Ours is a disposable society. Commercialism and materialism have seen to it that in this day and age nothing is considered durable or salvageable. Is your toaster broken? Throw it out and get a new one. Your smart phone not the newest one? Trash it! Your car 5 or 10 years old? Trade it in!
Well, this thought process isn’t just relegated to material objects, but now also to individuals: the poor, the immigrants, the homeless and destitute and included among them are the “dregs” of society; us, the criminals, the incarcerated! Those whom, many believe, have forfeited their rights to be welcomed back into society’s embrace, and thus are the most disenfranchised and expendable.
Now more than ever, those of us “existing” within the American penal system are feeling the effects of the zeitgeist. Trust me, 24 years of incarceration gives me the perspective and experience to opine on the changes that I have experienced.
There are those in our society who would minimize, disregard or even ridicule what I’m saying simply because I’m an inmate, a criminal; I committed the heinous crime of murder and nothing I do or say can be of any significance. I’m not entitled to an opinion, to be heard, to express regret or remorse for my past crimes nor to complain nor ask for succor for my current plight! I deserve no less in their view and am considered disposable and worthy of their disdain.
This is the most insidious aspect of incarceration. This treatment of being less than, of being unworthy of sympathy or empathy, of being disposable is, in my humble opinion, what is most truly damaging to one’s psyche, to the soul of what it means to be human; this, more than any other horror of prison! Its effects are incalculable, for no two individuals are affected by it equally nor is it always visible. Like a virus it can take hold, become a core belief of one’s self, and spread from individual to individual. For, if I believe I am worthless, I don’t matter, I’m society’s refuse, then so are all those around me and I will treat them and myself accordingly. How are men and women; who by and large already represent a large segment of this marginalized population (i.e. the poor, destitute, immigrant, etc.) who have for the most part already experienced some traumatic event in their lives, who have fragile egos, who are not always attuned to their emotional development; how are they supposed to be able to disregard this daily dehumanization?
More and more we see in prison people who aren’t life-long criminals; they’ve committed a crime to escape the ill effects of poverty or to feed an addiction born of years of emotional, psychological or physical abuse. Incarcerating them is the final nail in the coffin of their sense of self- worth. Most of their lives, they’ve been politically as well as economically marginalized, but now the last vestiges of their humanity are stripped away as they are socially marginalized. They’ve been labelled and stigmatized as convicts, as inmates and prisoners; no longer citizens with a voice but wards of the state, mere chattel of their masters. The comparison with this nation’s history of slavery is uncanny and eerily frightening. It doesn’t end upon one’s release. The eerie specter of stigmatization continues as an ex-con attempts to embark on a voyage of normalcy. But who will hire an ex-con? Who will give housing to an ex-con? Who will give an ex-con a second chance? Who will help an ex-con in dealing with his/her addictions and emotional and psychological wounds?
In this age of waste and discard, why not just toss them out onto society’s trash heap? This is the reality of what it means to be in prison in 2017 and of what awaits most of us (myself not included) fortunate enough to one day “return to society”. Most disheartening indeed!
J.R.Cyr 2/2017
P. S . So I thought I was done and then once again I’m instantly reminded of why I don’t matter; another example of my inhumanity and of being deemed unworthy of concern has manifested itself. Again, this institution, MCI-Nor- folk, once constructed to house 600-700 inmates, and currently at over 1400+, more than double the max capacity, has had an issue with water quality. Another institutional memo is posted, “No further water use until further notice” (i.e. no cooking, bathing, etc.) Once again the water’s filthy, tarnished, corrupted, brown with waste just like it’s been ad nauseum for the better part of the last 20 years, ever since I arrived here in 1996. It’s been that way because some civil servants in their infinite wisdom have deemed it acceptable to house us in here like cattle, in some 21st century version of Dachau or Buchenwald sans the ovens and smokestacks, but heavy on the disdain and oppression, which is the motto of the day, or week, or year! It’s embarrassing and shameful how I have to resort to such hyperbole to generate even a hint of interest, but let’s not forget that even when the water appears clear, there are still memos posted to remind staff or visitors to not drink or use the water in the institution. Yet, us modern-day slaves must drink it, bathe in it, wear clothes washed in it, do our daily ablutions in it, eat food cooked in it by these oppressors. There’s no getting around the fact that this water, for good or bad, is ours and here to stay!
Those of us lucky enough to have loved ones to send us money to purchase items in the canteen would be hard-pressed to purchase enough water. Even if we could spend the maximum allowed (given you are so blessed) of $85 of canteen on the 16 oz. bottled water sold to us at $0.65 per bottle, it would still be nowhere near enough. Let’s see, $84.50 for 130 bottles, equals 2080 ounces or 16.25 gallons. Not enough for one’s weekly consumption of drinking, cooking, cleaning and bathing! So instead, who cares if 1400+ convicts are cooking, cleaning, bathing and drinking water no better than that from Flint, MI. If it turns shit-brown, we’ll just tell them to stop showering or cooking till it clears up!
One more illustration that we’re truly on no one’s radar of concern. To the civil servant(s) of the DOC, we don’t matter and since our voices are inconsequential, it’s ok to be shit on once in a while. In the end we’re all going to wind up on the same trash-pile anyway!