Overwhelmed 12/31/2008

Overwhelmed                                          12/31/2008

 

I am overwhelmed

 

It is 9PM on New Years Eve. The holiday blues have been in full effect since Thanksgiving and the days have seemed insufferably long. I miss my family and friends so much it seems to hang over me like a throbbing ache that cannot be soothed.

 

I just got done talking and praying with a couple of guys who have been down (in prison) 15 years and 10 years, respectively. We talked about their families, mostly their moms and their children. We talked about their crimes; about drugs, money, power and violence…

 

…about grace & forgiveness. We talked about their time in prison, how they worked their way across the country from high security prisons to mediums to lows to here.

 

Seemingly good guys now that committed bad crimes back then, seasoned by the long stretch of time filled with some horrific experiences. Guys that I will actually leave behind here when I come home and will undoubtedly think about for many years after that.

 

Criminals, felons, brothers, friends…a new reality in my life.

 

Did I mention that I am overwhelmed?

This place is definitely wearing me down – 11/19/2008

I was in the lunch line behind a couiple of guys that were having a sincere conversation with each other about what they were learning in a drug awareness program they were in.  A copule of guards walked by and started berating them and the prison sponsored drug program they were in saying they were stupid to think that the #&*!## program actually worked, that 95% of the guys that go through the program end up using as soon as they get out and most of them end up back here within a year, etc…, etc…

I started to engage the guards about the accuracy of their numbers and what possible benefit could come from their “Conversation”.. but then  I just dropped it and looked away.  Not because I was necessarily afraid of the guards reaction, but because I relaized that it just didn’t seem to matter to me because ultimately it would not matter to them.  In fact it seemed to me like they were looking for a confrontation and I was too tired, too indifferent, to engage in one.

 

I am trying my best to utilize my time here as a catalyst for making some major changes in my life.  At the same time, there are some changes that I do not want to make.  I don’t want to do anything to engage in a confrontation that should be engaged in.  I don’t want to be indifferent when someone is being bullied, hurt or taken advantage of.  I don’t want to become so institutionalized or demoralized that I stop believing that one voice in the darkness, even mine, can make a difference… can be the difference.

So I am honestly not looking for a fight but I am resolving to do my best not to run from, or simply ignore, the good fights that arise around me.

 

Joe

Whining 12/20/2008

Whining                                                                                                                            12/20/2008

 

There is definitely no shortage of things to complain about in here. I mean in addition to the fact that this is prison and the food is lousy (really lousy), the guards are often cranky, a lot of the inmates are self-destructive, a lot of the rules don’t make much sense (then there is the issue of which one’s we are supposed to follow and when), the constant power struggles, constant profanity, constant vulgarity, etc., etc., etc.

 

For the most part, I have resisted the urge to whine about them here. It doesn’t seem to serve any positive purpose and the most interesting/shocking things are generally considered to be inappropriate for a public journal such as this. After all, you never know who is reading it…

 

There is one thing that really bothers me about the place that I do want to share with anyone who will listen. It is the seeming lack of any type of organized attempt to rehabilitate the inmates in terms of our criminal behavior and our decision-making processes that ultimately led us to prison.

 

It astounds me that I can spend three-plus years here without anyone asking me about ‘my crime”; without at least having to go to some 12 Step type program for faulty moral reasoning or for normalizing one’s risk propensity-anything organized, meaningful & effective.

 

They do have a drug rehab program here, but only for people whose drug use was directly related to their crime. From my experience of prison, you have to really, really want to change your life, or reasoning, or actions to have any hope of doing so. The culture here is much more conducive to becoming a worse person & a better criminal. To despising, even legitimate, authority. To gang and thug mentality. To devolving…

 

I guess I just, naively, expected something more from the U. S. Justice System.

 

That being said, there are a few guards and BOP staff here that treat inmates with respect and will invest themselves in an inmate who is obviously trying to change his life. They stand out like beautiful flowers in a barren field.

 

Now that I have officially whined about this, I am also trying to do something about it. I am working with a couple of guys to write and educational program that could be made available to any inmate that wants to work at their moral reasoning or just better understand the attitudes and actions that landed them here-

 

I will let you know how it goes!

                                                                                Joe