Carlos Vicario (CV): Last time we closed our converstion, we promised readers we’d talk about the work you do inside prison to change the lives of incarcerated people for the better. That’s going to cover a lot of ground, so just to get us started, what issues are you particularly focused on right now?
Efrén Paredes, Jr. (EPJ): I’m always working to increase public awareness about a variety of things, but I’ll share two issues of particular concern to me right now. The first is the problem of enforced poverty behind bars, which is an enormous barrier to rehabilitating prisoners and preventing recidivism.
The second issue is language in the 13th Amendment, along with twenty state constitutions, which treats slavery as legitimate punishment for crime. That language is used to support and shore up the first problem, and it goes along with the problem we have of dehumanizing people convicted of a crime.
The first issue is connected to a forced prison work requirement. I agree there are some good reasons to have a work requirement. It can prevent boredom, which often leads to people engaging in mischievous behavior in prison. It can also allow them to pay restitution if they owe it and alleviate an already high burden on the people outside who are working and paying taxes. And, under the right conditions, it can provide job training, although those conditions are often not met.
But here is the rest of the situation: in states like Michigan, every prison has a mandatory work requirement, and there are punishments for failing to comply. Prisoners who refuse to work must remain in their cells until about 5 p.m. each day. They are also denied privileges and leisure time activities during that time, like going outdoors to walk or exercise, to the library, the recreation area, and even participating in rehabilitative programming. Prisoners can also be denied good time credits (who are eligible to receive them) and be forced to remain in prison longer.
For those who accept work, however, there is another set of problems. In prison, people also need money to survive. Life behind bars isn’t “free.” People have to pay for phone calls, copying or printing out legal documents, any over-the-counter medications, deodorant, soap, toothpaste, paper, envelopes, postage, etc. If a person wants to eat anything that tastes better than standard-issue prison food, they have to pay for that: cereal, nacho chips, snacks, meat, cheese sticks, candy bars, ramen noodles, etc. In Michigan prisons people can also buy a winter coat, a small six-inch desk fan, a mini-tablet (media player), or a television.
Prison has an economy just like every other setting. There are haves, and have-nots; people with money and people without it. If you’re one of the people who is better off—if you have family and friends sending you money—you might be able to purchase name-brand shampoo and deodorant, for what is more than a week’s wages at prison pay rates. You might be able to make all the phone calls you want; you can go to the commissary and buy snacks, meat, cheese, chips, drink mix, etc. Somebody can send you money to purchase a television for $150, and a winter coat and a pair of athletic shoes. In the prison economy, this person is considered well off.
If a person doesn’t have financial support from friends or family, and is working a low-wage prison job, they are likely to be very poor comparatively, surviving on an average of $15 to $20 for a month of wages. They’ll be forced to buy the cheapest available non-brand hygiene items they can afford. For female prisoners it can be worse, because the cheapest effective female hygiene product they purchase will cost them half a week’s wages every month.
With few exceptions, if a prisoner doesn’t have outside support they simply can’t work enough or earn enough to get off that miserable floor of prison poverty. For example, in Michigan prisoners are paid an average of 14 cents an hour for an eight hour day, assuming that nothing is being garnished from them for victim or court restitution. That’s $1.17 a day.
Let’s say a person wants to purchase basic hygiene items that aren’t “high-end,” but not the poorest quality; just plain, decent quality, in-the-middle. At that level, it will take them three eight-hour days of work to earn one bottle of shampoo and one tube of toothpaste. That’s $3.50 out of the $5.85 they earned that week, and they didn’t even buy the name-brand products. That would be considered being middle-class.
An intrastate 15-minute phone call in prison costs $3; for interstate it costs $4. Photocopies of documents people have to have—copies of legal papers pertaining to their case—are 10 cents a page. A stamped envelope costs 59 cents.
Prisoners fortunate enough to have a support system can turn to family and friends for help. They can deposit money into a prison savings account to help prisoners purchase items that are needed.
