Why is it people think that prison is a place where you learn to make good choices, pick good friends, be polite and respectful all the time?

Reply:

Prison isn’t where you learn to make ‘good decisions.’ It is a place you wind up warehoused as you await the day you will ultimately die or be released. The only reason *some* (few) folks can make it through is due to sheer resilience born of their own accord, coping mechanisms they learned prior to coming in or during previous stays with others with their own coping mechanisms, and the love and support of others both inside and outside.

Prison taught me to *hate* disciplinarians. It taught me to challenge those who would arbitrarily f#ck with me. Prison taught me to mute my true self to put on a front for the prison administrators, the guards, and my fellow incarcerated people.

I didn’t learn manners, how to model better behaviors, or become a better more productive person simply because you locked me in a box. If I had the same reprieves and resources provided to me in healthier freer environments imagine just how much further I could’ve came. I became knowledgeable on making better choices, building more mutually beneficial relationships, and being polite and respectful DESPITE the violent environments I’ve been placed in.

I give no thanks to the prison industrial complex for who I am today. I give praise to those who stuck with me, who nourished me intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually while I was trapped in a cell. I *know* it was not the circumstances I was thrust into that made me who I am but the people who cared enough to show me a better way and who had the patience to support me through my struggles.

Prisons, courts, police departments –these are all houses of violence and they do nothing but foist the social mores and norms of a twisted colonialist society upon us. If the appearance of being obedient is what is deemed “respectful” and “polite”, then I want no part of said politeness and respect. Attempting to beat people into submission and coerce them through abuse and trauma begets the same harm. I am who I am in spite of the attempts to force change in me by this carceral system.

Giving thanks to the prison system, to me as a formerly incarcerated person, feels like some form Stockholm syndrome. No thanks necessary for the oppressor. Praise for prisons causing positive change only emboldens and further entrenches the notion that the prison system is needed and the treatment we receive is deserved when we give it. –Alan Schultz