Female inmates told: "This can be the end and the beginning"

By Shelia M. Poole

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Katrina Robertson has done her time on life's hard streets and in jail.

She was molested at 11 and later abused drugs. She walked the streets of Nashville, hopping in cars with any man who would pay and spending the money on crack cocaine. She was beaten and raped. She lived anywhere she could, and it didn't matter whether it was in an abandoned car or a vacant house. She was arrested at least 20 times.

For nearly five years, Robertson has been clean, married and reunited with her daughter. She hasn't forgotten the women still in prison, though.

Robertson recently visited Atlanta's Metro State prison, a maximum-security facility for women and told her story, encouraging inmates to leave their mistakes behind and build toward a future outside the concrete walls and barbed wire.

"This can be the ending and the beginning," she told a gym filled with women in white and brown uniforms. "This can be your  last trip here. You start [by] setting up an exit plan."

Robertson came to Atlanta as part of a multi-city prison tour sponsored by Magdalene Inc., a Nashville-based nonprofit that works with women who have survived violence, prostitution and addiction. The nonprofit, which receives no state or federal funding, operates six houses in Tennessee that provide free housing for women for two years. It also runs Thistle Farms, which makes bath, body and home products.

Robertson is a Magdalene graduate and the national sales manager for Thistle Farms.

Atlanta was the seventh stop on the prison tour and was regarded as an important target because of its high level of teenage sex trafficking, said Rev. Becca Stevens, executive director and founder of Magdalene-Thistle Farms.

Atlanta Metro State prison, which has 709 inmates, offers an active ministry that interacts with Stevens' organization.

"We're talking about women who were victims long before they were criminals and women who were in prison long before they were arrested," said Stevens, an Episcopal priest. Her goals are to call attention to female victims and connect with them, keeping them off the streets and out of prison.

Women inmates might not be able to return to society on their own, and everyone is in agreement that groups such as Magdalene-Thistle Farms are needed to provide housing and help with jobs, housing, education and counseling.

Tara Adcock,who will be a Magdalene graduate soon, told the inmates to believe in themselves. "I want to let all of you know there is so much hope out there," she said. "You've got to believe."

Her message was not lost on people such as Tracy Fortson, who was serving time for murder and won't be eligible for parole until 2014.

"People have stereotypes  of what people in prison are like," Fortson said. "People in prison make mistakes and make bad choices, but they're still human." 

Tiffany Bryson, serving a 10-year sentence for kidnapping, said the repeat offender rate is high because people often don't have options when released.

"Some people don't have a place to go," she said.