PEOPLE CHANGE

Normal; if you are normal it just means you are like a lot of other people, not necessarily a good thing. It depends on who and where you are. I listened to a story on radio recently about a woman who volunteers at San Quinton Prison. She (Nigel) is an artist, university professor who works with inmates through education and self-help programs. With an inmate (Earl), they applied for and won an arts grant to create closed circuit podcasts for inmates. In that format they (Earl) interviewed convicts who shared their stories. It’s a different kind of audience and a different kind of normal. 

Her concern is mainly about prison reform. Most inmates will be released someday. The skills and attitudes they bring out with them depend on their experiences inside which often amounts to a revolving door of criminal activity and high recidivism. I was impressed that they brought in victims of violent crimes and exploitation to interact with inmates. They spoke of their experience as victims and living in its aftermath. The sharing would be a conversation, a two-way exchange in the privacy of their studio and the prison population via podcast. At the end of the day, people involved had a better appreciation for actions and consequences they had never considered. 

Two things I took from the program; Nigel spoke of how inmates were affected by face to face dialogue with victims. They took away new feelings that might-maybe help in another life, the one after prison. Earl came to prison at 17, convicted as an adult with over 30 years to serve. He had been a very bad man. His gang culture dictated, “Better to be carried by 6 than judged by 12.” Death was better than oppression, prison. His partner in crime was killed in a shootout with police but Earl was captured, sent to prison. He thought he would die in the streets as well but he didn’t. He thought he could “Bad-Ass” his way through incarceration but the tight security, no privileges, disenfranchised reality beat him down in spite of his gang ties. His macho, gang identity could have hardened but it lost its allure and he began to think about life after incarceration. Dying for a hopeless way of life had lost its appeal. He sensed there was another life possible, that he had been funneled into the crime/punishment culture as much by circumstance as by the choices he made but he could change. 

Nigel was changed by honest, open dialogue with people she never, ever thought she would identify with. Change is not only normal, it’s inevitable. Going with the flow is not a strong statement, it’s about conformity, no different for criminals than for straight arrows. She talked about the equality of sharing emotional vulnerability and that’s not common, not normal. I was changed is some small way just listening to the program. Right now, with the ‘God Bless America - Make It Great Again’ mentality, it is comfortable, patriotic, maybe even righteous to think of felons as throw-away rejects, like spent plastic water bottles. They got themselves into prison, it’s their problem. That kind of normal wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. 

I have no axe to grind. I quit doing that. Human Nature isn’t going to change but individuals can and do. At a rational, intelligent level we keep inventing new technology that can take us to Mars and cure cancer. But at an emotional level, we keep reinventing the wheel. Hopeless poverty = violent crime. People change, some for the good, some for the worse but we all change. I remember way back when Ronald Reagan was shaping public opinion and I felt righteous. I bought into, “People turn out exactly the way they want to. They make the decisions that shape their fate.” It sounds great if you choose good parents and a safe place to grow up. I’ve shifted, repositioned myself on the distribution curve, probably not normal anymore but the transition itself, the change part is.