CV: But isn’t it true that many prisoners don’t have contact with family or friends?
EPJ: Unfortunately, yes. As I mentioned in one of our earlier interviews, only 12% of Michigan prisoners received visits from family and friends last year. While that number doesn’t necessarily reflect total family involvement—some families find the distances prohibitive to travel—the number of prisoners with zero-contact, zero-phone calls, zero-financial support, is tragically, heartbreakingly high. There are high numbers of people entering prison with untreated mental health issues, high numbers from broken and dysfunctional family situations; and many of these people receive no support whatsoever.
CV: So very often they can’t meet their own needs, based on the wages they receive, except by scraping along on the cheapest and most undesirable items that no one wants to use.
EPJ: And that’s not always enough. For example, if you wanted to keep contact with someone—like an elderly relative who can’t afford to pay for you to call them—one 15-minute phone call a week would cost more than half your week’s wages. If you need to pay for copies of legal documents, that can be costly. There’s no air conditioning in prison housing units, so if you need a small six-inch desk fan in your cell during the sweltering summer months, it will cost you $20; one month’s entire wages if you didn’t spend another cent on anything else.
There’s summer; there’s winter. It would take a prisoner over three months of five-day work weeks to earn enough money to buy a winter coat if they could afford to go without phone calls, soap, toothpaste, or deodorant for the entire time.
The reason prisoners want to buy a winter coat is because the standard coats that Michigan prisons issue free of cost are not what most people would think of as a winter coat. Standard prison issue is a medium-weight nylon jacket, a little heavier than a windbreaker. In the 1990s, an Ingham County Court judge actually wore one of the coats during the winter, as part of a civil suit filed by prisoners against the State of Michigan, and he determined the coat is unfit for Michigan winters.
To purchase a coat that’s a bit heavier and more suitable for winter will cost a prisoner $70. Ironically, the coat they can purchase is sold by the same warehouse that manufactures the lightweight, low-quality state-issued coat Michigan prisoners receive. The warehouse uses Michigan prisoner labor to produce both coats.
Remember, this is the wage system for mandatory work five days a week. Yet no matter how hard or how well a person works, they will not be able to supply their basic needs or take care of their own dignity. They can’t buy themselves even a little comfort, and still pay for the things they must pay for. The situation is drastic. Sadly there are too many prisoners living in conditions of real deprivation who end up turning to theft, extortion, and/or violence to meet their needs.
CV: You would connect prison violence with economic and material deprivation?
EPJ: It is inescapably connected. Prison poverty is the major driver of prison crime. Poverty and crime is so well-established a linkage in the outside world that we don’t even need to debate it. We are looking at a set of conditions where we know what the outcome will be because we see it play out in communities every day; and then we are recreating those conditions inside prisons all over the country.
In states like Texas, the situation is even worse, because while there is a commissary, and items are available for purchase, prisoners can’t earn any money to spend there. Texas, Arkansas, and Georgia don’t pay prisoner wages. Prisoners must solely rely on family members or friends sending them money to buy basic necessities. Naturally if they don’t have anyone to send them money, they don’t get to purchase things. That means they work for nothing and get nothing.
While some states like Michigan have an indigent loan program, it doesn’t even begin to address the real issue. Prisoners are eligible to receive $11 per month to only purchase hygiene items, writing materials, and no more than ten postage stamps per month through the program. If they receive money from a family member or friend, or from subsequently working a prison job, any indigent loan money they previously received is deducted from what they receive. If a prisoner is already working and earning more than $11 per month s/he doesn’t qualify to receive any indigent loan funds. And, if a prisoner refuses to work a low-wage prison job, they are disallowed from receiving indigent loan funds for an entire year.
Stop and think about this for a few moments. We have already-broken people, devalued and living in shame. How are we going to rehabilitate them under these kind of conditions? How are we going to encourage them to do better? We can’t teach anyone the value of hard work through depraved indifference, by inflicting suffering, or by not giving hard work a value. This is a matter of basic human decency.
