WHAT DOES THE INSIDE OF PRISON LOOK LIKE?

 

Close your eyes and imagine going to a place where the first thing they striped and tear away is your humanity, where they detach you from every good thing that reminds you of who you were before prison. Your family, friends, and every beautiful memory that ever brought meaning, love and direction to your life, they work to destroy. They do this because without your humanity, they are justified in how they are going to mentally torture, physically deprive, and tediously degrade you to a life that isn't fit for even an animal to live. Once you are inside of THEIR PRISON, they will work tirelessly hard to break everything about you, your mental, physical, and spiritual essence which connects you to the beauty of life will be gone if they have their way.

Being a nonhuman to them (a prison number) is the only way they will see you, nothing about you will garner their compassion, empathy or respect. You will be invisible on every level and they will treat you as three-fifth's of a person like your ancestors before you. Your subserviency is the only thing they seek because in truth, they are some real live bullies. They prey on your vulnerability relentlessly and once they had their fill, they pass you around to make sure their comrades gets some notches on their belt by destroying the rest of what's left of you. There's no escaping them, you either fall in line or spend your time in segregation, which is another form of torture they utilize in order to break you.

I've spent my fair share of time in segregation because I didn't fall in line or submit to their authority no matter who it was coming from. I was wrapped up and dealing with my own demons so nothing they did scared me. From 1992 to 1998, I caught at least 35 infractions and was sent to two maximum security prisons because of my behavior. I spent time in segregation a few times doing those stretches. Segregation is a 23 hour lockdown with one hour of yard everyday. You do not come out of your cell other than that unless it is shower time which you get three times a week, usually Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I wouldn't cave to their system because inside of myself I was already carrying more pain and trauma than even prison could add on. I was lost beyond recognition and I was ready to die before I allowed them the victory of my submission. Although I didn't win any prize or treasure, I felt like I gained a little self growth by opposing a wickedness that I was arrested, put on trial and ultimately sent to prison for. They shouldn't be above the rules or the laws, but this is exactly how they carry on inside of THEIR PRISON.

They have a mantra, "unity second only to integrity" or something like that. But there's no integrity because nothing comes before the brother/sisterhood in the correctional institution. And if you desire to work for the MDOC then make sure you leave your moral compass at home because it will not be welcomed or tolerated when it comes to destroying the fabric of inmates. The MDOC correctional officers are no different than the police department in society when some of it's officers who patrols impoverished neighborhoods and kill black and brown people with impunity. The only difference in prison is, they murder you with mental abuse and the ink pen until you are no good to anyone.* The pain and anger that will form inside of you because of this treatment may hinder you from ever leaving prison or being successful upon your release so that you come back to prison.

They denigrate you at every turn and considering there's no oversight while they are abusing you, you will become a constant object they will never get tired of brutalizing. They will oftentimes disregard policy and procedures unless it is to their advantage and your disadvantage. For example, prisoners and correctional officers are only allowed one serving of food during any meal, but the correctional officers don't follow that rule. As we stand in line waiting to be served a meager portion of food which in no way relieves the hunger pains we've carried all day, a correctional officer will walk to the front of the line and get two or three portions of food right in front of us. The State Food Supervisors are there to ensure that everyone is given the same portion of food, but the correctional officers are their comrades so nothing is said or done. This is theft, embezzlement, corruption and criminal intent, but where is the justice when it comes to their wrongs?

How can their be justice when at this very moment I am housed at a correctional facility where the entire work force is 99.9% white, while .1% are Indian or other? Absolutely No Black People! That ratio equals, No understanding, no Sympathy and definitely no regards for a prison population where the majority of its residents are black. So what do you think happens to us in such an environment? We are treated harshly everyday by a collection of evil that wish they could string us up and hang us at the nearest tree. An evil that persist as an unbreakable force on all three shifts. I know you may be thinking, that can't happen in today's society right? You probably was taught or had a notion that a police officer couldn't murder someone in cold blood until you saw George Floyd laying lifeless under the knee of that up standing police officer huh, (pun definitely intended)???

We are facing mental and spiritual extinction in prison and there's no end in sight if mass incarceration is allowed to continue. We were sentenced to prison for crimes that were committed against society, but our prison sentence didn't say we would be mentally, spiritually and emotionally tortured by correctional officers. They lie and betray the trust of society everyday, and then they hide behind their uniform as if they are right and exact... Nonsense! The value of a person should be the quality of their humanity, and not the prejudices within their ideals and beliefs.

