What I Have Seen Prison Do To Humans

What I Have Seen Prison Do To Humans

In the past year, I have had several chance encounters with men and women over the years who have just got out of prison.
One of them is my cousin's husband she met and married while he was in prison. She spent her every weekend driving 100's of miles to visit him. She helped to obtain his release and he finally got out after some 15 years.
He had to do his halfway house thing and then he finally was able to live with her while on parole, Which ended according to him this past November.

In this time, he has had one job that I have been told. Allegedly they got a guy who owned a bunch of Travel Trailers and mobile homes in a park to hire him and let him work for the purchase of a Travel Trailer they were going to live in. This allegedly lasted about 7 months, he quit and for whatever crazy reason according to her and him they sold the travel trailer, Then began the begging for a place to live.
Allegedly again he has searched for and put out applications to hundreds of places being unable to obtain unemployment.
I can believe that part of it is probably true. The rest I am not so sure of now because of things I have seen and gone through with trying to reach out and help the two. That I will talk about later more.

I am 63 years old and have disabilities that made it impossible  for me to get hired anywhere anymore. Even Walmart wouldn't hire me for a lowly ass job in their assets protection department after having some 25 years experience both in investigations, security and loss prevention. During that time owning my own successful business for several of those years and when employed for others, I received the highest of recommendations and letters from the employers to prove the excellent job I performed for them.

Now take a person who has been locked away "into oblivion" for 15 years and they come out late in their lives much older and worn now, what kind of experience are they to provide an employer? What are they to do put on their application they have a criminal record and have been in prison for the last 15 years? I am sure that will place them on the top of the list to be hired or interviewed..
There are well too many candidates for  jobs these days.

This is an "employer's market" meaning jobs are few and far between and people wanting them are numerous. The employers opt for the best and pass on the least and those they  might have considered in the past before unemployment became so high.  This financial quandary we the people all are in is beneficial to the corporate elites as they now can choose to get the best and leave many others out in the cold. No work, means no income, Even for a person with disabilities and especially those with criminal records. Believe me they are at the very bottom of their list to even be interviewed for a job much less be given one.

Now consider this as well, While in prison these men and women have but one thing to do every day and that is to survive meaning they live in constant danger of losing their lives from either other prisoners, guards or even both. So they have formed their own culture and society while in there, Often through gang activity to find protection, often through exchange of sexual favors and yes contraband exchange and sales, Most often this contraband is brought in by the guards and those visiting girlfriends or boyfriends who are willing to smuggle stuff in for them.
I know the average person in America thinks it's all nice in there, Their not having to work, getting three meals a day, etc., They think they are catered to and deserve worse.. They are fucking wrong, There I said it.

Most have but perhaps a 10 X 10 room to share with another person that is a danger to them as well everyday. The cells are nothing more then dog cages in truth. Everything you do even bathroom use is out in the open. No privacy at all.
How do I know this? I served as a voluntary chaplain for a time on many occasions visiting our local State Penitentiary. On top of that I was a Criminal Justice major in college and have read many studies and read many books and seen for myself the state of affairs in our "punishment systems."   It's a nightmare of dehumanization of fellow humans no matter what they have done in the past.
All are treated like shit and you don't create or restore humanity by treating people like animals and telling them they are..   . "what a man thinks, he is" ( a quote from the christian holy book, the bible)

Now consider this, Most of their day is already planned out for them, They must eat at certain times, shower at certain times, etc. Work will only earn them perhaps a few brownie points or provide them what they are told a job for when they get out. Some even opt to take college classes while in there.But overall none of them are prepared for when they get out,  If one chose to stay in their cell all day instead of work or did a lousy job they "can't be evicted" that's for sure. They might find less preferential treatment but they will still have a roof over their head and food to eat. Medical care already sucks for these people it too could be made even worse. But the two things every person MUST HAVE food and shelter they will get regardless, and that's right to do.,  We all must have it to live..

