Branded a Criminal: My Time in Kansas Corrections [Part One]
By Devon Westerfield, Ellsworth Correctional Facility
Devon Westerfield is an artist currently incarcerated at Ellsworth Correctional Facility in Ellsworth, Kansas. [At the time of this article, he was at Lansing Correctional.] He is anticipating his release this summer. He enjoys working on his craft, reading fantasy novels, and caring for others.
Original Artwork by Devon. See a gallery of his work here.
Introduction
I’m Devon Westerfield, a 29-year-old artist from Independence, Kansas. I am currently incarcerated at Lansing Correctional Facility in Lansing, Kansas. I’m housed in an A1 cellhouse, a restrictive housing pod used as a multipurpose cellhouse. I’m currently experiencing a great amount of mistreatment and abuse from many KDOC employees, exacerbated by the restrictions set in place for this cellhouse. But this is just one instance in a long line of negative interactions with the “justice” system, a system I have been wrapped up in since birth.
For my entire life, I have either been a ward of the state, incarcerated in some sort of facility, or excessively punished and mistreated by the judicial system. Throughout it all, true rehabilitation has never been offered to me. During my extensive time in Kansas prisons, I’ve consistently been a victim of abuse from staff members, constantly being subjected to harsh profiling and judgment in several different forms. I’ve endured unprofessional joking from officers and unit teams. I’ve had mental health counselors give me unprofessional and personally biased advice or counseling that was more damaging than helpful. And I’ve been ignored, laughed at, or dismissed as a nuisance every time I’ve reached out for help with my release plan, interest in programs, issues with commissary not being delivered, and issues with my mail being tampered with.
Many people might think that I must have done something to deserve my experiences with the Kansas judicial system, but there are so many flaws in the system itself. The law is an ever-changing and inconsistent experiment that cannot be perfected, and I have been more a victim of it than an offender. My story is about how I’ve had to be strong for myself throughout my incarceration and the inhumane living conditions I’ve been made to suffer—a story of self-taught redemption in a place where redemption is not offered at all, or only offered to those “eligible” according to the unrealistic standards of KDOC and Kansas lawmakers. I don’t seek sympathy, I only wish to raise awareness, unveil and spread truth, uplift others, and draw support from those who may be able to help make a difference. I aim to inspire my readers to imagine what it would truly be like to emphasize care over cages and change over chains.
Branded a Criminal
Since I was a child, I’ve had harsh experiences with the justice system. I was removed from my family at age six due to their own addictions to drugs and alcohol, and the legal issues that often come along with those addictions. But I was only removed from my biological family to be placed in an abusive foster home.
After being adopted by my aunt, I went through grade school confused about pretty much everything, especially about why my mom was in prison and if I would ever see her again. I lived for the days when I would get a letter and a drawing in the mail from my mom, or be able to talk to her on the phone. I didn’t quite understand what prison was when I was eight, but I knew it stood in the way of my relationship with my mom. I would hold my little brother and pray that God would bring our mom home from prison, and rescue us from the form of prison that we were in.
As I went through elementary school and middle school, I noticed that school resource officers, mean kids, teachers, and guidance counselors profiled my brother and me. I was known as the kid whose mom was in prison, whose parents were “criminals,” and who would most likely grow up to be just like my parents.
I was already exposed to the flawed system and its negative results, as I was always being pulled to the side, interrogated, and accused by all the authority figures around me. I was questioned about crimes and criminal behavior that I was completely oblivious to at that age. I was being accused regularly by teachers and school resource officers of committing crimes I hadn’t even known existed, just because of my last name and the reputation of my relatives.
Early on, I was targeted and branded a criminal and a lost cause by the parents of other kids, teachers, and the police in my town. Due to the stigma that was placed on me, I was unable to make the slightest of normal mistakes without getting accused of being a criminal mastermind, a drug addict, or Satanic.
