After years of watching Law & Order, CSI, and dozens of other crime dramas, my perception of anyone who has been in prison has been skewed. Each week, after the most evil of offenders is finally brought to justice, my stereotype of those below the law grows darker. Everybody in prison is an evil, heartless person who deserves to be locked up with the key thrown away.
A recent news item has brought me out of Hollywood (or Cable-Drama-Production-World; Hollywood is more for movies) and back into real life, if only for a moment. A surveillance camera captured a prisoner attacking a guard (watch it here). What makes this story special is the fact that the guard was saved by other inmates.
As you can see in the video, one person of incarcerated nature attacks the guard and puts him in a choke-hold. After a few seconds, another inmate comes flying into the scene, busting the attacker in the side of the head. Several more orange jumpsuits swarm the scene, pulling the attacker off of the guard while one grabs a radio and calls for help
After watching this (and talking about it around the water cooler (not literally) at work) I came to the conclusion that prisoners are people the same as you and I. And some of them might even have morals and a conscience, too. Perhaps they were faced with situations I have never had to face, and have had to make tough decisions. I have never been in a gang, but I also never grew up in a gang territory.
This doesn’t excuse the decisions that they have made, and it does not mean that their environment is completely responsible for the way they turned out in life. What it does mean is that prison should be more than a place where people are sent to be punished – it should be a place that rehabilitates people. When an inmate leaves prison, he/she should have learned the error of their way and emerge a changed person. And after this transformation takes place, they should be welcomed back into society.
Now that’s not to say that everybody will change. And I don’t even know what the best way to accomplish this change – it is easy for me to stand up on my soap box and say that this is the way it should work, but not actually provide a plan for accomplishing it. But for me, at least, next time I meet a former inmate I hope to do it with as little bias and mistrust as possible. As small a gesture as that is, perhaps it will mean something to someone trying to find their place in society.
