What Life Is Really Like in Women’s Prison – The Brutal Reality Behind Bars

Four women, over a hundred years spent inside a women’s prison. And one question none of them can escape. At what point does a prison sentence stop feeling temporary and simply become life? Julia Enright is 21 when the prison  gates close behind her. She still believes she’ll go home. Amber Wright enters prison before adulthood had really begun.

Jacqueline Montanez has spent more than three decades incarcerated. Judy White has waited decades for the chance to ask whether she can finally go home. Four different lives, one question. What does time really do to a person after decades in prison? Today, Julia Enright is serving a life sentence after being convicted of second-degree murder.

But when this interview is recorded, she has been in jail for only a few weeks and has not yet gone to trial. She still believes she will soon return to her old life.  I’m 21 and I’m from a little town in Ashburnham. It’s up on the border of New Hampshire and Massachusetts. I was definitely probably lower class technically um socioeconomically only from growing up on the farm, my dad’s trades and things.

I’m currently enrolled in my second year of college. Phlebotomist for Quest Diagnostics. I work in a doctor’s office, so I draw blood. Collect specimens. I paid college all on my own through scholarships and a minimum wage job. Organized. Logical, overly scientific, wicked ambitious. Hugely ambitious. I think just from the way I was raised.

 Weeks ago, Julia was studying, working, and building her future. Now, she is awaiting trial for the murder of her boyfriend, Brandon Chicklis.  The girls are very curious for what I’m here for. Um I’ve had some girls straight out ask me and I’ll just say, you know, I don’t want to get into the details and they drop it.

 I know one girl recognized me cuz she was from my area. She had seen a newspaper, so they think I killed my friend. So, murder.  At first, Julia still believes the investigation will eventually clear her.  You know, it’s always made sense to me. They have to do their job. I have to be a suspect and this is routine.

 But once I was sitting in the jail, I’m like, where did it get so messed up that I’m suddenly in a cell?  A few days later, she’s moved into the general population.  In the first few days, I didn’t go out of my way to talk to anyone. I like to observe, so I’ll look around a lot. Right here is where they bring in the girls for like any new girls that are coming in.

 It’s weird to see someone, you know, out of oranges cuz they bring them in and they’re still in their civilian clothes, you know, they just got here.  It doesn’t take long before people begin talking about her case.  Almost any girl you talk to will say she’s innocent. Rumors get twisted so fast. It’s it’s insane.

 Um I don’t even know all of mine, of course. It’s tough to figure it out cuz I don’t talk to a lot of the girls and usually the ones that are making rumors about you aren’t going to be in talking to you about it. You kind of hear it through other people.  Instead of talking about her case, Julia starts drawing for other inmates.

 The icebreaker of using drawing was really helpful. And being able to learn a lot of the rules and everything.    So, it gives me an opportunity to talk to people.  That’s my daughter and this is my dog. My Yeah, my daughter passed away and my dog is still here. So, but yeah, that’s my tattoo. Right? Doesn’t it look sick?  I was lucky that one of the first girls that traded with me, she said she’d They me a full bag of coffee, a full bag of our cream, and then a bar of soap.

 A nice soap though, not the ones that the we get for free.  This is what I’m getting right when I get out.  You have to show me. I think that’s going to look so cool.  Um I know. That’s why I’m excited.  Art is valued so much here, and I would never have guessed that, you know, I had no idea what girls want or do in prison.

 Weeks into jail, even small reminders of the outside world begin to hurt.  We can see the highway in the distance. It makes you really sad, cuz you can see all of these people that are free, and they don’t realize how free they are, and then it’s like, I want to be driving down the highway. That would be excellent.

 Visits become her only connection to life outside.  Before I go to a visitation, I try to make a list in my head of all the things, if there’s anything I really need to talk about. Of course, you always forget. Cuz you’re so emotional when you walk in.  Hey.  How you doing?  For me, after all of that’s out of the way, the important things are just being able to talk like real people, you know? Cuz we don’t get to anymore.

And you miss them so much, and it’s like, just to be able to see someone you really care about.  She can see her father. She can speak to him, but she cannot leave with him.  I usually start crying after if I think about it too much. It’s tough, cuz you know, you’re always happy, and then you walk away, and you’re kind of sad,  cuz well, you get to see them, and you’re happy, but then you have to walk away from them.