The issue of prison crime is something rarely discussed that deserves attention. For example, a prisoner may see other prisoners who have families and can provide money —maybe even money for things like a $150 television, a $70 winter coat, or a pair of $70 athletic shoes or boots—or he sees other prisoners who get monthly care packages, and funds for the commissary. He sees this, and he has to buy the worst, cheapest items, or maybe he can’t afford to buy anything at all.
This person either accepts life that is divided by the cruel lines of inequality and deprivation, or they become desperate and resort to doing whatever they feel they have to do to survive. They may get together with other prisoners to form a crew to extort, rob, or assault prisoners to get things they want, or they may choose to go at it all on their own. There are even prisoners who pay other prisoners to do these things so they can buy stolen items at a cheaper price rather than paying full price for new items.
There is also the drug market, which is the root of many problems in prison; people smuggling illegal drugs into prisons to earn money by exploiting the weakness and misery of others. Because of the despair so many prisoners experience, many of them turn to buying illicit drugs as a temporary escape to numb their emotional pain. They often get drugs on credit, and then they either can’t pay for them or refuse to, which either results in them becoming victims of violence, or committing violence, theft, and/or extortion against others to pay their debts.
I’ve seen the way addiction has ravaged the lives of many prisoners over the years. I’m grateful to have always had a healthy fear of drugs and never been attracted to them. Seeing the negative consequences they have caused has also been a major deterrence to me. It’s a devastating, vicious cycle.
Prisoners in desperate situations often resort to predatory behavior and search for quick, easy ways to get what they need or want by targeting the weak, elderly, and people too frightened to defend themselves. They don’t get to earn a meaningful wage, and at the same time, they have no incentive not to take what they want. They are shut off from doing anything to help themselves, and find it easier to take advantage of others rather than endure the constant pain and shame of deprivation. In their minds, they’re already in prison and have nothing to lose.
People will say, “Hey, that’s just wrong. There’s no excuse for that.” I’m vehemently opposed to this destructive behavior as well. I get it. I’ve even found myself at odds with other prisoners numerous times because I prevented them from taking advantage of younger, weaker, or older prisoners. When I was much younger, I was one of the prisoners having to defend myself more than once from predatory prisoners who attempted to extort, rob, or assault me for my belongings. So, this is very personal to me. Fortunately, I had the courage to defend myself. Others surrender regularly for a variety of reasons (e.g., they are outnumbered, overpowered, or simply too afraid).
However we feel about the morality of it all, it doesn’t change the operating dynamic here. It’s a simple fact of existence that low economic opportunity breeds crime. And we send people to prison for committing crimes, largely in low economic opportunity situations, and then we replicate those conditions all over again in a way that consistently reinforces that behavior.
CV: And that’s what you call a roadblock to rehabilitation.
EPJ: That’s an understatement.
CV: How would you remove that roadblock, if you could do it?
EPJ: The State of Michigan currently spends about $2 billion a year to incarcerate fewer than 40,000 people. That’s the corrections budget. $1.44 billion of that is directly related to prisoner costs; about $36,000 per prisoner. Every time a prisoner reoffends, that person’s return to prison costs as much as a new car, every year.
While I’m talking about Michigan specifically, there are general issues here applicable across the country. Prisoners need to be able to earn a meaningful wage that will allow them to meet their own needs and uphold their human dignity. They need to experience the self-respect of striving for something that benefits themselves and others.
I would propose, for example, if Michigan prisoners could earn a $3 an hour wage, they could pay 50 cents an hour to the State as part of the costs of their incarceration, and 50 cents an hour to a victim’s fund. With an average work-week, that’s $80 to the State and $80 to a victim’s fund, every month, per prisoner. With the remaining money, they could improve their own standard of living and be allowed to help their families.
