Reflecting...

This week as I walked into the prison, I could feel the tension welling up in my body. I was so overwhelmed, and it wasn’t just me, the other tutors were as well. I can’t describe the immense amount of pressure that is placed on me each and every time that I walk into the prison. On our way to the prison this week, the other mentor and I had a long talk about that mental and physical stress that working in a prison puts on you. Every week we walk into the prison with our hearts and minds open to help, and educate, and every week it feels like we leave with a burden on our hearts. Sometimes it’s hard to go into a place so full of pain, and heartbreak and not be able to come out changed. As my semester is coming to a close, and this internship will no longer be a requirement it has given me a lot of time to reflect. Throughout this internship, I have learned so much and grown as well. I am honestly surprised at how much I have learned just from spending a few hours a week with inmates tutoring them for their GED.

I can’t believe how often I think about their lives, and how hard it is to live the way they have to live now. It really makes me think, that it only takes one mistake, one mili-second and your life can be changed forever. I think that is the most important lesson I’ve learned thus far. I said I chose to do this internship because I wanted to learn more about the legal system. Our system of reform is not truly reforming anyone. In my opinion it is merely supporting and economic system that continues to empower America, and trap those who have become complacent within in that system. Walking into the prison each week and seeing this kind of inequality is really disheartening.

Throughout this semester in conjunction with my on-site experience working in the prison, I have also been reading a book called, True Notebooks, by Mark Salzman. In this book, the author, Mark Salzman, is a college writing professor, who like myself, decides to go into the prison, and he beings a writing class. He starts this writing class in a juvenile prison, and throughout the book he combines his experiences and the experiences of the young boys in the system to paint a very real picture of the prison system. Prior to this internship I had no knowledge of how the adult of juvenile prison system works, and now that I have been socialized in this way I realize that for a lot of these men they never even have a chance. A reoccurring theme in this particular book was how quickly and how young boys move from juvenile system to the adult prison system. In many instances this boys (children) only made one of two mistakes at the ages of 13 or 14, and are sentenced to juvenile prison. In many instances the inmates would go directly from juvenile prison to adult prison, from the ages of 14 and 15 they never have a chance to live. Reading this book was eye opening for me. I could believe some of the stories described in this book. Children would go to trial and at age 14 listen to the judge tell them they would never be able to have children, get married, be alone, or live on the other side of bars again – there is not room for change because these boys never had a chance. Reading stories like these, and seeing inmates in the adult prison, the same age as me made me realize the immensity of the prison system.

Having these experiences have only encouraged me in striving to succeed in my goal as a judge. I have seen and heard the experiences of men who have been trapped, and locked into a life, I have heard stories of men who are willing to change but have nowhere to turn for help. I have been socialized into the United States prison system, and I want to change it. I now have the understanding of where I could potentially be sending a criminal, and I now understand what “America” considers justice to be. I don’t agree with that justice, I choose to disagree; I choose to make a difference. I am choosing to become a judge, and for the few people that come into my court room, I can only hope to judge them fairly with a sound heart and mind; and with my abundance of experiences. I can only hope that true justice and equality will one day be a part of the United States prison system for every person who has to experience it.

I now have three cousins in the United States prison system; they are 22, 21, and 21. I can only hope that they are experiencing true and equal justice, but from what I have seen, and read I fear for their lives and the lives of their children because now they are in the hand s of “justice” or “injustice….

Prison Propaganda

PRISON PROPAGANDA! PRISON PROPAGANDA! A prison employee in a suite yelled as we waited. There were no CO’s in sight (except for the one behind the window), the prison was completely dead from the outside. I had never seen the prison like this before. Every Thursday evening the lobby will be filled with prison volunteers and CO’s quickly rushing us along, and through the check-in process so that they won’t hold up the entire prison with the volunteers. This week was different. It was completely quite, it seemed like time was standing still.

