Summary

In June 2006, Brittany’s mother was sentenced to eight years in a Texas state prison after failing her drug tests on probation. The sentence devastated Brittany, especially because the only crime her mother had committed was using drugs, which harmed herself rather than others. When her mother was transferred from the local jail to the state prison in Gatesville, Texas, Brittany drove two and a half hours after work to visit her. As she drove towards the prison, she saw shackled woman working in a field. They were incarcerated and forced to labor as part of the “Hoe Squad,” an exploitative program in place at Gatesville prisons since the 1950s. Before she entered the prison, Brittany wept in her car, full of anxiety and anger over her mother’s incarceration.

Inside the prison, Brittany was aggressively patted down by a guard and...