So why prisoners?

I feel that although I have vast resources to explain to you, my readers, why prison reform is so necessary in this nation  those words mean less and less as long as I remain anonymous. Not so that I can fuel any self absorbed assumptions about my importance in this world but so that you can see from where this passion has grown in me.

I was not brought into the issues of justice/prison reform or restorative methods verses punitive efforts VIA a major television network. Even after a month of working with an international prison reform nonprofit I had not grown in any passion to see resolution to these issues. Clearly my education and the internship itself taught me a great deal about the issues [such as prison rape, recidivism, shackled labor], however it was when I had the opportunity actually interact with these humans behind bars that I grew to understand the vast injustices being dealt to these men and women. I could also see how the current system is merely growing an already destructive problem; fatherless homes, violence generated in nonviolent criminals, all affording no resolution to the community harmed by the original offense.

I would like to share a reflection of my experience interacting with a small group of inmates.

The room was filled with laughter, both nervous and jovial but always genuine and kindhearted. Our time was structured with a bible study led by a tenacious couple from less than perfect back grounds.  Like those in the denim jump suits they had made decisions that stripped them of their physical freedom. While i could see it was their wrongful decisions that garnered their current circumstances, however getting to know their hearts caused them to seem far from where they really belonged.

Sitting next to men I would usually be frightened to be alone with in a convenient store my mind was opened to hear their stories.

My hands held close to them the hand of what had been a perfect stranger moments before. The sweat that sat between the palms of our hands was all mine, as I struggled to take in the experience around me. With heads bowed and eyes closed I heard a gruff voice ask for God to bless “the young people in this room” to “keep them following you.” The prayer was genuine and resonated with the deepest caverns of my heart. All afternoon the perceptions I had once held of those locked behind bars were being broken at their foundations. With this prayer all of them had toppled to become only former ideas and opinions of the past.

In encountering the real lives of these men I was afforded an opportunity to have my assumptions challenged in such a way that I saw the hearts of our nation’s offenders and I found them to be much like myself.