They could also save money for when they are released, so they have money during their initial transition back to society. This is a crucial period in time for returning citizens. It is a time when people have an increased chance of recidivating because they need money to survive. They greatly need an incentive to avoid resorting to risky behavior to obtain it.
CV: Why do you believe prisoners should pay towards an ongoing victim’s fund in addition to paying for restitution?
EPJ: First, this would only even be possible if a prisoner could earn $3 a hour. If s/he couldn’t earn that much they simply couldn’t afford it. If they could earn that wage, however, part of their earnings could go to a victim’s fund. Research shows that victims often don’t receive the necessary resources they need, or could use, to help them better cope with the trauma of victimization. They could receive therapy and other helpful services with this fund. The State isn’t going to provide it to them on its own. It pours its money into maintaining prisons, not needed prevention programs and victim services.
CV: Assuming every prisoner in Michigan worked 40 hours a week, that would come to about $230 million a year in terms of funds needed to supply that $3 an hour. Where would that money come from?
EPJ: I propose two possible sources of funding, which are both private. As to the first source, I would like to see more private companies investing in prison jobs, and paying appropriate wages. We could do much more in that sector.
I understand this is controversial because there is a rightful concern that private companies could make significant profits while exploiting prisoners. I wouldn’t turn a blind eye to that danger. In any contract between a prison and a private company there needs to be a public oversight committee or board, and it needs to include members of the community, corrections officials, and prisoners. There needs to also be a grievance process, and it needs to remain open to scrutiny. The biggest abuses always take place behind closed doors when one agency or small group of people doesn’t remain publicly accountable.
Right now we have the lowest unemployment rate in history in the public sector. So, having businesses create low-wage prison jobs wouldn’t be in competition with jobs on the outside. They could be regulated in a way to prevent it from happening. For-profit companies already exist in several states, though they pay extremely low wages. It is one huge way we can bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. that outsource their jobs to other countries to hire low-wage workers.
Some will argue that this can create a second source of inequality for prisoners: if they get a job with a private corporation, or even a corrections-owned corporation, they will earn more than someone who has a so-called “non-industry” job. Non-industry, meaning the prisoners work, but not for a state-owned or privately owned industry. This is true. The goal is to create more opportunities though. The more jobs that get created, the better it is for the manufacturer and prisoners, which reduces inequality.
The other thing is this: although prison policy actually prohibits prisoners from giving other prisoners money, it happens all the time, which is another aspect of the prison economy. Prisoners who have money pay other prisoners to wash and iron clothes for them, cut or braid their hair, make greeting cards, do paintings to send home to their families as gifts, and other miscellaneous things. There are also a number of prisoners who just help other prisoners out because they can afford to or out of the kindness of their heart. So, the more money that enters the prison economy the more gets circulated within it.
The second source of funding I propose is private grant-funding. Many of the jobs prisoners do involve keeping the correctional facility running—shoveling snow, mopping floors, removing trash, working in the kitchen, etc. In many states, these are the very lowest paid jobs, or not paid at all. My proposal would use private grant-funding to bring state-industry and non-industry jobs to a reasonable wage standard.
A private grant is an investment, and in this case, it would be an investment in prisoners’ futures and, therefore, an investment in the community. It’s an investment because giving meaningful pay for work, and a positive return for making positive effort, does more to teach strong work ethics and build human dignity than any class on how to be a good citizen. The results are tangible. The human investment is appreciable.
Shoveling snow for 14 cents an hour, mopping floors for eight hours a day, for nothing, won’t teach anyone the value of work. It’s not going to lift them up spiritually as a human being, or encourage them to take pride in themselves and what they do. It has the complete opposite effect. It incessantly reminds them how powerless they are, and also depersonalizes and objectifies them.
All prisoners need to receive meaningful job skills training so they can be prepared to join the workforce upon release, and all prisoners need to be paid a meaningful wage in return for intentional effort. Under grant programs, that could mean mixing things up. Maybe two days a week prisoners could go to technical training and work in the shop, and three days a week they could mop floors. But as long as they study hard and work hard, they should still get paid.