Yet, their minds are still in survival mode when they get out and then put them out here where no food or shelter is provided unless they work and employers will not give them a job and you create an entire new problem for them that they are not prepared to handle except by returning to the old survival methods of "conning" people,
They WILL USE whatever lie they can come up with to just get by for a day to obtain food or shelter for themselves.  Many of them simply use their spouses as a free ticket to survive. The spouse who has no criminal record works and earns all the money, They spend it as well and sometimes worse then the person earning it.

Some manage to get lucky and find jobs and adjust but many do not. Some get jobs and yet that old prison survival mechanism is all their brains understand.  They also think freedom meant they would be free from being told what to do, when to do it. and they sure don't like the feeling of not being free to move about or having to stay in one place for very long, etc.  Instead they come out in to the "real world" and find slavery is still well and alive and at work out here as well,  Here in the "real world," one must work, one must make money, one must to be considered even worthy or thought of to have value in life.
If not, you are an outcast.  I know that as one who has not been able to work for a few years now because of my disabilities (which people can't see but they are very real). I am blessed because I was able to work from the time I was 9 years old until I was about 59.  I paid into the "national require you pay" Social Security system since I was 14 years old,  so I live on that alone.

If you can't work or people won't give you a job, your suffering "out here" could become as great as in there or worse. No job, no food or shelter unless you can find someone that will reach out to you and offer the help. I did reach out and have in the past with what little I have had to do so with. For a few it worked, for a few it didn't.  I found you can't bat 100 percent in the real world with everyone.

I believe in second chances and third and more but in that even as I have found in my life, each mistake is an experience to learn from and improve on in avoiding doing the same thing over and over again. Eventually you have to wake up, mature and move on and try to be as independent as you possibly can and quit doing the same shit over and over again.
. Truth is and that includes me in this real world we live in, people do not and find themselves loving entirely unconditionally as I believe we are loved, if there is a god, as described by most theist as a supreme being, reigning or creating all the rest of us. To me that kind of love does and would only separate us from this being, making it truly "Supreme,"
Otherwise if this being loves as we do with all kinds of conditions, many for which we are afraid to admit we do have in relation to others around us, Then if there is a hell then every single one of us is headed there for it, no exceptions.. Perfection is what would be called for to avoid it and I have not met even in myself yet a single perfect human being alive on this planet, not once if based on ethics, morality, or even love, PERFECT...... WE ALL FAIL THE TEST!!

So for my own self discovery, all other versions of god are merely "anthropomorphic" projections of ourselves, with our judgments, our conditional love, our love for vengeance, our love for hate, resulted and results more in a god created in our image!!  I personally have come to not believe in such a god. I do believe in infinite, divine, pure, absolute love though.. That I truly do, because I know I must be loved that way or what is the use of carrying on in this life with all the mistakes I have made in my past and all the wrong I have done others to end up in the end being only sent to a place of torture " infinitely" for my "finite" mistakes and lack of perfection as a human where perfection of morality and ethics is demanded by a god OR else!!
No! I can't buy into that kind of Supreme being, a god,  because for me they wouldn't be supreme at all for they would love no better then I have in my lifetime. I still don't love "supremely," I love the best I can and do.  Will I ever love entirely unconditionally, I continue to hope so, and continue to look in the things I encounter in life to ask myself the question, did you love unconditionally? In my honesty at times, I have to say, no, I didn't. BUT....
 I do so without shame, guilt or fear about it, because I know that which I am loved is so opposite of what my own love has been that alone removes all fear.
That there has made the entire difference in my life and enabled me to love again and to even fail at it.  To fail without fear and to succeed without desire for reward.
 It has enabled me to love greater then before, maybe not perfectly- unconditionally yet, but I find I am getting there everyday a little more.
I find I am willing to at least take chances on others who have a clear history of abusing my trust or that of others. For I was given that chance but EVEN MORE.. .....

Now, the rub!  This person I was helping, has continued to abuse my trust and not only that when on about the fourth time of doing so, I refused to take their phone calls recently because I am tired of being lied to and having my trust abused, they decide because I wouldn't jump to their beckoned call this time and call them back, to tell me, to "kiss their ass."  