As I cut through the silence like a doctor making his first incision… I knew something was wrong. I walked up to the man behind the window and gave him my driver’s license as always. He asked me what my number was... “C68, I think” – everything was normal so far. I was confused, I could feel the intensity – something clearly wasn’t right. As the CO behind the window finally passed me my visitor ID (after frantically searching for the right one)– he opens his mouth. Oh no here it comes! “It’s going to be about an hour wait before the CO’s get back to take you across the yard.” –What? An hour for what? Where are the CO’s? “The prison is on lock-down right now, all the CO’s are needed inside. There is no one to take you back, until they are finished back there you will just have to wait!” – For how long? –“At a minimum an hour, you can leave or you can wait. Who’s next?”

I walked away feeling as if my heart had just sunk in. I turned and look around. We have to wait now. I explained the situation to my fellow volunteers. No one knew what to do. There are not chair to wait in the lobby of the prison. Will we stand for an hour? I slowly backed myself against the wall and sunk down to the floor. As my body hit the ground I began to think about the prisoners. What if we don’t get in this week? What if someone is beating them? What if someone is hurt? A riot… what cause the riot? What if they think we are forgetting them this week? If we can’t get in someone has to let them know that we were here! Oh no…

PRISON PROPAGANDA! PRISON PROPAGANDA! The prison employee in the suit was walking around with a prison news letter. He was handing it out to everyone as we waited. He so politely shoved the news letter into our faces. Prison propaganda huh? I opened the news letter and began to glance over the article. Most of the articles were about prison programs, ones like the GED or the College program that volunteers like us were there for. I skimmed over some of the articles. They bored me, we spent the rest of the hour learning numbers and different languages, and having political conversations. About an hour or so later, we had stopped watching the clock because time really doesn’t exist in the prison.

The CO’s suddenly reappeared and began herding us through the security procedures. When we finally got to the other side of the prison, in the school building, we began to take down chairs and set up our classroom. At that time we were told that we would have to wait another 45 minutes before the prisoners would be allowed into the room for our weekly sessions. The guard apologized and left us all to wait. With 20 minutes left for our tutoring session the inmates slowly began to trickle in.

Everyone seemed a little off today, and the class was unusually large. Every single person on the roster was in class today – we barely had enough chairs. I must admit this was a little intimidating, especially because there were a lot of new faces. 20 minutes wasn’t enough time to make a connection… well maybe...

The class ended… our 20 minute discussion of Haiku’s was successful. As we slowly walked down the hallway of the school… like clockwork the lights turned out as we exited to walk across the yard, and leave the prison. As I began to look around at all the men standing in the yard, I began to wonder… a riot in the prison… a lockdown…

What could have caused it? “PRISON PROPAGANDA, PRISON PROPAGANDA” – he said.

The Communication of Races...

So I must admit that it had been a while since my last post. I apologize. The truth is that it has been hard for me to articulate what I want to say. You see every week there are so many different things that happen. In a prison, just like in life there is never just one layer to things. There are layers upon layers upon layers to work with. Like an onion it takes time to peel, and sometimes tears are involved while you are fighting to get to the center. The problem with trying to peel an onion is that you never pick each layer to get to the center; after you peel the skin and just cut through to the center (it’s easier). A lot of times in life we cut straight through to the center – sometimes it’s easier and sometimes it makes things a bit more complicated. I hope that you can allow me to use this space and the next few posts to sort through the layers…. And try to make sense of it all.

There are a few layers to the prison system that I have been having a lot of trouble with recently. Being an African-American female it is almost impossible to realize that everyone in the GED tutoring class and in the yard are either African American or Latino. Why is that? You know before going into an actual prison, and working their every week I had done a little research on the prison systems. It had been a lecture topic on one or two of my African American studies classes, but I had never truly thought about what that all meant. I had heard before that African American and Latino males make up the largest percentage of the prison population. But it is always easy to read a fact and forget about it, but experiences are a lot harder to forget.

