One: Pushing and Accepting

Interviewing Selves:  You're living in Los Angeles, but also spending time on your daughter's horse ranch in Florida. This is quite a different life than the 20 or so years before that.

Jane Dorotik: I just got back late Tuesday from a couple of weeks in Florida. It was just amazing and stunning to me. It is so gratifying to me. Even though I did participate in several meetings, my mind, my focus was on the horses, on my daughter and son in law, and the little garden that I planted in their new place. I haven't really fully realized how much I needed that— to escape the stuff that's harder to work on and more frustrating. To just build something and say, “Oh, look there, the corn is coming up.” Those kinds of things were just delightful.

IS: Yes. The power of space and time. Witnessing growth is so healing. Even after many years being out of prison, you're still kind of uncovering these layers of healing and working through things. Would you say that's so? 

JD: Absolutely, so. I've always intellectually known that post incarceration syndrome is very real. You don't quite realize what living in that environment for 20 years has done to you until you're away from it. Something causes a certain reaction in you, and you begin to think through it. And you say: “Oh, that's why. Because, those constantly slamming cell doors in prison makes me think this way.” The level of trust that I used to have in life is no longer there. So many of those things just powerfully hit me. So, it's a big process. But in many ways, I'm learning so much from it, and enjoying going through it. I choose actively not to focus on the more difficult times and rely on the resilience that I had to survive it and reward myself for that.

IS: There’s a certain level of acceptance that's there. That makes me think about the activism that you do, and how so much of that activism is about not accepting what is the case. There is some beauty in that dichotomy. Can you speak to me about that — of knowing when to accept things as they are versus knowing when to fight and push for making a change?

JD: I don't see it as clear ends of a certain spectrum. I see it a different way.  For instance, when you look at reforming the criminal justice system, I think it's imperative that you realize it's a long, long process, and people have their mindsets. Despite the fact that I want to say, “Wake up! Don't you get it?!” Especially legislators, when we're pushing certain types of legislation, that to me are just so no-brainer, you know? And yet legislators push back, “Oh, no, we don't think the parole suitability rate is abnormally low, we think it's just fine. And we think it should stay there.” And it's totally based on their ignorance. They're not stupid people, and they're not evil people. They're just very ignorant people sometimes. If they would invest some of their time and energy into learning more, they would come around. And so part of me wants to shake them and say, “Come on, now. Come around”. And the other part of me says, “This is going to be a lengthy process, and you're not gonna survive unless you realize that. Do what you can in the moment, and otherwise, be patient.”

IS: Patience. That’s the throughline I see between the self work and the activism work: knowing that it's going to take a long time and accepting that. Looking deeper into ourselves, there's just pushing and accepting, pushing and accepting.

JD: Yeah, absolutely. All my life, I've been involved in horses that my daughter and I had and then suddenly, I'm snatched away, and I'm in prison. My daughter continues on, and has been very supported by horses. Interestingly, I was just reading something recently about how we all have an energy aura surrounding us. Most of the research says it's anywhere from two to three feet spreading out from us. Well, if you look at the difference between horses and humans, the horse aura, their energy, spreads out in a much broader base than humans. I felt it myself. I've seen it many times where a horse will give me a certain message. 

JD: Being in Florida and being around the horse that I love, the one my daughter bought for me, it's just so powerful. It's so reaffirming for me. Riding my horse is not just an act of riding a horse. It's really reclaiming the life that was stolen from me, my right and responsibility to reclaim that life. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it hits me like, ”You're 75 years old. This is tough to get up in the morning at six o'clock and feed all the horses and drag those big bales of hay and get it to them.” But I insist on doing it, and doing it without berating myself, even if it does take me longer. Because it's the moment. It’s the joy of the moment. And so what if I'm a little slower? The horses are gonna be patient with me.

IS: So it's really you being patient with yourself at that point?

JD: Yes.

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Two: Drop LWOP

IS: I'd love to talk about the activism work that you've done in the last seven years. There was the Drop-LWOP Work. You and Senator Skinner spearheaded the parole suitability reform bill that passed in 2023.  You were appointed to the penal code revision committee back in 2022. Maybe we'll start with LWOP. Can you talk to me about that and how you became involved with that?

