I’ve been visiting men in federal prisons for forty years and have shared time with nearly 200 men. I’ve only met one who told me he “didn’t do it” – didn’t commit the crime he was accused of. And with the help of some monied friends to pay for an attorney, he was found innocent and released.
I know that The Innocence Project (Innocenceproject.org) keeps a growing list of people who have been falsely accused and convicted, and who have served time in prison. But those are not the people I have met in prison. With the one exception, I have never heard, “I’m innocent.”
Actually, “innocence” and “guilt” are not terms that I even associate with the men I visit in prison. More likely, I might find a man wrestling with questions of “harm done,” and he often denies that he has done any harm. It’s when a man gets to the point of realizing that he has caused harm that his rehabilitation begins. Some never get to that point. They serve their time and leave prison unaware of the consequences of their behavior. One 80-year-old told me, without remorse, “All I did was look at some pictures,” referring to his conviction for child pornography. He exemplifies the person who does not claim innocence, but rather a lack of comprehension that he has violated society’s norms as well as its laws. This is a person who disagrees with those laws and doesn’t think he has done anything wrong. There is a certain naïveté in this worldview.
I’ve seen this kind of naïveté in men who have been convicted of other kinds of crimes – drug dealing, for example. One man told me he had a nice little business going, which his arrest had interrupted. He couldn’t see that dealing drugs did harm, but instead, he saw it as a perfectly honest way to make a good living.
When I think of innocence, I think of childlike behavior, which I could also call naïveté. So, if naïveté is a common characteristic among the men I visit, then I suppose I could call them “innocent,” even if legally, they have been found guilty of crimes – crimes that they do not deny committing, but which they do not consider to be crimes.
Those of us who are volunteers with Prisoner Visitation and Support, who are trained in their model of prison ministry, turn a blind eye to questions of guilt and innocence. We are there for the men, acting as their connections to the outside world. Many have been abandoned by their families. At our best, we are a therapeutic presence. We offer a listening ear, and we reflect back to them what they have said. We might probe and question their concerns, offer a sympathetic head nod or a shared laugh. The criminal justice system has decided on their guilt. We are there to tend to their humanity and attend to them without making judgments of guilt or innocence. ~~~
Elaine Granata has been a volunteer with Prisoner Visitation and Support (prisonervisitation.org) for over forty years, visiting in both medium- and high-security federal institutions. She especially enjoys attending the pow wows that the Native American prisoners conduct. She is a member of Mountain View Friends Meeting in Denver, Colorado (IMYM).