Prisoner Stories | Thomas Walsh

Inside The Walls | Prisoner Stories

Texas

"A Different View" ©
By Thomas Walsh
People who have never done time tend to have a very simplistic idea of what life behind bars is like. Inundated with images from film, TV and the media, which either over-dramatize the situation or focus only on the stereotypical stories people are already familiar with anyway, little real comprehension is ever attained. Even when one has the advantage (???) of having a friend or loved one behind bars who can give them first hand accounts of the experience, it remains but one persons story, and then still but an abstract overview the outsider can never really grasp, even if many do struggle to in sincere earnest.
Movies, television, the occasional documentary, thought generally immersed in the aspects of prison life that most people would expect from an environment where multiple criminals were locked away together twenty-four hours a day are actually, in some ways, realistically representative of the violence, over hatred and degradation that persist behind bars. It cannot, however, no matter how many camera's are set up inside the walls, ever capture the vagaries of doing time that every convict contends with, but which even the most astute observer will miss: that is the constant internal conflict, the plethora of suppressed emotions and futile hopes that keep the individual caught in the state of flex where there are no easy choices when faced, daily, with the decision of the innate human instinct for self determination in thought as well as action, and submission to forces that are intent on convincing the individual that they no longer have any rights to that self determination, knowing refusal of acceptance in the latter could mean a future where the former might never be again.
When has there existed the human being who could simply stop being himself? Precisely how, in absence of soul draining psychotropic drugs or a lobotomy, is one able to suppress the very instinctual urges, dreams and yearnings that make them human to began with? This is exactly that which is expected of every prisoner when they walk into our nations penal systems, and while the degrees of punishment, the lengths of sentences, and the privileges afforded to convicts may be debatable, what reasonable thinking person can proclaim that the deliberate suppression of an individuals self is in any way beneficial, either to the convict or to the society who may one day have to deal with that individual again.
Having served what has been, at least in my mind, an incredible amount of time for not-so-incredible crimes, time in which I have been witness to or a participant in most of the things that the typical outsider would associate with prison life, none of the violence, lack of comfort, etc., has come close, not even one bit of it, to the utter rage and melancholy I have experienced when faced with the situations where my recognition as an individual with typical human wants/needs/etc. was disregarded. From the guard on the cell block who refuses to acknowledge that simple courtesy given is the best way to receive it in return, to the aloof administrators who view any attempt at change by the prisoner with cynicism (and, could it be resentment?), and the barrage of other incidents that serve to remind the convict that he is not, at least in the states eyes, a person anymore, but merely a number, a ward to be ordered and degraded at the administrations whim, the message is, as I suppose it is intended to be, driven home, and the majority of those so treated come to believe it themselves: that they have no worth, that they have no rights, and that they are no longer individuals at all, indeed that they have no "self".
Throughout my time, friends and family alike have been exasperated by what must seem to them as my abstinence, my willful rebellion against the very forces I am so dependent upon for the approve of my release from this life of degradation. "Just behave, they'll let you go!", "just don't respond to their ugliness, you can't win anyway". And the litany goes on and on by these well meaning but oh-so-unknowing people who cannot conceive of a life where they are, quite literally, robbed of any sense of individuality, where they are devoid even the simplest psychological comforts. They cannot understand that "just doing what they tell you" and "keeping your mouth shut" is tantamount to becoming a drone, a lifeless automation... Yet not one, because even for those who do a good job of internalizing the sheer bitterness that results from this swallowing of pride, self respect and dignity, at some point that which has been swallowed must be regurgitated, and as such things go it's usually not a pretty sight. Consequently, when faced with internalizing things I knew would destroy me from within, and having to face the occasional "disciplinary ticket", I have more often than not chosen the latter, knowing my sense of self was far more valuable to me than any petty privilege the administration could take away for refusal to surrender that self. When we have nothing else, we yet have ourselves, unless we surrender such, in which case we will never have anything again worthwhile.
Of course, explaining all of this does little to help those who have not gone through the prison experience, know how it really is, and because I would not wish this existence on anyone I do not imagine the there could be a truly viable method of demonstrating it to anyone. Still, I hold out hope that some will pay attention long enough to understand that all the scars are not external, and that the physical brutality of prison life is not necessarily the kind that produces the most pain, and as a result are sadly, destined to be slaves to the negative outburst it will produce the rest of their lives. As for me, I will direct the derision and contempt toward those to whom it belongs, those who have attempted to rob me of my self, and walk away from these walls one day, clean, free, and knowing who I am.

The depths of the injustice in which we are immersed
Not unlike the ignorance on which we've all been versed
Can often be determined by the price we put upon
The man in whom we found fault and cast away too long.....