Transformative Journeys in Prison
What?
In Part 1: “No One Ever Taught Me Any of That,” a prisoner by the name of Rodney Spivey Jones stated that “Prison is here to punish us. Warehouse us. It’s not about rehabilitating or creating productive beings.” This was such a powerful statement to open up with, and it really set an overall tone for the remainder of the documentary. There was so much that stood out to me from the documentary, including all the prisoner’s stories, but I was particularly drawn to Shawnta Montgomery and Rodney Spivey Jones’s stories and their transformative journeys in prison.
At a young age, Shawnta got pregnant and was living with the father of her child. His name was “B,” and he turned out to be a very abusive partner. He would beat Shawnta up in the closet of their home, would point guns at her head, and he threatened to blow up her grandma’s house if she ever tried to leave him. So, she had no other option but to comply with his demands and continue to get beat up. After a few years, she got pregnant again, and a tragic event happened one morning that landed her two-year-old daughter in the hospital. Unfortunately, the little girl died, and it was determined that the cause of death was “laceration of the liver because someone must have hit her so hard.” Instead of disputing the charges against her, Shanwta bent down her head in utter disbelief, signed the paperwork, and was immediately handcuffed afterward. She took the blame when “B” was really at fault and she was imprisoned for nine years, but nothing else mattered to her because her little girl was gone.
When her son was born, she decided that it was best to put him up for adoption, because that would keep him far away from all the negativity in her life. She wanted to give him a chance to live a better life. She wanted the best for him. I was deeply touched by her story and all the horrible things that she endured in her life. I can only imagine the tremendous amount of guilt and regret that she must have felt for putting her daughter in a position to possibly get hurt, but also what else could she have done? My heart goes out to her, and I admire her persistent focus and drive in the BARD program. Towards the end of her sentence, I think she was feeling much more empowered and she realized that she was an independent woman, with a lot of worth. She graduated with her AA degree and was thankful to have had a graduation commencement, because it “humanized, a lot of us, and made us feel like we belong again.”
Rodney Spivey Jones was another student in the BARD program, who was trying to get his BA in social studies. He started off his story by telling us that his mother was schizophrenic and that she killed herself when she was 32 years old, and when Jones was only 12 years old. The night before she died, she told her son to make sure that he graduated from High School, and that she loved him very much. I cannot imagine what it would feel like to lose my mother, let alone at such a young age. So then, his grandmother started to take care of him and his sister, but she died two years later from cancer. Following the death of his grandmother, his grandpa died of prostate cancer. This was the last thread of security and stability for Rodney. The passing away of these three people in such a short period of time put Rodney in a very bad situation, left him feeling abandoned and desperate, which pushed him to start robbing people.
Rodney described being hopeless, and so desperate for money, but his intention was never to kill people. The robbery that he took part in went terribly wrong, and he feels so much regret for his actions. He has never been able to forget that the man that he killed was a father. And although he knew what it felt like to lose someone very close, he also recognized that it was not fair for him to “equate their loss with his loss.” However, one very important point that Rodney made was that “We spend so much time in America speaking about the “violent criminal,” and how we are not worthy of redemption. But part of the reason why we think this, is because of the wording ‘violent criminal.’ It is not the violent act that you committed 15, 20 years ago; you are a violent criminal. There’s something that’s inherent about you that we must protect the rest of society from.” This was so powerful to hear and it’s so true. Although the prisoners did terrible things and should be punished for their actions, we seem to forget the fact that they are still humans. They are still people, regardless of their past and their actions. And people can change. Not all people are bad, and I think that this is one of the main points that Rodney was trying to make.
In my opinion, two of the driving forces that kept Rodney out of trouble in prison were his sister, and being in the BARD program. He described his sister as someone who was very close to him, and that they constantly worried about each other. She was worried about his mental health in the prison, and he was worried about her getting deployed to Afghanistan because she was in the military. The four hours that they spent together in the jail visiting rooms were clearly very special to both of them, and Rodney actually described this time as being “therapeutic” for him. In addition to his sister, I also think that the BARD program really pushed him to focus on something that mattered to him. After he graduated, he even started to talk about possibly continuing on with school and studying to become a lawyer. This was so powerful to hear because it meant that he was actually planning a positive future for himself when he finally got out of jail. He was described to be “one of the brightest students in the program,” and I was so happy to see the transformative journey that Rodney went through.
