by Kim Hilsenbeck
A Hays County woman is urging Gov. Rick Perry to declare Texas a Prison State of Emergency.
Charis Boissevain-Dawes of San Marcos is the wife of current Hays County Jail inmate, Justin Dawes, 32. She said her husband has been in and out of jails and prisons since he was a teenager. Charges against him in Hays County since 2002 include possession of a dangerous drug, arson, organized criminal activity and robbery – several at a felony level.
“He’s no angel,” she said. “But the conditions of Texas prisons are deplorable.”
Prisoners and jail inmates suffering from mental health issues are particularly vulnerable, according to Boissevain-Dawes, a legal researcher. She said her husband used to hide from prison intake guards that he was diagnosed as bi-polar for fear of being singled out and treated differently than the rest of the prison population.
Boissevain-Dawes sent a formal request to Perry on June 16 to declare the state of emergency, citing a multitude of problems with Texas prisons.
Her letter to Perry said, in part, “Our prisons have become a monstrous big business that requires urgent reform. Our prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities are inhumane hell holes.”
The letter continued, “Most of our prisons have no air conditioning. Inmates are raped by guards and guards turn a blind eye to inmates raping each other. Solitary confinement has proven to not work. The current Texas prison system violates human, civil, and mental health rights on absolutely every level. You know it and all of Texas knows it. The whole of America knows it.”
So passionate is Boissevain-Dawes about the cause of prison reform, she founded inkarcerate.com, a website dedicated to exposing the injustice and inhumanity of the Texas prison system.
Boissevain-Dawes, a native of South Africa, said she has always been a reform advocate. A former war refugee, she said she witnessed families in terrible confusion, poverty and pain. She worked as a photographer and journalist during Apartheid.
While she said she loves the United States, and has since moving here 15 years earlier, Boissevain-Dawes said her marriage to a man who has spent most of his adult life in and out of jail opened her eyes to the need for fast change in Texas prisons.
“The Inkarcerate team will be working on, and striving for reform across the country,” Boissevain-Dawes wrote on Inkarcerate.com. “Americans can no longer hope that the people in charge are making progressive decisions. Inkarcerate will be asking inmates, prison gang members and repeat offenders how they feel the system has failed, and how we can improve it.”
Boissevain-Dawes said she has bigger plans for Inkarcerate. She recently purchased a screenprinting machine and will begin rolling out a new clothing line early in 2014. The employees will all be connected to Texas prisons – former inmates, spouses of inmates and others who have been hurt or affected by the system.
“We will use part of the profits from the business to help pay for legal representation for inmates who may be wrongly accused or wrongfully incarcerated,” Boissevain-Dawes said.
Her letter to Perry said, “If massive reform and change don’t happen soon then the prison system is likely to financially cripple our state.”
She ended the letter saying, “Declaring Texas a Prison State of Emergency is a necessity for the future of Texas. You have the power to make a positive legacy for yourself. Integrity and empathy are a necessity to how we treat inmates and how we treat Texas.”
