What’s ahead: Limited TV, chances to shave time off her term
Michelle Carter, behind bars in Dartmouth, will have 15 TV channels to watch and, if she does well, the chance to go out and paint a church to get some time off her 15-month sentence for involuntary manslaughter.
The 22-year-old Carter on Monday was taken into the women’s center at the Bristol County House of Correction in Dartmouth, where she was due to spend the first night in the medical area, as is common for people doing time for the first time, said Jonathan Darling, spokesman for Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson.
“She’s very high-profile, but she’ll be treated just like any other inmate,” Darling told the Herald.
Carter was taken into custody on Monday after a Supreme Judicial Court justice revoked the stay on sentencing in her conviction for texting that prompted the 2014 suicide of Conrad Roy III. The SJC rejected her First Amendment argument, but Carter plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In general population, Carter, in tan scrubs, will live in a cell setup like a college dorm room, sharing the space with one other inmate, Darling said. She’ll be allowed one visit a week by family or friends, but as many lawyer visits as she wants, he said.
Carter and the other roughly 100 women in the jail can choose between 15 TV channels in common areas.
All of the inmates can try to get credit for up to 10 days of good behavior a month by working jailhouse jobs, entering therapy or doing work in the community. Bristol County inmates have been sent to do activities such as painting churches. Those external jobs are for inmates who have behaved well and are near the end of their sentences, Darling said.