If You Wanted to Sleep, You Shouldn't Have Come to Prison

The hum of conversation permeates the housing unit, like a steady buzz of an active beehive. It reminds me, in an odd way, of the noise of a busy shopping mall at Christmas time. (Do shopping malls even still exist?) Yet, the steady hum is pierced by the occasional shout. 

"Meech! Fourth gallery! Meech!" a prisoner hollers up to a buddy from the base. 

A conversation ensues, shouted back and forth, over the heads of people sitting at tables on base, totally disregarding the conversations occurring around these prisoners. It's as if the shouting prisoners exist in a world of their own, totally oblivious to anyone else around them. It's just one more example of the gross disrespect of others that exists in prison. 

The drone of conversation continues, and at the table directly in front of and beneath my cell two prisoners play chess. "CHECK!" one shouts at the other, taunting him with a steady stream of verbal chest beating. I'm beginning to wonder if this game is a game of mental strategy or a test of virility. I think I've been grossly misled all this time to believe chess was a contemplative game. 

My attention shifts to the men in the hole (segregation) directly across from my cell. Several of them carry on competing conversations through the bars. 

"What they gunna do with you?!"
"Hey Streets!?"

"Huh?"
"Who called me?"

"What they gunna do with you?"
"Yo! It's me! You know that house on the corner of East and Main?"

"Huh?"
"Hell yeah! I used to get with the b*h that lived there!"

"I said, what they gunna do with you? Are they transferring you or are you stayin' here?"
"That's my cousin! Real s*t! When were you with her?"

The warring conversations escalate in volume as each party tries to outdo the other conversations around them. 

It's after 8 PM, so I've already made my way to my cell. I know my ability to tolerate stupidity is significantly impaired the later it gets at night, so I stay in my cell for the most part. I'm trying to tune out the noise through the open bars with music or the drone of the news through my headphones.  

Sometimes, I can lose myself in a book or in writing an email, but often I struggle to tune out the cacophony of noise around me. Soon, it'll be time to sleep (for me), and I'm praying it'll be a quiet night in the unit. Since the hole has filled up a week ago, we haven't had a quiet night. I've had to sleep with earplugs in every night, just to cut down on some of the noise. It only partially works. 

Soon, the lights in the housing unit are turned off, leaving only the glare of emergency lights, strategically placed to shine directly into some of our cells. The droning of conversation quiets, but the men in the hole, who have been sleeping most of the day, are just getting started. Some start rapping or singing loudly, others holler back and forth about a TV show or memories from the block. I cover my eyes and attempt to sleep with a sigh. 

I must have finally drifted off to sleep, but my bladder wakes me in the middle of the night. Finally! The loud conversations have ceased, but a few men still talk from cell to cell, though with more restraint. It's 2 AM. What are they still doing awake?! 

I lie back down to return to sleep, but someone in a cell near me is playing their screamer music loudly through their headphones. It's surprisingly loud for the size of headphones we can order. Why must I listen to someone else's music when I'm trying to sleep?! It's the middle of the freakin' night! I mumble some choice descriptors for the offending prisoner, but he's probably sleeping right through his own auditory pollution. 

Bleary eyed, I wake up again three hours later. It's time for me to get ready for work, even though I've slept fitfully. And wouldn't you know it?! The guy's music is still playing loudly through his headphones. There's no consideration from this jerk! Other men wake up equally grumpy from the noise pollution, and some call out choice words to the offender. Of course, he stays silent, either sleeping or too cowardly to admit he's been responsible for keeping people awake most of the night. 

I think about taking a nap later in the day to make up for the sleep I lost that night, but I already know I'll have to put up with noise then too. It'll be the middle of the day, and with a unit of around 350 prisoners, a few disrespectful men are bound to think they are the only people in the unit who matter. Whoever thought prisoners just got to sleep all the time has never been to a prison like the one where I'm currently housed. 

I know, I know. If I wanted to sleep, I shouldn't have come to prison. 

What's Your Excuse? - Why People Commit Crimes

 "Twinkies made me do it!" 

Such was the defense of a man in 1978 who pleaded temporary insanity after shooting the San Francisco mayor and the city supervisor. The man insisted that his diet of junk food had caused temporary insanity. This type of defense became so common that it garnered the name, the "Twinkie defense." 

It's still rather common for people to use excuses to minimize their culpability in committing crime. The challenge is, how can the courts consider mitigating circumstances, which do factor into a person's psyche and motivations, without excusing their behavior?  

Twinkies and sugar-rich diets do not make people homicidal or violent. But unhealthy diets are often correlated with other social factors that do contribute to a person's criminality. Other factors, too, like youthfulness, childhood abuse, and mental illness, are other important social factors to consider.

Unfortunately, our society seems to be of two minds when it comes to the impact of social factors on human behavior. 

One group, commonly thought of as "progressive" or "liberal," views people as passive recipients and byproducts of environmental and social pressures. This approach reduces human agency. Instead of being humans responsible for our own choices, we are simply reactive to outside influences. In other words, the Twinkie made me do it! 

