory sentencing guidelines unconstitutional, she wrote that she worried her fellow inmates would sink into a "severe depression" if courts fail to grant them shorter sentences. Her empathy for the women she soon will leave has brought her into conflict with some of her corporate advisers, according to people involved: They want the public to forget she is a convicted felon and have counseled her to talk only about future plans. Her time soon will be filled with business commitments, including a spinoff of the TV show, "The Apprentice." A number of Alderson's inmates hope she will ignore advice to distance herself from the prison. "She gives credence to the injustices here, for if someone like her can say it, people will figure it must be true," says psychologist Denise Braxtonbrown-Smith, 47, who is serving a seven-year, three-month sentence for Medicaid fraud. In a letter, Ms. Stewart says: "I am not an advocate of no punishment for serious crimes, but I am an advocate of short sentences for first-time offenders." Ms. Stewart says she has learned harsh sentences don't lead to "seeing the light." Her interest comes as more women are going to prison. Since 1995, the annual growth rate of the female inmate population has averaged 5%, compared with a 3.3% increase for men, according to a Justice Department report. At year-end 2003, there were 101,179 women and nearly 1.4 million men in state and federal prisons. Tougher drug laws have fueled much of the increase in the female prison population. Other offenses for which women are often convicted are nonviolent. For example, 21% of all women sentenced to federal prison in 2002 were sent there for fraud, compared with 3.5% of men, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Women are more likely than men to be first-time offenders, and female inmates tend to be older than male counterparts. The majority of sentenced women are mothers. Federal guidelines urge "gender equality" in sentencing. Federal appeals courts have, for instance, ruled that single motherhood by itself isn't extraordinary and can't be considered at sentencing. Alderson is set atop a hill and looks much like a college campus, with brick dormitory-style buildings. There are no metal fences surrounding the camp. Alderson spokesman Sam Adams says escape isn't a risk because "there's really nowhere to go around here." The facility is difficult to reach for the families of inmates, many of whom are indigent. The nearest train line is 22 miles away; the nearest bus depot, 17 miles. A taxi ride from either place costs more than $20. Alderson prison wasn't Ms. Stewart's first choice. "I had hoped to be designated to a facility closer to my family and more accessible to my appellate attorneys," Ms. Stewart said in a statement issued in September. Unlike most inmates, visitation hasn't been a problem for Ms. Stewart's friends and family. Visitors reach her by flying in private aircraft to the Greenbrier Valley Airport, a small airport in Lewisburg, and then driving for 30 minutes. Inmates at Alderson typically spend a year in "The Range," a two- story brick building that accommodates 500 women in units without doors, known as "cubes." There are bunk beds, lockers and large shower rooms. Other well-connected inmates have been sent there. Meg Scott Phipps -- the former North Carolina agriculture commissioner and the daughter and granddaughter of former governors -- spent 11 months in the Range, before moving to a cottage this year. Mrs. Phipps, 49, is serving a 46-month sentence for accepting bribes and won't be released before August 2007. She has two children, ages 13 and 15. She says she misses seeing "their band practices and plays and taking them to school." Ms. Stewart, by contrast, resided in the dorm-style cottages from the start. She shared her room with 33-year-old Kimberly Renee Bennett, convicted of selling cocaine. Their room, with a door, has more privacy. There are bathtubs and shower stalls down the hall. "She gets preferential treatment," says Mona Lisa Gaffney, who says that has made some inmates "resentful." Still, Ms. Stewart went out of her way to try to fit in at Alderson, says Ms. Gaffney, serving a 17- year, five-month sentence after a jury convicted her of conspiring to smuggle heroin into a prison for her incarcerated brother and for bribery and witness tampering. After her arrival, Ms. Stewart obliged many requests from prisoners to have their pictures taken with her, inmates say. She led yoga sessions and gave pointers to the weaving class Ms. Gaffney attends. "Martha realizes everybody isn't monstrous here," says Ms. Gaffney. Starting her days in the prison's library at 6 a.m., Ms. Stewart typed letters on a manual typewriter, which she sent to her assistant in Connecticut. The letters were then re-typed and e-mailed. "In this modern e-mail age, a message from me takes anywhere from 3 to 7 days to be sent," Ms. Stewart wrote. While she discussed her experiences in prison in her letters, Ms. Stewart's lawyers declined to make her available for an interview. Thus, accounts given by fellow inmates couldn't be confirmed with Ms. Stewart. In certain respects, Ms. Stewart has been treated the same as other inmates. She has worn the same prison khakis and sneakers. And she didn't get the job she sought: Ms. Stewart requested work in the kitchen. Instead, she was assigned to clean the administration building several hours a day, earning $5.25 a month, the prison's lowest pay grade. Inmates say Ms. Stewart's presence at Alderson has helped them. They say corrections officers are nicer, for one thing. "They've mellowed out a little since she arrived," says Audrey Dean McGirt, who is serving a 15-year, eight-month sentence for money laundering and conspiracy to distribute marijuana and cocaine. "They're more respectful and almost treat us like we're human now." She fears that may change once Ms. Stewart leaves. The Alderson spokesman declined to comment. For Valentine's Day, Ms. Stewart baked Ms. Spry apples in her cottage's microwave oven. "It was the first Valentine's Day gift I got in years," Ms. Spry says. Ms. Stewart also has promised Ms. Spry that she would "never have to be homeless because I could come work as a gardener on her farm when I get out," Ms. Spry says. At Christmas, Ms. Spry says she got a letter from her estranged sister, Virginia