Every year when holiday cards arrive I'm always curious about the ones that have enclosed letters where people summarize the years events. Bob passed away and Jill had twins. Sarah got a job promotion and here’s a picture of them all skiing in Aspen. It’s like a condensed Facebook page.
When I walked out of San Quentin yesterday, I told the inmates I’d see them in a week and to have a merry Christmas. On the way to the education building to sign out for the day, a very loud buzzer blared. One of the guards chuckled when he saw me jump and I inquired, “Now what was that for? Is there a lockdown, a lynching, or does that signal the end of recess?”
The guards and inmates sitting around all laughed. “Yeah, we can all go home now” snarkled an inmate. I wondered if any of them put little Xmas trees in their cells.
I was excited about my kids coming home for the holidays but couldn’t shake the underlying thought of these men wrapped in an isolated environment where the only present they want would be to get out of there.
Some of the inmates I work with have already been incarcerated for almost thirty years. “I have changed” they tell me during our interviews. “I’m not the same man person I was then, are you?”
The rehabilitation program at San Quentin is like none other and the men know it. “If you have to be in prison, then you want to be in San Quentin” I am told over and over again. Men who commit crimes in prison are often sent to another prison which is like staying at the Ritz and being sent to a Motel 6.
Over the past eight months volunteering at San Quentin I’ve been witness to what’s inside the package, inmates whose stories follow a tragic path that raise the question “What if…”, which is the name of the radio show we’re producing.
Yes, people can change if they are motivated. The inmates I talk to take classes and attend groups and gain an understanding that it’s hard to care about people if nobody every cared about you. They realize the causative factors that led them to criminal behavior. They are also smarter than a lot of people I meet on the outside.
These blogs are stories that reflect what I observe working with men who more often than not are victims of circumstances. The choices they made are linked to how they were raised, their education and the role models that influenced them.
As I walk across the mainline inmates shout out “Thanks for coming in” and I look at my watch and note I’ll be getting to the media center about ten minutes later than I usually arrive. But I know they will be waiting for me, because that’s about the extent of their lives right now. Waiting. I feel a sense of privilege to be able to spend a few hours a few days a week listening to their stories and they have changed my life more than I probably have changed theirs.
Brother, can you spare some time? Change is possible.
I'm beginning to read your prison dispatches, starting at what appears to be the beginning. What an amazing experience for you. I have no doubt you give good account.