There are numerous companies in the country who could afford to help fund prisoner work programs. Big corporations like Amazon, Facebook, Walmart, Microsoft, etc. Foundations and philanthropists like Warren Buffett and George Soros could afford to as well. They could help by creating jobs inside prisons and also funding programs to pay prisoners higher wages in prisons where they are unable to create work programs.
These are just my ideas, though. If big companies really want to do something like this, they can find innovative ways to do it with their wealth of resources. They have teams of people far smarter and more experienced than me that they can task with creating options. The key is getting them to at least listen and start exploring options to create new pathways for people to climb the ladder of opportunity. That’s what I am hoping to do by raising awareness about this issue and bringing it into the public conversation.
I refuse to believe we are unable to solve societal ills like hunger, homelessness, and mass incarceration when we can devise innovative ways to do the seemingly impossible all the time. It begins with not only caring and wanting to improve the quality of life for others, but also earnestly striving to do something about it.
CV: Going back to what you mentioned earlier—to the 13th Amendment—how does this Constitutional language support the present system? Many people are not even aware that the Constitution permits slavery for any reason.
EPJ: The 13th Amendment states that slavery and involuntary servitude shall not exist in the United States except “as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” Now, understand, no law and no state constitution actually says that a prisoner is a slave. But that same constitutional language is used not only to justify the practice of compulsory labor, but compulsory labor for little or nothing.
As I said, there are reasons to have a prison work requirement. But, there is no reason to strip an incarcerated person of their human dignity and of any means to better themselves by inflicting the humiliation of unpaid or nearly-unpaid labor. Recently the Director of the Michigan Department of Corrections, Heidi Washington stated, “People come to prison as punishment for the crime that they commit, but they don’t come to prison for punishment.” Being sent to prison is the punishment. The prison experience, on the other hand, is intended to be transformative, not exclusively punitive. If we would look at incarceration through this lens and act accordingly, we would see many more people leave prison better than they arrived.
CV: And you believe that changes in the language of the federal and state constitutions will help to address this problem?
EPJ: It would be a significant beginning. Whenever the fight over this language arises, one of the false claims opponents make is, “We can’t get rid of that, or it will damage prison work programs.”
What they’re actually conveying is that the only authorization for prison work programs is the legal existence of slavery, which is simply not true. It’s a false and misleading narrative designed to justify the ongoing exploitation and dehumanization of incarcerated people.
There is nothing to bar a state from requiring a prisoner to work as a condition of her/his incarceration. But there must be a bar to requiring a prisoner to work for nothing, or for pennies. There must be a bar to misusing work programs in a way that creates a form of legalized slavery, which the present constitutional language justifies.
I’m not suggesting eliminating prison work programs. I’m asking people to consider exploring alternatives to eliminate the abuses that the present system of prison work programs serves to create and perpetuate. I’m talking about getting rid of archaic language that is a shameful assault on human dignity and making the work programs better.
Let me add, we really have to be careful how we treat people, because we can make situations dangerously worse if we aren’t careful. When incarceration stigmatizes or brands a person as a “criminal,” and doesn’t offer them opportunities to learn, grow, and change, that label is something they can internalize. If they internalize it, they may begin to “live down to it,” since crime is what criminals do.
But shame also breeds self-hatred, and, among many other things, self-hatred breeds anger. If you hate yourself, if you’re reacting to the world from a viewpoint of shame and pain, you can’t love other people, you can’t feel empathy for them. You can value what they can do for you—what you can get from them—but you can’t feel empathy. You don’t have room for that.
What’s a major driver of criminal behavior? Lack of empathy. An abundance of research supports that shame’s counterpoint is dignity. While shame can denigrate a person’s sense of self-worth, dignity can elevate their inherent value. This is a serious subject that we cannot continue to ignore while we are searching for durable solutions to reducing recidivism.
