She got a job as a surgeon’s assistant and was a favorite among the surgeons she worked with at a Tulsa hospital. With two kids at home, Tina worked hard to provide for them. But she felt she needed to work more.
That’s when she found a new way to earn money. Tina began drug trafficking in methamphetamine.
“I had never done drugs in my life," she said. "The only reason I started trafficking was because it was an easy way to do more work.”
After a few months, Tina got caught. She was sent to the Eddie Warrior Correctional Center in Taft. She’s been there for the past three and a half years, but hopes to be paroled this summer.
Tina has learned many things since being incarcerated at the Warrior Center. She currently works in the saddle shop and does leather work and painting. Although she grew up with little artistic background or experience, she showed me a notebook filled with pictures of her amazing artwork.
Tina is not impressed by the Warrior Center's drug treatment sessions. “Everything here is faith-based," she said. "You take the first ten minutes to talk about what the drug is, and then the rest of the time is spent praying. That isn’t helpful at all.”
Tina is looking forward to the summer, when she hopes to be paroled. She confidently says she’ll never go back to drugs.
Though she would like to get a job back with the surgical group, she feels this is impossible because of her prison time. Instead, she is looking at getting a job working with leather and art.
Tina’s favorite time of the day is when the mail arrives. She looks forward to getting letters from anyone. Sadly, there's little mail to look forward to.
“They just forget about you," Tina said, "not because they don’t remember you, but because they become too busy with their own lives.”
Jamil Malone is a communication major at The University of Tulsa.
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