“If we hide suffering, we can do anything
to them (prisoners) behind bars.”
– Sister Helen Prejean
I
walk in to a Depaul church: relatively old, but made to look older. It’s full
of a mixture of older women and Depaul students (the event counted as class
credit.) There was laughter amongst the students and disorganization as it was
so packed many had to stand. In the back there was an exhibit with photographs
by Lloyd Degrane, and letters from inmates serving exceptionally long sentences
to life. The laughter before the event felt out of place, and much of the
reverence felt false.
Sister Helen Prejean’s introducer
brought some of the basic questions our society should be asking about prison,
but doesn’t. For instance, what the base purpose of prison is. A punishment, a
rehabilitation center, or in his words, “a settlement to keep people who would
otherwise disturb our society.” The shaky definition of the purpose of prison
is what drives many of the issues in prison legislature. Prisons evolved from
public torture and executions, which served as deterrents to crime. Floggings
and hangings and burning at the stake were brutal practices, but so is prison.
Prison just takes away the public element of torture, hiding it so that the
public doesn’t have to dirty their thoughts. Arguably, we have prisons to keep
things in order. He said, “schools and prisons strive to create docile people.”
But they take people out of society, fail to reintegrate them, and then blame
them for ending up back in prison.
Is it really ok to take away everything,
dignity, privacy, responsibility, friendship, and ultimately life? I don’t
think it is. It’s surprisingly similar to the way women have been treated in
history. In arranged marriages choice, privacy, and control over your own body
is stolen from you. Even today, I see people’s mothers interrogating their
daughters more than their sons, and giving stricter curfews and rules.
Obviously some degree of that is about safety, being a woman is more dangerous
than being a man, but still. Women have been prisoners for a long time.
Sister Helen Prejean began with a
gracious thank you in her slow Louisiana drawl to her introducer. She points
out that everyone in the audience has agency, agency to attend this event, and
to go home afterward. The prisoners she visits don’t, and the six that she
accompanied through their trials to their executions never will. She is
currently visiting another man on death row, whom she believes is innocent.
Actually, 2 of the men she visited with and went to their executions were
innocent. This is one of the many reasons the death penalty is so incredibly
wrong.
At the end of the event a woman stood up,
she had a husband in prison for the third time, and four sons who she lives in
fear for. Her pain was so tangible it put the entire event into a real life
context. The discomfort in the room was immense. Even though nothing she said
was accusatory, the fact she was a black women, and most of the room was white
seemed to elicit a defensive response, just off of the body language. She
pointed out how ridiculous it is when we say “they were shot down like dogs”
about black men, “There would be a national outcry if dogs were being shot like
our sons and father are shot down.” It’s a terrifying statement because of the
truth in it.
It was definitely an upsetting event, but
one I was glad I went to.
Above are some of the letters written by prisoners. They quash the stereotype that prisoners are uneducated and sloppy. The handwriting was beautiful, and the writing was above average.
The event was a bit too serious to take a selfie, but here's a view of the church.
Below are photographs by Lloyd Degrane.
The men desperately wanted to be in a picture, make their lives noticed, so they stuck limbs out of their cells.
Link to one of Sister Helen's saddest most unjust cases: http://articles.courant.com/2005-01-23/entertainment/0501230483_1_dobie-gillis-williams-death-penalty-wrongful-executions
Sister Helen's twitter: https://twitter.com/helenprejean
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