The specifics of my own personal drama are not essential to this post, and are probably best saved for a future short story about how hard it is to both love another and live as you desire all at the same time. I will ultimately be fine. But I was not fine on Tuesday night. I could only tell myself I was going to do my best and be thankful that my co-facilitator was doing the bulk of the teaching for the night.

I often tell people about this prison work that I learn as much from our students as I think they learn from us. What I don’t always say is that sometimes I go to the prison only for myself. Tuesday was one of those nights. It can be a relief (and I recognize the sensation of relief is only possible because I can walk back out of the prison when I choose) to hear the various prison doors closing behind us as we make our way deeper into the prison, each one locking me further away, even if only for a brief period of time, from the outside world, from a life that momentarily feels out of my control. In the prison there are no cell phones, no email, no fucking Facebook. There are no partners, no family, no lovers. There are concrete walls, metal-barred doors, familiar security procedures and at least an appearance of control and order. For two plus hours no one from the outside can reach me, no matter the crisis.
I went to the prison on Tuesday wanting to be locked away for a while. That was my only desire. I knew I would not share any of my personal struggles with the group (not appropriate). I did not expect to walk out with answers or new insights that would help guide me through the coming days and weeks. I just needed to disappear. And I did, and it was exactly what I needed.

What I did not expect was the unintentional kindness of so many of the students. Kindness that manifested in ways they probably didn’t intend or recognize. M-, for example, when he came into the classroom, shook my hand as always and asked how my last two weeks had been. I said, “It’s been a little tough, but I’ll survive.” He said, “Shoot, you don’t have to pretend in here, we get tough,” and gave me a big smile that did actually make me feel a little better. M- also read a personal essay, which was both well written and powerful and clearly demonstrated he’d been paying attention during our last class when I presented a craft lesson on scene vs. narrative summary. I was proud of him and his work, and pleased with myself for maybe having reached at least one of them to help make a difference in how they think about constructing their words on the page.

At the break, J- asked if I wanted some tea. He’s been bringing extra with him for us volunteers. I said I’d love some (I needed the caffeine), and then when I wasn’t paying attention because we were calling the group back to order for the second half of the night J- placed in front of me a hot mug of water, a tea bag and two sugar cubes. It was the sugar cubes that nearly undid me. Such a simple act of kindness in such an unkind environment on a day when I was feeling like the only person I would ever be able to depend on again was myself. Sugar cubes. I almost cried. Instead I said to him, “You just made my day, seriously,” and meant it.

J- is serving consecutive life sentences for some gruesome murders.

J- brought me sugar cubes.

We laughed a lot on Tuesday night. I got excited about an opportunity one of our students has to explore his fascination with fire when he was young, and somehow got myself pegged as a closet pyromaniac, which made me remember the time I got grounded as a kid for giving matches to another kid. That in turn made me remember I was once a kid and I made mistakes then just as I do now, but it still all worked out eventually.

I left the prison, walking through mechanized door after mechanized door, feeling better. Nothing had been resolved. I was headed back to my life where the same issues I’d left behind a few hours before still waited for me. I had no new good answers. But I felt cared for and respected. I felt like in a life filled with chaos at the moment, I’d found a small sliver of something that felt normal. And most importantly, I’d been gifted the smallest acts of kindness in a place and at a time when I expected none. In a small way, those sugar cubes fortified my resolve. Life is hard…and occasionally still sweet.

There’s an agitation in the air. That’s the first thing I feel. At the front desk, our group’s paperwork had not been processed properly. For fifteen minutes it seemed we’d made the trip up to the prison, full of anticipation to get back in after our sixth month absence, for nothing. We’d told ourselves to prepare for just this sort of thing. When dealing with the prison system it’s best to not let your expectations get too high. Best to come with patience…endless patience. After several calls with a lieutenant on the other end of one of the custody officer’s radios someone, somewhere, found some piece of paper clearing us to go inside.

Is it strange to say I was relieved?

