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Throughout her pregnancy, the other inmates made terrible predictions for her. The baby would be taken away from her. She would never get custody. So Jessica made a decision: she won't look at her baby after it's born. That way she won't love it either. And so she is spared all the pain of separation. When the time comes, she immediately averts her gaze from the newborn. But then the correctional officer present orders: “Now look, girl!”. Jessica obeys and instantly falls in love with her baby. Another order follows four hours later: Jessica's feet must be tied to the bed immediately. That's the rule. After 48 hours, the baby is taken away from her and placed with a foster family. Jessica herself has to go back to the prison cell. After that she cannot speak for weeks and has suicidal thoughts. Her breasts have to be tied, they continue to produce milk for the prodigal daughter whom she cannot breastfeed. The mental and physical pain is unbearable. But soon. Everything would get better soon.
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"I Had a Baby in Prison" is the name of the YouTube video in which Jessica Kent talks about the prison birth of her first daughter. With 1.5 million views, it is the most viewed on her channel. In the video, she sits in front of a neatly made bed, adorned with pastel pink pillows and white flowers, topped with a framed sign that reads "Thankful." While this set-up is typical of Youtube, it is not typical of Jessica's role on the platform: she is a "prison youtuber". So her videos are about drug addiction, mental illness and her own experiences behind bars. This makes her one of only two women to upload high-impact prison content to YouTube. Otherwise, “Prison-Youtube” mainly consists of tattooed, broad-shouldered men who share their prison survival strategies in a more or less macabre way. But Jessica's channel is different: she wants to speak critically about the prison system, about injustices and the need for reform.
She doesn't run her channel from prison, that's not allowed. She was also released seven years ago - but this distance was important to her in order to be able to look at the past in prison in a more reflective manner. While Jessica reports in the video about her daughter's birth in prison, she speaks clearly and firmly, fixes the camera with an alert gaze and appears surprisingly composed. But the more the story approaches the moment of confinement, the more often she has to sigh, fan her face with her hands, regain her composure. Then her big eyes fill with tears.
“I could get drugs just as easily in prison as I could outside”
"Being in prison after my daughter was born was the hardest experience of my life," Jessica, 30, told Now. "But I also suddenly started to ask myself: why did everything go the way it did? Gradually, I came to understand that I'm not just battling drug addiction, I'm also battling depression and trauma.” Jessica believes drug abusers need treatment for addiction, a supervised rehabilitation process, not prison, as is common in the United States. She says: “Prisons are important in our society. But do we have to lock up every addicted person? I do not think so."
criminals on stage
Visiting the juvenile detention center in Berlin - where the inmates are normal people again for one evening.
The US prison system is controversial in many ways. For example, because the prisons in some states are run by private companies, which benefit when the prisons are full (inmates have to pay just to call relatives). The incarceration rate in the United States is one of the highest in the world – with 431 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants (as of 2018). This is also related to the high minimum penalties for possession and trafficking of drugs in the USA - the so-called mandatory sentences. "Besides, the prison system here is pretty corrupt," says Jessica in the video chat and immediately explains: "I could get drugs just as easily in prison as outside."
The videos about prison makeup or prison skincare routine are also particularly popular
The concept of Jessica's YouTube channel is a mixture of entertainment and education. So she wants to educate about the prison system, the causes of mental illness and drug-related crime, but also entertain. That's why she shows, for example, how she makes pizza or cake from the ingredients available in prison. The videos about prison makeup or prison skincare routine are also particularly popular. She shows how she exfoliates her facial skin with a bar of soap, water and a toothbrush - because that's all the inmates were given. “I want to inform my viewers in a creative way,” explains Jessica. “If I talk about something that is supposedly superficial in a video, I try to address prison reform, for example.” She wants to use it to reach a wide variety of people. Even those who might only be interested in beauty videos and click on their videos for that — and not for the prison system. Because there are only a few female “prison youtubers”, Jessica also addresses why the prison system particularly disadvantages women. Then she tells, for example, that she only got one or two pads a day for her period, but had to buy tampons at high prices. She saw women who bled their clothes because of it. Through her channel concept, Jessica hopes to encourage a broader discussion about the criminal justice system and social inequality in the United States. Her pedagogical intention is only sometimes noticeable in her thoughtful way of speaking.Photo: private
She was arrested by police officers for the first time when she was only nine years old
The quintessential American mantra, "You can do anything if you work hard enough" isn't exactly what Jessica is trying to convey. She is less concerned with the American Dream than with American Reality – that is, the real social structures that make it easier for some people and more difficult for others to lead a good life: “Our system is designed to ensure that poor people stay poor. I myself grew up in poverty. It's incredibly difficult to get out of there," she says. According to the “World Report on Global Inequality 2018”, wealth inequality in the US has actually grown strongly since the 1980s and is significantly higher than in Western Europe. And that has an impact on equality of opportunity: 20 to 30 percent of the children of parents with the lowest income go on to university later - compared to 90 percent of the children of parents with the highest income. "Something has to change," says Jessica. She was arrested by the police for the first time when she was nine years old because she ran away from home. She says she was a nerdy kid who preferred to sit alone in the corner with a book. The adults told her early on that she had great talent, intelligence and potential. Something would come of her. But the expectations of others only aroused resistance in Jessica. She started smoking weed and drinking alcohol when she was twelve. As a teenager, she began dealing drugs herself – and became addicted to heroin, methamphetamine and the painkiller oxycodone. "I was out of control," she says today. In her early 20s, she was repeatedly serving sentences for drug possession and dealing in prisons. The cut came after the birth of their daughter Micah.
Jessica today and when she was arrested. Photo: private
She carried only a crumbling Bible, a few letters and her diary
The last time Jessica was released from prison, she wore sweatpants with her prisoner number printed on them — and flip-flops. Jessica had no family nearby to turn to. She carried only a crumbling Bible, a few letters and her diary. Despite the difficult starting position, she did everything in her power to get custody of her daughter. For this Jessica got clean, worked in several jobs, regularly passed psychological tests and drug screenings, got a driver's license, moved into her own apartment. When their daughter was two years old, the court granted her full custody.
Jessica is now 30 years old and lives with her two daughters and her partner in Illinois, USA. She holds a bachelor's degree in Correctional Program Support Services. This has taught her a lot about the criminal justice system in the US and the ways in which victims can be supported. In addition to YouTube, she recently started a podcast and is writing her autobiography. When asked what she wants to convey to other people through all of this, she answers with one word: "hope". A little bit of the American Dream feeling remains.
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