 That’s always the hardest part, you know? You hug someone, but you have to let go, and you see them, but you have to walk in the opposite direction.  Weeks pass between court appearances. Before her first pre-trial hearing, Julia packs her belongings,  just in case she isn’t coming back to the same unit.  The day to go to court for pre-trial.

This is my first time going back to court. Pre-trial number one. No one told me to pack my stuff up, but I always see the other girls do that, so I’m going to assume this would be the proper time to do so, on the off chance that someone doesn’t come back. I’ve come to terms with like  two years at most.

 I’m putting my bets on one, and I’m putting my hopes on the next court date that they’ll figure out enough to not even indict me.  For the first time, Julia begins considering that she may be in jail much longer than she expected.  Girls always say you need to try to accept the absolute worst case scenario, and if you can come to terms with that, you can come you’ll be at peace with everything.

 Weeks  turn into months. Every court hearing ends the same way. Another date, another wait.  You know, you realize that you’re just going to have pre-trial after pre-trial after pre-trial, and you’ll ask, and usually your lawyers will give you an estimate. Mine just said, “Months. Maybe a year or so.

” Suddenly, I understood the death sentence. Like, I would rather die than spend my entire life in prison.  Julia Enright never went home. On November 29th, 2021, a jury found her guilty of second-degree murder. On March 4th,  2022, she was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

As of August 2026,  she remains incarcerated at MCI Framingham. Her earliest parole eligibility is expected in 2047. For others, life in prison begins before adulthood ever does.  [snorts and laughter]  We’re all in for murder. He didn’t do anything with the body or anything like that.

 I get five years, I’m going to be [ __ ] 20 by the time I get out.  Amber Wright is 15 years old when she helps lure fellow teenager Seth Jackson to a house in Central Florida where he is killed by a group of teenagers. She is convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in a Florida women’s prison. Five years later, Amber is 20 years old.

For the first time, she begins to understand what a life sentence really means.  I deserve this. Yeah, it has. And if we want to speak about the truth, I’ve contemplated suicide. I have. I’ve told my mom several times I won’t make it that long. I won’t. It’s sunk in. I’m here. I’m here for life. I’m not going anywhere.

I can’t change that. Can’t take that back. I can’t make them change my life sentence. Just like his mom said, an eye for an eye, life for a life, right?  As the years pass, she realizes there may never be a day when she walks free. In prison, Amber meets women who have spent nearly three decades behind bars.

For the first time, she sees what her own future could look like.  I’ve only been locked up for five and a half years, but it’s my third prison I’ve been at. I’ve been with several older women that have been down 28,    30 years. These women are amazing. People change.  People do better. People accept what they’ve done.

And they make it a point to change and to love and to grow and to make something of themselves, whether it’s in here. For myself, I’ve accepted my part, my life, my torment. I’ve accepted that cuz I cannot change that.  Amber says prison also changed the way she sees her own role in Seth Jackson’s death.  Makes me disgusted with myself.

Makes me wonder what am I really doing? Like type of person am I really? I was the person that I didn’t care about anything but having fun. I was selfish person. I was very manipulative. And I got what I wanted. I’m not evil. I’m not.  For Amber, women serving 30 years are still a glimpse of the future. For Jacqueline Montanez, those 30 years become reality.

Jacqueline Montanez enters a maximum security women’s prison at 17. A member of Chicago’s Maniac Latin Disciples gang, she has just been sentenced to life without parole for a double murder committed when she was 15. She believes she will spend the rest of her life in prison.   Gave me life in prison and they took me straight to Dwight Correctional Facility in Illinois.

 I was 17 years old, the youngest in prison. I remember my first day in prison, I knew nothing to expect from this place. Here I am a gang leader and instead the girl in me came out, the little kid came out and I was scared to death. I was like, these people out here going to kill me. But before I was being released to go on ground, a few of the lifers, there was three of them, and they brought me a big old bag of clothes and TVs and I was like, oh no, these people trying to make me their girl.

 But they explained to me who they were and they told me that they were lifers and and they gave me life. And they told me, prepare yourself. You’re going to see a lot of things and they’re going to try they’re going to try try you. So you have to stand your ground. And I’m like, okay. Okay. And I remember um going to the yard and I got surrounded by a whole bunch of Latin Kings.

