When I was arrested at 17, I remember thinking the same thing as when I was placed into foster care: “I can handle this. I’ll figure it out.” Little did I know, it was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. It wasn’t so much the experience itself, though that wasn’t easy either. It was the aftermath that felt the heaviest.
I was arrested for what was documented as burglary, though I still feel that it was nothing more than just a big shoplifting spree. On paper, it sounded so much worse. I had been shoplifting since I was a little girl. When I was a child, I shoplifted alongside my mom. “They won’t miss it,” she would say.
I never got in trouble for shoplifting; I was just told I had to be careful. When I was in high school, it became more than just shoplifting to me. I was a kleptomaniac trying to relive my childhood since I was no longer with my mom. It made me remember the times we shared together. So, I did it often, and I did it without an ounce of remorse. Then came the arrest.
It was senior ditch day, and my friends and I had all gotten permission to “ditch” and have a day at the mall. We all piled into one friend’s car and hit the road, and once we arrived at the mall, I was completely unbothered by the emptiness in my wallet. Each store we went to, big and small, I would take something. I stole lingerie, accessories, clothing, trinkets, and everything I could get my hands on. I would bring old shopping bags with me so it would look like I had been shopping already to curb any suspicion. I had bags full of stuff that it looked like money wasn’t an issue for me.
It wasn’t until we got to JCPenny’s that things started to feel off. A friend had begged me to steal a bra for her, and I was tired. I let out a sigh and grabbed the bra, shoving it into my bag in plain sight. It was the only moment I hadn’t tried to hide it, and it came back to bite me. We all felt like we were being watched, so we quickly began to scatter and try to leave the store. That’s when I felt a hand on my shoulder. My friends kept going, and as I turned around, I was faced with a badge. “Some friends they are,” the man said. I was caught.
Sitting in the dimly lit room, I was handcuffed, and my bags were taken from me. Everything in the bags were laid out on the floor, and the managers from each store came to pick up the items. The person who put me in handcuffs stuck their hands in my bra, pants, and shoes to make sure they got everything. It wasn’t so much that I had gotten caught that had me silent, but rather the feeling of being violated and dismissed.
When the police arrived, I was taken to the police station and cuffed to a bench. I had asked to use the restroom but was met with a scoff and was ignored. I also asked if my cuffs could be loosened as I could feel my wrists bruising, and was met with the same reaction as before. It took hours, but finally an officer came and asked, “Have you ever had any other last names?” I gave him the last name I had before I was adopted that same year. As the officer walked back to the computer, I could hear them mumble, “Oh, she was in foster care.”
My adoptive parents were disgusted and incredibly embarrassed. Aside from one day where my adoptive dad sat me down and yelled at me about how he had to “protect his family,” he hadn’t spoken to me for months from the day of the arrest to the day I was kicked out. My adoptive
mom spoke with the pastor’s wife about how to punish me in a way that would truly impact me. The pastor’s wife said, “Hit her where it hurts — she loves school.”
So, I was taken out of school. I had my doorknob taken away, my closet raided for whatever items they thought had been stolen, and was told I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone. I was only allowed to go to church and be at home, nothing in between aside from court and meeting with my probation officer. At my first court date, the attorney assigned to me had picked up on the vibe of the room and asked my adoptive parents to leave. She leaned in close and asked me if I wanted to go back into foster care because she could tell by the way my adoptive parents talked about me that things were not okay. I said I could tough it out. I was hit with community service and probation. I couldn’t tough it out, though, because the more time that went by, the more I felt like I was an outcast in my own home and a heathen at my own church.
Ultimately, the arrest led to my homelessness because my adoptive parents decided to kick me out of the house. I hadn’t finished high school yet and had no job or money. I slept on couches until finally a teacher’s friend let me stay in their spare room. I’m stable now, but remembering where I was 10 years ago still gives me nightmares. From a probation officer who would sexually harass me to struggling with the independent study program I was in, I just wish I could have been a kid for a little bit longer.
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