Most prisoners deal with feelings of shame, worthlessness, and rejection. Some put on fronts that they are proud of what they did, and I suspect some actually are. But I would bet that most, if they are honest, would admit that they not only feel regret and shame for doing what landed them in prison, but that shame played a very integral part in their lives prior to committing their crimes.
Shame can be caused by what you did, or by what was done to you. It can be caused by addictions, failures, parents who ignored or belittled you, abuse, previous felony convictions, or a host of other things.
What really stands out to me is how shame can be a huge factor in what motivated someone to commit a crime, but that one of the first consequences of those crimes is more shame. It's a repeating cycle of compounding shame.
Shame for oneself, which leads to behaviors to attempt to bury that shame, which leads to committing crimes to support those behaviors (or sometimes the behaviors themselves are crimes), which leads to shame for committing crimes.
Of course, the point of incarceration is not to deal with the underlying causes of why someone committed crime in the first place. It's about separation, which only reinforces the feelings of worthlessness and rejection.
After serving their time, ex-convicts must still deal with the shame of their crimes. When applying for jobs there are huge gaps in their employment history, that little box to check on employment applications ("Have you ever been convicted of a crime?"), and some even have to register as a sex offender, further compounding their own shame.
Society cares very little about seeing ex-convicts live productive lives free
from committing further crimes. The emphasis is on separating and isolating
ex-convicts, not dealing with the issues that led to their crimes in the first
place.
This issue is a complicated and costly one. It’s not easy to deal with the source of a problem. It's easier to put a Band-Aid on it and hope it goes away.
Today's incarceration-happy society would rather hack at the branches of crime by locking up the criminals and throwing away the key instead of targeting the causes of these crimes, and using an approach of restorative justice. Attacking the effect and not the cause will never solve the problem.
Shame is a cancer that, if left untreated, results in imprisonment, whether physically or in your own mind.
Understanding the cause of shame is important, but so is understanding how God fits into the solution. If you're dealing with shame in your own life, I highly recommend that you read Welch's book.
