Several years ago, I sat in the jury pool for a federal trial that promised to be lengthy. Thinking it might get me excused, I told the judge that I was a badged volunteer visitor in federal prisons. When he asked whether that would color my ability to be fair, I said, “I don’t care why they are there, they’re just there; that’s why I visit.” The ploy did not keep me off the jury, and so I had to spend weeks working with eleven other jurors to reach verdicts for three defendants on some fifty counts of white-collar crime. I felt sad that two of the three ended up doing time in federal prison.
What I have since learned is that the sole aim of a court trial is to adjudicate “guilty” or “not guilty.” Innocence is not a term in the equation. And when, instead of a trial, plea bargaining is involved, actual facts are less important than the negotiation about the length of sentence.
Beyond the door marked “guilty,” the justice system ushers the convicted into a twilight zone of punishment under the guise of correction, very often described as protecting society. The convicted are transported away, often to remote locations, encircled by coils of razor wire, and kept largely invisible from society’s view. There they live.
Within the culture of the prison ministry that I have been engaged with for the past twenty-five years, we never ask, “Why are you here?” Indeed, I have visited with some men for many years without ever learning what they were convicted of. Other times, the prisoner choses to tell, if it is something he wishes to discuss. My standard introduction informs them that we’ll talk about whatever they want to talk about.
The whole aim is to simply share a conversation about whatever is on their mind. It could be baseball. Often it is about home and family. Over time, conversations often thread a path through future dreams and plans, try to reframe a new understanding of the past, try to tell a new story about themselves. One man began a story of his conversion with the pronouncement: “I suddenly realized I had reached the top of the wrong profession.” He no longer wanted to be the person who struck fear in someone’s eyes as a shot-caller. Another, after several months of telling stories of his life growing up, announced: “I’ve decided I don’t want to go back to what I did before, I just want to have my own family.” Those are bright but rare events, like supernovae.
After months of listening to one man’s often gruesome stories of his abused childhood, or bragging about his violent exploits with a gang dealing in cocaine, he surprised me one day by asking, “Why do you come visit me?” I replied with an aspiration I had learned from Helen Prejean: “I want you to see someone who believes that you are better than the worst thing you have ever done.” He began to cry, but quickly tried to wipe away his tears, not wanting to be seen like that.
Innocence? Where does that fit in this crazy world of mass incarceration? Maybe it belongs to victims of crimes. It is rarely a question inside. One surmises after hearing many stories that the odds of being found guilty are heavily weighted against the defendant. Perhaps sometimes improperly so. But these are all just stories, hearsay.
What matters in the end is living forward as best one can, even in the most boring circumstances one can imagine. Dreams help. Remorse cleans the deck. Finding a path is golden. I am just happy to walk alongside, not as a role model, but simply as another human being, broken in my own way, sharing compassion. ~~~
David Poundstone is a member of Mountain View Friends Meeting in Denver. He began visiting federal prisoners with Prisoner Visitation and Support (PVS) in 1999. Over the years, he has played many roles in the organization.