Just recently the State of Colorado removed language from their state constitution formerly allowing prisoners to be considered and treated as slaves. One of my goals is to see Michigan lawmakers do the same, through the introduction of legislation I am proposing to them.
CV: Moving to our next topic here. One of the things I know you’ve done in the past is serve on the Warden’s Forum. What is that, exactly, and how did you come to serve in that capacity?
EPJ: The Warden’s Forum is a group of prisoners elected by their fellow housing unit prisoners to address their grievances, and try to improve conditions at the local correctional facility. They submit an agenda of concerns to the Warden each month, and also get the opportunity to meet with the Warden monthly to discuss things with her/him in person.
Two prisoners from each housing unit are elected, and they must be six months misconduct-free to be a candidate. Terms served are for six months at a time. Usually a total of ten to twenty prisoners total get to represent the entire population of a prison, depending on how many housing units a prison has.
Once elected, prisoners then vote for a Chairman to represent the entire forum. S/he is responsible for making sure the agendas are prepared properly and on time. The Chairman is also the person who presents things verbally to the Warden at the meetings. It is her/his job to try to convince the Warden that the issues raised are valid and supported by prison policy and/or the law.
CV: How many terms have you been elected to serve?
EPJ: I’ve served 14 six-month terms at various prisons across the state, which is seven years total. I could have served additional terms, but have declined in recent years so I could focus working on my case more and returning to court for my resentencing hearing. The majority of the time I served on the forum, I was elected to serve in the capacity as Chairman.
CV: How would you describe that experience? Did you feel you were successful in getting a positive response to the issues presented?
EPJ: I made it a point to always be well-prepared. I also sought advice and feedback from older, more experienced prisoners early on—ones who had previously served on the forum—to help shape the way I crafted my questions. I have been going to the law library weekly since I entered prison to study the law and prison policies (for nearly 31 years!) which was also helpful. It helped me understand what works and what doesn’t. I was also careful to only present issues I felt had a high probability of being successful.
Another thing I did was speak to the Warden when I would see her/him around the prison and get her/his feedback on certain things to see how s/he responded, before raising them in the agenda. That helped me develop a good baseline for success as well. A lot of it was about effective communication and using common sense.
In 2005, the Warden of a prison I was at, who was a 30-year veteran of the Michigan Department of Corrections, placed a letter of commendation in my filing stating in part:
“[Y]ou have not only served as the Chairman of the Warden’s Forum for four terms … you have also led the forum in a direction of positive change and helped to maximize communication between the administration and other prisoners. … [T]he attitude that you display, and the manner in which you carry yourself, is an excellent example to other prisoners as you demonstrate that it is possible to be positive and productive even within a correctional setting.”
Based on the comments of Wardens I have worked with, and being repeatedly re-elected by fellow prisoners, I would say that I had a pretty successful experience. There were certainly bumps in the road and resistance along the way occasionally. I weathered it, though, and learned from each experiences, which helped me communicate more effectively or change my approach.
CV: And you also have written proposals for programs, and sought funding grants for projects that would benefit other prisoners?
EPJ: I’ve helped open several chapters of self-help and cultural organizations at prisons that didn’t have them. I’ve also helped prisoners receive their group’s religious services if they weren’t available at a prison. Each situation was different and so was the work involved.
For projects, one of the most memorable ones occurred about thirteen years ago at a Jackson prison. The outdoor weight-lifting area at that prison was very old, and a lot of the equipment was rusted pretty badly and in poor shape. It also had no roof, so prisoners had to workout in the rain, snow, and summer heat without any overhead protection whatsoever. It was pretty bad.
The first step I had to take was submit a proposal to the Warden to request permission to have a new, larger, outdoor weight lifting area built, with new equipment inside. That was successful, and I received permission from the Warden to have a new one built. However, he told me I had to find a source of funding for the project.