So once a week I go to Auburn prison. We park our car, and walk towards the massive structure and metal bars. The guards open the oversized metal gate for us to walk in. Then we walk to the main desk and sign in then we show our IDs and they give us our visitor’s ID (which we have to attach and wear the entire time we are in the prison). Next we had to take off our shoes, jackets, IDS, put down our books, and walk through the metal detector. Assuming I don’t set the detector off, the Corrections Officer (CO) will then check off my name and stamp my hand. After patiently waiting for every volunteer to go through this process we then proceed through the next oversized gate into the small corridor with the black light. After each person crowds into the small gated room and show there hand under the black light so that the CO behind the glass window can see it, the next gate opens and we walk inside. We are now past security, and the next step is getting to the education building. This building is located on the other side of the prison property (in the back). So in order to get there us (the group of volunteers) has to walk through the entire prison to get there. After walking up the stairs, and through several other small gated rooms and hallways we have to walk through the yard. Our only protection walking through the yard is our number, and the 3 CO’s that are accompanying us with their big black sticks swinging in their hands. Deep down though I know they are no protection… I have already been told that our true protection is the inmates that we tutor and the high image they have of us (volunteers) in their head. I, and fellow volunteers, have been told several times that we never have to worry about anyone messing with us because they will always protect us. It’s prison loyalty – just another layer that hasn’t quite been peeled back yet. As I walk through the yard, I listen to the whistling and sexual comments from the prisoners. When I first walked through the yard that was really upsetting for me… and I felt very uncomfortable. But now those comments don’t bother me, I now have the ability to tune them out. What I see now is color, and condition. It’s truly heartbreaking. As I walk through the yard, I pass through bathrooms that you can see-through, and seas and seas of adult African-American and Latino men. After my first couple of visits to the prison I began to search the crowd to see if I could spot a man of a different race – no luck. In fact this past week was the first time there was a man in the class who was not African-American or Latino. It added an interesting dynamic to the class, he didn’t speak much during the discussion time – but he didn’t have to. Just his presence and expressions changed the atmosphere. There are a lot of problems that I have with a prison of this security level being “colored” (if I can use that word)…

The other evening I was watching an old film, a favorite of mine; it’s called “Cool Hand Luke”. If you haven’t seen this movie I would really suggest that you watch it! But anyway this movie is about a prison, prison life, a chain gang – I had watched this movie before several times in fact, but this time the movie had a very different meaning to me. This is a 1967 film about the prison system; it is about a time when prisons were divided colored prison and white prison. This particular chain gang was a white chain gang; they had all committed crimes and were serving their time. Some of them were murders, and others were not but they all worked and served their time together and they were all white. So my question here, one that I have been pondering; are all the criminals just “colored” people now? Or somehow in some weir d way is there a white prison, with all the other white criminals? They must have been put there because their crimes in some way were less heinous then the drug smugglers, gang bangers, murders, and innocent men of Auburn. Maybe I’m imagining things… or maybe there really is a pattern of racial profiling, and biases that place only people or mostly people that reflect my skin color or the skin color of our president in jail…? I’m not sure, I don’t want to pass judgments on our justice system, but I do want to change it! Exactly why I am striving so hard to fulfill my dream and become a judge someday, because hopefully in fulfilling that dream I will also been allowing young African-American and Latino men to dream as well…

I’m not saying that the justice system is faulty, I’m just saying…

“What we have here is a failure to communicate!”

Maybe the justice system and people of color just don’t know how to communicate with one another and comprehend each other’s struggle. Maybe the justice system needs a clearer reflection, a reflection with a little more color, a reflection that could really match the individuals who have to stand in front of that bench…

According to the Washington Post, “one in nine black men 20 to 34 is behind bars.”

Communications is key…

Origins

After thinking about last week, I really began to think about what the prisoners where talking about. I have family in the same position as them, but I am just like all of the other people (family and friends) these prisoners are talking about. I was always scared of prisons, and it was always ok for family to "ignore" those that are easy to ignore...

I don't want to ignore anymore....

Origins

By: Alonna Berry

We came from the same place
From the same gene pool
With the same heritage
Our grandmother grew up on a farm
She always filled the house with the smells of love
Our grandfather worked in a toy store
He always made Christmas fun
Our grandfather died before we knew him
Our Aunts and Uncles were the same
We went to the same family gatherings, reunions, and barbecues
Christmases and Thanksgivings we would eat at the same table
Our food served from the same spoon, made with the same caring hand
We played with the same dog: Princess
Our footsteps dissolved into the same yard
My father and his father were brothers
We were family – our blood is the same
Its color is no different
Our journeys started at the same point
Our paths took similar turns
But they eventually split
Here I am.
There he is
Sitting in Block C – Number 203
He is my family

Realizations....

