Tough Choice!

Tough Choice!

At the time of my last arrest I had only been out for three months. All my plans of going straight and staying out of jail had gone out the window and I found myself in front of the judge, once again. 

I was nine years old when I was arrested for the first time. I was just a dumb kid who didn't want to face the consequences given for sneaking out, so I ran away from home. To me, this just meant that I would find a place to hang out for a few days until I thought Mom would not be so angry. At some point, I got tired of walking and I stole a bike from somebody's front yard. When the cops picked me up as a runaway I was still on the stolen bike, so instead of them taking me home, it was off to juvinille hall for me. I was sentenced to ten months then placed in a group home for the behavioral challenged. 

That first ten month sentence shaped my life for years to come. The lessons I learned while in juvinille hall had a great impact on my mind and my future choices, but the lessons were the opposite of those which I was expected to learn.  

Nowadays you always hear about people going to jail and learning how to be a better criminal. This was and is true, however, I learned how to be a convict. The older boys took me in and taught me how to survive in prison. By the time I finished the ten months and was released to the group home I was comfortable doing time. They started me out so young that by the time they tried to scare me straight it was too late.

So I survived, and even thrived, within the system. When I was locked up, anywhere at all, I was different. I felt like I was in control. There were jail rules, which were easy. There were social rules that were more complicated, but kept me out of serious trouble. I felt like I belonged amongst the other people in jail. They understood me better. When I was out of jail I was just an awkward kid who did not know how to socialize in a normal manner. I had energy issues that came out as anger and acting up. I did not listen and everyone assumed I would end up a serial killer.

With the echoes of this judgement constantly floating in the back of my mind, it was to no surprise that I spent the better part of my life in prison. Prison itself is a racist environment and going in to the system at such a young age I never questioned the correctness of what I was taught. In the outside world I had family and friends from different races. I never knew any kind of hate towards them. On the inside I was not even allowed to associate with those same races. To me, they were different worlds so they were separate lives. Unfortunately, the one I was good at was a horrible path.

As time went on, I became more of a leader in the system. I still followed all the social rules and what not but I encouraged less senseless violence and more ways to better ourselves. When I was in, I wanted to succeed. I wanted to stay out and participate in life and so I would strive to change myself. When I was out, I would go back to the same old me and soon find myself on my way back to the inside where I was comfortable. Even though I always went back, I never ceased to grow. 

By the time I was sitting in front of the judge for the last time I had already begun to question my racist views. I had searched for answers to the question of why?, and was not satisfied with any that were given. It was this last 6 ½ year stretch that I was in a position to make a choice that would change my path forever.

You must understand that questioning my racist beliefs did not mean that I had lost my common sense. Prison was still prison and you were either socially correct or you ended up poked full of holes. I did what I always did and stayed comfortable. I kept my head up and my eyes on my own business. I worked out, I went to school and I worked whatever job the prison would give me. I am charasmatic, energetic and smart, with a cool head on my shoulders so when the current leader of our race was released I somehow inherited the job. By popular vote, not my choice. 

That is the way it works I guess. There is either someone waiting to take the throne or everyone just starts doing there own thing which is never good in prison. In this case we did not have someone waiting, so people who knew me looked to me for guidance. It was not long before it was suggested that I call the shots for our people.

Here was my choice. Become a leader in the prison system for a people whose belief system I no longer embraced or let someone else take the reigns and take the chance that they get us into trouble. I know this sounds like it would or at least should be an easy decision. It was not. There is so much in the prison system that people do not see. The guards do not run the prison. The warden does not run the prison. The prisoners run the prison. 

At any given prison I have been to, there were a minimum of 1000 inmates. Those inmates are made up of different races. Black, White, Mexican, Asian, Islander, and more. We all seem to get into trouble the same. Within each race there is (if we are lucky) a respected leader. Someone who has fought and earned their respect from their own race and other races as well. This person is the 'Shot Caller' and their word is law for that race. When someone within the race screws up it is the shot caller or his word that carries out the discipline. It could be a simple punishment like having to go two or three rounds with someone. It could also be a stabbing or worse. Each shot caller is responsible for keeping his people safe and respected. If there is an issue between races the shot callers of those races get together and decide how to handle the situation. Sometimes, it gets worked out. Other times we go into riot mode where a lot of people get hurt and most everyone gets more time. It is a precarious situation at best. 