The check-in security procedures are about the same. I don’t know what I was expecting. More comprehensive searches? A renewed list of items we can and cannot bring in with us? We proceed through the normal process of shoes off, bags on table to be searched, through the metal detector, shoes back on, volunteer sponsor badges attached, invisible stamp on the hand, back downstairs, through the sliding metal doors (one at a time, so for a minute you stand inside a cage, waiting for the next door to open), sign in to the book letting the officers know who is in the prison, where they are going and what time they came and left, flash the invisible stamp under the black light for the guards behind the enclosed office, through the gated sliding door (like a cell door), down the long hallway, past the cafeteria (I did not miss that smell), through the sliding metal door out into the causeway between the building we’ve just left and the turn-style gates to the classroom building, past one of our students being patted down by an officer, in his hand his notebook, I wave, which is stupid, and he knows better than to wave back while the custody officer is still running his hands down his back, shaking his pant legs, J- has killed, J- is a good student, J- is an amazing artist, J- is in for life plus some, J- will have made sure all of the guys in our group knew tonight was the night we were coming back, past the now two guards at the front desk, one a familiar face, he does not like us, nor the prisoners, and likely not his job, and that was true before the murder, the other a quiet and young looking kid, down to classroom number one, our classroom, move the tables and chairs into the configuration we like, and wait.

First Jo-, then T-, F- and M-, B- and JD come into the room. It is good to see all of these familiar faces, a relief to know we have not lost them all. We cannot hug these men. I understand. I shake each hand, one by one, saying, “It’s good to see you.” It IS good to see them. I have a million questions. I weirdly want to tell them about my grandfather, who fell ill the month before and who we thought might die, but who is now recovering in a nursery home and was coherent enough to understand me when I told him, “Grandpa, the prison is going to let our program back in,” and he was happy for me (it’s not easy to garner the support of friends and family…I try to understand that too). For six months I’ve only been able to imagine our guys’ lives. For six months I’ve worried they have thought we didn’t want to come back because we were scared. That we’d abandoned them. I’ve worried about who’s been shipped off to another prison, and who’s spirited has been weakened by the lockdowns and changes in rules since the murder of Officer Bindel, who has behaved and who has not, who we have lost to the system for good. I’ve prayed for them to keep cool heads. We’ve lost W-. No one knows where he was shipped. W- whose grandfather sent him to the store at age eight to steal a forty. W- who asked if we could be friends and I had to tell him no, not in the way he was asking, the prison doesn’t allow it. They say Mal- will be back. I have a piece of his writing to return to him.

We’re prepared not to talk about the last six months. These guys, we know, sometimes want to talk about anything but living behind the walls. We go around the room one by one and ask them to answer just two questions. How are you? Have you been writing? None of them are well, even if they say they are. All of them look pale, like they’ve either lost weight or become harder in some other way difficult to define. There’s an anger about the last six months. There’s grief, but they don’t know that’s what it is. They don’t understand the officers are also grieving. It’s not an excuse for anyone to behave poorly, but try to understand. J- says he worked with Officer Bindel and says had another inmate been there in the chapel on the night she was murdered the attack would’ve been stopped. “There wasn’t the normal satisfaction of seeing an officer hurt,” he said, “I mean, it was in the church and she was female. He was just a messed up guy.” T- has been to the hole. He tells us he planned to get in enough trouble to be sent, “Anywhere but here,” until he heard we were coming back. As he speaks he both looks like he might cry and like he is still so on edge if someone looked at him wrong he might still snap. He says an officer told him we weren’t coming back, we didn’t want to, and I can see the hurt he felt even though he knows better now that we are all sitting around the table again. Before he leaves at the end of the night I shake his hand again, tell him I expect to see him again in two weeks, he tells me not to worry, he’ll be here.

The piece is short, but also directly powerful. Honest. Unafraid of the prison powers-that-be that might read it (an issue I struggle with here on the blog and as I consider writing more formal pieces for publication). I was drawn to the phrases “air of infinite weariness” and “oppressive lethargy” because they are accurate descriptions of the mood that hangs over any prison complex. McConnell is right, you feel it as soon as you step onto the prison property (and you feel a sense of desperation to fight against it, to wake up the men you meet). A blanket of deep tiredness. Within the prison there are certainly men who fight against such lethargy and weariness (we had several in our group). The institution itself seems to promote it, preferring indifference and sluggishness on the part the prison’s residents (and maybe one can’t wholly fault the institution for this promotion as imagine trying to “guard” hundreds of motivated, inspired, and determined men).

