Has Prison Changed Me?

One of my close friends is leaving Taft in a couple of weeks. As we walked the track one evening, he made a comment that intrigued me. He said, “I have to look at myself and see if this experience in prison has made me more aggressive.” I had to think about that for a couple of weeks and look at my behavior as well.
I know that being arrested, shackled, and escorted before a judge in 2004 changed me. I had to reconsider who I was based on what I valued. Was I valuing my family, my spiritual beliefs, my possessions or something else? I came to the conclusion that much of my life was hypocrisy. What I said I valued I did really put as a high priority in my decisions. I tried for the three years that I was on pre-trial to implement a new set of values based on new priorities. I came to prison thinking that I had done an ok job of reprioritizing my life.
The challenge was being in prison. If there is anyone out there who thinks that prison is designed to rehabilitate, let me assure you that it is not. Rehabilitation is a change made by the individual. The system, in my opinion, works against you. Even though I came in here with the intent of living my life with different guiding principles, I was bombarded with the anger, bitter, aggressive and selfish culture that exists in every level of prison. I’m at the lowest level of security of incarceration and it is prevalent even here.
I’ve already written about how I found a good couple of friends. I am a Christian and I wanted to find other guys who shared that priority. I was blessed to be able to do so. Even so, the challenge of not allowing the culture of this place to change me confronted me daily and still does. You come to realize that the staff, for the most part, does not care. This creates an overall environment of bitterness, anger and resentment towards the system. You can’t earn anything. There is no obtainable objective by complying with their rules. In fact, I’ve seen in-mates benefit, who have deliberately not complied with the rules. It takes a great deal of patience to accept the seemingly whimsical approach the staff takes when evaluating inmates for jobs, furloughs, bunk assignments, half-way house, etc.
If you can accept that the environment is not a traditional merit-based system, then you have to contend with the general inmate philosophy. Not unlike “the outside”, inmates are selfish. I can accept that. However, inmates, unlike people on “the outside” are also aggressive. This doesn’t mean they are physically aggressive, although many of them are. Even the older ones are aggressive in terms of power or opinion or even things. I wrote in one of my earliest blogs that sometimes you just have to be wrong here. It’s the easiest way to defuse a situation. As I have adapted and gained some wisdom I wonder if I have also become more stubborn. I don’t know if I’m the one who is wrong as much. On Monday night I watch a t. v. show called “Chuck”. I’m only one of two guys who watch. Because I’ve been here for almost two years, I think the new guys defer to me because they are one being humble. I want to watch my show and these new guys will have to wait for their day. This is how my attitude has changed.
I started to notice this in soccer. I’ve always been competitive, and I’ve always struggled with my attitude in soccer. That same attitude of arrogance erupted again here. It required an extreme amount of self-control to refrain from allowing my pride to evolve into anger during some soccer games. I’ve decided against playing sports for the duration of my time.
As I prepare to return home, I think about the kind of husband and father I want to be. I certainly don’t want to take some of the prevailing attitudes from prison home. Somehow, over the next four months I need to relearn compassion, gentleness, patience and love—the attitudes that will make me a successful husband and father. The attitudes that I have adapted here are not going to help me be successful when I go home. I’m not sure how I will learn these other than trying to apply them to situations when the common response is usually the exact opposite. It will be a challenging four months.