All I did this time was do the same they did to me  when they violated my trust in lending them my car for two days and they had it for 5 days instead and the car wasn't even where it was suppose to be., They refused to answer my phone calls.
 It took a lot of stressed actions on my part to finally get my car back to me. I get it returned, on the condition of course I had to drive them back to where they were now living which was nowhere even close to where they said they did.
The car is returned with a broken window and now the door has to be replaced because it would cost more trying to get it repaired then buying a mismatched colored door from a junk yard. I am still looking at a couple hundred dollars for the repair.  I have also been stuck with a $100 electric bill for the little time they stayed in my travel trailer here on the land where I live, that I gave them to live in free of rent or charge, It wasn't good enough for them and they made that clear. They would go off and leave lights on, etc and I warned them that our electric charges out here are high!! Well, they didn't care, because it's apparent to me now, they had no intention of paying the electric bill.
He was even suppose to have come by the day they moved out and dig a hole for me to dump the sewage in the tank, no show of course.
On top of this all now, I learn they owe my wife two hundred dollars they borrowed six months ago, and told her they would pay back in a week and never did. They told her they were about to lose their car if they didn't make a payment.  Then the next time they show up here they have a different car.

My cousin and I grew up together on and off , she rarely had much to do with me at all in our latter years, until she found that now that she had married this guy and he was out, that her own family refused to help them out and she had heard and seen me not make a judgment about him or her at all. She "presumed" upon my love that I was the one to turn to since that was so, and yes I reached out to much my chagrin now.

She never contacted me by phone or came out here to visit or came by my home the entire time I and my first wife lived in Tyler years ago when her and first husband whom she divorced later were both living there.  Her daughter did a few times, but now she uses her to make contact with me and get me to do favors for them.  The only way I got through to them about the car while they refused to take my phone calls was to call her up and have her relay the message, get it done or it won't be good for them. That was my last choice to have to turn to and I didn't want to have to do that, but they refused to return my phone calls!!

Anyway, what I see, and yes this is my judgment not one to condemn but to correct someone.

He has to have a change of mind and how this real world operates and do all he can to do for what has to be done now to get work and take what is given and be thankful for it. I have had to polish floors and clean up shit in a nursing home for a time to get by and more over the years!!. I did that nursing home job for a time, was thankful to have it,  but eventually was laid off after a year from that job and finally obtained a better one.

They need to learn the next time someone offers help, don't abuse their trust, listen to some wisdom they might provide not as a condition of their help but as a means to help them learn and adjust into this real world of ours. Breakout of the survival mode of thinking, I wasn't here to harm either one of them but to help them start a good life all over again. That was refused and instead all I got was abuse of my trust instead.What I apparently offered was not good enough for either one of them. I know my cousin and she has always had the best in life and only in the last few years has she been encountering having to live with less and she is not happy about it at all. She never knew what it was like to grow up like I did nor to go through the shit I have, being homeless, really homeless twice. They haven't been homeless yet, because they have obtained help time after time, I got none in my times of despair it was all up to me and my wife..  My cousin never reached out to help me, her parents did once or twice though but her or her brother and sister could have cared less about the shit I was going through!!
 Instead I know for a fact all they had was judgment for me period and avoided me like the plague.

 I HAD to pull myself up by my own boot straps when my health was still good and did so many a time. It was hard, tough and at times seemed impossible but "all things are possible to him or her that believes," I learned that for sure..

While here and the times of visits before there was no attempt on either one of their parts to try to build a relationship with me, rather it was all about what they could get out of me or my wife, free gratis.  That hurts, yes it does, especially when it became a persistent practice of theirs along with the abuse of trust.  I am done with them, I told their daughter I was done being screwed and I am.

