Prison Volunteers Receive Dehumanization Training

The last several years, I have had several people who volunteer in prison, mostly religious service volunteers, tell me that as a part of their authorization to come into prison, they must take training from the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC). As a part of this training, they are told emphatically to not make eye contact with us, not to shake our hands or hug us, and to be aware that all prisoners lie to and manipulate visitors and staff. Fortunately, many of these volunteers do not follow these directives, nor do they believe the MDOC propaganda that seems to say prisoners are worthless and un-redeemable. 

Given the MDOC's view of prisoners, it is amazing to me that the Department has elected to provide any vocational training or programming designed to improve prisoners' odds of succeeding after being released from prison. It is clear that, since the MDOC continues to dehumanize prisoners to people who volunteer and work in prison, they do not believe we are worth believing in or caring about. It is certainly true that some prisoners lie and manipulate, and volunteers do need to know the dangers of functioning within prison, but the majority of prisoners do not want to manipulate volunteers. They simply want to be cared about and seen as more than a number. 

Security is important in prison, and the MDOC has a vested interest in protecting its volunteers and staff from being "turned" by a prisoner. Once a prisoner turns a volunteer or staff member by forming an intimate (though not necessarily sexual) relationship, the danger of that person violating the security of the institution increases dramatically. Consequently, security trumps seeing and treating prisoners as human. 

As soon as a people group, in this case prisoners, are dehumanized, it is easier to violate their dignity as humans created in God's image. Christoph Schwobel, author of Recovering Human Dignity, claims that our understanding of what it means to be a human being is intricately linked with our view of reality, and our view of reality shapes how we behave. This truth is painfully evident in how our society behaves towards its prisoners, its immigrants, its homeless, and its marginalized minorities. Rather than unquestioningly believing the dehumanizing rhetoric of people in power--MDOC administrators, politicians, the news media--people who recognize their own dignity as God's creation must extend that same dignity to those at the greatest risk of undignified and inhumane treatment and teach others to do the same. 

The best way to teach prisoners how to treat others with dignity and respect is to begin modeling those qualities to us. Hopefully, in turn, we will then treat others with the same dignity and respect that was shown to us when we least deserved it.