 And I was like,  [sighs]  “Okay, here we go.”  Inside, even basic necessities had their own economy.  They do give us state pay, but state pay is like $15 a month. Nothing. $15 won’t get you nothing. Um when it comes down to your personals and food. They got to have a family. My family still buy me. None of my gang members did.

 I never received [clears throat] not a dollar from either one of them. But, my mother did. So, I was blessed to for as far as commissary is concerned. But, for those of you who don’t have people sending them money, people’s robbing people’s boxes. You’ll go to school and come back and your lock box is popped, and you lost all your food.

 They even robbed commissary. I worked in the kitchen. Um I was a house girl, where you clean the house area. The only job that you could really make money on was industry. They were making the men’s clothes, they were making the women’s clothes. You had to get approved to go in there. So, a lot of people wouldn’t approve. You have to be something to work in there.

 Cuz not just anybody can work there.  In women’s prison, violence was often tied to relationships.  The women’s maximum prison is more about relationships. They fight about relationships. Girl on girl, you messing with my girl, that’s my woman. You got domestic violence in there. You got girlfriends beating on girlfriends. I I I cut a girl up for having sex with my girlfriend. We’ll take the mop.

 You know how you have the mop stick? It has the metal piece. We’ll take that metal piece and we’ll sharpen it up on the floor on the cement outside. And that becomes a shank. Um I’ve had a toothbrush shank. You You shank it up, and it becomes a shank. You take the blade off the razor. You put it on the toothbrush. Becomes a shank.

 It’s It’s rough when it comes to that. I could say that I my years in Dwight Correctional Center was the hardest, and it became my home. And I got to accept that I was going to die there. Those were going to be the same walls I see when I lose take my last breath.  The danger did not come only from other prisoners.

 The women ran the prisons in Illinois prison. We ran it. But, in Florida prison, I couldn’t I was fearful. I I I didn’t even want to go down there and tell them where I was. I didn’t want to tell them what my gang name was. Because when I saw the way that them people were being treated, you end up dead, beat, and all types of stuff. It was tough down there.

 I I went to low correction facility and I was in the main unit. Actually, an inmate was paralyzed from an officer. I’ve watched one inmate go up to the gate to ask officer a a question and she got tasered, maced, and slammed on the head. They don’t care. They think that when we’re sentenced to prison, that we become their slaves.

 That we become We have to do what they say, regardless.  Over time, the women built replacements for the families they had lost outside.  Having life in prison was not a bother for me. I was okay with having life in prison. I I was fine. Prison is not an issue. This is that’s the world inside of another world. You still have sex.

 You still look good. You still wear clothes. You still wear shoes. So, there was nothing I was missing out here in free world. It’s family orientated in there. Like they we try to find our family since we don’t have our family with us. I had a prison mom. I had a prison dad. I had prison kids, aunties, uncles, but the boy girl was being a father or uncle or brother and they love you for real.

 Like they really are your family  member.  For years, Jacqueline lived as Loca D. Her mother’s death changed what she wanted from the time she had left.  16 years later, my mother passed away and I went back and I said, I I wanted to so bad prove to my mom that I can do this. I begged my teacher. I begged her.

I said, “Ms. Reed, can you please let me come back and get my G?” She said, “No.” She said, “I cannot do that. They don’t want you in school. You did what you did to me.” I was like, “Please, Ms. Reed. My mom is dead. I got to show her I can get it.” And I remember her saying, “If you graduate, I’m going to be the one to give you a certificate.

 Now, mind you, I haven’t been to school in 16 years. And I was so determined because this is what I wanted from my mom. So, I ended up getting my GED. I went to restaurant management, dog grooming, dog training, to computer tech. So, it is a lot of vocational, but that was in Dwight. When they shut Dwight down, they went to Logan, the lifers couldn’t go to school like that.

 The lifers were not allowed to go to school. It was only for people who had an outdate. And that was the messed  up thing about it cuz I used to tell them, I was like, “I’m going to go to court and I’m going to get an outdate. So, you’re not going to let me finish restaurant management because I’m a lifer.” But, lifers get out, too. The bless is I mean, laws change every day.