I sympathize with McConnell when he writes, “For some reason I’ve always got along with social castoffs, not the people who nuture their marginality into some marvelous and fecund inner freedom, but the people who can’t: the damaged, the uneducated, prisoners, run-of-the-mill criminals.” I too am attracted to work that brings me into contact with people who seem to have the longest hills to climb to make something of their lives (“make something” as defined by who and against what standards I still don’t know). I am not yet as cynical as to believe that there are people who “can’t” as McConnell writes. I still believe at least one or two of the men from our program will succeed upon release. But I’ve certainly met people who “can’t” or “won’t” and I am equally as fascinated by their stories as I am by those who are struggling to prove they can. These relationships with people who have been written off–prisoners, specifically–make me ask so many questions: what makes a life? what makes a productive day/week/year? where does ambition come from and if you don’t have it, do you miss it? can you choose not to give a shit? about laws? about others? about yourself? and if you answer yes, are you lying? I think we consider prisoners easy to define–simple, uneducated, anti-social and not interested in playing by the rules–but I argue that to be so is in fact to be strangely complex…baffling even. Perhaps because I didn’t have to struggle nearly enough growing up, and now in adulthood have still managed to avoid the worst of circumstances visited upon others, I am drawn to “the damaged” not the way a passerby rubbernecks at a car accident, but the way a student, preparing for an exam she is certain the teacher (life) is going to give, desperately searches for answers to questions she can’t possibly know until the test actually lands on her desk (by way of tragedy, illness, death, violence). I feel the men in prison know things I won’t ever learn without them, important things, survival things. Perhaps that is McConnell’s fascination with “social castoffs” as well. Thrown out of the larger, socially acceptable, law-abiding (depending on your definition) tribe, who are these “castoffs” and what unique knowledge do they take with them when they go?

Much like knowing you are one of the smallest, less athletic kids standing in the lineup waiting to be picked for a baseball game during recess on the playground, it is hard to realize that despite the power of our program’s will and spirit (and effectiveness, in my personal opinion) our chances of getting picked as anything but an alternate are slim. We are not Alcoholics Anonymous. We are not an anger management class (you should hear what the guys say about the effectiveness of those classes!) or a nonviolent communication class (though perhaps we can argue we are the latter…pen to paper is not pen to the side of the neck…doesn’t that count as promoting nonviolent communication?). We don’t offer GEDs, technical degrees, bachelor’s degrees.

Writers always have a difficult time qualifying their work. The hours spent quietly putting pen to paper (in the case of the men at the prison…few have access to typewriters or computers) with months and months passing without a final product to show for it. The transformations that take place between the soul of the writer and the story on the page are difficult to describe. What you learn about yourself, your story, your understanding of the world, your interest in questions larger than yourself, how you change, what your characters teach you, what you want your characters to learn so that you can learn as well…these experiences are hard to put into words others, non-writers, understand (despite their valiant efforts to try). Despite the fact that the stories we are told and the stories we tell ourselves shape our lives, it can be difficult to get others to understand that when you help someone relook at his story, write it from a more honest perspective than perhaps he’s ever told it before or encourage him to write about the parts no one has ever asked about before you help to change him…in most cases for the better. The changes are subtle. A man who never talked in class and rarely completed assignments starts to bring 5 to 6 pages at a time asking if I’ll take them home and give him feedback. A man who has never talked about his abusive father writes a piece of prose poetry full of deep pain and childlike requests for love. A man who considered his crime “not that big of a deal” writes a story from his victim’s perspective and understands for the first time. Can I say with any certainty that any of these things will lead to a greater chance of any of these men not reoffending when they are released—not with any real authority (I’ve learned to try to stop predicting the behaviors of human beings—whether locked up or free). But is chance of recidivism the only marker we can use to determine whether a program has value, whether it is making change?

I will continue to write about our absence from the prison (as if I have a choice at the moment). This weekend we are filling out our “review form” on our program, which we just received Friday. Supposedly the prison will start reviewing these forms in early April. I’m preparing myself for a long wait before we hear anything from them—positive or negative. I don’t know how to prepare for being told our program wasn’t selected. Maybe it won’t come to that.

