Doing time
Having something that gives you meaning — whatever that may be — can quite literally be what keeps you alive. What keeps you going.
Two years that I will hold dearly in my heart for the rest of eternity is when I worked in one of the men’s prison systems. Uphill battles. Pain. Strength. Trauma. Grief. Injustices. Day in and day out. It all smacked me right in the face. It was beautiful and it was unavoidable. In a brief moment of time, I could look out my office window and observe a guy whistling back to the birds while tending to his vegetable garden as the barbed wire reflected behind him. Then, I could get a call on my radio to assess a guy who just learned of the passing of his life partner in the community… ‘oh and just heads up, he can’t go to their memorial services because of his sentence.’
I think about the support groups and therapy groups I was able to organize. It wasn’t the therapy groups about harm reduction or trauma that I remember. It was the art groups where we colored and listened to relaxing music. It was the groups where I asked each of them to pick a powerful song that moved them and I researched the artist and burned CDs and snuck them in via my lunchbox (I can’t listen to What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye or You Were Meant for Me by Jewel without being in my feels anymore). It was the groups where they wrote and talked about what mattered to them…
I ran a group called Doing Time inspired by Bo Lozoff’s book, We’re All Doing Time: A Guide to Getting Free. It was a closed group only offered for the guys who had natural and first degree life sentences. This wasn’t to dismiss anyone else’s experience because there were some guys who were certainly serving long sentences. But when you know that you won’t be seeing the other side of the prison walls again… when you know that you’ll be living the remainder of your life Earth-side behind bars (unless there’s a new discovery in your case or unless there’s major criminal justice reform)… it definitely has an impact on your psyche.
Life behind bars was their reality. Many were surviving because of hope, meaning, purpose, dharma, acceptance, resilience, strength, their higher power… whatever they wanted to call it. This looked like devoting their time to teaching others how to read and write. Creating art and selling it to others so they could then send them as cards and gifts to their families. Writing poetry or autobiographies. Educating themselves on criminal law and becoming ‘jailhouse lawyers’ to help their own cases and others’ cases. Mentoring others through spiritual connection. Learning about themselves. Rekindling connections with loved ones in the community. How are they making their time purposeful and valuable? How are they reframing their attitude towards their life circumstances?
Aside from referencing Bo’s book, we watched Pursuit of Happyness, Life of Pi, and The Dhamma Brothers in this group. I had to explain my reasoning to administration why these guys deserved to learn about this kind of stuff. Honestly, it doesn’t matter which side of the prison walls you’re on or how much privilege or money or power you have. You can be imprisoned by your own mind, too.
Jennifer Lee says, “be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.” Don’t let anyone get in your way… even if that means sneaking burned CDs into a state prison…
My time working in the prison was short-term, but the impact is forever. Sometimes it’s important to work within a system - to learn the ins and outs - to be able to help on the outside. If you’re interested in learning more:
~ Follow Bryan Stevenson’s work - reading/watching Just Mercy, follow Equal Justice Initiative (EJI)
~ Watch the documentary 13th to learn more about racial injustices and mass incarceration within the US
~ Get involved with innocence projects in your area (i.e., New England Innocence Project)
~ Look into prison pen pal programs in your area
~ Look into the Prison Yoga Project
~ Dog-related: NEADS Prison Pup Program (specific to MA) or Pawsitive Change Program (specific to CA)
~ Follow and support Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration
~ Get involved with the Prison Book Program (founded in MA but available in majority of states) and check out their blog for incredible artwork and poetry
Other books (this list was borrowed from a recent Instagram post by the Innocence Project)
~ Better, Not Bitter: Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice by Yusef Salaam
~ Barred: Why the Innocent Can’t Get out of Prison by Daniel Medwed
~ Solitary: Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement by Albert Woodford
~ Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights by Valena Beety
~ That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row by Jarvis Jay Masters
~ Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System by M. Chris Fabricant
~ Pleading Out: How Plea Bargaining Creates a Permanent Criminal Class by Dan Canon