“My first experience with prison was probably when I was three or four months old. My mom took me to visit my dad, still holding me in her arms.”
As I spoke up for the first time my voice quivered, unsure how the men around me would perceive an “outsider’s” presence. I tried to collect my breath for my next sentence, but the room seemed to be void of oxygen. I was scared, I was nervous and I had no idea how to interpret the eyes of these inmates analyzing every word I spoke and every slight movement I made.
This previous summer, I had the opportunity to speak with a number of men sentenced to die in prison. Tales of desperately trying to make ends meet at any costs that landed them in jail were commonplace. Through stories, these men revealed a voice often overlooked in the discussion of economic inequalities and poverty:
“At the precise moment we stood arm’s length, I suddenly spun on him. Fist clenched and demanding emphatically. His eyes widened enormously while at the same time he raised up his shirt and pulled out a gun. I recognized the .357 revolver. Two full strides I bolted when the third one abandoned me. The black top asphalt raced toward my face. The crushing blow of my cheekbone decimated my watch on impact as I crashed into the ground.”
With every word the inmates spoke, the pressures of society on the poor in America today were palpable:
“Call it bad luck, bad choices; whatever it was, things just weren’t working out for me. Unable to find a job, I had decided to return to the criminal lifestyle, but that didn’t work out well at all. I found myself in and out of jail, making no progress whatsoever. For the next year or so my life was in constant turmoil.”
There are roughly 2.3 million incarcerated individuals in the United States, the highest in the world. Of that 2.3 million, 1 million are African American. Not only do African Americans make up almost half of the incarcerated population, they are also incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites. The inmates spoke passionately about the constant association of a minority face to crime, much of it unconscious association, and how it further segregates the country by race and class, heightening racial tensions.
“A time when the canine fangs have evolved into the prongs of Tasers. The extended purpose of the hose now achieved at the range of bullets. When just donning a hoodie and being a minority can result in a death sentence.”
The inmates emphasized the lack of parental figures in their lives. There are not many role models in poverty. All of the men emphatically agreed that instead of encouragement to go to school they went to the streets to forge lives for themselves.
“A productive living is out of the reach for many of us and the roots of opportunity seldom thrive in the gritty soils of project housing. With so many working single mothers and absentee fathers, we, as adolescents, are deprived of the attention and discipline needed to keep us grounded: the encouragement to make wiser decisions. As a result, we forged families in the streets of crooks, ruffians and other social misfits while our goals became trumped by fallacy and misrepresentations.”
Before visiting the prison, I had an idealistic view that, if you worked hard, you could become successful, regardless of environmental influence. In letter correspondence with some of the men, they often spoke of their troubles in school. One man told me that while he was once a great student and frequently got A’s, his father was a schizophrenic and his mother was absent. He attributed a lack of support at home for his ultimate failure of third grade and his descent away from education. For him and many others, neither school nor home were environments suitable for positive growth and development.
According to Sean Reardon, an associate professor of education at Stanford University, the gap in test scores between higher income and lower income children has grown by about 40 percent in the last 30 years. From his research, he has concluded, “if you have money, generally your neighbors have money, which means you probably have access to better child care and preschools, and better elementary schools, parks and libraries.” This is a glaring inequality and an example of a direct correlation between education and economics.
With education playing an essential role in the paths of young individuals, there are startling connections one can make between government money spent on elementary and secondary school students and the cost of keeping an inmate imprisoned. Census data shows that the amount spent on an inmate is substantially higher than what is spent on a student.
As I sat at the plastic table looking into the faces of each man, I began to think about my own childhood and how things could have been different had I been born under different circumstances.
“A reckless childhood doesn’t always lead to prison, but it does increase the number of exits in that direction.”
Although my time was brief with the inmates, my experiences in the prison will last a lifetime.
Jalen Phillips is a Trinity senior.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.