At the prison we teach the hero’s journey. I am now reminded that I’m on my own journey with this work. Everything has always gone so smooth for me at the prison, perhaps I should have expected an obstacle, a challenge, a conflict to arise sooner rather than later. It is the conflicts that make stories interesting after all, right?

It occurs to me that I know more murderers than murder victims thanks to the make up of our prison group. It occurs to me that this is odd.

We didn’t get to go into the prison on Thursday after all. On Wednesday, another inmate in the special offenders unit (SOU) attacked a mental health worker. According to the paper he claims to have wanted to add another felony to his record in an effort to stay in prison longer. He’s likely succeeded in his request.

I feel I could spend a lifetime going to the prison, reading about prison, getting to know prisoners, prison staff and prison volunteers and never understand what motivates a man to violence any better than I do now. In fact, I wonder if the longer I do this work the less I’ll understand.

The prison is now back on lockdown, or at least the areas of the prison that had come off lockdown or been on a modified version of lockdown are now back on the full program. The guys we meet with have never come off full lockdown on account of the murder happened in their section of the prison. Weeks now they’ve been locked in their cells all day, all night. Is it fair? Punishing the whole for the inexplicable action of one other? Probably not. But as much as I wish for their lives to return to normal (or what constitutes normal within a prison) I understand that the lockdown is likely not about the inmates at all, but about the needs of the staff who need time to grieve, time to decide if they can continue to do their job, time to decide if they can forgive the whole for the actions of the one. Even I have had to stop to consider, is it worth continuing to do this work when there is no way to discern which inmate at which time might decide you will be the target for the rage (desire?) boiling inside?

I want to go back inside. I want our guys in our group to know that we are not afraid of them, even if I now harbor a new respect for the caution I should have in getting to know them. I want to be able to reassure myself by the sound of their voices and the way they will (I hope) still meet my eyes that these men I have come to know are not capable, any longer, of such a random, act of violence. I want to know they would protect me, not harm me. I want to know they respect the life in me, not fantasize about the ways in which they could take it. That’s what I want. What I know, however, is that prison is not the place to go to get what you want. At best, prison is controlled chaos. At best, we are all lucky the inmates, staff and volunteers play along with the illusion of order and control as well as we do. That’s what I feel the prison is waiting for…the illusion of order to settle back in behind the walls. When that happens, however it is one decides peace in a peace-less place has been restored, I will go back inside and I will tell the officer who checks us in thank you and I’m sorry for your loss and then I will go and shake the hand of each man in our group as he comes into our classroom.

I asked my doctors for answers. They responded with questions of their own that, though probably not meant to be blaming, came across that way. Do you always use sunscreen (no, do you?)? Have you used tanning booths (once)? Were you sunburned as a baby (I don’t know)? When I pointed out that I’ve lived most of my life in the northwest and that the mole was on my shoulder where clothing nearly always covered it, the doctors would eventually relent and say some version of, we don’t actually know why.

The journey of asking the question why when applied to any tragedy is a necessary, but often fruitless, endeavor. Occasionally, there are answers…or half answers or answers to related questions, but more often than not we are left to shrug our shoulders and admit there is no answer that satisfies the human need to place order and reason on the chaotic and unreasonable.

The scramble by the Department of Corrections and Governor Gregoire to find a reason for why the guard at the Reformatory was murdered this past weekend strikes me as a quest that will lead to eventual disappointment. A news article today revealed that the accused murderer was discovered with blood on his clothing, a bite mark on his finger and scratches on his buttocks. The article also revealed that the system-issued clothing the inmate was wearing wouldn’t have allowed for scratches to appear on the skin. The theory at the moment is then that he didn’t have his pants on at the time of the attack. So, the question of why, which he has answered thus far by saying he was attempting to escape (which seemed a dubious answer at best anyway), appears to not hold water at all. We must all now wrestle with the truly horrific idea that the guard was not only murdered, but murdered during an attempted rape attack and that she was targeted specifically for being female and alone in the prison chapel.

