Prison for the Holidays

By DON ROLLINS

“Behind the bars, locked out from ‘society,’ you’re being re-habilitated, corrected, re-briefed, re-educated on life itself, without you having the opportunity of really reliving it. You’re the object of a widely planned program combining isolation, punishment, taming, briefing, etc., designed to make you sorry for your mistakes …” — Johnny Cash

I was 19 when I played my first gig for incarcerated persons. God bless ’em, the inmates at Marion County (Indiana) Jail made for a stellar crowd, forgiving of the occasional fret buzz or flat note. Some sang, some kept beat with their hands and feet. Some did both.

The chaplain had prepped me to stick to the gospel stuff, but I’d been stocking up on Neil Young’s catalog for the last month: Clerical authority be damned, “Needle and the Damage Done” got twice the applause as “Amazing Grace”.

I would eventually repeat some version of Marion County in three other states, one of them home to a maximum security facility. Each time out was the same: We sang about wounds and scars, damage inflicted and (sometimes) damage redeemed. My heart was broken at each stop. Only the gigs in homeless shelters, substance abuse units and psych wards could provide so raw a witness to the human condition.

As the nation moves further into the winter holiday season 2023, nearly two million persons like the ones I sang for will spend this time in local, state and federal detention facilities - roughly 20% of them due to drug-only related laws dating back to before my visit to Marion County.

Black Americans will be overrepresented once again this year: Blacks are almost twice as likely to enter the legal system for the same charges as Whites, due in part to a sinister bail bond system based in most places on ready cash only.

While the numbers at all levels are in modest decline compared to the winter holidays 2022, the US will continue its streak as the busiest jailer in the world — an ignominious claim that also applies to juveniles, elders (55 and older), persons who identify as LGBTQ+ and those living in poverty. Bigotry will attend yet another spate of holy days.

Insult to injury, after all this waste, discrimination and institutional dysfunction, the 2022 recidivism rate (41%) showed but another paltry downward trend. Which in a sane country would trigger outrage over such intransigent year-end statistics.

All of which tells the objective observer what they already know: Today’s detention maze looks far too much like the one I encountered all those years ago.

Relying on relief from within the system may prove an exercise in patience if not futility; thus the groundswell of non-government organizations (NGOs) focused on one or more avenues to a better way for administering justice with respect. Some examples:

• Releasing detainees convicted on substance-only charges;

• Enfranchising persons jailed on felonies, then granted full release;

• Halting imprisonment disparities based on race, class, age, gender, gender identities, religion and immigration status;

• Increasing funding for life skills training, during and post incarceration;

• Lobbying elected officials for specific changes to specific criminal codes;

• Ending public funding for privately owned super max facilities;

• Increasing funding, training and staffing to better ensure detainee safety.

These are but a few of the grassroots ways NGOs are meeting head on an unjust, often dangerous approach to meting out justice. The point is progressives tired of Republican roadblocks and Democratic distraction have allies for change. The point is more numbers advocating for fewer prisoners come next year.

Addendum: Sometimes activism gets personal, especially when you’re behind bars during holy days. There are NGOs whose mission it is to match incarcerated persons with outside pen pals. A simple “prisoner correspondence” search will turn up several options.

Don Rollins is a retired Unitarian Universalist minister in Jackson, Ohio. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2024

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