JD: So many of the women that I knew inside had LWOP sentences, which is “life without the possibility of parole.” Invariably, these were women that had suffered a lot of trauma, mostly victims of domestic violence and then given an LWOP sentence, and in most cases, no prior criminal history. It was stunning to me. How can this happen? Many of these women have been in prison for more than 30 years and were not able to present any kind of evidence of domestic violence in their original trial, even though bills have passed since then allowing them to bring that evidence back into court and have their case reopened. 

JD:  I helped several women trying to get back in court. The court is not very forgiving, you know. They have all kinds of criteria about how you can get in. It's been hard for many of those women. So I was left with, “Jeez this is a ridiculous system, and something has to be done about it.” The European Commission of Human Rights has determined that LWOP sentences are a violation of human rights. It's just not done in Europe anymore, and that's been in existence for more than 10 years. And yet, this country is very happy to hand out those sentences. In California in 2022, we had more than 5,000 people serving an LWOP sentence. Such a high percentage of them: no prior criminal history, people of color, people under the age of 25. Why were we as a society accepting this? And yet, sometimes when I talked with some legislators, they would say, “Huh? What? What's an LWOP sentence? What does that mean?” That's what really got me involved in the system.

IS: You started your activism work in 2021-2022. Your work in the years after have really changed the face of criminal justice in the state of California. It's also starting to impact how other states are handling sentencing as well. It was last year, 2028, that California abolished LWOP sentencing. How have you seen it impact California?

JD: I think it's impacted California in a huge way. So many people have recognized that taking young first time offenders and giving them an LWOP sentence was really a stupid move. If you look at the statistics, almost all of the people that have their LWOP sentence abolished are very successful people. I don't mean they’re high corporate achievers. But they're benefiting their community. They're helping reduce street gangs and all sorts of things that contribute so greatly to public safety. That's been the huge accomplishment. 

We can't tell those stories often enough, because people need to realize this whole punitive prison system does not help. In fact, it harms greatly. So to be able to close more prisons, abolish LWOP sentences, just has been very, very gratifying for myself, those that make up the whole LWOP coalition, and all of the groups that have worked so tirelessly to make this happen.

IS: One of the main reasons people were hesitant to release prisoners is that they were worried about recidivism. What you're telling me is so different from that. It's not just neutral, it's not just that there isn't a high recidivism rate, it's that people are actually coming out and benefiting their communities.

JD: In absolutely huge ways. Back in 2022, Governor Brown and then Governor Newsom commuted LWOP some sentences before we were finally able to achieve abolition of LWOP. Some of that group did small term studies. I think it was a total of 150 people and a zero recidivism rate. Every single one of them were benefiting their community. How could you argue with that? Those things, gathering those sorts of details, was very effective in being able to finally abolish LWOP sentences.

IS: You and Senator Skinner spearheaded the parole suitability reform bill that passed a few years ago. Can you talk about that process? What really started to tip the scale?

JD: Well, I think having more legislators understand the parole process has helped. Back in 2020 people who went in front of the parole board were never found suitable on their initial trial. The commissioners just didn't do it. It just was, “You can't possibly have rehabilitated that much.” That's ridiculous. They're all people who have completed their sentence and it takes a lot of energy to go in front of the parole board to be able to defend what they have rehabilitated within themselves.

IS: And the reasons they were denied were usually incredibly subjective, right?

JD: Lack of insight, lack of genuine remorse? How do you figure that out? How? And yes, they reviewed their file, but again, in most of these cases, these are people who have been disciplinary-free for perhaps 20 years, involved in all the programming, got laudatory comments from staff. So the commissioners see all of this and yet, they still say, “Well, we know better in these two hours that we spent with you, and you're not articulating the appropriate insight we'd like to see.” It's ridiculous. Back in 2020, the parole suitability rate was in the neighborhood of 17%. And these are people who have served their full sentence.

IS: So that's the amount of people that would actually pass through?  17%. Wow, that's so low.

JD: And elderly people who perhaps have served 40 years behind bars, their rate was even lower than that! And yet, all of the research in the world says no matter what, no matter who they were, what they were, and how bad they were, they age out of crime. So you have tons of people with walkers and wheelchairs and canes going around the prison system costing an average of $300,000 a year to keep in prison. For what? Those are taxpayers' dollars paying for that.

