Life In The Big House

Unless you've been living in a cave for the past few months, you know that Martha Stewart was convited of lying to investigators about the big $60,000 stock sale, and this week she begins her 5-month sentence at Alderson Minimum Security Prison in West Virginia.  Martha has to report to Alderson by Friday morning.  Had it been you or me, we would have been tossed in a jail cell 5 minutes after the judge read our sentence. 

When she arrives at the prison, Martha will be treated like any other convict.  First of all, she'll be strip searched, procedurally witnessed by prison guards.  From my research about prison strip searches, a guard will tell her to squat and cough.  This will probably be one of the most humiliating things that Martha has been through.  It wouldn't surprise me if the prison officials searched the guards Friday morning to make sure none of them tried to sneak in a camera. 

Martha will then get her cell assignment.  She'll sleep in a bunk bed in one of the large dormatory-style rooms that house between 50 and 90 inmates per room.  Martha, 62, will be guaranteed a bottom bunk because it's prison policy not to put women older than 50 on the top bunk.  The walls in the room are plain concrete, much like a garage, and can't be decorated.  Martha can personalize her locker, however, by hanging up no more than 4 pictures.  The homemaking guru who advises visitors to her web site to search out bed linens with high thread counts will be sleeping under government issue sheets.  Martha will be allowed to bring a few personal items, such as one pair of earrings worth less than $100, a Social Security card, a limited amount of cash, and a religious item approved by the warden. 

Martha will have to wake up at 5:30 a.m., and will have to stand by her bed for a head count.  After breakfast, she'll work for about 12 hours.  Inmates can request certain jobs, such as plumbing, electrical, or maintenance work.  But new arrivals are usually assigned to the kitchen.  Martha's household talents could prove valuable; in some parts of the prison, inmates with the cleanest cells eat meals first.  She could probably have a very profitable side business doing cell block cleaning.  If that doesn't pan out, she can always rely on the 12 cents an hour she'll make for her kitchen work.  That's some pay cut when you consider in 2003 she made approximately $1518.27 an hour. 

Alderson has housed some other famous inmates: Squeaky Fromme and Sara Jane Moore who both tried to kill President Gerald Ford; Billie Holiday, sentenced on a drug charge; d recently Susan McDougal, who served time for refusing to testify against the Clintons in the Whitewater investigation.  Squeaky escaped from Alderson on Christmas Eve 1987, but was captured the next day.  Maybe she can help Martha plan a big jailbreak. 

Don't worry about Martha not being able to make ends meet on 12 cents an hour; Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia will continue to pay her salary of $900,000 a year, plus a hefty bonus of $500,000.  She won't receive her salary nor the bonus while she's in prison, but she'll get it all when she is released.  Not to worry about her retirement, either; she'll continue to be covered by Martha Stewart Living's benefits plan while in prison.