Now I was in a spot to either accept that position or let someone else take it and decide the fate of my time. I had done time in a place where our shot caller was a knuckle head and I watched a two year stretch turn into four horrible years. The prison was on lock down for most of it and as a race we were always locked down. Someone got stabbed every time they let us out. That is not how I wanted my time to go so I accepted the position.

Now It was my job to keep us safe, to keep us respected, to make our people better themselves and to get us out on our release dates. I knew that, being who I was, I could set that example. The hard thing was leading a group of racist people who's beliefs I no longer shared. It is so hard to portray how volitile the situation always was. Let's say two people from different races bumped into each other just by mistake and one or the other was not quick to say excuse me or something along those lines. The other gets offended and now there is a conflict. No big deal because it is just two people and they should be able to deal with it. Except they are not allowed. There is no cross race fighting without permission from the Shot Callers for both races involved. Now we have to decide how to handle the situation. It might have been an accident and no big deal but it still has to be dealt with. If someone who was near by felt like it was not an accident there may be more issues. If we decide to squash the beef as being petty and not allow the two to fight emotions get burried and things begin to build up. When things build up in prison they eventually explode. If on the other hand, we allow them to fight and someone gets hurt things may escalate. When someone loses the fight and feels some kind of way over it, things may escalate. If the guards get wind of something before we get it taken care of the prison gets locked down and then things escalate. Every decision I made from the point I accepted the throne affected the entire prison.

The guards are just glorified baby sitters for some very dangerous people. They do not have a lot of control because their only real tool is lock down. Incident reports are worthless. Taking our few privileges does no good. Adding a few years to our sentence only makes us stronger on the inside. We still have control though. Even during lockdown they have to let us out every few days for rec time. With so many in the system, they cannot keep us all seperate so when we come out we do what we feel is necessary. We had an unspoken deal with the guards though. We leave them out of our violence and keep our bullshit behind their backs and they let us do our own time. Mostly this works and the prisons run smoothly. Not always though. It always depends on the shot callers and how volitile they are themselves.

I spent the next four years keeping my race and therefore the prison out of trouble. I set up programs for us to read and learn. I allowed no drugs on the yard for my race which was hard in prison. I turned things around for a little while and was able to watch a lot of people get released. Of course most came back before I got out. This is the curse of the system. It's like a barbed hook, once it gets you it does not let go easily. 

In October of 2012, six months after my release date but a year and a half before I thought I was getting out, I won my appeal and was paroled by the federal government. Here we are now in 2020 and I have never looked back. Deciding to call shots put me in a situation where I learned a lot. Not wanting to be that knuckle head I spoke of earlier, I kept us out of the mess. Doing this while keeping our respect was a chore. Four, maybe five, times a day I had some small problem to deal with. Usually a problem that did not seem so small to whoever it belonged to. Every issue that came up was potentially volitile and had to be dealt with carefully. Doing this though, reinforced the doubts I had and made me stronger.

I wish I could say that I changed the prison system. I cannot. I hope that I helped some people better themselves and stay out. I may have. What I did for sure was keep us all safe for my last four years while I changed myself. If I was able to touch some people in the process then it was a win - win. 

The prison system in America was built for us to lose. There is very little hope for us as criminals to change our ways once we are released and so we are treated that way. For me, a dumb choice I made at a young age led to years of continued incarceration. I am one of the lucky ones, though. I turned my life around. I decided that I wanted to be part of the solution instead of the problem. I got tired of doing what I called 'life on the installment plan', and I pulled my head out of my ass and began to live. As I said before, this time I never looked back. Most convicts end up back in jail until they are too old to walk on their own or they catch a life sentence while they are in. The system is not designed to help us change and succeed. We have made it a game, knowing that it was a trap. If we can find a way to help our criminals do what I did, our world will win.