At first, I suspected the Warden only approved the proposal because he didn’t believe I would be able to fund the project. I know of no other prisoner ever doing that before in the state’s history, and accomplishing it would have been unprecedented. I asked a prisoner who was an architect to draw up the blueprints for what I envisioned, and while he worked on them, I located a funding source. I applied for a $75,000 grant from a nonprofit corporation and they approved it.
I subsequently met with the grant funders and a representative of the Warden’s Office in a conference room at the prison to work out the final details. It was kind of funny, because initially the rep from the Warden’s office (i.e., the Asstistant Deputy Warden of Programs) wasn’t very familiar with the project and all the work I had done to make it possible. He thought the funders had done everything and he was only meeting with them.
When I entered the conference room with the blueprints, the proposal, and other supporting documents, the Asst. Dep. Warden told me I could leave the meeting and there was no reason for me to be there.
The Director of the non-profit corporation looked stunned; and before I could even say anything, she looked at the Asst. Dep. Warden, pointed at me, and sternly said, “This is his project. He did all the work. If it weren’t for him, no funding would have been received and we wouldn’t be meeting about this project today. He either stays in the meeting or we won’t fund the project.”
The Asst. Dep. Warden appeared surprised; and he abruptly changed his mind and agreed to me staying.
It was one of those “you had to be there” to see it for yourself moments. We ended up resuming the meeting, and a couple months later the construction of the actual project began. Once it was complete I can proudly say it was probably the nicest and best outdoor weightlifting area of any prison in the entire state.
CV: But you’ve also had more difficult experiences in trying to help those who are incarcerated with you.
EPJ: Definitely. I think the moments that have been the most difficult have been when I prevented fellow prisoners from committing suicide or engaging in self-harm. I have met many people in prison who found themselves trapped in really dark places and prepared to end their lives. Some wanted to overdose with drugs, hang themselves, or engage in self-mutilation. It’s difficult listening to graphic stories of their pain, which frequently began long before their incarceration.
One of the things I have been surprised to learn in conversations with other prisoners throughout the years, is the sheer number of them who had the misfortune of spending portions of their early lives in boys’ homes (i.e., correctional centers for children). As early as age eight, some were in boys’ homes, suffering from often horrific traumas that received no treatment then, and have never been treated to this day.
It’s one of the things we avoid talking about when we discuss recidivism issues: untreated early-childhood trauma. But the scars of abandonment, physical and emotional abuse, and molestation, don’t just vanish. And incarceration without treatment, without education and work practices that promote healing and human dignity, will not begin to resolve those issues.
I’m not a psychologist. I can’t offer treatment to the pain I see every day. But I can encourage and offer hope, and I can listen. Discussing this subject brings to mind a conversation I had with a friend in prison, a few years ago, who I had not seen in nearly 20 years. Upon reconnecting again, we discussed events in our lives that occurred since we last saw each other. One of the things he told me was that he had attempted suicide a few years earlier, after his mother passed away. He fell into a deep depression and no one around him noticed it, offered or cared enough to help him.
One day, in the midst of his pain, he dove head first off the second floor of the housing unit onto the concrete floor beneath him, causing massive damage to his head and rupturing his spleen. Being a heavy person made the impact more severe when he crashed into the cement. He showed me a vertical scar several inches long across his abdomen where he had surgery to repair the damage.
After sharing the details of the incident, he looked to me with tears in his eyes and said, “I almost died that day. I wish you had been here when it happened becuse I know you wouldn’t have let me do that. You would have known something was bothering me and would have stopped me from hurting myself.”
The event reinforced my long-held belief that listening with compassion, with empathy, can save lives. Empathy is a powerful, animating force; an act of radical imagination. It’s something we can all do every day inside or outside prison. If we can remind ourselves about the transformative power of kindness, tolerance, respect, and recognizing the redemptive humanity in others, we can change the culture around us in amazing ways.
Efren in His Own Words 