I have never been incarcerated, not in a jail, or a prison, I never even got detention in school. But I have had a few opportunities to see the inside of a prison. There is a lot of gray in a prison: cinder block walls, gray paint on the bars, gray uniforms. Ironically there is nothing gray about the way society views prisons and prisoners. We all have our preconceptions of what the inside of a prison looks like. We have our preconceptions about prisoners. They are there for a reason, right? End of story, Black and white. No gray. Lock the door. Throw away the key, and never think about them again.
The first time I went into a prison, it was not a pleasant
experience. I was applying for a job in a lab that would be testing samples
(mainly from parolees) for drugs. You walk in and the iron door clanks behind
you. Then another iron door opens to let you through before clanking behind you
again. There is something very final about that clanking sound. A tiny part of
your brain worries that you will be stuck in there. I never actually saw any
prisoners on that first trip, just staff. I didn’t get the job. That was fine
by me.
My second set of experiences occurred years later, when I
was actually visiting an inmate in a prison. There was “basic visitation” and
“privileged visitation.” Basic visitation means you are separated from the
prisoner by a glass partition. Privileged visitation means you get to talk with
them directly, but you are in a big room with maybe thirty prisoners and their
visitors. The prisoners have assigned seats, and you sit next to them in seats
designated for visitors. I don’t remember if I felt uneasy being in a room with
thirty or so prisoners, and two guards in the room. If I was uneasy, I got over
it quickly. The vibe was one of families reuniting. I stopped seeing the
prisoners from the view we are all taught, and started seeing them as people.
Oh, I knew they were convicted criminals. Who knows what some of them had done?
I wasn’t about to start exchanging personal information with any of them. But
gone was the notion that these were all worthless scum bags. Many of them were
very young. It was kind of heartbreaking seeing them hug their babies.
My third set of prison experiences came about because of
theater. The director of our theater company had a friend who was directing a
prisoners drama group. Our director saw their production of A Midsummer
Night’s Dream and he was inspired to take one of our productions to them.
So, the next year we performed Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida for
them. This involved a lot of paperwork, rules, and restrictions. But it worked
so well we did it again the next year when we performed Measure for Measure.
After these performances we had roundtable discussions with the prisoners about
our, and their theater experiences. Again, it was hard to see the inmates as "not human.”
I wish that everyone would get the opportunity to visit a
prison and see the inmates first-hand. To see how the reality matches up
against society’s perception. Don’t get me wrong, there are people who are a
danger to society who absolutely belong in prison. Some people should never be
set free. But our society has moved into the narrative to throw away the key
for all criminals. That it is better that ten innocent people go to prison
rather than one guilty one should be set free. This narrative has been pushed
by people with an agenda, who use fear as a motivator to drive the public to
build more prisons, rather than finding other ways to solve problems. I would like to think that we could be more
responsible and thoughtful about our criminal justice system. Maybe someday the
pendulum will swing the other way and we will get there. The real world is in
shades of gray.
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