How a Thief Taught Me Empathy

A few years into serving my sentence, I arrived at a new prison facility. This was the first level two prison I had been to, so it was much more open and far less restrictive than the 23-hour lock-down I had experienced at the level four prisons where I had previously been housed. The nearly all day open yard was a huge relief from the oppressiveness of being confined to a cell most of the day. One major drawback, though, was that I went from having my own cell, a place of respite from the insanity of prison, to being housed in a "pole barn" setting, 160 prisoners separated only by "cubical" style partial walls. My bed was in a "cube" with seven other men, four sets of bunkbeds with eight high school style lockers, and the noise of 160 men drifted easily into my area, making it nearly impossible to get a moment of private quiet.

Another major drawback of the pole barn setting is lack of security. Some prisoners, me included, slept in vulnerable positions with their heads easily accessible from the hallway. Furthermore, theft was a rampant problem, so it was imperative to secure one's property at all times. This created a spirit of suspicion and mistrust and made it difficult to relax into one's environment. 

I was not at this new facility for a week when I returned from lunch (called "chow") to find that my footlocker, containing my personal pictures, important legal paperwork, and other personal property items, had been broken into and many items stolen. While my footlocker was secured with a lock, the flimsy design made it easy for a determined thief to stomp on the locker lid and peel back the corner to access my goods. Understandably, I was very angry when I discovered this intrusion, but it also left me feeling vulnerable and powerless. I was new to the facility and didn't know many people, so I had no one to keep an eye on my things when I wasn't around. Being a middle-aged white guy without any gang affiliations, I was especially vulnerable to the roving thieves. If I was lucky enough to find out who the thief was (I wasn't until months later), my choices were either to do nothing or to fight the guy. My option to fight came with an especially high risk of injury because gang members attack in groups and without any sense of honor or fairness. Retaliation would be a hopeless cycle of who could get to whom first. 

Being a victim of theft in prison was terrible, but it paled in comparison to victimization that some prisoners experience at the hands of other predatory inmates. It also pales in comparison to the vulnerability and powerlessness many victims of crime experience. I hated every aspect of being the victim of theft, but in retrospect I'm grateful for the lessons I learned through it. Primary among those lessons was that it gave me a glimpse into the vulnerability and powerlessness I caused by my own crime. It helped me to appreciate the pain, anger, and even hatred that others felt because of me. It also reinforced my commitment to never again be the cause of such pain. Dealing with the aftermath of my lingering anger, for years even, helped me to realize how difficult it must be for victims of crime to heal from the harms done to them. 

I doubt receiving an apology would help me overcome my anger at the violation I experienced, but knowing that the thief had positively changed his life and no longer victimized others would. I am truly sorry for the harms I caused by my crime, and I hope that my changed life and my commitment to help heal the harms I and others have caused through our crimes will bring healing to the people who suffered because of me.