Magdalene House: A Place about Mercy

Notes

173 Notes IntroductIon 1. In this book, pseudonyms have been used for all Magdalene residents, graduates, staff, and volunteers, as well as individuals mentioned in interviews, with the exception of Becca Stevens, Holli Anglin, and Charlie Strobel. 2. In contrast, the total US population increased by only 30 percent during the same period. cHAPter 1 1. Twelve-step philosophy is an approach to recovery from addiction that relies on twelve guiding principles, such as “we admitted we were powerless over [object of addiction]—that our lives had become unmanageable ,” and includes programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. 2. The Prostitution Solicitation School is an eight-hour educational program offered to men who have been arrested as first-time offenders for soliciting prostitutes. As of December 2009, an estimated 3,228 individuals had attended the school per their pre-trial diversion agreements with Nashville’s criminal courts. cHAPter 2 1. By comparison, the American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that one in twenty US children is physically, sexually, or emotionally abused each year. 2. kayla used the phrase“friend girl” to indicate a girl who was a friend in the platonic sense. “girlfriend” indicated a girl with whom one was romantically involved. 174 Magdalene House | A Place about Mercy cHAPter 5 1. In general, women who enter Magdalene have children but do not have custody of them at the time they enter, for obvious reasons. Helping residents regain custody of their children (should they so desire it) is one of the program goals of Magdalene; however, this rarely happens until the end of the two-year residency is near, at the earliest. 2. when I presented these findings to the women in the Magdalene community, their loudest complaint was about my categorization of cigarettes as “nonessential.” cHAPter 7 1. This idea is also borrowed from Marx, who describes how capitalist ideology produces relationships of alienation between workers and other workers, workers and themselves, and workers and their labor. ...