© Provided by InterAksyon
Barbra (left) is among seven innocent civilians who posed as criminals and spent 60 days at Clark County Jail in Jeffersonville, Indiana in the A&E documentary '60 Days In'.
In A&E Network’s reality documentary series “60 Days In”, seven innocent civilians pose as criminals and spent 60 days at Clark County Jail in Jeffersonville, Indiana.
The volunteers were actually part of an undercover program intended to expose irregularities within the correctional facility, considered one of the toughest in America.
One of those volunteers is a military wife and mother of two young children simply known as Barbra. In an exclusive interview with InterAksyon, Barbra likened being incarcerated to “entering a different country.”
“Your entire life changes in jail. It is nothing like being in the real world. Communication is different behind bars and you have to be very cautious with your body language and what you say. Sleeping is different. Eating meals is different. Time is even different. Hours and days pass by and you don’t even realize it. It is unlike anything you could imagine,” she shared.
A typical day for Barbra’s life behind bars is to “sleep all day and stay awake all night.”
“I would wake up around 8AM for breakfast after only having about 3 hours of sleep, then to go back to sleep until lunch showed up around noon. After lunch, I usually tried to stay awake for the rest of the day and read books, or draw pictures and write stories in my journal that I purchased off the commissary.”
After dinner time, Barbra said she would play cards, watch TV, or continue to write stories in her journal. Explaining why most inmates prefer to stay awake all night long and sleep all day, they say it’s because “it makes the time go faster.”
As much as jail life is pretty mundane and uneventful for Barbra, she did have a problem with a fellow inmate.
“The most memorable experience in jail for me was when I finally hit my breaking point with [this] inmate who had antagonized me since the day I arrived,” she confessed. “I was able to get to the bottom of what was really going on and figure out why she was so threatened by me. You will have to watch the show to see what happens.”
Asked if there are things that need to be reformed in the correctional system as a result of her undercover mission, Barbra pointed to the “structure and schedules.”
© Provided by InterAksyon
Barbra observes her fellow inmates in this scene from the reality documentary series '60 Days In'.
“In order to take a few steps forward, you must first take a few steps back, and just as a child has a daily schedule and daily chores, the inmates need to have a daily schedule and daily chores. Having that set schedule will teach them to wake up at a decent time, and it will also help them to sleep better at night,” she pointed out.
“It will [also] help them expel emotions through their work instead of in fights. They will be less likely to fall into depression without having so much free time and nothing to do and it will teach them responsibility and life skills that they will use on a daily basis once they get out of jail.”
As to the most important lesson she learned in “60 Days In,” Barbra has this to say.
“While I cannot give a lot of details away, I will say that being incarcerated as an inmate on the show has completely changed me. I am a different person. I think differently, I act differently, I view life differently. You will see me go through a complete transformation.”