Fernandez, the first communication in a long time. "She wanted to know what it was like being here with Martha," says Ms. Spry, who shared the letter with Ms. Stewart. Ms. Stewart wrote to Ms. Spry's sister, proposing a "sisters reunion" that would include visits on the same day from Ms. Fernandez and Ms. Stewart's own sister. Ms. Fernandez says she declined because she was "busy at work." She also told Ms. Spry she didn't believe Ms. Stewart drafted the letter, saying she thought it was "a joke" Ms. Spry played on her. Reached at her home in Saginaw, Minn., Ms. Fernandez, a dental assistant, says she now believes Ms. Stewart wrote the letter. "I'm sure you get close when you're in a place like that," she says, adding the two women have much in common because Ms. Spry has long tended the prison administration building's garden. Ms. Stewart has contributed to the prison community in other ways. She donated linens, comforters, pillows and towels to the Alderson Hospitality House, a private Victorian home that offers food and lodging to defendants' relatives for small donations or for free if they are indigent. "We're feverishly trying to paint the rooms to match the linens," says Hillary Benish, who runs the home with her husband. Inmates say Ms. Stewart has also made small monetary contributions to their hometown churches for drug-treatment programs. And she has paid for some inmates' magazine subscriptions. Ms. Stewart has lost weight since her arrival, according to her friends. "The food has deteriorated very, very badly since I arrived," Ms. Stewart wrote recently. Now, dry cereal, once available daily, is served only on Saturdays. Instead, prisoners get French toast, waffles and processed meat for breakfast. At lunch and dinner, the salad bar has been eliminated and inmates are given a serving of lettuce. "It's the honeymoon salad - lettuce alone," jokes Mrs. Phipps, the former North Carolina agriculture commissioner who pleaded guilty in November 2003 to taking bribes from carnival operators. Mr. Adams, Alderson's spokesman, says budget crunches have affected all federal prisons. While Alderson has made adjustments to its menu, he says, "we are still operating within dietary guidelines" prescribed by the Bureau of Prisons. Ms. Stewart recounts in her letters being struck by the level of medical care in prison. Recently, she says, a 44-year-old inmate with breast lumps had one breast removed at a local hospital and was returned to Alderson three days later, to rest in her unsterile cottage room. The woman was in "agony" and sent two weeks later to a medical prison in Carswell, Texas, Ms. Stewart says. The Alderson spokesman says the prison "had a case similar to that," but he can't release medical information. Ms. Stewart says she was unable to get a prescription filled. Mrs. Phipps says she waited more than three hours in the prison's medical unit after her eyeglasses broke, only to be told she would have to fill out a form and wait several weeks for new glasses. Dr. Braxtonbrown-Smith says she couldn't get medicine to treat a fungal infection in her feet. Alderson is trying to hire another doctor, in addition to the one already on staff, the spokesman says. He says the prison is trying not to cut health care "because lives are at stake." In one letter, Ms. Stewart wrote: "The judges, the lawyers and the prosecutors do not really know what it's like" to be incarcerated. "They do not know that time passes slowly, there are no good educational opportunities, there is little of value with which to pass the time." She also lamented the hardship placed on families by lengthy prison sentences. "Burdens are placed on parents and grandparents and often children are placed in foster homes," she wrote "The disrupted families suffer dreadfully." In light of the Supreme Court's ruling, a number of Alderson inmates have filed petitions to get their cases reconsidered. "People were running up and down the hall cheering" on Jan. 12, the day the Supreme Court struck down the constitutionality of mandatory sentencing guidelines, says Dr. Braxtonbrown-Smith, whose own petition has been stayed. Ms. Stewart, she says, "has passed along whatever information she found out from her lawyers and has been galvanizing in terms of encouragement and exhortation to action." Among those who applauded was Ms. Gaffney, who has been in prison since 1997 and isn't due to be released before 2012. She says Jan. 12 marked the first day she began to emerge from "years of depression." Two weeks ago, she says wrote a letter to the Alexandria, Va., judge who sentenced her. "It gave me a ray of hope," says Ms. Gaffney, who has lost both custody and track of her twin 15-year-old sons in recent years. But as Ms. Stewart predicted, many whose spirits were raised have become depressed again as they have learned that courts are unlikely to re-open plea bargains, in which defendants are required to waive appeals. "Most women are disappointed now," says Mrs. Phipps, the former agriculture commissioner, who was also a lawyer, judge and prosecutor before being sent to prison. "And most are realistic." On Tuesday night, Mrs. Phipps hosted a potluck dinner party to celebrate Ms. Stewart's impending release. Inmates are allowed to make dishes that can be prepared in a microwave or a refrigerator, using ingredients purchased at the prison commissary. Mrs. Phipps made a pineapple cheesecake."She's fit in very well here," Mrs. Phipps says. _____________________________ Note: This message comes from the peace-justice-news e-mail mailing list of articles and commentaries about peace and social justice issues, activism, etc. If you do not regularly receive mailings from this list or have received this message as a forward from someone else and would like to be added to the list, send a blank e-mail with the subject "subscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or you can visit: http://lists.enabled.com/mailman/listinfo/peace-justice-news Go to that same web address to view the list's archives or to unsubscribe. E-mail accounts that become full, inactive or out of order for more than a few days will be deleted from this list. FAIR USE NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the information in this e-mail is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. 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