Comfortably Numb

As I ran the track the other day during yard time I had my radio tuned to classic rock. Pink Floyd's classic song "Comfortably Numb" began playing, and soon I was thinking about the many applications the song had to prisoners. Besides the obvious connection between the song and many prisoners' past drug and alcohol abuse, I thought also about the numbness many prisoners develop in prison after years of repressed emotions. 

Prison is intended to provide separation between the offender and the society whose laws he broke. But prison also ends up separating offenders from their family and community connections that provide a sense of belonging and connectedness.

Over time family and friends get busy and drift away. Letters and visits become less frequent, and the prisoner soon acutely feels a sense of being forgotten. Instead of being a part of family decisions, significant family events, and sharing real time in the family's joys and sorrows, the prisoner is informed (if at all) as an afterthought.

To be fair, the prisoner put himself in this position and much of the burden to keep the relationship going lies on the family. It is not a fair situation for anyone. 

I have seen prisoners who remain stoic and unmoved, even shrugging and saying things like, "such is life" when a family member dies. I never understood this before, but now I see that shared grief within a community is a part of healthy grief. Prisoners don't have the freedom to participate in collective grief. Funerals, wakes, and gatherings of family and friends provide the community where healthy grief (and joy) takes place. 

Prisoners, who are isolated from communal grief and communal joy, repress their emotions hardening themselves to these natural human responses. The very segment of society who needs to develop empathy the most ends up building walls to protect themselves from the pain of unexpressed grief and unshared joy.

Many prisoners feel that expressing these emotions in prison is not safe, that somehow it makes them appear weak. Though this is simply not the case, perception wins and many prisoners harden themselves anyway.

Studies have shown that community and family connections are essential for a prisoner's success on release from prison. So if families and communities want emotionally healthy men to return to them, these connections need to be cultivated and cared for. Some men may resist these connections, but the vast majority of men in prison long for meaningful relationships. We want to share in our families' joy and sorrow and have a part in what makes our family a community. No one wants to become comfortably numb.