This week at the prison was a very different experience for me. As I have said in my past postings the prisoners tend to challenge me because they know that I am interested in a career in the legal field; a judge. Through all of their challenges I have grown to respect them and them me. This week I was yet again challenged by the prisoners… but it was a very different challenge. This week the challenge was not inferred but the challenge directed my heart.
This week’s discussion was very compelling, through provoking and emotional. This week I brought in 3 poems about children soldiers; two poems were written by a person writing about children soldiers, and the third was written by a child solider from the perspective of a child soldier. Each of the poems was very compelling and emotional for me and the prisoners. As we read through the poems the room became tense, and silent. I began to feel the positions murmurs and groans after each compelling line. The immensity of these poems was overwhelming. Then the discussion began- the general coconscious was that this is wrong; forcing children to kill, and murder is wrong. As the discussion continued in the fashion, I wanted to dip deeper- I wanted the prisoners to dig deeper. Does it make a difference that two of the poems were not written by child soldiers? Does it make the poem written by the child soldier stronger? Yes they all replied. “You have to be able to experience things to truly understand them. All of us are here because we made a mistake in one way or another, whether guilty or innocent we in some way are responsible for being here. And only someone who is in a prison could understand what a prisoner goes through.” Wow. Everyone seemed to agree.

Ownership is a hard thing to handle. There have been many references to the unjust practices of the United States criminal justice system that has placed prisoners in the desks before me, but either way they take ownership of it. The discussion continued – “That may be true… but we still could never understand what these children go through. They have no choice, people come and take them away from their homes and families, and they are forced to fight” (with the three poems I also provided pictures of children soldiers from around the world and a map with all of the countries with children “actively” fighting in wars). “Choice!” a prisoner fired back, “ We have no choice here… when people force children 8 and 9 years old to go into people’s houses and kill their families because they have a beef with them… these children have no father no family – that’s not choice!” – “I had another friend who was shot by a 9 year old kid and killed, because he wouldn’t expect a kid to shoot him.” – “Why are there not dots over the US? We have children soldiers… children with no choice…” I was astonished! I must admit that I wanted to introduce children of “gangs” as child soldiers as well, but gangs in a prison is a touchy subject. I decided not to, but I was impressed that the discussion led us to that point anyway…

The next part of discussion is what challenged me the most. The most interesting thing is that I already knew these facts it was almost common knowledge but hearing it from the prisoners themselves changed my opinion entirely. “It doesn’t matter where in the world you are… what these poems are showing you is the hurt that comes with killing. It doesn’t matter what age you are when u cross that line and decide to take a life, and watch death happen – it changes your. You will never be the same again, it happens here, and it happens across the world.” –“And we have all lost family and friends (another prisoner chimes in) the hardest part about living with your decision is the consequences. Some of us have been in here for a long time, and we have lost mothers, sisters, brothers, our women… and were still here, and their living – that’s hard.”As I stopped to really think about what they were saying I began to understand. Life can be a lonely place, but prison can be a lonelier one…. It made me think about my own life and decisions and how my decisions led me to be the person that I am… am I ok with that person? What can I do to make a change; to do more and help…? I myself have family members in prison… family members that have also been forgotten about, family members whose name no one will dare say at family gatherings. The pain is too much to bear…. But what pain do they bear locked behind bars with no family or friends?

I left the prison that day with a lonely mind and a heavy heart….

Child Soldier Poems:

A Child Soldier Diary
By: Koko Latt (Mike)
http://burmadigest.wordpress.com/2007/07/06/poem-a-child-soldier-diary/

UntitledBy: Courtney C.
http://www.teenink.com/poetry/all/article/37821/Child-Soldiers/

CHILDREN AT WAR
By: Dr. Carole R. Fontaine
http://www.wunrn.com/news/2007/02_07/02_19_07/022607_poem.htm

Child Soldier Map
http://www.un.org/works/goingon/soldiers/csmap.gif

A Challenge for Justice...