So, if you closed your eyes and imagined all of this, then maybe you saw exactly what they have sought to turn me/us into. A vessel of despair, a dark and gloomy creature with no relevance of existence, who has unfulfilled dreams, painful days, miserable nights, and enough mental traumas to last a lifetime? I would say that your visual recognition of the inhumane treatment I have lived through for over 30 years is an inaccurate assessment. You can see the maliciously driven healthcare worker that denies us adequate care because of the money they are working to save the private corporations that has taken over inside the prison industry. What about the PERFECT correctional officer who claims he/she goes to work and professionally does his/her job with dignity and respect, but underneath his/her deception lies the truth of his/her INTENT, which is to mentally beat, emotionally destroy and verbally abuse every prisoner for his/her entire eight hour shift.

Those are just some of the tragedies that makes prison an unsuccessful vehicle that was never designed to help correct the behavior of the lost and downtrodden. It was created to profit and benefit off of poor black and brown people's pain and suffering. This system (prison industry) was created to lock poor people up and force us under the 13th Amendment of the Constitution to work jobs for pennies a day if any pennies at all. The shocking truth in our historical tragedies is the fact that they've found yet another way to dehumanize us, tear our families apart and make a ton of money while doing so. Wow! That alone should give you a reason to pause?

The MDOC doesn't even attempt to provide a rehabilitative path of success for the incarcerated, the incarcerated man/woman must find that path on their own. The MDOC lock us up and punish, punish, punish!!! They are 1 in 6 states that doesn't offer any incentives for good behavior, so for the most part, a great number of men/and women in prison remain paralyzed in their former selves because they feel like what's the sense of changing when death and prison are the only options available to them? With no education, positive reinforcements and meaningful solutions to poverty driven decision making, they will go right back to the very lifestyle that brought them to prison in the first place.

No rehabilitation available in Michigan after coming to prison with a ten year sentence for a violent crime such as Armed Robbery, and for nine and a half years, they never once recommended or placed you in any program for violent offenders? Now VPP (Violent Prevention Program) and AOP (Assaultive Offenders Program) as mandatory programs that must be completed before parole is given, but they do not place you in these programs until six months before your ERD (earliest release date).

So in other words, when a prisoner is about to walk out of prison after serving time for a violent crime, they give you a two month crash course on VPP and AOP. They could care less if the incarcerated man/woman took it upon themselves to understand why they committed the violent crime in the first place, or if they found empathy and remorse during the course of their confinement. The MDOC doesn't concern themselves with the progress and change of the incarcerated because they want us to stay in the same state of mind so we can continue to perpetuate the high rate of recidivism that allows the architects of the system to get richer while destroying the humanity of the prisoner. Everything is wrong with this picture!

The inside of prison is not a pretty site for the faint of heart, but it's an every day reality for the men/women who are forced to live under these harsh conditions. We have realized through our suffering that although it is very dark in prison, a great number of us has unearthed enough light to illuminate our individual desire to be more than what brought us to prison in the first place. So despite the MDOC's unwillingness to assist us, we have taken it upon ourselves to become conscientious in our thinking, productive in our actions, remorseful for our behavior, inspired by our willingness to change, and determined in our plight and progress. We no longer subscribe to criminality, and although we are far from perfect, we challenge ourselves each day to be better than the previous day in some particular form or fashion.

We do this because we understand that we made some bad decisions, but it is what we choose to do after those decisions that tells us where we are going and what we will do next. We now know that we are not defined by those previous decisions, and that we can become productive human beings who can return back to society ready to build and make beautiful, the things he/she helped to destroy and turn ugly. We have became these people by reading books on trauma, history, behavioral patterns, transformative justice, penitence, education and just socially interacting with people inside and outside of prison. These people are reflective of the positiveness that we work extremely hard to emulate.

All the things we lacked in our characters or hurt us in some particular way, we have worked hard to not only locate, but to understand so we could eradicate what was bad and build upon what was good. Some of those things were: empathy, remorse, compassion, love, identity of self, trauma related pain, abuse, lack of parental guidance, morality, principles, etc., We desired to enrich and display our good qualities so that we could understand the bad things that happened to us and develop and grow beyond them.

We did this because of OUR desire to be more than the incorrigible men and women that society saw us as, and we did this for us, because we WANTED to and not because the MDOC aided in anyway to our reformation. It took our individual courage, self love, and realization to transform into greater versions of us. Our journey is far from complete, so prison should not be the final destination for the men and women who have chosen to be redeemed through their suffering, penitence and acts of kindness. So, please make a way for us by giving us the opportunity to become brighter individuals through our acts of humanity and love.

I let go of my anger and pain and I chosen a different path for myself. I haven't been in segregation since 2005, and my infractions has been minimized drastically. I have accomplished many things in my mature state and I do not ever plan on going back to that 18 year person that entered prison so many years ago. I am worthy. So in closing, let's remember the words of Bryan Stevenson who said, "We are all worthy of mercy and forgiveness."

*Not every correctional officer I met in the course of 30 years treated me inhumanely. Their were many who treated me with decency by giving me respect, insight, compassion and empathy based on my circumstances. They didn't follow the norm, instead, they allowed their humanity and policy to dictate their treatment of prisoners