(This is written by someone who is in Indiana Department of Corrections)
I am serving time for a crime I committed more than seven years ago. I have been to five different institutions and what this has to say goes for every one of them. I was talking to a friend and he gave me a piece of paper with the following written on it. I thought I might share it with you so that people who don't know and young people who may be committing crimes will know what can and probably will happen to them. My friend doesn't know who wrote it, but was more than glad to let me send it on to you.
It reads as follows:
"Prison: What it is."
Prison is a place where you write letters and can't think of anything to say. Where you gradually stop altogether. Prison is a place where hope springs eternal; where every parole board appearance means a chance to get out, even if odds are hopelessly against you. Where you meet the board smiling, and come out crying.
Prison is a place where the flame in every man and woman locked within its walls burns low. For some it goes out, but for most, it flickers weakly, sometimes flashes brightly, but never again seems to burn as it once did.
Prison is a place where you wait for a visit promised. When it doesn't come, you worry about a car accident of some other tragedy. When you find out the reason your visit didn't come you're glad because it wasn't serious, and disappointed because such a little thing could keep them from coming to see you. Prison is a place where you learn that nobody needs you, and the outside world goes on without you. Prison is a place where you can go for months, years, without feeling the touch of a human hand, except in fear; where you can go for months without hearing a kind word. It is a place where your friendships are few, shallow, and weak, and you know it. Prison is a place where you are swallowed by others pettiness and bitterness, stabbed in the back literally and figuratively every minute of everyday. Prison is a place where you feel sorry for yourself, and then you get mad for feeling disgusted. Prison is a place where you walk for half a mile in the rain or snow and cold to get medication to cure a cold and you catch pneumonia. Prison is a place where they experiment on your body like a guinea pig, physically and psych you out to blow your mind permanently. It is the college of crime and punishment.
Prison is where you go to before you're tired; where you pull the blanket over your head when you're not cold. Where if you dare to get sick, you're locked up in a 10*5 cell for 24 hours, except of course, to get out in the cold to walk a half a mile to get your medication.
Prison is a place where countless tears fall from weeping eyes because we cannot be by our loved one's sides; where a significant others arm is long enough to embrace. They ache like a tumor for the want of her man and a man aches inside from the want for his woman. A prison is where you are sent off pitifully to pay the price they say society demands.
Prison is a place where you suffer the agony of a living hell, separated from your loved ones. It breaks your heart; it unearths you mentally and tares you apart. It is a place where they tell you a loved one on the outside is ill, and then he has died, three days after the funeral. Prison is a place at night you can hear men and women praying and crying, a sound so haunting, like the human side of dying. The sadness, the loneliness, the torment, the pain, the mind games are truly too inhumane for anyone to sustain.
Prison is a place where you work yourself to death trying to prove that you want to improve yourself to authorities who don't care; where you try to escape by studying, reading, playing cards, by dreaming, by writing, trying to survive, hiding or simply going MAD. IT is a place where reality is so real that you lose touch with the true reality of life and the outside world, so that when they finally do cut you loose, you find yourself almost afraid to leave.
Prison is a place where you learn quickly that only the strong survive, and each day that you become more cold and heartless and selfish because your environment and conditions in which you live in demand this of you. You cry silently inside for the person you know you once were or might have been; that person is lost to you and gone forever. For the warmth, love, and joy you once felt and knew, that you many never feel again. Prison is a place filled with the living dead; where man's inhumanity to men runs rampant; where cruelty, humiliation, and fear are the daily routine and the way of life. It is a place where the word "rehabilitation" is just a word they use to make you think that if you try to rehabilitate yourself to be useful in society and the outside world, that they will let you go out and you can make it. Where they don't tell you that no amount of rehabilitation will erase the label you wear for life, no matter what you do you are still the EX CON. And if you do try to rehabilitate yourself sincerely, and succeed in any measure, they, your fellow inmates as well as those in authority will do all they can do to bring you down.
Prison is not a joke to be taken lightly. It is not funny. If you think it is, then the joke will soon be on you. It is a place where you must learn that making time count is more important than anything or you will never make it inside or out.
Prison is a place where no matter how indifferent you may have been about God and religion; sooner or later you will get down on your knees and pray for strength to endure and forgiveness.
I hope all of you who read this, young and old alike, from all walks of like will take what has been said here seriously and think before committing a crime. We all want and need money, but fast, easy, big money goes as fast and as easy as you get it. You may get by for a time, but you can't get away with what you are doing forever. Sooner, or later, prison is where you will end up and you will find out that the dues you pay here aren't at all, worth whatever sent you here. What I say is the truth, believe me in what I tell; prison is a place to stay away from at all cost. I am a witness to crime and punishment for I am in prison.
