Jim Goad on Prison

This is a pretty interesting piece by Jim Goad

During the entire incarceration process, from arrest to detainment to prosecution to conviction to prison to parole, you realize that the ONLY people who are nice to you are other inmates. You’ll meet a lot of cold-blooded prosecutors and sadistic guards, a lot of do-gooders on the "right" side of the law who are paid to harm you and who laugh at the very idea that you’re human. But unless you go out of your way to be an asshole to other inmates, they’ll help you a lot more than they’ll hurt you.

Maybe these guys aren’t so empathetic when it comes to, say, not robbing banks or not making speed in their bathtubs or not having sex with corpses, but when it comes to other convicts, they have boundless empathy.

Why?

Because they know what it feels like to be locked up and treated like an animal.

Because they know that placing a human being in a cage is a crime in itself.

Because, despite whatever they’ve done in the past, they’ve learned one ethical lesson that no District Attorney or scared mindless taxpayer ever learned—it’s immoral to lock people up.

Because they know that being locked in a box, day in and day out for years and years, is more destructive to the human soul than being assaulted or raped.

Because, despite the fact that you’re a peckerwood and he’s a brutha, you’re all wearing the same blue uniform and you’re all soldiers against a common enemy.

Because, in a weird way, you are brought together by compassion. The compassion of dudes helping dudes.

jimgoad.net /// YOU MEET THE NICEST PEOPLE IN PRISON

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