What Do We Deserve?

This afternoon I helped another prisoner prepare for an upcoming parole board interview. I "acted" as a parole board member, peppering this prisoner with questions about his crime, his motivations, his prison record, the lessons he's learned, and a host of other questions. At times my questions are anticipated and prepared for. Other times my questions are designed to fluster or trip up the prisoner, getting him ready for the eventual stress of his actual interview. I've been helping other prisoners prepare for their parole interviews off and on for the last five years. It's been one of the toughest things I've done in prison. 

Putting myself in the role of a parole board member forces me to think about crimes, my own and others', from a victim's perspective. It makes me think about what the families of murder victims experience. It makes me think about how it feels to be robbed or raped at gunpoint. It makes me think deeply about what it means to lose one's innocence, to be angry about being victimized, to experience terror, fear, and mistrust because of what someone else has done. Putting myself in this role is deeply humbling. It's also deeply troubling. I cannot leave one of these interviews without feeling sad and terribly burdened. 

I didn't think clearly about the impact my crime would have on others, especially on those I love. I didn't consider how my actions would have such far reaching affects, not only on those I harmed, but on so many others as well. But I think about it now--every day. Thinking about the harm I caused is painful, and entering into another prisoner's story of doing harm just deepens that pain. But it must be done. Our victims never chose the pain and harm we caused them.

Inevitably, in the course of conducting a practice parole interview, I will ask the prisoner why he believes he deserves to be released from prison. I ask this question because so many prisoners have an overblown sense of entitlement, and I'm testing whether or not the person feels entitled to freedom. This question is tricky, because it intersects the philosophical questions of crime and punishment (on which every prisoner has an opinion) with the conflict between entitlement and empathy. True empathy, especially when one's crime caused another person harm that can't be repaired, recognizes that a parole has very little to do with "deserving." Very few of us "deserve" anything, especially freedom. 

Nevertheless, the reality is that some prisoners have come to acutely understand the harm they caused. They have worked to change their thinking, and as a result their behavior. Some prisoners are anxious to make right the wrongs they've caused, either directly to their victims or victim's family, or indirectly through helping heal others' brokenness. Keeping these prisoners locked up because we're angry with them does little to solve anything. The question, then, becomes not whether or not the prisoner "deserves" freedom, but whether or not it is just to keep someone locked up who is no longer a danger. 

I'm glad I don't have to make these decisions, that I'm only "pretending" to be a parole board member. But I'm also glad that I'm able to think deeply, and help others do the same, about the consequences of the harm we've caused and what obligations we now have because of those terrible choices we've made.