In Prison, Out of Googles
Reading Time: 5 minutesThe Complex Bargaining Process of Googling From Prison, For 10 years, I was forced to outsource my Googling to people on the outside. It complicated my relationship to information—and the people who helped me get it., ‘Googling’ from prison: How incarcerat
This is part of Time, Online, a Future Tense series on how technology is changing prison.
Editor’s note: Heather Jarvis wrote this essay in her last month of incarceration. She was released at the end of October.
I already knew my father was dead. For the past three days I had spoken with family members about cremation, grave plots, funeral songs, and the fact I wanted him to wear a green shirt. But I was still hoping it was a bad dream. Sitting in an Ohio prison far away from my loved ones, it was easy to be in denial. To believe he was really gone, I needed proof. I needed someone to Google it. My best chance was with the prison chaplain.
When I arrived at the chaplain’s office, it echoed with the clicks of a keyboard and mouse. I sat down in front of her desk and reluctantly asked her to Google my dad’s obituary. I focused on the walls and dusty bookshelves, hoping to hold on to my illusion. She found the obituary, printed it out, and handed me the information I had hoped to never read. It was real.
Google is on the long list of things I took for granted prior to prison. Before I was incarcerated in 2014, I used Google often, relying on the search engine to satisfy my random curiosities. When that access was suddenly cut off, I began depending on others to answer my burning questions. Prison is isolating by design, and even things like obituaries are cruelly out of reach.
As was the case after my father’s death, Google, and the people who connected me to it, became one of my few sources of information on the outside world. Many incarcerated women are in the same position—we’re forced to outsource our Googling, leaning on the kindness of a loved one or a staff member who takes pity. This can quickly strain relationships: On the outside, people are annoyed with our constant requests. On the inside, we feel like we’re not asking much.
Google requests reflect the whole spectrum of ups and downs you live through in prison. I’ve asked people to Google how to handle grief, how to train for a half-marathon, and how to crochet a stuffed unicorn. I’ve asked for help finding pen pals, and for lists of motivational quotes to help me keep going. When I surveyed other women about their Google requests, their answers were similarly varied: They wanted information on wrongful conviction projects and churches near home; they wanted to know the name of a song or how to make a holiday sauce.
Often, the answer on the other side of a Google search has real consequences for our lives. In 2020, a woman ‘paid’ me a Jumbo Iced Honey Bun from the commissary in exchange for helping her look up the status of her pandemic stimulus check. Ever since we’d found out incarcerated people were eligible, there had been a continuous flow of women on the phone, guiding loved ones through the process to file or verify the date the check was mailed. I recruited my 13-year-old daughter to help, promising her a share of my own stimulus check. She navigated the website no problem.
I was lucky. A lot of women didn’t have outside allies and relied instead on a paper tax form sent via snail mail. That’s what the woman we were helping had done, and now she was anxious to know if her check would actually arrive. When I handed the phone over to the older woman, my daughter did not hesitate; she knew exactly where to go and what to do. Sadly, this wasn’t the first time she had facilitated such a request.
I watched as the woman cuffed the phone receiver, attempting, ironically, to muffle the private information she was giving to a 13-year-old. She squealed loudly, dropped the phone receiver, and did a little dance like she had won the lottery. The check was coming.
At the end of nine and a half years in prison, I’ve worn out my Google requests. About a year ago, my friend Ashley, who I’ve known for more than a decade, got so annoyed with my constant stream of questions that she told me I couldn’t come to her with any more ‘one-minute asks.’ For a while after she put up her boundary, there was a noticeable rift in our relationship. She felt I had started treating her differently, but really I just felt guilty. It reminded me of how much of a burden I had become on those I love.
Ashley and I resolved our tension, but similar situations play out across prison relationships. Angela Shepard, who is incarcerated with me in Ohio, told me her husband of 15 years—who, she emphasized, is very supportive—limits her to one Google a day. If she asks for two, she told me, the next day she has to go without. Unused Googles, she added, don’t roll over.
My most reliable Google ally has always been my 83-year-old grandmother. She is the least tech-savvy, but the most patient, and I often turn to her with more open-ended Googles. Lots of people might be willing to look up ‘What’s the brother’s name in Family Guy,’ but questions related to my writing pursuits or goals after prison quickly become more complex, and require more willingness to sort through information.
‘OK, Grandma, go to Google and type in ‘Emerging Voices Fellowship,’ ‘ I instructed her recently over the phone. I wanted to see if I might be eligible for the fellowship upon release.
‘OK, done.’
‘What do you see?’ I asked.
I attempted to help her navigate as she started rambling off results word-for-word from the search she had done on her phone. Somehow, she managed to get into an argument with her phone’s voice assistant, because everything she said out loud started pulling up results. I couldn’t help but laugh as she swore at the automated system, yelling for it to stop.
‘Heather, hun,’ she finally said, ‘give me a li’l while to figure this out and research and call back.’
‘OK, grandma,’ I said, doubting her. Knowing that the information is right there but still out of reach is impossibly agitating.
Hours later, I received a picture of my grandma’s desktop monitor. The website for the writing fellowship was pulled up, scrolled down to the eligibility criteria. There was a glare from a nearby window, but I could zoom in and make out the information I needed.
Lately, a lot of my Google requests have taken a new focus. As I write this, I’m preparing to be released. Disconnection is a fundamental part of incarceration, and it’s difficult to know how to navigate the world—to become a restored citizen—when we’ve been shut out for so long. Little nuggets of information are monumental to us, and it’s hard for people on the outside to understand. One of my most urgent questions is also one of the most basic: I have no idea what size pants I wear.
I had been wondering for a while what size my measurements converted to, but I didn’t want to be a burden and ask. In prison, we wear men’s sweatpants in basic sizes like small, medium, or large. They’re forgiving. Ten years of ramen noodles and processed food are not. Finally, a friend getting ready for her own release got ahold of the conversion chart. ‘What? No freaking way!’ I exclaimed when I did the math. It was worse than I thought.
When I ask people on the outside what I should be ready for as I prepare to go out into a world filled with new technology that’s hard for me to even grasp, the only thing they can think to say is ‘Everything is different.’ Just as suddenly as I was forced to disconnect, I’ll be forced to reconnect. When I do, I know I’ll turn to the search engine to figure out how to build a successful writing career, how to not self-sabotage, and how to apply all the knowledge I’ve gained in prison in my new life.
I did not have Google this past decade. I had to search within myself to discover who I was. Now, that search is over. I’m ready to share the results with the world.
Reference: https://slate.com/technology/2023/12/googling-from-prison-incarceration-connection.html
Ref: slate
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