It’s unfortunate that so many people view other human beings who are in prison as some sort of sub-humans. Sadly, because of the widely believed stereo-types & stigmas attached to prisoners, or people who’ve been here, people in the free world tend to feel as though (or just don’t care) that anything that a prisoner endures during his/her incarceration is not only justified, but owed to him/her simply because they made a mistake and ended up in prison.
True enough, if you do the crime, you do the time. I get that. However, there are a lot of unnecessary & inhumane things that we face during the course of a prison stay.
The problem with the logic that we deserve to be treated unfairly & inhumanely is simply that we are in fact humans just like you. We may have made mistakes, but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t no longer human beings.
Another problem with that logic is that when people view other people as sub-human,
or ‘lesser-than’ themselves, they unconsciously in their minds reduce those people to mere ‘objects’ instead of seeing them as fellow human beings.
In my opinion that is why it’s so difficult for some to be sympathetic to, or to have empathy for prisoners/ex- prisoners.
Over-all in general, there’s a huge disconnection between the people in society & the people who are in prison & together we can help to bridge that gap. We may have grew up in different environments & under different circumstances but at the end of the day we are all humans. We share a lot of the same interest, & all of the same feelings of emotions.
To speak on some of the myths about life in prison:
First of all it all depends on what prison it is we’re talking about but generally speaking, despite what you may believe or been told, it’s not a bunch of guys walking around with mean-mugs on their faces acting tuff with attitudes & miserable all day…lol. In fact it’s quite the opposite. We learn to adapt to our environments & make the best out of the situation.
But don’t get it twisted, though, just because we make the best of it doesn’t mean that it’s all good living in prison, In fact, that’s quite the opposite too (if that makes sense).
I’ve been to several different jails & prisons, some state some federal so needless to say but I have a lot of insight and personal experience. To give you a little insight, every jail/prison I’ve been to most of the C/Os treat us like ‘objects’ and have no compassion at all to our situation.
The Medical dept., the Food Service dept, the Mailroom dept. , the Law Library Resources dept, the Education dept. , the Visitation Room dept., the Commissary dept., are all terrible, they do as little as they can possibly get away with doing.
The only dept. that’s usually halfway decent is the Recreation dept. and that’s because if you give people something to do to occupy their time with then they will adapt and keep themselves busy and not complain about how badly the prison is being run.
Besides, whose going to help us? So if you thought that doing time was sweet then somebody lied to you, only prisons that are sweet are the camps.
For me, the hardest part of doing time is the psychological affect it has on you that comes with everything. I could go on & on about this but unfortunately I don’t have enough time, but if anybody wants to know more, feel free to reach out. I correspond with anybody, about anything. Peace and blessings to you all.
— Keith W.