Another group, commonly thought of as "conservative," views people as economically driven "calculators." Social factors are not responsible for our choices. Instead, we make cost/benefit analyses. Humans commit crime when the benefits outweigh the costs (punishment). Therefore, greater punishments will lead to less crime. In other words, humans are all a bunch of criminals who are only restrained by the risk of severe punishment. 

Of course, neither group is right, and I dare say that the majority of Americans fall somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. Rarely do people actually believe Twinkies lead to criminal behavior. And rarely do people believe only fear of punishment restrains anarchy. After all, most people believe they have some level of morality that guides their behaviors. 

The reality is that humans are moral agents, capable of discerning between right and wrong (even if imperfectly). But sometimes our moral agency is warped, by social influences, by internal justifications, or by a myriad of other factors. We ought not discount these factors, but neither should they excuse criminal behavior. To do so is to diminish human agency, and therefore, human dignity. 

Only an approach to criminal justice that honors human dignity and moral agency by addressing the need for responsibility and repentance will work. Punishments for crime ought to factor in responsibility and make a way for repentance and restoration. This is the aim of restorative justice. 

Sadly, our current criminal justice system is in a battle of worldviews. On one hand, the culture calls for more mercy by wrongly assigning blame to social forces. Mob theft rings, for example, are excused based on "economic insecurity" among the wrongdoers. On the other hand, the culture calls for more severe punishments to diminish the cost of the benefits of crime. Recidivists (repeat offenders), for example, are hit with severe mandatory prison sentences, even for minor crimes. 

True justice honors human dignity by requiring responsibility for one's behavior, but it also aims for mercy and restoration whenever possible. It aims for addressing the moral breakdown that leads to criminal behavior rather than thinking that punishment alone will fix a person's moral breakdown. It won't. 

If we really want to be a just society, we have to hold people accountable, to honor their dignity as moral agents. But we also have to actually work towards and encourage moral agents to make morally good decisions. And we have to stop blaming the Twinkies. 

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"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ~ C. S. Lewis ("The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment")
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(Ideas adapted from "How Now Shall We Live?" by Charles Colson, 1999, Tyndale Publishing, pp. 181-182 )

Are Judges Properly Trained to Sentence Criminal Offenders?

 While I walked and talked recently with another prisoner, he told me that he thought judges were not qualified to sentence people to prison. At first, I was a bit astonished at his claim, but in further discussion, he actually touched on an important point. 

Sentencing, itself, is a matter for the judiciary. Prosecutors and judges are tasked with upholding and carrying out the law (regardless of how well or poorly we might think they do their jobs). The legislature enacts the laws, and the judiciary enforces them. It's fairly straightforward. 

Taken strictly from this perspective, then, judges are not only qualified by their training, but it is their constitutional duty to enforce the law, including sentencing offenders for their crimes. The legislature, largely, defines both crimes and punishments, and judges are simply fulfilling their role in the process. 

What my friend was getting to, though, was that judges, and in some respects the legislature who passes laws, are not trained to consider prison's purpose of rehabilitation. They are not social workers or psychologists, and they do not necessarily understand the motivations behind someone's criminal actions. 

After more than fourteen years in prison, I have come to understand that there is a spectrum of what motivates people to commit crimes. Every day I encounter men who are committed criminals. All they can think about is how they are going to get away with their next crime (even in prison!). But I also encounter people, a greater number, who simply lack impulse control. Their addiction controls them, and they commit crimes to fund it. Or, they have an anger problem they can't control, so they lash out violently. 

A host of other motivations lead to crime, but the legislature rarely factors motivation into sentencing schemes. Judges sometimes have a little leeway within the sentencing statutes to consider factors like social influences and addiction. Yet, they aren't trained in either psychology or social work to critically evaluate an offender's true motivation. 

If society's only motivation for prison is for punishment, then statutes that strictly define sentence lengths for particular crimes would make complete sense. And punishment is an important aspect of prison. However, if society also intends to rehabilitate or reform prisoners, which at least appears to have some support among citizens, then something ought to change. 

At the very least, the legislature and judges ought to be properly trained to understand what the judiciary calls "mitigating circumstances." These are things like social influences, lack of impulse control, addiction, and the like. Then, the judiciary ought to have more flexibility to consider these circumstances and to fashion sentences that address these circumstances, in addition to punishing the crime. 

Of course, we'll never get it just right, and some maverick judges will use their flexible powers unjustly, but we ought to at least strive for a more just approach to sentencing and punishment. We'll also have to set more of a priority on the rehabilitative aspect of sentences, more than simply checking a box. We actually have to care as a society about helping prisoners change the causes of their criminal behavior. 

It's a tall task, I know. That's probably why politicians continue to make a show of supporting real reforms without actually doing anything. It's politically dangerous to make quantum shifts in penal philosophy. Instead, the status quo, which vacillates with finicky public sentiment, is a safer bet. 

But like we say in an addiction group I help facilitate: If you keep doing what you've been doing, you're going to keep getting what you've been getting.