Every single day… everywhere I turn… I will over hear a conversation in which one guy is telling another that he’s, “about the get shipped to camp” or “I’m homeward bound bro”. This is immediately followed by, “what camp you going to?” or
“you going to halfway house or straight home?” Over and over… on the track… in the chow hall… walking into the rec facility… in the bathroom… everywhere. The interesting dynamic, at least from my vantage point, is the attitude and demeanor (more specifically the noticeable difference in demeanor) between the “camper” and the guy going home.
If you had asked me before I got to T.I. who would present happier toward the end of their time between someone transitioning to a minimum security camp and someone going home… I would have easily answered “the guy going home”. But I would have been wrong.
The guy who is going to camp is upbeat, seemingly excited about this new “adventure” and the “freedoms” that he believes he will have once he gets there. “No walls dawg. No fences. No nothing. It’s just like F Unit but no fence around the yard.” The guy going to camp talks about food options, T.V. set ups, off campus job assignments, no controlled movement and lack of ‘confinement’. They speak as if they are describing an all-inclusive vacation that they are about to embark on. Not one ounce of sadness, frustration or concern in their voice…simply genuine excitement. They describe these magical camps as if they finally made it to the promise land… but isn’t the goal here actual freedom? Isn’t going home the real ‘win’ that we are all working toward… doesn’t seem that way…
To the contrary, the guys that are “home bound” have the demeanor and tone in their voice of someone who is going for a job interview that they aren’t quite sure they are qualified for. “Well, yeah man… I’m heading home. Probably on HC (home confinement) for a couple months… have 2 or so years of paper (supervised release) then… I mean… get a job or something (nervous laugh). Who fu**ing knows bro.”There is not one ounce of relief, excitement, happiness (at least outwardly) in the home bound guy’s presentation. And here lies one of the overarching issues of our criminal justice system and society as a whole.
Many men in here, whether they have served 12 months or 12 years, do not feel prepared in any way for what real life has waiting for them on the other side. And on top of that, society now labels these men as “felons” (which they/we are) but they/we are so much more than that. How do we expect some of these guys who lived a life that led to crime, to get arrested… spend years incarcerated and then sent back out to a worse situation than they started with and expect a successful outcome? Plainly stated, we cannot (or should not). Now, I am not looking for anyone to feel sorry for someone who committed a crime… we all (“felons” that is) need to own our mistakes/wrongdoings and deal with the consequences. But isn’t our prison sentence and our entire life being destroyed due to our decisions and actions the punishment for our crime? Once time has been served and debt to society has been paid… there needs to be actual programs, counseling and a path to job opportunities available in order to provide a strong foundation for lawful employment and law abiding lifestyles so that we (as a society) can attempt to successfully lower the recidivism rate. Without opportunity, hope for a positive and fulfilling life for many of these guys seems completely out of reach. And until that changes, we are going to have tens of thousands of capable, hard working, healthy, grown men excited about going to a prison camp as opposed to productively and positively transitioning back to a free life that we all (supposedly) so desperately want.
Much, much more on this topic as my time progresses but found the dynamic extremely interesting so figured I would spark the fuse.