Is that unconditional love? Maybe it's not, thus I know there must be that kind of love existent somewhere, because WE ALL NEED IT from time to time, but we also need to grow up, mature, and become not just loving human beings, but human beings without crutches that aren't necessary a lot of the time.  We definitely create much of our own world that we live in, not all of it, but a large portion of it.. We create a heaven or hell here in the present now.  There are circumstances, and events that we had nothing to do with and there are mistakes made by every human being on this planet everyday, Horrible mistakes but none of us are not redeemable, none of us are without value or worth. My cousin is not, her husband is not without value or worth, They need only to learn from their own mistakes and quit lying and abusing trust and thinking they need to in order to get by in this world and to learn to be thankful for any hand that reaches out to help and not to take advantage but to learn to give back some,
Pay it forward if not to the people that helped you but at least to someone else in return and you can't do that, if you continue to keep yourself in the present state you find yourself in. One needs to learn if you keep doing the same thing over and over again and isn't working, it's time to do something entirely different then you have in the past. Time to move on from a "prison taught survival mode" of thinking in this world, Quit being a slave, but also find out the truth the way this world works AND it does work by slavery to the dollar, so you are going to need all that you can get, to get by in this "fucked up" world.  AND you can't obtain it doing the same shit those in power do to us, "abuse trust" and "use people" for only their benefit.
Yes, folks prison teaches that. It is not a place of restoration or rehabilitation but a place the insanity of this world can be forced into the mind of a human.. I hate our American justice system, it's the American INJUSTICE system, the punishment system, It prepares people to go out of there and find even more punishment in their lives and yet teaches them not a thing about how to escape it and find life. True life.

 My advice, find a new way, create one, make something else work if you can. The old doesn't work it never has. Those old methods of using and abusing others to get what you want, only leave a trail of tears behind and a lot of hurt of others and ultimately yourself.

I think one of the great puzzles in this life is to find the ways we can live life without resorting to all the bull shit and that is tough.  It is there in living my life, thinking, asking questions and even testing things,  I find little things here and little things there and the puzzle is becoming a better picture for my life. I find ways to do things differently then the way I have done them in the past. To be creative, to be innovative and to love the best I can.
Love is not a law, it is something only that we can learn to do through trial and error. Even though all the power and capability to love unconditionally is within us, we still live in a very "fucked up" world, no doubt and we will struggle at times, to love as this DIVINE LOVE DOES US, this I know.. but that's what makes this DIVINE LOVE nothing to fear but to embrace and be thankful for..

Pay it forward where you can, and where and when you can't, no fear, just move on and try again.  You will find there are times, the minds and actions of others make it near impossible for us to do so...  but if Divine Love has not given up on us, then don't give up on LOVE..  it will and does change us, a teenie -tiny bit at a time.. but it's better then the option out there we see and so often feel.

WE suffer not because of some god putting shit on us, we suffer because that is just part of the process of coming to understand of what Divine Love is and how we are being transformed, changed, and made brighter lights everyday.  WE suffer most often because we have yet learned  how to be really human, but we also suffer because the world we live in there are people who run this shit that make us all suffer and none is without doing so to vast number of human souls across this planet.. Welcome to the "REAL WORLD."

I may never have been sent to their fucking prisons, and never would want to be, but life itself can be a prison if we aren't careful where it is taking us and where it has at times.. Think before you act and always be willing to give mercy where it's asked for or needs to be. Compassion I know is always in our hearts.. if we but listen.

I gave mercy because of my compassion to my cousin and her husband, I could have called the cops when they were refusing to return my phone calls and had not returned the car when they were suppose to, but I didn't, and I never would have actually because I know the systems idea of justice is bull shit. and I have one that is better then what they have ever perceived.

How do I give mercy to someone who calls me up  and leaves a voice mail and says, "I don't know why (come on now) you won't return our calls." Then goes onto say, "if it's about the car," then KISS MY ASS!"
 It isn't about the car, (which you answered your own stupid statement in your question, out of a feeling of guilt about that incident)   IT's about you refusing the help offered and then it turns out you have been the entire time, abusing the trust of those that love you and have helped out,  because your actions and those words you stated, say that is true.
Did you ever once step forward like a man and say, "hey I/we screwed up and am really sorry for what I/we did?"
 Did you once as a man say, "hey, I appreciate the help, and will do all in my power to see we get your money to you and pay the electric bill."  
"Did you once approach my wife and say " hey, I am sorry we haven't got you paid back and didn't meet that week our obligation I said we would?"  You know what, that simple act would have been a act of showing me, you at least "feel" our love, but you didn't, you expected something, that no one -HAD to give - they gave it out of love for you both and you SHIT ON IT..  

