Giving Voice to the Incarcerated

In Fall 2021, I was given the opportunity to participate in an internship with the New Mexico State Penitentiary and ASU called the Prison Pen Project. A few students were paired with various inmates throughout this course and sent writing pieces from those they were matched with. Through their writings, I was able to briefly see the world these inmates experienced on a day-in-day-out basis, causing me to rethink my actual beliefs on mass incarceration.

Over the last few years, I have spent an immense amount of time challenging many of the ideas and beliefs taught to me in my childhood. One of those challenges surrounds the entire topic of mass incarceration. Growing up in the South, I was taught to believe that people who “do bad things” go to prison as they deserve and be stripped of all rights and privileges that those who “do good things” have. I was taught that our choices have repercussions. I was never taught anything about the entire industry built systematically to put people there, despite what the state says they may or may not have done. Incarceration was so ingrained in me that “people get what they deserve” that it wasn’t until just a few years back that I began to look inside myself and the system to unpack why I believed that and what the system is all about.

Through the inmates' writings, a few different themes emerged. Specifically, coldness and darkness were two of the most common threads that weaved through the various pieces amongst all writers. When analyzing deeper, these themes seemed to be the expression that the inmates use to verbalize the pain, sorrow, and regret that consumes them.

For some, the darkness and cold are metaphors for their guilt about the particular crime for which they are incarcerated. It is the constant reminder of the terror that haunts them as they close their eyes.

For others, the cold is their expression of the fear of returning to society. Channeling that fear into words and emotions, they are able to release that fear and anxiety through their writings. Understanding that life outside of the prison walls will be vastly different, they can tap into that fear of the unknown through the power of their thoughts and express it on paper.

Being stripped of all freedoms, including any form of privacy, destroys any sense of self, leaving the prisoner with only their thoughts. For some, even sharing those thoughts can turn against them. In one of the prisoner readings, Inmate "Dominic" shared a short story he wrote about an inmate who shared thoughts and feelings with the prison psychiatrist, only to be fed more medication to remain "under control." Once he realized that his thoughts were the only thing left and he needed to cherish and hold onto, he decided to go silent and was put into solitary confinement. He hadn't spoken in 3 months, knowing that the only thing he truly had for himself was his thoughts. Through this story, Dominic shared the fears and ramifications of the constant surveillance he is under and the mental (and physical) damage done by never being alone- even when physically isolated from the rest of the population.

In the prison system, one of the most powerful tactics used is the power of constant surveillance. Under the guise of safety for both the inmates and the guards, the extremities to which prisons sometimes resort are sometimes out of a futuristic novel or movie. Foucault discusses the panopticon, a circular-type setup where prisoners can be watched at all times, in his work Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. He describes this constant surveillance that the prisoners are under, all the while never actually being able to discern if they are being actively watched or not. Argued as a way to keep prisoners in line by not knowing if someone is watching them or not, it is said that the prisoners won't act out if they think they are being watched. Unsurprisingly, this creates extreme tension between the prisoner and guard, but also the prisoner and themselves with the constant anxiety of perpetual surveillance.

The thing I enjoyed most through this course was the refreshing humanization of prisoners through their writing. In our society, prisoners are one marginalized group that seems to be accepted in society as being openly chastised. Publishing the creative work and celebrating their skills gives them dignity and reminds us that they are human beings that deserve respect just as anyone else does. Even in the first few pieces, the elegance of the writing about everyday experiences in the memoirs creates such a stark juxtaposition against the grave injustices they experience day in and day out.

As a society, we tend to put more emphasis and effort into helping animals who “misbehave” more than we do other humans around us. We are more apt to rehabilitate and teach dogs than we are people who are in jail. Giving prisoners access to education and creative outlets to express themselves only makes them feel less like animals, and are they more likely to live a life where they can integrate with society once they are released, as opposed to being entirely unable to interact with society, often breaking generational cycles.

For those who commit crimes, incarceration is their punishment. As we’ve gotten a glimpse into the lives and conditions of the prisons, it is clear that it is harsh enough. Allowing prisoners to openly express their creativity and innermost thoughts helps to make them a more rounded individual that is more likely to go back into their community once released and share with their community.