Barbra Roylance Williams is one of seven brave people who volunteered to enter the Clark County Jail in Jeffersonville, Indiana for A&E’s docu-series 60 Days In.
Here’s some details about the show premiering tonight at 9/8c:
Sheriff Jamey Noel has devised a program where seven participants will live among the facility’s general population for 60 days without officers, fellow inmates, or staff knowing their secret. Around-the-clock cameras captured this unparalleled access in an effort to bring problems to light and give viewers a first-hand look as the participants adapt to unfamiliar and terrifying surroundings. “60 Days In” is a warts-and-all view of what life is like behind bars, through the eyes of people who have never been charged with a crime or done time.
Barbra Williams is a 25-year-old mother of two boys and her husband is active military in the Coast Guard. Part of her motivation for agreeing to be on the show is that she questions why lawbreakers are awarded the same health care benefits her husband receives.
Via the show’s official site:
A military wife and mother of two young children, Barbra has never seen the inside of a jail. But as a teenage mom who has struggled to make ends meet, she thinks she can relate to some of the women inside. That said, Barbra strongly feels that inmates have it easy behind bars and that taxpayers foot the bill providing them with three square meals a day and a place to sleep, while innocent homeless people struggle to survive with little help. And as a military wife, she sees how hard her husband works to earn his pay and benefits.
If Barbra had it her way, the incarcerated population would be pulling their weight and have mandatory jobs inside to earn the benefits they’re receiving. As a hardworking mom, she thinks she can be a positive influence to the women inside, and show them there’s another way.
The Sheriff thinks that many people in his county feel the same way Barbra does and he is eager for her to see firsthand the improvements he’s made to his jail and get to the bottom of lingering issues.
It turns out that Barbra’s been in the public eye even before her daring participation in 60 Days In. Back in July of 2015, Williams made headlines after launching a public campaign to get a refund for Ariana Grande concert tickets.
FOX 13 reported that Barbra was so infuriated by the singer’s infamous “I hate Americans, I hate America” donut shop fiasco that she complained via social media until Grande’s people actually ordered Ticketmaster to refund her money.
She also has a page on IMDB under the name R.W. Parker, listing mostly uncredited performances.
Digging a little deeper, there are also two books for sale on Amazon written by Williams about being a teen mom. Majoring In Motherhood was published in December 2011 while Second Chances: The Memoirs of a Teenage Mom came out in August 2013.
In the description for Second Chances, Williams says, “I wrote this book to show other young adults just how hard being a teenage mother truly is and how deeply it affects your life, both physically and emotionally. As well as showing them the hard parts of young parenting, I also wanted to show them that no matter how hard life gets, don’t lose hope and don’t give up.”
UPDATE – We’ve gotten some clarifying information on Barbra’s books. She wrote Majoring In Motherhood and published it in 2011. Barbra later puled that tile off the shelves and revamped it before later re-releasing the new version as Second Chances: The Memoir of a Teenage Mom in 2013.
You can see Barbra and her six co-stars adapt to life inside a prison in new episodes of 60 Days In airing Thursday nights at 9/8c on A&E.