What is the why of that reality?

For a while during my cancer journey I radically changed my diet. I remember eating an enormous amount of blueberries for a while. I cut out all sugar. I started seeing a naturopath who, while overall quite helpful and encouraging, gave me a litany of supplements to take. I ran a half-marathon for crying out loud. Anything to prove that I had reformed my ways and deserved to live. Knowing all along that in general, while aiming for better health is always a good idea, no amount of blueberries and fish oil were going to prevent me from ever battling a recurrence of my disease.

I also left a relationship. Moved. Threw myself into my graduate work in writing because clearly I had to prove that I was going to make the most of whatever time I had left by being committed to what I loved. I started therapy. I had difficult conversations with my parents. I started volunteering at the prison—work that I’d always wanted to do.

Many of the changes I made in response to my cancer were for the better. Some have fallen by the wayside. Others proved to be destructive in their own ways. None of them answered the question of why I got sick in the first place.

The prison is still on lock down this week as investigations and independent reviews continue. The blame has thus far been directed at state budget cuts, understaffing, overcrowding, the ineffectiveness of so-called rehabilitative programs and the ways in which inmates can manipulate the reward system for “good” behavior. No doubt, all of these things, in one way or another contributed to the guard’s death. Ultimately, however, the “blame” lies with the man who committed the act—a man with a history of sexual violence against women, a man serving a life sentence, a man with a shadow side many of us prefer to not imagine or even ignore altogether. We’ll never understand his reasons why even if, like I asked my doctors a million times, we ask and ask and ask.

The prison will implement new procedures. The Governor will issue proclamations. I wouldn’t be surprised if our state government passes some new reactionary law, which promises to prevent something like this from ever happening again. But it will happen. If not at this prison, at another. It will happen at a frat house on some campus. In a park while a woman is out jogging at night. After a first date with a guy she thought she could trust. Between a husband and wife. And we will never be able to fully answer the question, why.

Eventually, we will learn to live with not knowing. Until the next time, when the quest for answers to the unanswerable questions of human existence and motivations for violence will start all over again.

Monroe inmate, suspect in officer’s slaying, has long history of violence

The murder of custody officer Jayme Biendl at the Washington State Reformatory this past weekend saddens all associated with the prison, even though of us who know the inmates better than we know the guards. Byron Scherf, the man accused of killing Biendl has thrown an already vulnerable system into a state of grief, shock and a desperate search for answers. The prison has gone on lock down for the week, and we all await the both necessary and perhaps reactionary changes that will come due to this incident. I had wished to be able to go up and meet with our group of men this week. Especially once I knew that it was not one of our students who committed the murder (I’m not naive enough to think that it wasn’t a possibility…we’ve got a couple of lifers in for murders(s)). I want to meet with them to talk…to express some of my feelings and thoughts about this incident and to hear theirs. I cannot imagine that any of them will be anything but saddened by the tragedy, though within the prison itself I am sure there are inmates who are not torn up over the death of a guard. This fact saddens me. Undoubtedly, Biendl was only doing her job…in a chapel nonetheless. And while we, the state, prison officials, family members, the community will search for a place to place the blame, the truth is the question of how and why one person would kill another is, at the core, an unanswerable question. Even if Scherf talks and confesses to the murder, how to “explain” it will still not be easy. Budget cuts across the state will take some of the blame…rightly. We’ll discuss whether women should serve in all male prisons. We’ll search and search to provide a rational explanation for an irrational act. And we’ll want to believe that we can prevent it from happening ever again. But we won’t. It might take another hundred years…longer (I hope)…for something like this to happen again…but eventually it will happen. Prisons house violent and nonviolent offenders deemed not capable of properly existing in society. But within prison they create their own society. One often, sadly, still filled with violence or violent thoughts. Prisons are too full, housing too many nonviolent offenders, understaffed, lacking real programs that would contribute to successful rehabilitation and now facing budget cuts that will further limit the effectiveness of the already bizarre system. If Biendl died for anything, hopefully it is to open a tough, but honest conversation about the prison system that could lead to systemic changes that will be beneficial to both the prison employees, the inmates and the community. Because, for better or worse, the system needs to function for all three if this great American experiment in incarceration is ever going to achieve its supposed aims.

