Prisons

When I was working as the press secretary for the late-Gov. George S. Mickelson of South Dakota, I had occasion to visit the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls.  It was a work-related visit; didn’t know anyone there.  But it was my first visit to a place that housed hardened criminals (along with some not-so-hardened criminals).  There were murderers there along with others who we might say committed “lesser crimes.”  I vividly remember entering the prison and the process our small party had to go through, unloading pockets and leaving pocketbooks behind, going through metal detectors, answering a lot of questions.

There are two things that made a huge impression on me.  First, the sound of the iron doors slamming behind us as we entered into each vestibule.  You didn’t have to turn around and look.  You knew what that sound meant.  And after about the third hard slam of a metal door, we were standing in the midst of a long corridor lined with prison cells.

The second thing that made an impression on me was that the prisoners were out walking around in that corridor.  There we were right in the midst of them.  The guards were there, but they weren’t armed because they wouldn’t want to run the risk of having a weapon swiped from them.  What I learned was that there was a kind of game played there, not for our benefit, but on a daily basis, because the numbers of inmates far outnumbered the guards.  When I learned these details, I moved closer in to the center of our little group, hoping to stay somewhat invisible (and women, by the way, are very difficult to stay invisible in the midst of a men’s prison and the prisoners let you know it in no uncertain terms).  There were no moves toward us or against us.  There was plenty of language directed at us.

When the time came for us to leave (it seemed like hours to me, but I suspect it wasn’t more than 15 minutes), once again I heard the slamming of the metal doors behind me:  One.  Two.  Three.  And I took a deep breath.  I was free.

I made a visit to yet another South Dakota penal institution while I was working with Gov. Mickelson. This one housed some extremely dangerous and mentally ill prisoners. Those were locked into their cells. Others deemed less dangerous were given the privilege to mingle in a common area. But the status was the same: the ratio of prisoners to guards was heavily in favor of the prisoners.

After we made the move to Wisconsin 16 years ago, I made another prison visit, this time to what was once called the “Supermax” prison at Boscobel. This time I was alone and I was doing my own research into exactly what the conditions were at that place that was getting such bad publicity. I didn’t have to worry about anyone attacking me because all the men were safely locked in their cells. I suspect they were given some pretty direct orders along with threats of punishment if they hollered anything out at me, because they were all on their best behavior. Still, as the metal detectors did their work and I heard the slamming of the metal doors behind me as I entered, I knew I was, once again, completely at the mercy of the prison staff and their ability to get me out safely.

My next foray into a tightly secured environment due to the dangerous residents there was at Mendota Mental Health Center in Madison. I was there to visit someone I knew. When police took him in there, he was apparently extremely violent, and so he was taken into what I felt must have been the depths of the place and housed in a cell in a corridor of dangerously mentally ill men. Again, there was the slamming of those metal doors as I went through each one, going deeper into the institution. And, then, arriving at a particular corridor, I had to wait for a rather burly attendant to escort me through the final part of my walk to the visitors’ room. I kind of liked having the burly guy with me in that situation. Upon leaving, once again, I heard those metal doors slamming behind me. One. Two. Three. Four.

I got out to my car and took a deep breath and thought, “I’m free.”

What a thing for me to think!  I had been free the entire time I was in each of these locations. But there was something about hearing that final door slam behind me and knowing I could just walk away that gave me sudden euphoria. “I’m free!”

I have since visited prisoners in county jails and in both men’s and women’s prisons in Wisconsin. The security around me was obvious, but I never felt as closed in as I was in those previous situations. Perhaps I was becoming used to the regimen. I had gotten over my fear of those places. I still feel free even behind those locked metal doors. I know I can leave any time I want to leave.

Well, the same cannot be said for those who stay in prisons and mental health facilities for long periods of time.

Many, if not most of us, regardless of jail or prison time, at some point in our lives feel locked up. It is as though while we are free to come and go, we hear those huge metal doors slamming behind us as we enter metaphorical prisons throughout our lives.  Prisons that hold us captive to drugs and alcohol; prisons of loneliness, prisons of ill health; prisons of debt; prisons of jobs; prisons of relationships; prisons of poverty and hunger. More often than not, we don’t even hear those doors slamming until we’ve gotten so far into our quandary that we realize we might not get out or we just give up hope of ever getting out or improving our lot from the inside. I wonder about those children inside this country and around the world that are born into prison-like lives, where they are not free to come and go, where they live (if they live) under strict rules set up for them by family, by neighborhoods, by thugs in power. I wonder about little girls, young women, women in general who are prevented from getting an education, who are not free to express their opinions, who are sexually mutilated because that’s just what their life-prisons are all about.

As a very wise professor named Tom Long has said, “There is no freedom if there is no freedom to leave.”

You know, frequently I find myself in the company of people I don’t know and because it’s the way our culture operates and how we identify ourselves, I do what many would do and ask what the person does for a living. Sometimes I can sneak away before the question is asked in return. But not often. “Well, I’m a Presbyterian minister,” I say. [Now, I quickly add, “retired.”]

“Oh.”

And after a slight delay the other person will follow up with something that runs along these lines: “Well, you know, I used to go to church, but I don’t do that anymore. I went for a lot of years. The wife and I brought the kids up in the church. We liked the minister. The church had a good youth program. It was a beautiful building. Had great stained glass windows. I was there long enough to get myself elected to the church council and then. . . .”  Well, the conversation goes downhill from there because the story is so often the same: someone loves the church until he or she gets an insider’s look at it and discovers what they might term jealousy, gossip, backstabbing. Then they finish it all off by saying, “I get that five days a week at work. I don’t need to get it at church too. I don’t like organized religion. I can get freedom from religion on the golf course.”

I have begun to feel the freedom to tell folks, “By all means, if you don’t like it, you can either stay and help change it or you also have the freedom to leave.” Either way, there is freedom to make a decision and go with it.

There is a verse from Galatians that is all about freedom:

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. – Galatians 5:13

In this election year, as people make empty threats to leave our country if their favorite candidate isn’t elected, perhaps we would all be put to better use by trying to make us all over from the inside out, by caring for those who are not only behind very real locked doors, but also by caring for those who are behind metaphorical locked doors both inside this country and without.

We need to look to our neighbors and not make assumptions. There are prisons. And then there are prisons.

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