IS: Yeah, on top of all of that.

JD: So over the years an awful lot of education has been done to encourage legislators to understand that, yes, some people committed horrible crimes. But they're not the same person now, and you really have to recognize that. Senator Skinner, in particular, was really in the forefront back in 2020. 

And Senator Leyva was able to sit in on an elderly parole hearing which went a long way to encourage other legislators to start looking at what's really happening here, and how we could improve this process and get more people out of prison. Those are all things that contributed to the change.

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Three: The Preservation of Injustice

IS: When you tell me about what it used to be like back then, I think about the obsession with wrongness. I think about the parole officers looking at somebody and something they've done and just not being able to believe or see that there is capacity for change. Do you think that officer feels social pressure from constituents saying we can't release criminals onto the street? Or do you think there's a deeper sort of fixation that we might have culturally on preserving this level of injustice?

JD: I think all of those things are true. I think as a society, it's very easy for all of us to say, black and white, right and wrong, and wrong is wrong. When you review details of how horrible some crimes are, yes, they're horrible crimes. And I still think: how could that be? How could that person have committed that crime back then and yet I see this person in front of me now? It's something I had to grapple with a lot in prison. In doing more research on it and looking at it, I think anybody is capable of some really bad things if pushed to a certain point. 

That's what happened for so many, especially for so many women, women that suffered abuse for years and years, and finally defended themselves, because now their children were at risk or something like that. So you just can't simply say, “Well, that was so bad, they can never be forgiven”. The whole movement toward restorative justice has been very, very helpful. And when you hear stories of people who committed acts of violence, and people who were victims of the violence coming together and understanding each other, it has a huge impact. We all do bad things. We all make mistakes. We all fail in some way. And that's something we don't like to see in ourselves. So there's that societal prejudice.

Also, with commissioners there's a very intense lobby completely supported by the guards union, the CCPOA is the California prison guards union. It's the most powerful, well-funded union in California. They financially support victims groups who show up at commissioners reappointment hearings. Every parole commissioner is reappointed every year through a legislative process and the victim's groups literally show up and keep track. They might say: “Commissioner Brown, I see that, you know, two years ago your parole suitability rate was within the average and we see it's increased almost 30%. We're very concerned about that.” And they can be voted down. These commissioners can lose their job because of it. I don't know how they do it. “Do I do the right thing? Or do I lose my job because now I'm granting more parole than the lobby groups think is appropriate?”

IS: When you say victims groups, that's the victims of the crimes?

JD: Yes, and they're highly funded. When George Gascón became the DA of LA County he said, “We're not going to send district attorneys to oppose parole hearings.” Prior to that, every single parole hearing that happened, the district attorney, office representative and attorney would show up at any parolee’s hearing and say, “I don't agree, I don't think they should be released”. Often it was not the same district attorney who prosecuted the person, it's somebody who read the file. I could count on the fingers on one hand the number of district attorneys who said, “Yeah, I think this person really is rehabilitated. Yes, I support release”. It just didn't happen. Across the board, they denied release. 

You have to start wondering, how did we accept that as a society? Mostly, I think by being blind by just not choosing to look at it. I know before I went to prison, I was so blind, I had no idea what the criminal justice system was all about. I had no exposure to it. I trusted that any kind of investigation, for instance, the investigation into my husband's murder, would take place in a methodical, scientific way. And that was not the case at all. Things have improved a lot now, but it was very different seven years ago in 2022.

IS: I think what you said is so interesting about people not wanting to see that capacity within themselves—that fear of self. I can see how for so long that served as a scaffold of this system. Because when you see that in somebody else, you want to push it away. It just reminds you of your own potential for pain and acting out.

JD: Yes, I think that really is a big part of it. It's hard for most of us to recognize that, much less actually admit it.

IS:  It makes me wonder, too, with all that's happened over the last seven years with world wars and climate change and the pandemic. I'd like to think that on some level, there was a reckoning that resulted in a softening of people to allow for such monumental change in our state.

JD: I agree. I think the more we can talk one to one and try to understand each other, the better off the world is gonna be. And maybe understand animals a little better.

IS: Yes, they have so much to teach us. I really believe that.

JD: Absolutely.