A problem that always arises in programs such as these generally seem to be trust related. For these prisoners having a person come into their domain (prison) and spend two hours out of their lives once a week to help “them” is extremely important to these prisoners. For a lot of people who have made an unfortunate mistake that places them in an intimidating place, like prison, bonds are the only things these prisoners hold on to; this is how respect is formed. Each week we tutor these inmates, and each week we continue to show up – they respect us more. “That’s 3 weeks for you!” an inmate tells me every week with a smile and a head nod. And every Thursday, I wait for that statement because I know each week they have more and more respect for me. Respect is a hard thing to earn, especially in a prison. Why is that?
I simply think it’s because for many of these men they have had so many people who have lied, and stripped away their belief in trust from them. In fact during the discussion time this week, some of the injustices these men have been faced with were talked about in this week’s discussion.

This week in discussion we incorporated images with text, which provoked a very intriguing discussion with the inmates me and the other tutors. The first image was an image from the Holocaust, and attached to it was Elli Weisel’s speech, given this year with President Obama. The second image was from the Vietnam war, of a little girl running naked and burning after the bomb went off, and attached to that image was a speech given by little girl (now woman), in the picture. These images not only sparked many emotions with the prisoners but a very lengthy conversation as well. During this discussion many political issues, civil rights, human rights, and other societal issues were main topics of conversation. This seems to have become a pattern among the prisoners and I, there always is a point where they want to challenge me. Every week at the session go on, I begin to welcome and almost expect these challenges from the prisoners. Now having developed somewhat of trust and respect relationship with the prisoners, many of them know that my future aspirations are to become a judge. Many of the prisoners have expressed that this is very commendable of me. It seems as though they have come to the understanding that I choose to work in the prisons with them because I want to have a better understanding of “true justice” and how the “real” justice system works. Many instances they inmates ask me about law journals, they ask me if I read them, they want to know my opinion on current legal events. Many times it is astonishing to me how informed they are of current legal issues.

In fact, this week I was asked another very direct question by one of the prisoners. Simply, they asked me “what do you think about Judge Immunity?” At first, I admit I was confused, but as they saw the look of confusion on my face, he continued to explain. By now, all of the prisoners who are involved in this tutoring program know that my future aspirations are to be a judge. Since that information was released the prisoners have become much more direct and intrigued with me. As the inmate continued to explain he interjected a personal story to help me to understand. He said during his trial he had a jury trial, and at the end of his trail the jury came back with a not-guilty decision. He then said that the judge didn’t approve of that ruling so he told the jury to go back in and re-deliberate. “That is illegal!” he said. But judges are immune to the law, and they will never and can never be prosecuted as long as they have that immunity. I was astonished with the directness of the conversation, but not surprised at all. My response was corruption exists, and taking away immunities isn’t going to end corruption. They were not satisfied with that answer. At this point many inmates began to respond – well don’t you think that taking away immunities would deter judges from committing these kinds of crimes. I began to attempt to justify my response - it may deter some judges, but judges are in a position of power and with that power innately there are certain immunities. But why is that ok? – They asked. At this point they weren’t asking me about immunities – they were training me to become the type of judge they want, in the type of system that provides “real justice” – the system America needs…

A Developing Understanding...

I was 16 when I first went into that prison; The Smyrna correctional facility, in Smyrna Delaware. I remember thinking it looked so massive. The barbed wire appeared to stretch across the entire sky. Silver stars cascading between every cloud, floating in a sea of blue. The fences seemed so high that almost climbed into outer space. I couldn’t believe my eyes. People actually live here? The bricks were carefully mounded on top, one after the other, brick cement, brick cement to ensure the structure to never breathe. What is it like to live in a structure that never allows you to breathe? The weight of the lifelessness of such a building began to weigh heavy on my heart. I began to feel a loss of my breathe, with each step closer, and closer to the prison I began to feel my heart tighten. If I stepped inside I may suffocate. My surroundings faded; ba bump, ba bump, ba bump, ba bump, bump… bump… bu…mp... “Alonna its time to go in, the Cornell students are waiting for us…” Ok I’ll be right out, one second! I had to do it, I had to force my legs to release the cement stacks from beneath my feet, and allow me to walk again. I had to open the door, the wind pushing against the door suddenly attached with the intensity of a category 7 Hurricane. See its mother nature, it doesn’t want me to go in, the universe is protecting me. I can’t go in, I’m only 20 what if something happens, I want a family, a career… why did I decide to do this? “Alonna were going in, do you have your ID? Remember to leave your cell phone and everything else in the car.” “OK guys, yea I’m coming.” Suddenly the hurricane winds subsided, the cement disappeared and I moved forward.

