FreeJonny1
For
Justice
To deny people their human rights is to challenge
their very humanity. Nelson Mandela
their very humanity. Nelson Mandela
Going to prison is like dying, when you first get arrested it is a tragedy with all your loved ones grieving for you and your plight. Then you sit in the morgue going through the court process. You get visits, letters and reassurance that you will never be forgotten, never be alone. Burial time, the whole family gathers at your sentencing, a large public show of support. As the gavel falls, cries of grief and outrage echo throughout the court room, 66 years! As the casket lowers into its place, people watch, weep and maybe silently rejoice as they see the dark depths you are plunged into. The prison bus delivers you into the gates, buried alive, in a mausoleum with only small windows to watch the world pass by in wonder. Only those who truly care return to trim the weeds that grow around you and plant flowers to cheer your ever restless spirit....keep you sane. Mail, the water that quenches my daily thirst for contact and communication, has slowed from a steady flow to an almost non-existent trickle. I was sentenced 12-1-2003 and to this date, only my mother and sister have visited on a regular basis. Eventually all forms of communication with the outside world fall away like dead leaves from the tree of life. It forces you to immerse yourself into this lifestyle, with its anti-social stigmas and customs. How is society fooled into believing this works? We are not rehabilitated. We are warehoused, fed, processed and shuffled around like cattle in the name of justice. Prison creates bank robbers out of petty thieves, murderers out of drug addicts. With nobody rehabilitated, we are merely re-educated, forced to adapt to the dog eat dog world of prison. When your life is turned upside down and your experience the pain, violence and hatred that is prison, how can you be expected to ever function for a society that has wronged you so? I made up my mind when I was 18 I would never let my mind go to waste, knowing nobody was going to do it for me, I have tried my best with limited resources to rise above the rest in these dark depths. You may cage my body but my mind will always soar free, untethered, allowed to go along with the greatest adventurers like Marco Polo. Share a seat in the audience of great men like Nietzsche, Lao Tzu and Thoreau, but a book is a sad substitute for life! What of men who are not determined to improve or not capable of doing it unaided? Does society not owe it to itself to help these wayward men and women better themselves for no other reason than it is to society these lost souls shall return? When you take a man with nothing, no skills, no education, no virtue, how do you expect him to change and become productive? The current philosophy is lock them up, build more prisons... but eventually the pressure will build enough behind the dam, it will burst! Can society afford that? Jonny
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