"You BOTH burned a bridge before it was ever built"

What does prison do for humans? Not a DAMN THING.. it dehumanizes them worse and turns them into much like the psychopaths that created these and the system and run the damn things.
I know that, I know it's not his fault in what he was left with when he got out. My message to him is this.... Now it's time, to reject all that bull shit, and begin to seek how you can escape all that bull shit and make a life for you and my cousin of at least having food and shelter. and warmth  and do it without letting the system be able to come in and violate your peace and put you away into that shit again..

Did my cousin, she do any of things I described above as to coming to me as he should have...., Nope, why not?  She's a prisoner of her upbringing that the world owes her the best and she best have it or she will not be happy at all. For that I feel sorry for her husband. He would have been better off to have come out of prison alone. For now she is just going to have to be happy with the $1600.00 per month she earns at her management job, which by the way is well over $500., more then I bring in each month. She is going to have to learn to budget and live on less and be happy about it.
That means dear cousin, you aren't going to have what you had while growing up, the best, in your mind of everything, rather you are going to have to be thankful for the little things in life even an old run down travel trailer to live in. The most important thing I am thankful for everyday is my shelter, my food and a warm place to live and one person who has seen that I have a place to live, my wife.

I too in the past have abused her trust in ways, and she has mine as well.  I have asked her forgiveness for that and changed my life once I saw my mistakes and ignorance as well. Now as to her giving me what I want, she may never be able to again, and I don't hold that against her, rather I still sing a song now of thanks, rather then judgment on her anymore.   That has only happened in my mind and heart here in the last few weeks more then ever before to release her even more and it has released me as well.   I began over a year ago to give her the peace she deserved and wanted, That's a start. Anything is a start from doing the same shit over and over again..My advice to people just coming out of their HELL HOLE prisons, try something different. It is good to look to closely and see what they did to you but don't go into a self-pity mode, seek to change it all for YOUR LIFE..for your sake, to prove them all wrong, if nothing else.  Love thyself first but remember true love of one's self does go out to others as well

The changes I made have been good for her and as well as I. Though most people judging it, think they know our shit but they don't, So what works. works best when people aren't harming one another, whatever that OPTION may be.. non-conformity  is just fine with us both.  We don't have to keep choosing the solutions that culture, religion and society say is all there are is...

Divorce isn't always the answer to everything, that's just the way this world thinks and it's bull shit as well.   There are always options and some not so status quo..  people most of the time won't take them they are afraid of what others will say  or think, They are afraid of not going along with the crowd. Even religion has driven divorce over a whole lot of other choices that could have been made.

Just as divorce is not the only option for problems in a marriage for individuals,  nor is the criminal justice system of America the only option available to us as culture or society to solve those problems we have judged a crime. .
We have tried it, the American "injustice system"  it doesn't work and my experiences with those coming out of it, proves that even more.  It's time for the country that practices the "system of punishment" greater then any other nation in the world, to give it up and try something new. How about it folks?..
 Prison dehumanizes and programs people to be in a "survival mode" and to find satisfaction to stop  their fears in any way they can even through the abuse of others if necessarey.
The guards do it in there and so don't the prisoners.. ..   It's a total failure.  face it and wake up!!
It's a psychopathic system that benefits no one at all. It DOES NOT BENEFIT SOCIETY, you have been lied to and told that it does. ..

That's what prison does to humans, it dehumanizes them....   and it's not even near approaching even trying to love.. and do no harm..   So how is it Christians are the worse at calling for it?  They have created a god in their own image.  that's how!    (sick) ...  and often people who come out that act just like their selfish, demanding tyrannical rulers and gate keepers, with a mind for thinking, I am going to get all I can and  take it from others even if it's their own blood or that of someone else's to accomplish my self needs. .. UGH :(

Stop, think and reason, don't let your emotions rule your brain. Use your heart and brain together and save the emotions for the one's that will do you good, not for the one's right now that you feel in your situation. Those emotions are those that will harm you and others.. Look at your situation and circumstances not as a handicap but as a stepping stone to something better and then go for it, with all you have within you..  to get it done.   My advice to everyone..   including myself all the time.