I would also like to highlight a few other very important points that were made by some of the other prisoner students, like Dyjuan Tatro, who was studying math, biology, and Spanish. He focused on school, “as a means to buffer against prison life because the prison life can get inside of you, and it’s invasive.” Dyjuan Tatro’s life was also very inspiring because he never saw education as a priority until he came to prison. As a child, he constantly heard gunshots in his neighborhood, lots of his friends were killed, and he fell into the trap of selling drugs on the street. I was so happy to see what education did for Tatro, but I also couldn’t help but compare him to his brother, who had also been imprisoned around the same time, and did not get the same educational opportunities. Lastly, Sebastian Yoon, another student trying to get his BA through the BARD program, further supported education as a positive outlet for prisoners, when he brought up the idea of “expanding our minds- critical thinking-” and attributing the development of this hyperawareness to getting a liberal arts education. He described this as a form of nurturing and maturing the soul, and that the education that they were being provided was truly transformative. This ties directly in with some of the topics that we have been discussing in class that have to do with cultivating our critical consciousness and going against the status quo.
So What?
Now, I would like to focus on the story of Jule Hall, a BA student, to help me describe the connections between the documentary and the stories, perspectives, and information that Miguel and Ke shared with us about their experiences and current motivations. Jule Hall was a very hard-working student, who strived for excellence and dedicated his entire life to one thing- getting an education. What really stood out to me from his story was the experiences that he had after he was released from prison. I think he was the sweetest guy in the entire documentary, because of the attitude that he had towards life, despite the terrible circumstance he was in. He always managed to put on a smile or crack a joke, that really showed how strong of a person he was, or at least appeared to be throughout most of the film. He was so grateful for the little things while he was in prison and when he came out. He expressed such profound and sincere gratitude for his bed, for food, to be alive, and to just being free. His outlook was so optimistic, except for when it came time to get a job. When he would go in for interviews, his incarceration would come up, and the whole tone of the interview shifted and became increasingly discouraging for him. It was so frustrating to see how much he struggled to get a job that he was satisfied with, and I can only imagine what it must have felt like to be constantly rejected, not only in his situation but in many other prisoner’s situations as well.
One of the specific things that came back to my mind was the response that Ke Lam gave when someone asked him about job opportunities that he had once he was out of prison. He said that he was getting many offers in high paying jobs doing carpenter work, and plumbing, and was offered a starting pay of “over $45/hour.” I was actually quite shocked by the response that he gave, but I was very happy to hear that he had jobs offered to him. Then, he went on to talk about denying all those offers, so that he could do something that really mattered to him, related to prison reform and rehabilitation work. This was so humbling to hear from him and I saw similar decisions being made by some of the prisoners in the documentary. Although some had aspirations to become lawyers and get their PhDs, others dedicated themselves to advocacy based work and working for nonprofit organizations to give back to the community.
This really showed how much they were impacted by the BARD program because they wanted to come out and make positive changes in the world. This was also supported by statistics that had to do with the recidivism rate. As was mentioned in the documentary, “there has been a decrease in the recidivism rate (when prisoners return to prison after being released) to 4% for those that attend the Bard College, whereas those who do not, have a rate of almost 50%. These statistics are so shocking to me and strongly support the need to keep these programs open because not only do they help reduce the level of crime, but they also help prisoners find meaning and purpose in their lives, which can change them in many ways. I have learned so much from this documentary and also from the conversation that we had with Ke Lam and Miguel. Both have expanded my views about education as a general concept and my own education as well. As a younger student, I used to get teased and made fun of for being the “dumb child or dumb student” and over time this started to get into my head, so I stopped putting in the effort, and it really showed in my grades and in my overall performance. But somehow I managed to push aside all the false narratives and took it upon myself to prove people wrong. Although the driving forces that I have in my life are not necessarily the same as those that prisoners have, I see the importance of having a driving force, because it kind of functions as adrenaline to keep me going, and encourages me to find my true purpose.
Now What?
I strongly agree with your statement that, “the best social and community change models draw on the knowledge and expertise of people who are impacted by the structural issues being addressed, rather than external “experts” assessing and coming up with solutions that don’t honor or value this knowledge.” This makes so much sense to me because, honestly, who can offer better insight on how to address and fix structural systemic issues than the people who are directly affected by them? The organization that I selected is the “National Council For Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls.” This is a topic of particular interest to me because I know girls and mothers that have been incarcerated and their children have suffered tremendously from not having their mothers at home. On the website, I watched the introductory video and found some very interesting and scary statistics that I was unaware of prior to doing research. Although I was previously aware that the number of incarcerated women has been growing in the United States, I was not aware that “Women are the fastest-growing segment of the prison population. And that the United States is responsible for 30% of the world’s female prisoner population despite only having 5% of the world’s population.” This is insane! In addition to this, “The number of incarcerated women has increased over 700% between 1980 and 2014.” 700%, how is this even possible? The ultimate goal of the National Council For Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls is to end the incarceration of women and girls. This organization seeks to create freedom and well-being for others, by strengthening communities and helping keep all families together. Lastly, this organization has created a safe space for women’s voices to be heard, which “builds momentum to free women and girls.”
www.nationalcouncil.us
Side note: The film was so good! I stopped to cry a few times because I was so deeply touched with some of the stories, and especially the end of Part 4. Thank you for making this an assignment. I loved it :)