This prison looked much different. It was built like a castle, but not one the Cinderella lived in. It reminded me of Dracula’s castle in Transylvania, Romania. The eerie feeling of death surrounded the building. The familiar breathless bricks were there, stacked stone cold one on top of the other, so solitary, so lifeless. I was out of the car, but I wasn’t sure how to make my feet walk through the gates…

On my first day at the prison, I vividly remember being so scared, and not knowing what to expect and how to act. After just completing my 3rd tutoring session, my views and opinions have definitely began to change, and the “big bad” prison is not so scary anymore. This week’s tutoring sessions was especially significant and eye opening for me; which is why I chose to juxtapose this week’s experience with my feelings prior to my tutoring sessions at Auburn prison.

In every tutoring session we begin with a piece of writing or a poem that is read aloud, and a brief discussion is held about those particular pieces. This week, after being so encouraged by the experiences and the inmates I decided that I wanted to bring in a discussion piece for this week. I chose 3 of my personal favorite poems, that when read in conjunction with one another have very similar themes and meanings. The three poems I chose to read this week were: I Too, by Langston Hughes, Still I Rise, by Maya Angeluo, and the last verse of Keep Ya’ Head Up by Tupac Shakur. The reason I chose these three pieces is because each write is from a very different era, each piece was written at leave 20 years apart but the pieces all had a similar theme. Each piece was talking about surviving from a struggle, overcoming obstacles, and moving on. These themes and these pieces evoked a lot of emotion in the prisoners and a discussion significant discussion began to form out of the context of these poems.
There were two comments in particular that struck me during the conversation, and both comments were directed towards me. Since the tutoring program is still in its beginning stages and the group of inmates is new and the group of tutors (myself) are new to the inmates; there are various trust struggles that come up in tutoring as well as in general discussions. One inmate asked me, “Why did you choose these poems? Are you trying to say somethin to us?” I was taken off guard by the directness of the question, and I said, “What do you think I would be trying to say?” and he simply replied, “What everyone else says; just cause you’re in prison doesn’t mean you can’t do nothing.” I was glad that the inmate clearly picked up on the symmetry between the poems, but that wasn’t what I wanted to imply with the poetry. So I told him, “All of those pieces were personal favorites of mine and I tried to find something that I thought everyone would enjoy to read.” At that second another prisoner chimed in, “We can relate to poetry like this, but the stuff on the test, the poems they give us… they’re not like this…” That’s what I truly began to understand, I knew exactly what he was saying, what they all were saying…

At that point I decided I wanted to help; as the discussion continued I asked my fellow tutors to find a poem in the GED book, so we could analyze that. Shortly after, ironically they found a Langston Hughes poem, “A Dream Deferred”.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-- And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

I broke the poem down line by line, and explained it. I started by asking, “do you know what a dream deferred is?” Many prisoners didn’t understand the word “deferred”. After explaining that is was like a dream you could never get to, something you wanted to do but couldn’t accomplish… head began to nod and I knew they understood. After that we took it line by line, and got into Hughes imagery… “Can you see a raisin drying up in a sun?” or “have you ever smelled rotten meat?” After discussing this poem is seemed like the answer to the question jumped out at the prisoners and everyone got it correct.

This experience was very encouraging to me because not only did the prisoners begin to accept me, I began to accept them. Within a prison acceptance is a hard thing to understand. I knew that going into this internship; hence the fear and anxiety referenced to in the opening story. Now my opinions are beginning to change. I think the one thing I enjoy most about this experience is I learn and grow so much every Thursday night in two hours then I have in twenty years.

Other Poems We Read:
http://www.cswnet.com/~menamc/langston.htm - A Dream Deferred
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-too/ - I Too
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/still-i-rise/ - Still I Rise
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Keep-Ya-Head-Up-lyrics-2Pac/C4EC4762B806B8824825686A000CD809 - Keep Ya Head Up Lyrics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlQcJAjYxaI – Keep Ya Head Up Music Video