And I wasn’t allowed to finish my restaurant management. This should be rehabilitation, but it’s not. And I always I always considered Dwight my home. When we was going when we was getting locked down and being transferred to Lo- Lincoln, I cried like a baby. I cried so hard. I felt like I was being kicked out of my home.

And it was a hard pill to swallow. What had changed my life is when my mom passed away. I knew that I had messed up and forgot to make it right before my mom died. I wanted to change up. I wanted to I wanted to bury Locadie. I did. I wanted to become Jacqueline.  After 31 years, Jacqueline was released. But, the rules she had learned inside followed her home.

 When I first came home, I had to I put bars on my window. I was scared. For the first year, for the first year of my freedom,  I was still adjusting. I didn’t want to go outside. I was scared. I didn’t even use metal spo- I was still using plastic forks. I was still adjusting. I didn’t I was still getting up thinking it was count time.

I was still in fear.  31 years after entering a maximum security women’s prison, Jacqueline Montanez walks free. She is released after changes in US law allow people sentenced to mandatory life without parole for crimes committed as juveniles to be re-sentenced. Today, the former inmate speaks to young people about gangs and violence, volunteers in her community, and is building a non-profit that teaches children dog training and grooming to help keep them away from gangs and crime.

Not every life sentence ends the same way. Some women eventually walk free. Others spend decades hoping they will one day walk free. Judy White enters prison in 1979. She is 33 years old. Convicted of first-degree murder, she is sentenced to life without parole. More than 40 years later, prison is still her home.

Before prison, Judy spent years caring for other people’s children.  Now, she says the hardest part is being separated from her own.  Being away from my children. That’s the worst.  I have five children, 11 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.  And you were what age when you came to prison?   I had foster babies.

 I had over 100 foster babies.  You were a foster mom?  Yes.  Judy explains how she became involved in the murder that led to her life sentence.    My friend and I were sitting around her kitchen table, and she’s just like, “Oh God, I just wish Eddie was dead.” And we I was laughing, and I was like,  “Because um I said, well, this crazy man that came to our house that I said I said he’d probably do something like that for $50.

” They took that, and they hired that man to kill her husband.    I knew that they had planned was planning to kill him, yes. And I didn’t do anything to stop it. So, therefore, [snorts] they say I’m just as guilty as as as the person who shot him.    Yes, I should do time in prison, absolutely.

 I don’t think I should have went free, no. But, I don’t know that I should have got a life sentence because I I didn’t kill him.  Judy believes she should have gone to prison. She just does not believe she should have spent the rest of her life there.  Well, I don’t know, maybe 25 years, you know.  Every 10 years, Judy  can ask the parole board to reconsider her sentence.

She has already been denied twice. Now, she is waiting for another hearing.  So, let’s see if I have any messages. No, I have nothing. Just have to wait. I don’t know, that’s not me. That’s not that I don’t get depressed.  No, I get depressed every now and then and I’m like, I can’t do this another day.

I’m just done. And I just want to stay in bed and not even move. But, then I have to get over that  because I probably couldn’t survive like that. I couldn’t survive with no hope.  Mhm.  I Not me.  Every day begins with hope. Most of them end without news.  We checked at 9:11 too and this is it for today.

No messages from nobody. I can’t believe my kids  haven’t messaged me yet. Like, mother, what’s happening? Tomorrow’s another day.  After decades of waiting, the moment Judy has hoped for finally arrives.    Your letter that they’re going to see you on March 5th at 1:00 p.m.  So, you’re getting it.

You’re getting an interview.  Thank you.  Thank you. you, Mama. I’m [laughter] I’m so so happy. I told you  [laughter]  there was hope and miracles happened, didn’t I?  The letter is not parole. It is only a chance to appear before the parole board. Judy can’t wait to share the news with her daughter.  Honey, um the warden just came and gave me a piece of paper that I get to see the board on March 5th at 1:00.

 Are you excited?  I am excited, but I’m just you know, I try to temper myself  I know. We went through this so many times. I know, baby.  I will be I love you, Mama.  I love you, too, precious.  Keep thinking about you coming home and me laying on your lap.  Aw, bless your heart, honey.  The letter Judy waited years to receive was only the beginning of another chapter.

As of August 2026, she remains incarcerated at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women. Her hope remains the same.