Today a good friend of mine took his high school seniors to the Dedham House of Correction. It was a fabulous experience, and there are many aspects that I could dwell on, including drug policies, prison recidivism, or even the educational opportunities that more teachers should take advantage of every day. However, I’d like to focus on the comments of the students who experienced something today that hopefully many of them will never have to deal with ever again.
Many prison tours involve a walk around the outside and a lecture by a prisoner or two, usually in an auditorium away from the sound of crashing doors. Most also included scare tactics and horror stories.
This was different. The tour started near the intake area, where basic information about prison life, policy, and the facility were explained. The students probed deeply, really trying to understand issues like prison violence, how sex-offenders were handled, and how the prisoners were treated. Then the students were actually walked into a working cell block. When we arrived, all the prisoners on the block were in the common area having a meeting. We gathered our group in the back of the block, and while we quietly listened to the meeting and observed the scene, our guide walked small groups of kids into one of the working cells.
We were less than 20 feet from the prisoners, no barrier between us and them. It felt safe, and it also felt intimate. We were giving the prisoners the respect that human beings deserve. These were people, and they were not a threat to us. We were in their environment, we saw the four bunks that four prisoners slept on the night before, the walls covered in personal items. A journal was open on one bunk. Their very existence served the purpose of teaching these kids about how wrong life can go.
After this experience, we walked into a meeting room and each student took a seat in a circle. After sitting, five prisoners were called into the room and they sat in empty seats, amongst the students, close enough to shake hands. We were told that the only prerequisites for these men to participate like this was that they were not sex offenders, they were not trouble makers, and that they volunteer. They were here on their rec time, and they wanted to be here.
Each man then told his story. They were tales of missed families and missed opportunities, full of bad decisions and worse circumstances. Like 80% of prisoners country wide, all of these men struggled with drug and alcohol addictions at some point in their lives. The origins of each man was a varried as can be, but the loss that each man felt was the same. These were people, good people, and it could happen to anyone who makes bad decisions, even if only once.
At the end the students were allowed to ask questions. Two questions, in particular, stuck in my mind. The first was from a student who was deeply troubled by what he heard because, at least in two cases, it seemed as though these men were destined for this place since their childhoods. How can we stop the cycle? How can we change the community so that people have good options more than bad ones. This was the 64 million dollar question.
The second question was even more telling; Do you deserve to be here, and is your sentence fair? All five men said that they deserved to be there, and that their sentence was (mostly) fair and appropriate.
What was facinating, however, is that all five men were GRATEFUL for being sent to prison. Each of them described a life that was out of control, and prison at least temporarily ended the addictions that haunted each man. They had replaced a hollowness in their lives with addicitons, and those addictions hijacked all their dreams.
Unfortunately, in each case it was clear that the danger of recidivism stil existed. Those hollow spots in their lives were probably less likely to be filled than before their incarciration. In short, each man had learned that his life was on a disasterous course, each man had accepted that responsibility, but each man hadn’t recovered from the diseases, wants, and disappointments that got them hooked in the first place.
These students felt real empathy, not pity, for these prisoners. Each student seemed to spend the day trying to figure out the puzzle of how these men got here and how easy it would be for them to end up in the same situation. But the last thought that each student was pondering, the one that might show the greatest amount of hope for this next generation, was that each of them wanted to know how they could stop these things from happening to others in the future.
I would sincerely thank the inmates and staff of NCSO. I would also like to say that if you are going to prison, as an inmate or a visitor, then there is no better prison than Dedham. If I plan on stealing a car, I’ll be sure to do it in Norfolk’s district so I can visit my new friends at the NCSO.
