It’s Difficult to Make Sense of The Prison System in America
The more I learn, the more confused I am by the whole system.
My wife read something to me the other day that’s stuck with me. It went something like, don’t believe the prison and justice systems are broken. They’re functioning exactly how they’re designed to. This is much more accurate than I’d like it to be.
Telling my stories and the stories of others from inside prison walls has shown me, nothing makes sense in here and it’s not supposed to. The longer I’m here, the more I’m convinced certain things are done in such a way as to keep you confused, unsure, and even frightened of what comes next.
This is one of the reasons I’m so impressed with Norway’s system. As the warden at Halsted stated, the punishment is being away from family and friends, being locked away from the world. Anything else should be a means to rehabilitation and reentry into the world.
I can tell you from personal experience, there is nothing rehabilitative about single cells, being locked up for 23 out of 24 hours, inedible food, and the like. I’ve recently been moved to my more ‘permanent’ lodgings and am once again under quarantine, 21 days this time around. This appears to be the prison’s answer to how to deal with COVID, as none of us were tested…
