The Honorable

The Honorable

Back in January I briefly mentioned to dad I was going on a trip to visit a few Prisons up North. His face became somber and he changed his posture within seconds. That’s all it took to realize the rest of the conversation would end up in an argument.

Anything I’d say afterwards didn’t matter. None of my arguments were valid enough as to the reason why I’d chose to embark on this trip in the first place. But, I found a loophole. Interesting enough I manipulated the story. Instead, I made the argument that it was mandatory and I had to go. I came up with a story on the top of my head I told dad in a convincing and subtle tone, “I have to go, it’s part of my job I coordinated the trip so it’s my duty to make sure everything goes well.” It was partially true except the mandatory part was a forced lie that I quickly thought would fit in. This trip was my calling; I wasn’t going to let it pass nor, was I going to let my dad’s views about it discourage me.

Dad wasn’t very happy about the fact that his daughter would go into prisons and have contact with men that committed high degree convictions or at least this was quite close to what he kept repeating. He continued shouting in my face that my visit was only relevant if I was interested in becoming a lawyer and even then mentioned that the profession of a lawyer wasn’t honorable enough and visiting a prison for educational motifs, wasn’t honorable either because there was nothing that could be learned in there or nothing I could possibly do to change the conditions of these men.

In that moment I thought to myself and replied that it was an honorable cause to defend I replied “being kept in prison for several years is unjust because building more prisons than educational opportunities affects underprivileged communities and clearly there are forms in which we can intervene.” while I’m not interested in becoming a lawyer for the moment, I will be working with young adults as a Community College Counselor which still makes it relevant. Now, It may be true that there are lawyers who have corrupted the profession but, regardless, it isn’t fair to dismiss all professionals in the area of law who perhaps do want to help people of color who are sucked by the prison industrial complex vacuum. Nonetheless, it is not entirely in the hands of lawyers because the life and progress of former inmates I’d say relies on the support of a community to rehabilitate individuals and seek their best interest as long as they are too, interested in reintegrating themselves into society.

Let me delve in deeper, I believe that part of the stigmatization of the honorable and non-honorable starts with educating the very exact communities affected by these issues. According, to the website Milliondollarhood.org “the costs of incarceration are not just fiscal. They are also social. Arrest and incarceration — even for just a few days — can severely impact a person’s life, family, work, and community.” This same source offers a mapping that provides people with the costs of incarceration by race, days in jail by gender, number of arrests by charge. It also provides a list of charges and the arrests made depending on the charge and ultimately offers rankings to show the contrast with other cities.

Once the trip came around, we visited one of  the most remarkable facilities, our visit to the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad was beyond inspirational and captivating;  the LIfeCycle group of man gathered in the gym, about  60-100 men were all seated waiting for us to arrive.  One of the facilitators of the group, Mr. Johnny was very happy to have us there and during his introduction overemphasized the importance of mentorship and explained to us the purpose of the group--and I won’t forget what one of the men stated, he said “It's easier to build strong children than to fix broken adults” and I stood there in shock because it made a great lot of sense. Some of these men didn’t have role models, some had neither one of their parents, and others were pulled out of school early on and didn’t receive an adequate education. Now, mentorship is not the only form of prevention but it is the one that several men valued the most.

Sometimes as a society we lose oversight of this small but prominent piece of the puzzle and to think that it only takes you building connections with the youth to stop this pattern is mind blowing. I mean when do we lose empathy and forget that these men’s story are part of the solution.