Responsibility For All

Thank you all for your outpouring of support as well as kind and thoughtful comments about my daughter’s horrible experience with a sexual assault.  When reading your comments or receiving emails about the issues of the day I am constantly encouraged by your deep, reflective thinking focused only on making our world a better place.  The overwhelming message is that we are not alone.  There are millions of us that are asking the question, “Is this the best we can do?  Is this the best society we can create?”  The first step in moving forward always begins with questioning where we are.

Well my daughter went to court a few days ago to testify at a pretrial hearing against her attacker.  She told me it was the second worst experience of her life.  She had to relive and recount every detail of the assault.  She had to look square in the eye at Mr. Pin-Cushion face who tried to force himself on her.  She had to endure the hissing and insults from his troubled girlfriend who held his baby.  Another young woman also testified that this same disturbed man had lewdly chased her in the same parking lot.  Now it goes to a plea bargain conference. (He has a prior conviction.)  One strong impression my daughter had of the courtroom that day was the smothering presence of dark energy.  I know first hand what she means.

Two and a half decades ago I spent two years of Sundays and Thursday nights visiting and teaching inmates at a maximum security prison.  I was a volunteer for my church who was trying to bring hope to the hopeless.  The first inmate I personally met was Tex Watson, the main killer in Charles Manson’s band of murderers.  It was literally chilling.  Every time I went inside the prison and had those iron bars close behind me I felt a cold dark energy.  Inside several of the people I counseled were sex offenders.  Child molesters.  They were always the best educated, most articulate and most pleasant inmates.  Many had been sentenced to long stretches because they were repeat offenders.  I also taught and counseled drug dealers, a mass murderer and scores of chronic criminals.  When some of the more mild criminals were released it always hit me in two ways.  I was glad to see hope in a man’s eyes, but my practical sense told me how unprepared they were to succeed at every day life in a free society.  I nearly always assumed they would be back.

Today America has more people imprisoned than any country in history.  We have 2.5 million in iron bar hotels, more than all of Europe combined.  Most of these criminals are under-educated with few resources and a poor social support system.  We have another nearly 20 million people reporting to probation officers.  All of this is an expensive waste.  A waste of money and a waste of humanity.  Nearly every person I worked with in prison never learned self-control.  Never learned how to set goals and achieve them.  Never learned personal responsibility.  Some were truly nuts.  All were without self-respect.  Most without real hope.  Nearly everyone I met in prison needed to be locked up because they simply never learned how to function as a responsible human being.  But is this the best we can do?  As our population grows, our families disintegrate, our schools fail.  Is our answer only to build more warehouses for humans?

Maybe the biggest problem we have with prisons is how we currently view them.  Little productivity happens there.  They’re very expensive human storage units with Lord of the Flies cultures.  We actually have examples of different approaches.  We already know that there are subgroups of prisoners who will respond to training, mentoring, education and responsibility.  We know that hard-core felons that are released on probation to places like Delancey House in San Francisco can learn economically valued skills, stay off drugs and build productive lives.  Delancey runs a tight ship.  There are serious consequences for the slightest slip-up.  Everyone is expected to help everyone else in line.  It’s a culture of mutual responsibility.  In other prisons small groups are graduating from high school and even college.  Standards are high.  Bad behaviors get you expelled back to the weight room.  But some respond.  Of course there are many in prison who refuse to face responsibility.  They are committed to being bullies or victims; nevertheless, they should be expected to do productive work.  And for those that earn it, it should be work that contributes to a better world.  Without opportunity to learn, grow, and work, life is hopeless.  Without dignity.  And having millions of people living without learning self-discipline is costing us far more than requiring them to be productive.

Of course there will always be criminals who refuse responsibility.  There are many who cannot live in a free society. But those in prison should be expected to be more than they have become.  As long as we aspire to be a noble society, shouldn’t we explore ways to give the willing a way to contribute no matter where they are?  To require people to be responsible is to give them the gift of personal dignity.

To visit American Dream Project’s homepage, click here.

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