The topic of the prison system is not something I ever thought I would know much about personally. I’ve always been a law abiding citizen as has most of my family. I was mindless and honestly clueless. I was also guilty of assuming, as many of us do, that if you found yourself behind the cold bars of justice then you probably deserved to be there. In fact, until two years ago, I only knew one person in prison. He committed murder and so I had little pity for his life-long sentence or the circumstances of his life thereafter.
Life has a fascinating way of changing your perspective over night.
Two years ago my Niece (who is more like my daughter) was arrested with some people after they had committed a home invasion. Even though she was not with them during the invasion or even at the scene of the crime she was charged with the same crimes they were and was facing twenty years in prison. Now there is zero argument that she knew she was in the presence of people who were bad. No one disputes she was headed down a dark path but twenty years in prison?
Fortunately, my Niece has a supportive family and we banded together and got her an attorney. The alternative was to leave her in the careless hands of the local public defender whose reputation was to work with the prosecution to get his clients to just roll over. After months of crushingly unethical blows divvied out from the District Attorney’s office as well as the County Jail we were able to come to a plea we could all live with. She is now two years in to a five year sentence.
Maybe five years is what she deserves for being so negligent about the company she kept, maybe not. But the most disheartening part, she is no longer an individual. She is now just a number. A soulless being not worthy of redemption in the eyes of “justice”. She is now an animal where human rights no longer apply. She is the same as the rapist, or the cellmate who beat her three year old to death. She is poked and prodded and almost encouraged to fail. Her story, the circumstances which lead her to the life she has, is irrelevant. In the eyes of the law she no longer matters.
Now I know what you may be thinking, “Everyone has a story, we’ve all had bad things happen to us and we don’t end up in prison.” I actually agree. But here’s the quandary, rehabilitation should be the core of what the prison system is about. We should be assessing these “animals” to discover who is a viable candidate to return to the outside. We should be discovering who has the best chance of becoming a contributing member of society and then we should be doing everything we are capable of to empower them to succeed.
The reality, while you’re in, many of these institutions seem to do all they can to breed the hurt and damage that helped lead to your incarceration in the first place. If you enter through those barbed-wire gates with any self-worth left they dismantle it faster than a buttered bullet. Your dignity, your humanity, all stripped from you while depriving you of the basic levels of human kindness. This all from people who are so clearly imperfect themselves they are just feeding a sick need to seek a twisted revenge? Maybe...but then that's a lot of twisted people seeking revenge.
I fear it is something far more sinister. A business perhaps? A calculated effort to insure that the ones who do have a chance have been properly set up for failure? Within the first year of release more than 50% of prisoners are arrested again, within the first five years 75% are. Now sure, prisons offer programs, schooling, opportunities for “advancement”, some better than others. But it doesn’t take a college degree to recognize the oxymoron of consistently dehumanizing someone while offering them the benefit of betterment.
If the majority of prisoners are repeat offenders and we truly began re-habilitating them then there would be a lot of prisons going “out of business”. You can’t make money if you don’t have customers. Luckily, our Niece sees the diabolic plot for the rampant plague it is. She will hold her head up, focus on the future, and be constantly reminded by her loved ones of her individuality and her potential. She will persevere. But so very many will not. The ones who could be salvaged, who could soar with just a touch of support and generosity of spirit will instead have their wings clipped to keep them in their cage.
To say my perspective has changed regarding many of those who have landed in the slammer would be an understatement. They are no longer faceless law breakers who don’t matter. They are someone’s daughter or son, Mom or Dad, Brother or Sister....someone’s Niece. They are people. They have hopes and dreams. They have potential. They have names not numbers. They matter.
As always, Thank You for reading!