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Four: Rescripting Remorse

IS: What does the word remorse mean to you? And do you feel that that concept and word are accurate in how they're used in the criminal justice system? 

JD: Remorse means to me, reviewing something that happened, and exploring within yourself: “What could I have done better?” 

Right before I came to prison, after my husband was murdered, I went to see a therapist who was a great, great guy. I had a lot of feelings about: Why wasn't I more available for my husband? Why on the day that he chose to go out jogging did I say, “I've got these mares that have to foal and the farm worker didn't show up and now I have all this work to do.” Why didn't I put it all aside and say to Bob, “How about if we do this?” So I had my own remorse about how life could have been better. And now that he's gone,  regrets over stupid things, you know, that we would argue about. And this therapist said, “Take that, take that painful memory of some argument you have and rescript it for yourself, and say it in the way that you would have wanted to say it then. Say it with feeling. Say it, believing it yourself.” That has helped me so much to be able to let go of some of that self hatred for not having done the right thing. I think that's what remorse really is about. Being able to say, ”Geez, that didn't go as well as I wished.” But not just stopping there and saying, “Shame on me for not doing it correctly,” or “I forgive myself because I was stressed,” but actually rescripting it so that we don't make that same mistake again. That’s what real remorse is about. Being able to turn it around where you can change your behavior. 

IS: You’re saying that a big part of it is an active process; it’s self forgiveness. I'm thinking about all the people that came up against the parole board and have done that hard work. And they're craving that a parole officer would verify or validate that with external forgiveness. Then just how crushing it must be to not have that. I wonder if we started to talk about remorse in the richer way that you just defined it, whether that would change how people think about what's possible in human beings? I don't know. It's interesting. 

JD: As we've been successful in closing women's prisons in California, the concept of taking what was once a women's prison, or any kind of a prison, and mentally turning it into, and then actually turning it into, a healing center. Whether it's a healing center through restorative justice, or giving back to the community, it’s a healing center that actually contributes. That has been so powerful, and I see so many people blossoming under that way of looking at things and being involved in making your community better, as opposed to saying, “I hate this community”. 

I say that, because when I first went to prison, I thought I had fallen into some foreign country where I couldn't speak the language, because I had always considered myself a fairly good communicator. And yet, I didn't seem to be able to get through to anybody, certainly not the guards, and I felt hated all the time. And it was a horrible feeling. So to be able to move beyond that and say to yourself, “No matter what, this is my community, and yes, it's a harmful, horrible community. But I'm gonna do what I can to make it a better community”. It was a powerful lesson for me, because I shunned it in the beginning, I said, “I'm not getting involved in that crazy stuff, I'm not going to try and help this.” It took me a bit of time to come around to “No matter what this is your community, so do what you can.” I think we all do have a responsibility. I think that's what we're doing here in life. We're learning the responsible use of power, whatever power you have, or you can pull forward from yourself. And so being able to, in some very small ways, change a destructive community and make it a little kinder is powerful.

IS: So powerful. Do you think that we should still have prisons at all? What would a country without prison look like? What would it have to look like?

JD: I don't think we should have prisons at all. Because of all of the things that are associated with prisons, we should throw out the term, throw out the concept, throw out all of it. And in saying that, I maybe a very small percentage of the people that are now being sent to prison perhaps need a brief timeout, to kind of gather their wits about them and reflect on “What is it that caused me to go down this path where I violated society's norms to the extent that the rest of the world says, Get him or her out of here?” I think some people may need that, but I think it should be very brief. I'm talking less than six months, and with huge efforts toward restorative justice and in looking at it in a very honest way, like: “What is it that you want out of life?” Because it's not useful to say “I'm just so angry at life, I'm going to hit back at everything I can around me.” That doesn't help you. And it certainly doesn't help the world around you. But a lot of people don't even think that way. So healing centers can give people an opportunity to really reflect and then decide what they really want out of life. I don't think it's useful to go through lifetime after lifetime always coming back fighting and fighting. I think at some point, you have to say: “What is this all about? And how can I do it better?”

IS: Which inherently means that we have to value all life, too? I see people that are opponents of prison reform and restorative justice as maybe not sharing that viewpoint?