I am serving time for a crime I committed more than seven years ago. I have been to five different institutions and what this has to say goes for every one of them. I was talking to a friend and he gave me a piece of paper with the following written on it. I thought I might share it with you so that people who don't know and young people who may be committing crimes will know what can and probably will happen to them. My friend doesn't know who wrote it, but was more than glad to let me send it on to you.
It reads as follows:
"Prison: What it is."
Prison is a place where you write letters and can't think of anything to say. Where you gradually stop altogether. Prison is a place where hope springs eternal; where every parole board appearance means a chance to get out, even if odds are hopelessly against you. Where you meet the board smiling, and come out crying.
Prison is a place where the flame in every man and woman locked within its walls burns low. For some it goes out, but for most, it flickers weakly, sometimes flashes brightly, but never again seems to burn as it once did.
Prison is a place where you wait for a visit promised. When it doesn't come, you worry about a car accident of some other tragedy. When you find out the reason your visit didn't come you're glad because it wasn't serious, and disappointed because such a little thing could keep them from coming to see you. Prison is a place where you learn that nobody needs you, and the outside world goes on without you. Prison is a place where you can go for months, years, without feeling the touch of a human hand, except in fear; where you can go for months without hearing a kind word. It is a place where your friendships are few, shallow, and weak, and you know it. Prison is a place where you are swallowed by others pettiness and bitterness, stabbed in the back literally and figuratively every minute of everyday. Prison is a place where you feel sorry for yourself, and then you get mad for feeling disgusted. Prison is a place where you walk for half a mile in the rain or snow and cold to get medication to cure a cold and you catch pneumonia. Prison is a place where they experiment on your body like a guinea pig, physically and psych you out to blow your mind permanently. It is the college of crime and punishment.
Prison is where you go to before you're tired; where you pull the blanket over your head when you're not cold. Where if you dare to get sick, you're locked up in a 10*5 cell for 24 hours, except of course, to get out in the cold to walk a half a mile to get your medication.
Prison is a place where countless tears fall from weeping eyes because we cannot be by our loved one's sides; where a significant others arm is long enough to embrace. They ache like a tumor for the want of her man and a man aches inside from the want for his woman. A prison is where you are sent off pitifully to pay the price they say society demands.
Prison is a place where you suffer the agony of a living hell, separated from your loved ones. It breaks your heart; it unearths you mentally and tares you apart. It is a place where they tell you a loved one on the outside is ill, and then he has died, three days after the funeral. Prison is a place at night you can hear men and women praying and crying, a sound so haunting, like the human side of dying. The sadness, the loneliness, the torment, the pain, the mind games are truly too inhumane for anyone to sustain.
Prison is a place where you work yourself to death trying to prove that you want to improve yourself to authorities who don't care; where you try to escape by studying, reading, playing cards, by dreaming, by writing, trying to survive, hiding or simply going MAD. IT is a place where reality is so real that you lose touch with the true reality of life and the outside world, so that when they finally do cut you loose, you find yourself almost afraid to leave.
Prison is a place where you learn quickly that only the strong survive, and each day that you become more cold and heartless and selfish because your environment and conditions in which you live in demand this of you. You cry silently inside for the person you know you once were or might have been; that person is lost to you and gone forever. For the warmth, love, and joy you once felt and knew, that you many never feel again. Prison is a place filled with the living dead; where man's inhumanity to men runs rampant; where cruelty, humiliation, and fear are the daily routine and the way of life. It is a place where the word "rehabilitation" is just a word they use to make you think that if you try to rehabilitate yourself to be useful in society and the outside world, that they will let you go out and you can make it. Where they don't tell you that no amount of rehabilitation will erase the label you wear for life, no matter what you do you are still the EX CON. And if you do try to rehabilitate yourself sincerely, and succeed in any measure, they, your fellow inmates as well as those in authority will do all they can do to bring you down.
Prison is not a joke to be taken lightly. It is not funny. If you think it is, then the joke will soon be on you. It is a place where you must learn that making time count is more important than anything or you will never make it inside or out.
Prison is a place where no matter how indifferent you may have been about God and religion; sooner or later you will get down on your knees and pray for strength to endure and forgiveness.
I hope all of you who read this, young and old alike, from all walks of like will take what has been said here seriously and think before committing a crime. We all want and need money, but fast, easy, big money goes as fast and as easy as you get it. You may get by for a time, but you can't get away with what you are doing forever. Sooner, or later, prison is where you will end up and you will find out that the dues you pay here aren't at all, worth whatever sent you here. What I say is the truth, believe me in what I tell; prison is a place to stay away from at all cost. I am a witness to crime and punishment for I am in prison.
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