Barber, 81, prepares London inmates for haircutting jobs on the outside
LONDON, Ohio — Five days a week, 81-year-old Betty Crawford is surrounded by prison inmates armed with shears and straight razors, yet she has never felt threatened.
“Oh no, these guys have my back,” Crawford said, gesturing to the 20 or so men sitting in barber chairs or cutting hair all around her glass-walled office at the London Correctional Institution.
“And besides, I know judo,” she said, recalling how, during annual self-defense training, she “put the warden down.”
With eyes alight, she chuckled: “I don’t play!”
Indeed, Crawford’s tough-love demeanor has served her well, long ago earning the diminutive instructor (she stands just
4 feet 10) the nickname “Big Mama.”
For the past quartercentury, she has been teaching the craft of barbering to inmates at the London prison. In that time, she said, all 550 students who have completed her program have passed the state test and earned a barber’s license.
Her classes have a perpetual waiting list, prison officials say, and she is both respected and beloved by her students.
“I know in my heart that she saved my life,” said Rodriguis Hampton, a former London inmate and student of Crawford’s.
Hampton, 43, served a 13-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter and felonious assault at the London prison. He was released in 2003 and, the next year, opened a barber shop in Cincinnati (X-Quisite Cutz); for the past four years, he has also worked at Crawford’s side as an instructor.
“Everybody who has come through here, she actually saved our lives — because before we came here, we had never accomplished anything,” he said. “And for her to take the time and to be stern about, ‘You can do it; you can accomplish this,’ she made you believe you could do it.”
Crawford’s passion for barbering dates back more than 50 years, but female barbers in the 1960s, she noted, were unheard of.
“I would have been the only lady in barber college,” she said. “I was married to a nice young man (Henry Johnson), but that (attending the college) wasn’t to his approval right then.”
Crawford instead went to cosmetology school, then worked as a cook for eight years while saving up the $1,500 she needed for barber school. By that time, Johnson had relented, and Crawford earned her license from the Ohio State Barber College.
She worked at several Columbus-area barber shops while raising six children — three with Johnson (their oldest child died in 2008) and three with second husband Barry Crawford, from whom she also is divorced.
Her kids recall her as a loving disciplinarian.
“My mother has been a huge inspiration to me,” said daughter Da’Dra Crawford Greathouse, 49, a professional singer living in Katy, Texas.
“Her strength, commitment to excellence and
dedication to helping people are all attributes I have gotten from her.”
Crawford was working as an instructor at the Ohio State Barber College in 1992 when she was recruited for the job in London.
“I told them to keep my job open (at the college) in case I changed my mind,” she said. “But guess what?”
The state prison system has dozens of vocationaleducation programs — including, since 1986, the barber school.
During the past decade, more than 12,000 inmates have completed some type of career-tech training.
The barber program, taught at five prisons, consists of a combined 1,800 hours of classwork and practice and takes 18 months to complete.
At London, the school is housed in a plain, cinderblock building adjacent to the Yard, the recreational area where some of the 2,400 inmates at the mediumsecurity facility jog, play basketball or simply stand around and talk.
Inside the school, though, there is a hush. Crawford sees to that.
One former inmate made her a photo album, the cover of which contains her catchphrase, “Hold it down.”
Students learn the craft by cutting fellow inmates’ hair. Crawford and Hampton wander from chair to chair, critiquing their work.
“Betty calls it like she sees it,” London warden Jeff Noble said. “She gives these guys tough love, and she demands accountability. She is part of the fabric of this institution.”
Kevin Malone, who served a 15-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter and felonious assault, entered the barber school in 2002, earned his license and, after his release in 2006, went to work in Cincinnati at Cuts Plus, which he now manages.
“I make a decent living,” said Malone, 47. “I’m married and have two kids, and I just bought a house. And I owe it all to Big Mama. If it weren’t for her, I don’t know where I’d be.
“She puts 100 percent into her teaching, and she really wants guys to get everything they can out of the program.”
Although she has never faced violence at London Correctional, Crawford said, she has had some difficult students. Some required her to call her supervisor to remove them from class — but always temporarily, not permanently, she said.
“It makes me feel good to get one of the inmates who come in disarranged, challenging, but somehow I can see potential that’s in them,” she said. “If I can see that they want it bad enough, it’s well worth my patience and time.”
Crawford, who lives on Columbus’ North Side, awakens at 3 a.m. each weekday, leaves for work by 4, stops at the same gas station for a cup of coffee around 4:30, then sits in the London Correctional parking lot for an hour or so (checking social media, largely to keep up with her kids and grandkids) before reporting to work at 7:25. She finishes for the day at 3:30 p.m.
The routine is one she doesn’t expect to give up anytime soon.
“When anybody says anything about retirement, I’m like: ‘What are you talking about? I get a checkup every three months; I’m in good health,” Crawford said. “This job gives me something to look forward to.”
Inmate and student Dante Robb, 37, hopes to be released next year after serving 15 years for aggravated robbery, conspiracy to commit murder and drug conveyance.
Like so many others, he is grateful for Crawford’s guidance.
“That woman is in her 80s and still drives up here every day, and she cares,” Robb said. “Big Mama is truth.”