The prisoner asked me to braid her hair

Dear Delyara, I work nights in a women’s prison. A young prisoner named Leah is being transferred tomorrow, and this evening she asked whether I could braid her hair before the transport van arrived. Officers are not supposed to become personal, but her hands were shaking and the other women were asleep, so I sat her on a plastic chair beneath the harsh light and divided her hair into three sections. She told me her mother used to braid it before school and that no one had touched her hair gently since she was twelve. She is twenty-three now. She has assaulted staff, smashed windows, and once spat directly in my face. I remember all of that. I also remember how still she became while I worked, as though gentleness was something she feared might disappear if she moved too quickly. When I tied the end, she looked in the small metal mirror and said, “I look like somebody’s daughter.” I had no professional answer for that. I unlocked her cell, wished her luck, and watched her lie down fully dressed with the braid resting over one shoulder. In an hour, I will hand her over in restraints. I keep thinking about how punishment can remove so many things from a person that even being touched without pain begins to feel like a privilege.