You Said You Wanted Another Chance...

Years ago I had a pastor whose favorite movie was "Groundhog Day." He loved the movie so much that it was his most frequent sermon illustration. I've never seen the whole thing because ten minutes was enough for me to get the gist. Plus, the movie's type of humor isn't appealing to me. What I never considered was that one day I'd be living my own version of Groundhog Day. Prison days have a way of repeating themselves, over and over again. 

I like routine--I tend to be very scheduled and organized--but I also like the freedom to choose variety. Nevertheless, there's a certain security to having a routine. You know what to expect. But beauty and joy are more often found in the interruptions, the unexpected. Prison provides some unexpected moments, some beautiful and some not. But more often, every day, almost every moment, is predictable. 

Routine provides the framework for discipline. It's probably why the military uses strict routines when they are training their troops. Prisoners, also, can benefit from routine by using the predictability to develop disciplines in their lives. But routine can also create unreasonable expectations. For example, any interruptions in routine regularly set prisoners off into a frenzied anxiety. If chow is running late, count goes long, we have an unscheduled emergency count, or an ambulance stops all yard movements, anxiety skyrockets. 

When anxiety rises in prison, people start acting stupid. Tempers are short, patience is low, arguments escalate quickly, fights sometimes happen, and prisoners and officers start saying stupid things to each other. Even the response to interruptions in routine are, well, routine. Holidays, also predictably, add to anxiety prisoners feel as they are absent from those they love. 

Perhaps it's human nature to love routine. There's a certain comfort in knowing what comes next. Since many prisoners don't know what their futures hold, the routine of prison life can have a settling effect. But the routine can also lull prisoners into complacency. If you get too comfortable with routine, you don't know how to handle change. And change is, perhaps, the most consistent thing about a prisoner's life, especially once he leaves prison. 

Learning how to deal with unexpected changes and interruptions is one of the many skills prisoners can learn and bring with them into the free world. Nevertheless, it takes high self-awareness to understand when interruptions are increasing your anxiety. It also takes self-regulation to learn effective ways of coping when things don't go your way. Both self-awareness and self-regulation are the main components of emotional intelligence. They both also happen to be predictable measures of whether a prisoner will successfully remain crime-free after release or return to prison. 

Most prisoners--let's be honest, most people in general--don't get it right every time. We're not always self-aware, and we don't always regulate ourselves very well. But one benefit prison provides is that if you don't get it right today, there's always nearly the same scenario tomorrow to try again.