My thoughts and prayers are with Biendl’s family and with all prison employees who have continued to do their job with dedication since Biendl’s death. My prayers are also with the hundreds of men at the prison who would never have condoned the murder and would, had they known, done what they could have to stop it.

One of the hardest thing for me to get others not familiar, or even fearful, of prisons and prisoners to understand is that prisons house human beings who have the same basic core needs as any of us. They need a purpose and something or someone to care for (this is why animal care projects are so popular and effective in prisons). They need something to stimulate their minds. Goals. Something to look forward to and something to take pride in. Absent these things they, like any of us, are left isolated, depressed and lacking concern for the larger society. If no one cares if their core needs are being met, how can we ever expect them to give a damn about another’s humanity? How do we ever teach them compassion if we have no compassion? Prison is punishment, but it is also intended to be reform. My time at WSR has taught me that there is little chance of reform if prisoners cannot find a sense of purpose for their lives behind the concrete walls and barbed wire.

I have often wondered myself if I could survive a prison sentence. Despite knowing now that many incarcerated individuals cobble together a life on the inside that is productive and a testament to not allowing the brick walls and barbed wire define whether their live is worth living, the longer I go to the prison the less faith I have that I could make it through a lengthy sentence. I have a hard time imagining how any person serving a life sentence survives. I don’t know that I could. One of the men in our group has become a baker while serving his time. When he speaks about his accomplishments, including earning all the certificates he needs to be a baker on the outside, he sounds like anyone I know who is engaged in work that is meaningful to him or her. He is proud. And he has faith that when he gets out (at least five more years) he will be able to make it because he’s discovered work he loves, work that feeds his soul and gives him confidence, responsibilities and a sense of pride about the direction his life is still heading. This man said in group a couple weeks ago that he is now thankful for each new day he is given because he knows he’s going to make something good with it. He gives me hope. But still I don’t know if I could turn my own prison experience–were I to ever have one–into something so positive. What would be the point? That’s the question that would plague me. Locked up and forgotten, why would I care if I came out any better than when I went in?

The point must be found in still finding a way to give back and to be in relationship with something or someone outside of yourself, beyond yourself. Projects like the Sustainable Prison Project give prisoners a chance to be something other than a prisoner (which simply can’t sum up an entire life). I’ve talked about it before–how freezing someone in one moment in time, in one action and defining them only in relationsship to that moment/action denies their humanity and denies them an opportunity to change and to grow. The men involved in projects like SPP are defining themselves as scientists, environmentalists, farmers and gardeners. Isn’t that rehabilitative? Wouldn’t we all be better served if men walked out of prison thinking of themselves as something beyond an ex-con? Wouldn’t we all be better served if they were able to transfer skills learned in prison to immediate concerns facing society such as sustainable living, endangered species restorations and local food production?

This might all sound like liberal, hippie b.s. I don’t blame those who feel that way. But I’d ask you to imagine for just a moment that all men behind bars are not monsters. Most are not and most will be released at some point. How they come out of these facilities is in many ways up to the larger community. We cannot willingly forget about them up until the moment of their release and then suddenly care about their presence in our community. We have to decide whether we are striving to rehabilitate men who lost their way (or who never had a chance from the beginning) or whether our goal is merely vengence and isolation. The latter will produce more of what we have now–high recidivism rates, ridiculously high incarceration rates and men who come out of prison not much better than they went in. Or we can all choose to tend to community–like we would tend to a garden. With patience and care. Forgiveness and hope. Blind faith that with a little water, good soil and the right weather good things can be produced. I’d like to plant my metaphorical garden with compassion and an open heart. I’d like plant the belief that more men then we think have the capacity to change. But, like a garden, they can’t grow on their own. A combination of the right elements and care must be provided. Otherwise they wither…and whether we want to believe it or not…if the prison system in this country continues to fail prisoners…we all eventually wither.

It was my night to teach. I had three fears…one, the concept of resurrection/story climax would simply be too complex to explain well in two and a half hours…two, that we’d get side tracked by discussions of Jesus’ resurrection and other religious talk…three, that I’d simply have to say the word climax way too many times in front of a group of inmates, many of whom haven’t seen a woman in well over ten years.

