Kaylin Ransom, 22, was ordered by a court to serve her 90-day jail sentence on the weekends. She makes the most of her time, though, treating her booking photo as a glamour shot.
But then she drives more than an hour for a weekly appointment she can’t
miss: having her mug shot taken at the county jail. Every Friday for
the past six months, Ransom has traveled to the Lake County Jail as part
of her 90-day weekend sentence on aggravated-battery and child-abuse
charges.
In May, Ransom pleaded no contest to three counts of battery and child
abuse without great bodily harm. Ransom allegedly attacked a woman with a
baseball bat and threw her children out of a car. She was sentenced to
90 days in jail, of which she has now served 56.
“Mentally, it kills you because you have to turn yourself in,” said the 22-year-old Ocala mother. “In those two days, you probably think about more than someone who’s been confined for years.”
But the self-described strong-minded “weekender” has found a way to deal
with it. Before she has to report to the jail at 5 p.m. every Friday,
Ransom undergoes a beauty routine. She draws in her eyebrows, glues on
fake eyelashes, chooses a weave and plans the pose she will strike for
her booking photo.
The result: Thirty different looks. Thirty different smiles. Thirty
different chances to have her glamour shot appear on the Lake County
Sheriff’s Office website.
Ransom’s uncommon weekends-only sentence was part of a plea agreement
after she was arrested and accused of hitting a rival woman with a
baseball bat and throwing her kids out of the car.
Most county jails that allow weekend time to be served don’t keep a
separate count of the number of people serving these types of sentences
because they move in and out of the system quickly, officials said.
Weekenders are lumped in with the roster of people participating in
other weekend programs — such as work release and community service,
which change weekly.
Sgt. John Meeks of the Lake County Jail said there is no extra cost in
accommodating weekenders because jails are regularly staffed and there
are a relatively small number of them.
Some judges will consider weekend jail time for defendants who aren’t
deemed dangers to the community or for those with minor, nonviolent
offenses, lawyers said. Criminal-defense lawyer Michael Graves said
other mitigating circumstances — if someone is a single parent, needs
medical treatment or has a stable job — could sway a judge to agree to
the weekends-only sentence.
That was true in Ransom’s case, her attorney said.
“If she had gone straight to jail, she would’ve lost her job and couldn’t support her children. Everyone understood that,” said lawyer Ben Boylston. “In
certain cases, weekend jail is a good outcome that works for everyone,
but it’s a solution that is not appropriate for every case.”
Sara Smith, who was the Lake County prosecutor in Ransom’s case, said
weekend sentences are usually done with the victim’s approval —
particularly in cases that involve restitution. A defendant who loses a
job can’t pay back what is owed.
Still, there are some critics, including Toby Hunt, a prosecutor in the 5th Judicial Circuit.
“The criminal-justice system is designed to punish the offender — not to make things more convenient for them,” he said.
In addition to Lake, both the Polk and Osceola county jails allow
sentences to be served during weekends. Orange and Seminole counties do
not, officials said, because they fear it may be exploited as a conduit
for smuggling contraband into the jail.
Ransom uses her weekly, 48-hour stints of incarceration to “think about how to better myself as a mother and sister,” she said. “Sometimes I strategize on ways of being richer. The whole weekend I just strategize.”
With only a few weeks left, Ransom, who is the single mother of a
toddler, is grateful the sentence has kept her out of the nightclubs —
where she said trouble tended to find her.
“My son motivates me because I have to do right by him to be there for him,” she said. “Jail time is what you make of it.
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