I was placed in a behavioral program all three years of middle school for play-wrestling with my best friend in class during a project we were working on. As expected, I was placed in the behavioral program, while my friend was not. The name of this program was the Y.O.U. program, which ironically stood for “Youth Opportunities Unlimited.” I found out that, despite the name, youth put in this program actually had very restricted and limited opportunities. My sixth, seventh, and eighth grade years were limited to a prison-like experience. I was forced to show up to school earlier than all other students, and let out of school earlier or later than all other students to restrict my interaction with my peers, including my only friends and girlfriend.
My class took place in the basement of the school, under the gym bleachers, with metal cages on the windows. Timeout rooms that were no bigger than broom closets with peepholes on the doors. An inconsistent set of rules and points system made for impossible completion of the program, which was basically designed for kids like me to fail.
Eventually, I was forced by the teachers of this program and the school resource officer to separate from my friends while I was on school property, and my teachers would even follow me for several blocks away from school to keep my girlfriend and me from holding hands. This scared all of my friends and the girlfriend I had and ensured that I would lose out on the full experience of having friends in school.
Probation at 12
By the age of 12, I found myself on probation for disorderly conduct and assault of a teacher. Looking back, I understand my “crime” was actually normal behavior for anyone put in my position.
One day, I got fed up with not being able to see my friends after school, so instead of waiting in my prison of a classroom while the rest of the kids were being let out, I tried to escape from the torture by running out of the classroom to be outside where I belonged, laughing and playing and getting ready to do whatever it is normal kids did after school.
As I was running out of the classroom, four female teachers tried blocking me. They grabbed me and pulled me and tried to wrestle me to the ground and sit on me, and of course I resisted. To keep me from laughing and playing with other kids at my school—to restrict me from doing the things kids are supposed to do—my teachers physically abused me and covered it up as defiance on my part. Sadly, this was just a mere introduction to the abusive system that claimed to be set in place to “correct” me.
I was placed in Juvenile Justice Authority custody—probation at the age of 12, and now a convicted criminal. By 13, I was taking regular urine analysis tests (U.A.s) ordered by a probation officer, being tested for drugs I didn’t even know existed until I was being tested for them. I was questioned in front of other students about Satan because I listened to Ozzy Osbourne. I was put on prescription antidepressants that zombified me, and as a result, I was interrogated about what kind of drugs I was on, where to get them, and how much they cost.
I was in debt at age 13, owing court fees, U.A. fees, and attorney fees, with no financial support or family to fall back on. In need of money, I was forced to have an after-school job at the only place in town that would hire a 13-year-old: The Daily Reporter. As a paperboy, on a bike I built myself out of scraps, I spent my after-school hours delivering newspapers on three different routes. On my routes, I was chased by dogs, pushed off my bike by bullies, and shot at by older kids with BB guns.
To stop getting bullied, ambushed, and shot at by older kids on my route, I had to prove myself as they demanded. They promised to stop picking fights if I promised to bring them leftover newspapers each day, if I beat up one of the other neighborhood kids, and if I agreed to smoke pot with them for the first time…
This led to regular use of marijuana since I couldn’t avoid seeing these guys on my bike route—the bike route that I only got so I could pay court and U.A. fees because I was being tested for drugs I had no knowledge of existing beforehand. Of course, this led to my U.A.s turning up positive at the probation office, which led to being removed from my home and placed in boys’ homes and detention centers all over Kansas.
Forced to Live a Lie
While I was in these juvenile detention centers and boys’ homes, I was exposed to a lifestyle that I was completely unaware of before I became incarcerated. Staff members would treat my intake processes as if they were booking a hard criminal off the streets that they’d seen time and time again for years. If I asked legitimate questions that any newcomer would ask—like if I had to wear my ID at all times (yes) or why there was red tape on the ground (to mark restricted areas)—I was treated like I was some sneaky, lying criminal mastermind pretending to be ignorant to crime, drugs, and gangs. I never thought then that I’d be trapped in this system for the rest of my life—that I’d see the inside of 79 cells and 20 different facilities over the next 15 years.
Throughout my journey, I’ve noticed that a great amount of what was going on (and is still going on) in these facilities all over Kansas and the country is harmfully experimental, often illegal, and more hurtful than helpful. More damage is being done in prisons than what much of the public understands or is willing to believe.
