All the time I was in Sarasota, the biggest threat was that we'd land up in Juvy if we ran, fought or whatever. It worked. I believed it. Then it happened. After I split and went to stay with my brother near Atlanta, they had me extradited for the "crime" of being a 17 3/4 year old runaway in Florida. (In Georgia, 17 is/was the default age of adulthood for most purposes)
I have to tell you, the first day was awful. I was so depressed and scared and alone. I still remember struggling to hold it together until the door slammed on my cell and then I burst into tears.
But after about two or three days of bad TV and endles rounds of Gin Rummy and idle conversation, it finally started to sink in that nobody was fucking with me in any way. No one wanted to beat me up. There was no danger in going to the shower, except maybe a skin rash from the industrial grade anti-biotic soap. Also, no one staring directly at you, no 2 minute limit. One or two of the staff were cranky and mean, but there was absolutely no danger in ignoring them, so long as you followed directives.
The directives were limited to fairly reasonable ones considering that it was, after all, a jail for kids and some of the kids might actually be dangerous or prone to try and escape. Looking out the window when alone in your cell, for example, was against the rules cause it could be considered an escape attempt. I found that out while enjoying the sunrise about the end of my first week there.
But every day, unless it rained, we got an hour or two outside in the play yard to play volley ball; boys against girls with one of each model of staff on each team. Man, that one staffer was the most adorable, kind and wonderful man I'd seen in years, too! Everyone had a crush on him!
At one point, they actually took two of us girls to the kitchen, handed us very large sharp knives and asked us to dismember a pile of chickens (gutted, beheaded and plucked, of course) for the night's meal, wich was always good, hot and Southern, complete with ham hocks in the green beans and real butter on the home style corn bread!
It was a vacation compared to one hour in Group. I think I read half of everything Jules Verne ever wrote in the month or so I had to wait to be turned over to the Florida system.
Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself
--Jimmy Carter
