That's me in prison . . .

I've had a year and a few months to look back on my prison experience and I can still hear the pain, smell the despair, and feel the grappling claw of confinement.  It's an experience that can best be described as complete aloneness and that does it little justice.  I'm going to attempt to explain the three main sensual experiences of prison today and maybe throw in what I saw throughout.  This blog will NEVER be able to fully describe the complete pain and control of confinement, but it will hopefully enlighten us to be sensitive to the horror, shame, and regret that fills our prison system.

As an attorney who visited most of the prisons and jails in Indiana, you would have thought I had already experienced the pain of the prison environment and would have tried to help those held there.  Unfortunately, that's not what happened and that's not my story - - - although I have wished it was.  My story, like most, required a little fine tuning by God before I had an "Ah-Ha" moment.  That period of clarity for me was unfortunately a lived experience of 17 months (486 days for those counting on their fingers right now) in the Indiana Department of Correction (see attractive picture of me above).

We have all heard sayings like, "if you haven't been there, you don't know," and "walk a mile in my shoes."  My now personal favorite is from Colochie, in the song Drug Addiction, "if you've been through what I have been through, you couldn't walk in my shoes." . . . Powerful but true.

Smell of despair -  17 months of smelling 1700 men with varying degrees of personal care, mostly none.  17 months of the smell of all those men living like a rolled can of sardines - so close I was never more than an arm's length away from any other prisoner and yet that "closeness" did not lead to connection, to caring, to sharing, to conversation or anything that resembles a healthy relationship.  The despair of prison is the smell of isolation, control, order, and bologna sack lunches for 486 straight days.  It's funny because I joked about that smell as an attorney who visited many incarcerated people, but it's all together different when it's the smell of your life . . . of despair.

Hear the pain - Being cut off from the World is hard, damaging to the Psyche, and torture on a man.  That pain can be overheard when walking by the phones attached to the wall and hearing pain in the men's voices as they talk to their moms, their wives, and their children.  That pain can be heard late at night as a man cries and griefs in his bunk because the Chaplain made a visit and told him his mom, son, brother, or wife has passed and he cannot go to the funeral.  That is the sound of pain and make no mistake about it, it's deafening. That's what aloneness is. . . and it's torture for us all.  Pain is hard to watch and even harder to hear.

Feel the confinement - I still wake up very early most days at around 3:30 - 4:00 AM.  That's the "CHOW" call of prison confinement.  Breakfast (if you can call it that) is early and from my bunk was about 1/8 of a mile trip.  That trip was made in miserable heat and breath-stealing cold.  If the walk didn't get you, the waiting outside in the heat, rain, snow, or ice would.  There are many examples of control but this one sticks out the most.  Get up early, march to eat slop, wait in the elements, and repeat - - - 486 days of that would make anyone feel like a prisoner.  It doesn't seem like a lot until I also remember what I saw along the way. . . the fences, the barbed wire, all the men dressed alike, machine gun towers, German Shepherds, men with mace, and the screams and yells of Correctional Officers to move, stay, sit, roll-over or whatever else they wanted to make me do.

After all, I wasn't Shane Beal anymore . . . . I was 257988. . . .

I wasn't a man
I wasn't a son
I wasn't a Dad
I wasn't an attorney
I wasn't anything. . . I was a number

That's control. . . That's defeat. . . That's torture AND I FEEL IT.

I share my experience not to say look at me but rather to say look at YOU.  If as an attorney, I didn't get it prior to being an actual prisoner, I don't expect anyone else to either.  Unfortunately, 80% of the incarcerated are just like me - - - an addict.  Our society has criminalized a mental health disorder and we have the largest prison population in the world. Larger than any of the countries whose citizens our border patrol try to keep out. . . think about that for a minute (that's a different blog from a different blogger). 

Takes some time today and think about it. . . comment about it. . . have a conversation about it. . . write a letter to someone in prison or jail. . . .go visit a prisoner. . . learn something about yourself and them.....

After all, if nothing changes. . . nothing changes.

If you are struggling, it's okay. . . Help is only a prayer away.