But once again, these men surprised me.

Our opening question (each man says his name and answers a brief question at the beginning of each meeting) was simply to tell us what they each thought the resurrection stage of a story or life was about. A few answers:

“It is a test of the protagonist’s maturing. A test that the “new person” is actually real.”
“A new beginning.”
“Coming back as a new form.”
“Our release dates.”
“A reinvention of the self based on new experiences.”
“When you have discovered who you really are and can then finally move forward in a real way.”
“An emergence from a dramatic transformation–when you are changed both physically and metaphysically.”

What I had failed to account for in my preparation for class was that these men know all about waiting for a resurrection. For many of them their entire prison journey is an attempt to prepare for the day when they will step back out into the world and have to prove that they have changed–not only to themselves, but to the world at large. Prison is their ordeal. The climax of their story is their release date. Can he make it on the outside? One of the men said during our discussion, “You know, I used to worry that when I got out I’d have to catch up with other people, but what I’m realizing is that other people are going to have to catch up to me.” That’s because he’s done his work while he’s been down. He’s changed. And he knows full well that many of his friends…maybe even family…have not been working as hard on their own selves while he’s been away. He’s worked past them on his prison journey. He’s worked beyond who he was at the time of his arrest, he’s survived and he’s moving forward.

Certainly this is not the story of many men locked at WSR. Please don’t let me mistakenly give the impression that every inmate there is feverishly working to prepare themselves for a moment of resurrection. The men in our group acknowledge as much. Recitivism rates perhaps suggest as much (recitivism is of course more complex than whether or not an individual worked hard on improving himself while he was down). But our group consists of men who, if they have a release date, stand a chance of making it. When they step away from the prison for the first time that is their resurrection moment. The world will rush to test their resolve and demean their journey. If they can stand through that and not return to what was…then they’ve walked the journey, made it to the climax of this particular story of their lives. I wish that for the men in our group.

His response was full of details about his childhood and family that nearly brought me to tears. I know full well he is not the only person with a heartbreaking childhood story. And I also now that many people overcome their childhoods without resorting to violent or criminal behavior. But I must say, by the time I finished reading his letter all I could think was, where else could he have possibly have ended up besides prison? Some of us are raised to believe we can be anything. Our parents nurture our talents, encourage our successes. Some of us are raised by uncles who put beer in our baby bottles and grandfathers who turn us into alcoholics by the time we are thirteen.

At the end of his letter he asked me to respond to three questions. I think most writers, in particular, will find these familiar:

Do you really think I have what it takes to be a writer?
Do you really think my story is interesting enough to tell?
When this is over, will do you think we can still be friends?

Okay, well, maybe the last one doesn’t specifically relate to writing and writers, but it certainly highlights this man’s desperate need for connection. Unfortunately, the question of friendship is a tough one for volunteers. The prison has strict rules about our relationships with the inmates. Basically, we can relate to them only as students in our program. We can not write to them outside of the program (a rule I don’t quite full grasp the reasoning behind) and we can’t develop relationships with them once they are released unless we tell the DOC (and telling the DOC anything can be a double edged sword because you never really know what side they’ll come down on).

I would be friends with some of the men in our group…even after their release. I would trust them to contact me, to have my phone number, to meet for coffee. Others, perhaps not. But isn’t that how life is? We don’t want to be friends with everyone we meet. Regardless, it is difficult to tell this man that I can be his “writing friend” while he’s incarcerated and that’s about it. This makes me feel as if I’m forced to abide the doctrine that states once a criminal, always a criminal. Something I simply do not believe. If the DOC, society and prison volunteers claim to be working toward the supposed rehabilitation of these men, and they work to achieve said rehabilitation, then how is it their reward is one of continued shame and isolation? It literally makes my stomach sick at times.

The good news is this man does have what it takes to be a writer. Like all of us, he has a long ways to go to perfect his craft, but he is motivated and determined. His story is more than compelling. And I truly believe writing it will help him to succeed upon his release. So that’s what I told him. Keep writing. Tell me how I can help, given the counter-productive restrictions set upon our relationship.