JD: Yeah. And yet, there’s such a dichotomy to me, people that are absolutely against any abortion, and yet in the same breath, “Oh yeah, we can have the death penalty.” How do you reckon that in yourself? How do you put that together? I don't know how people do that.

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Five: In Position

IS: We’ve talked so much about what you have accomplished over your lifetime, particularly in the last seven or so years. What do you see for the years ahead?

JD: I see continuing to be gentle with myself about what I can't do anymore, as quickly as I used to do it, and just taking each moment and enjoying it as it comes. I will always, till the end of my life, be involved in criminal justice reform, but probably less and less so of some of the grunt work that needs to be done: putting together toolkits, getting other people involved. I will probably sit in the sun a little more and just admire the horses; watch the garden grow. Maybe that's just slowing down. And who knows what it really is, maybe it's a better reflection on what life really means and should be. I think on many levels, we all should do a lot more of that. So yes, as opposed to criticizing myself for doing that, I'm going to indulge myself in it.

IS: I’ve heard you talk about working with your daughter to develop the ranch, and you mentioned your philosophy being to settle in and let the space guide you. Does this philosophy enter into other parts of your life or your inner life? It sounds like yes…

JD: It does as much as I allow myself to be aware of it. So sometimes there are still moments that come to me and I’m like, “Wow, you could have adopted that approach in many other things.” But I try really hard to not do it in a regretful way. “Okay, it didn't happen that way, it's happening now. And this is all fine”.

Life goes so fast and I don't want to be at the end of my life full of regrets of what I didn't do. I want to be grateful for when I was able to do all that was given to me and all that was taken from me, because I've learned from all of it. So that necessitates slowing down enough to reflect on the beauty of the day and things like that.

IS: You've talked a little bit about your relationship to horses. Something I wonder: how have horses helped you to understand the human condition?

JD: I'll give you a particular incident. Last year, when my conviction was first overturned, but I was still facing a retrial, I was able to get permission to visit my daughter, and I did so several times. She had already bought me a horse. I didn't know if I could still ride after 20 years, but I could, and I did. My daughter was telling me: “Okay, Mom, we’re going to pick you up at the airport and bring you right to the barn.” And, and I said to Claire, you know, “I’ll be kind of jet lagged, and we can do this tomorrow?” And she said, “No, no, no, I think it's really important”. And I think she was tapping into some kind of wisdom that I wasn't aware of.  I'm saying that because the whole aspect of riding meant so much to me because it's so much more than just riding a horse.

At first Claire had been kind of strict, encouraging me to “Do this, do that” with riding and, and I felt like I wasn't coming along as fast as I could have and that I was perhaps failing my horse, because he's very well trained. I'm the one that has the deficits. Sometimes he would look at me, like, “Lady just get your shit together and tell me correctly, and I'll do it for you. But you've got to be clear.” I would see that in him. So I'm walking down to the wash rack, feeling a little tearful, like I'm not accomplishing what I wanted. And the horse just stops. He immediately knew how I was feeling. He stopped and leaned into me and kind of said, “It's okay. None of this matters. You shouldn't be unhappy.” And it was very clear to me, that's what he was telling me. So to be aware of that and receptive to those moments. I could have simply said, “Oh, he was distracted. So we stopped.” But that isn't what he did. He stopped and looked at me and gave me that message very clearly. There's been many times where that's happened with horses, and it just is so gratifying to me to be able to have that. 

IS: Before this interview, my interpretation was that part of working with horses is about dominance and control. And so is prison in a lot of ways. And hearing you talk about your relationship with your horse makes me realize that maybe my perception of dominance and control being the leading force in a relationship with the horses may be incorrect.

JD: I would absolutely agree. I think the most important thing with the horse is trust —the trust that you have in the horse and that the horse has in you— and to not ever put a horse in a position where the horse doesn't feel that you're committed and you're able to resolve the situation. 