For example, I didn’t know what gangs were until I was placed in my first detention center at 13 and was forced to defend myself against teenage gang members who themselves had been caught up in a harmful system of punishment from an early age. I didn’t know anything about drugs beyond the marijuana I’d been introduced to by the bullies on my bike route until I was forced to watch videos of middle-aged drug addicts using drugs and talking about their addictions. These places of “rehabilitation” are what introduced me to drugs.
Even then, I still didn’t understand or care to learn about these drugs because I had no interest in that lifestyle. I was in boys’ homes that forced me to participate in drug and alcohol programs at fourteen years old, and the facilities accused me of lying to them when I told them that I didn’t know anything about the drugs I was being accused of using. Often, I’d be laughed at and told “nice try” or “very funny, it had to be meth, cocaine, or heroin that you were on…” They would never accept that I had only smoked pot a handful of times, and the occasional cigarette I found in an ashtray. I was categorized by staff as a high-risk drug expert, and they treated me as if I’d been a junkie my whole life.
Eventually, I realized that I would simply not be allowed to complete or graduate from some of the programs I was being forced to partake in. So I caved under their pressure and manipulation and pretended to be what they wanted me to be, in order to seem like I was making progress in their eyes. I was forced to lie about being a hard drug user because they wouldn’t believe anything else. I had no choice but to make up a “use chart” that displayed my amount of drug use, how many hits I’d take during each session, how much the drugs cost, how it felt to be on these drugs, and what the drugs looked like.
In reality, I had no idea what these drugs looked like or what they did to you, but this is what they wanted to hear, so I did my best to sate their hunger for whatever wasn’t the truth. Little did I know, giving them what they wanted in hopes that I would eventually be allowed to go home was trapping me even further in the system. If I told the truth, I’d be accused of being a master manipulator or mentally unstable. If I gave them the lies they wanted, I’d look like I was being honest and making progress, but I’d also give them the power to manage me as a more high-risk “offender.” It was and always will be a lose-lose situation.
Dropped Off in a World I Didn’t Belong In
I continued to endure mistreatment, wrongful punishment, accusations, misdiagnoses, mismanagement, and abuse from probation officers, therapists, staff, officers, group facilitators, judges, attorneys, and teachers all across Kansas. Because of the abuse I was taking from every angle, I felt so lost, as if I’d been dropped off in a world I didn’t belong in.
I felt trapped by these people throughout my life, forced to live a lie, forced to live with strangers who became negative influences on me, and forced to live by a set of rules that weren’t intended for people like me. I became confused about what was right and wrong because I was being treated like a liar when I told the truth and treated like a mature young man when I told the lies that they wanted to hear. I was punished for being honest and rewarded for lying, so I struggled with what honesty and truth really were. Due to the abuse I experienced in this system, I questioned what reality was every day.
They made me feel like I was crazy, and I honestly did the “reflecting” and “self-evaluating” they told me to do—questioning my sanity, questioning what was real, questioning whether or not I was being tricked or bullied by every adult in my life, questioning whether my life was some sort of game or test, questioning whether I was alive or dead. At times I thought that the only conclusion was that I’d died and was suffering in my own personal hell, or that I was in a coma, dreaming all of it, and was never going to wake up from this nightmare. I actually wondered if my kindness, my honesty, my love, my care, my goodness, and my integrity were all wrong, as if I was in the wrong for being so right.
This inevitably led to me becoming more depressed than I already was, so I withdrew from people and only felt safe in isolation. I was so tired of being backed into corners, picked apart and bullied, punished for things I didn’t do, and made out to be a monster—the monster that I was pushed into becoming because it was what they already saw me as.
I was released from juvenile prison at 18 and put right back into the abusive home that I was removed from in the first place, which would only lead to an even more intense pattern of incarceration and punishment.
Next week, we will publish part two of Devon’s story, discussing his interactions with the carceral system as an adult and the current crisis of conditions in Kansas prisons. For now, see a gallery of Devon’s art here.