This was written by Mae Mallory on December 7, 1962. She was jailed for one year and nine months.

As the holiday season draws nigh and newspapers are heavily laden with their gaudy displays for Christmas, I take this moment to write and express my gratitude for the work, thoughts and prayers you have extended.

Perhaps you are interested in how I have fared these many months in Cuyahoga County Jail. I will try to give you a clear picture of what life is like here — not out of self-pity, but so that you may be fully informed. The women are housed on the 7th floor of the building. The 7th floor is divided into three main sections — Cell-Blocks 7A, B, and C. Cell-Blocks 7A and B are large, rectangular enclosures divided into thirteen rooms with two toilets, one shower, four face bowls and one utility sink. The capacity is 13; but often there are as many as 27 women there. Cell-Block C is a row of cells with bunks on the walls. Because of the overcrowded conditions, this particular Cell-Block houses part of the overflow of male prisoners.

My room is in Cell-Block 7A. It is a tiny room approximately six feet by nine. There is a metal bed with a thin mattress. We are allowed one sheet, one limp flat pillow, one pillowcase and one unsanitary reprocessed wool blanket. We are given one bath towel a week — a whole one if you are lucky.

The librarian comes once a week with a very limited selection of books, mostly who-dunnits and westerns; however, I did find John Hersey’s book entitled The Wall. Besides these books, Cuyahoga County Jail furnishes no other form of recreation.

The inmates are allowed to receive packages each day provided that there is someone interested and able to bring the few things which are allowed. Since the jail furnishes no clothing, the inmates must provide their own.

The meals are served in metal dog bowls. A metal cup is given each inmate on entry. A typical menu is the following:

Breakfast
soggy cornflakes (no sugar)
a cup of the poorest coffee and chickory combination (sometimes complete with floating cockroaches).

Lunch
Same dog bowl: a facsimile of baked beans (actually government surplus pea beans) with blobs of tomato sauce (thrown over the beans) and small minute chunks of fat sowbelly
cup of the same brew called coffee
bread

Dinner
bologna
bread
same brew
rolls

If there is anything Cuyahoga County serves plenty of, it’s bread. After a month of this diet, one is almost willing to admit guilt to any crime, since I am told that better food is served in the penitentiary.

We are allowed such fruits as bananas, apples, oranges, an occasional avocado and sometimes tomatoes. These items are often mutilated under the pretense of inspection. What one is expected to conceal in a tomato is beyond me.

The day room or “recreational room” is the space that is left between the rooms on either side of the area taken up by the toilet and shower. In the recreation room is a long rustic table with two make-shift benches, no radio or TV set, only newspapers, if some inmate is fortunate in having the money to buy them. We are allowed playing cards, but strangely, a Monopoly set is forbidden. Having learned that I had two Monopoly sets in the package room, I requested that one be given to me — this request was refused. The Chief explained to me that a Monopoly set contains dice, and the inmates might use the dice to gamble. The jailers fail to understand that the more restrictive measures taken against the inmates, the more ingenious they become in devising ways and means of amusements; amusements often more harmful than a simple game called Monopoly. This seems to make no impression on the jailers; for they appear to be hell-bent on making the inmates as miserable as possible. “After all,” the Chief exclaimed, “we are not interested in rehabilitation; this is not a prison, it is a jail. The prisoners are only here for a short time.”

When I explained that I could hardly be called a “short-time” prisoner, that I am beginning my tenth month here, he readily admitted that my case is the exception, “though not exceptional enough to be permitted a Monopoly set” or a person-to-person visit, even though many of my visitors travel hundreds of miles to visit me. He admits that the state of Ohio has no charge against me; he even hinted that after four months the State of Ohio was willing to let me go. However, it is almost ten months and the State of Ohio is still holding me; the Monopoly set is still in the package room; the food is still terrible; the mattress is still thin; the pillow is still flat and limp.

Last month I read Felix Greene’s book on China. I was particularly interested in what he had to say about the jails in the People’s Republic. Mr. Greene claims that one jail that he visited had only one guard with a rifle. The windows had no bars, and when he asked for the Warden, he was shown a young man with his sleeves rolled up helping an inmate fix a machine. According to Mr. Greene, “If this had been an American prison, the inmates would have been gone in three minutes.” I agree with Mr. Greene wholeheartedly. From what I have read and from personal experience here, only Devil’s Island and the Nazi Concentration Camps can compare with America’s penal system.

I have faith in my friends here in America and throughout the world. For this reason I can bear the barred windows, the stark bare walls and the hard concrete floors; I can bear the snide innuendoes about kidnappers. I can bear the conditions here that are worse than a zoo, and I can even live with the prospect of having to spend Christmas and New Year’s in jail. For if my suffering in jail has contributed toward the liberation of my people, peace on earth and goodwill to all men, then any sacrifice I have been forced to make has not been in vain.”