Horses will go out on the trail and they'll see something different that they haven't seen before. And it'll be all huffy, and puffy, and spooked. And it's very important, and this is one thing that Claire has taught me so clearly, that if the horse reacts in that kind of way, my first inclination will just be, “Be calm ‘cause it's all going to be okay,” but that really doesn't work terribly well with a horse. If they have this anxiety and energy because something is fearful for them, you've got to show them that we're going to take that energy and we're going to use it in some of the things we've been working on. For instance, “Now horse, I want you to do a canter in place. So you're going along, but instead of going forward, your feet are moving, but you're not making progress”. And it's a very pretty movement. It's called a canter in place. And it's done in dressage. So when the horse gets anxious about something in the environment, you take that energy and use it to have the horse direct it on you. What that does is allow the horse to realize that you really are in control, without forcing, without dominance, but that you know what you're doing. They stopped focusing on whatever silly thing and focus on you. That's a great process: consistently having the horse and yourself being a team together. And it's so fun when you can see it and feel it happening.

IS: Oh, I love that. It reminds me of something else you said earlier about: The horse really wants you to be clear with them. Brené Brown says that being clear is being kind. I think that translates from horses to humans. It can be difficult in that moment to be incredibly clear and direct, but it sounds like that's what that horse needs from you. 

JD: Yeah. I think that's what almost all horses need from every human. And most horses, like most animals, are inclined to want to please you, to want to be there with you. So the more you can develop and understand why they're doing something that they're doing — maybe a fly is biting them and you have them in cross ties so they can't turn their head around fast enough and bite at the fly. You better do something to help them out because you put them in that position now. Understanding all of those things about their reactions, and then them understanding you also. “Okay, now I'm going to clean out your feet. So I'm lifting your big foot up so I don't want you to jump on me when I'm doing this.” And they really do get that I mean. Then you go around, and he'll have the next foot up and ready for me. Most horses want to be that way. It's really nice to have that relationship for us.

IS: How did horses play a role for you during your time in prison? What took root there that is now blossoming as we're moving into the 2030’s?

JD: I would go out and walk CIW’s rec field. Originally, when CIW didn't have so much development around it, you could actually see cows beyond it. It was kind of a pretty environment. It’s a big track, like in a college campus. I would go out and walk on that and pretend to myself that I was riding a horse. It might have been one that I had ridden before. It might be a young exuberant horse. I must have looked silly to some people because I would find myself sort of mimicking the horses’ gates, trotting along and cantering along and sometimes the horse would be doing something silly. And I would have to steady him and understand that it was just a little youthful exuberance. But allowing myself to totally get into that fantasy and riding and saying, “Okay, here's a fence coming up, we're gonna jump this fence. So, get your strides right.” It was such fun for me. I would come back feeling like I had been away from the prison environment for a while. It would really rejuvenate me. 

Another thing: my daughter sent me a lot of pictures of the horses and her riding horses. Then, my little niece took one of those pictures, and Photoshopped out my daughter on the horse, and put me in. I literally went to the visiting room in my prison visiting garb, because you can't take pictures in prison, and stood in a way that I was half bent and could’ve been riding a horse. I sent that picture to my niece, and she Photoshopped me onto the horse and sent it back to me. So I had that on the underside of the bunk over my head so that it would be the first thing I would see in the morning and the last thing at night. It was just a very visual reminder that “This is where you're meant to be some sometime soon. I don't know how soon. But sometime, you're going to get there, and you'll be on the horse again.” It was very, very sustaining for me.  

My little niece did it because I asked her. I had a friend when I was first in prison. A young mother with two young kids. She was serving an LWOP sentence. Her husband was also serving an LWOP sentence. I don't know what went down, how they ended up both getting those nor did I care because I knew her as she was there. It was heartbreaking to see here's these two children being raised by grandparents. Her husband she hasn't seen in years. So my little niece took pictures of all the four of them. She photoshopped them all into one environment and was able to give that to the person. She was so — I mean, just tears streaming down her face that she had this picture of her family together again. Those things are so powerful and a really visual reminder of: “This could be. This is the way it should be.” I suppose you can look at it and feel sad that it's not the way it is, or hopeful that it will become that way. You get to make that choice about what energy you put into it. 

IS: That choice of how you want to wake up and think about each day, it sort of comes down to: “Well, I'm here now. So do I want to think about something that could give me joy? Or think about something that makes me sad? And how do I want to pass the time?”

JD: Exactly, exactly. And the more you train yourself to really understand that and make that distinction for yourself, the better you get at it, and the happier you become.

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Links

• Drop LWOP Coalition

• ‘It's finally over.' San Diego DA drops 22-year-old murder case against Jane Dorotik