Of Cats and Kids
On being right-wing once a year
Posted by: Carol Lombardi
Saturday, April 15, 2006 12:00 AM
I ran across an announcement for this event today : "Breaking Down the Walls: The First Annual Champaign Urbana Prison Arts Festival."My liberal/socialist nature flies out the window when it comes to convicted criminals. That happens sometimes, when one has been the victim of a violent crime. (16 years ago today, as a matter of fact.)
So I'm not really glad, and I can't even say sarcastically that I am, that criminals are relaxing in prison while doing artwork and writing poetry. Nor would I go to see their artwork or listen to their poetry. The promo for the event makes some good points, though.
One description asks: "What is the prison-industrial complex and what is it doing to the people who live within America's prisons and jails?"
Obviously, whatever it is, it is not doing enough if they have time to lounge around writing poetry and painting pictures and doing origami. Prison is a punishment, folks. It lacks palm trees and beaches because it's not supposed to be a vacation.
The same description informs us that the event includes "a raucous evening of prison-based poetry that will inspire and move you."
Move me to start supporting the death penalty maybe, so that crime victims don't have to deal with seeing perpetrators of crimes portrayed as misunderstood artist/heroes.
Another description promises that, "prison art offers viewers opportunities for recognizing the humanity of men and women whom the prison-industrial complex would like you to believe are monsters."
Except that some of them ARE monsters. Every time I look in the mirror I see a scar left by a violent criminal's fist. And that pales in comparison to the scars in my psyche. Don't tell me about monsters.
That description concludes: "&the prison arts on display will enlighten and empower viewers, hopefully motivating them to begin seeking alternatives to massive incarceration."
The alternative to incarceration, massive or otherwise, is for people to refrain from committing crimes. As long as massive numbers of people choose to commit crimes, there will be massive incarceration. The crime comes first; the incarceration follows. The vast majority of prisoners are in prison because they did something wrong. (See, my currently cringing inner liberal is forcing me to admit that some people are wrongly convicted. Rarely.)
We all make choices. I've made some spectacularly bad ones myself. But if someone's choices include victims and felonies, I can't work up much sympathy for their unhappiness because they have to deal with the consequences.
Victims can't make the choice - and their sentence, if they are lucky enough to live to see it, is always life without parole.
Comments
Carol Lombardi's posting of 15 April regarding this weekend's Prison Arts Festival raises a series of important points.
She argues that "Prison is a punishment. . . it's not supposed to be a vacation." That is true, but anyone who has ever been to prison or visited a prison will tell you that prisons are a brutal form of punishment. Contrary to Carol's editorial, going to prison is no vacation.
Yet some prisoners do have opportunities to make art, write poetry, and engage in other educational and artistic activities--why?
Because over 95% of all men and women in prison will return to their home communities. Last year alone, 650,000 prisoners were released from incarceration. When those prisoners return to your community, do you want them filled with rage, consumed with anger, stupid and resentful, or do you want them to have had an opportunity to think about their lives and to try to express themselves?
Carol argues that prisoners should be forced "to deal with the consequences" of their crimes. Yes, that is true. But in sending someone to jail, how do you want them "to deal"? By sitting in their cells with nothing to do, growing angrier with each day, learning nothing about themselves and the world? Or, instead, by taking educational and artistic classes to help them build a better, less violent, more productive life upon their release from prison?
The Prison Arts Festival asks us to pursue this latter strategy, understanding that making art is one way to begin to gain control of one's life.
Indeed, those of us organizing the Prison Arts Festival believe that art can help us heal, it can help us learn, and it can even help us begin to break the rotten cycle of violence.
Posted by Hartnett on April 20, 2006 at 1:07 PM
I'm sorry for Carol Lombardi's experiences as the victim of a violent crime. As a woman myself, I'm aware that the world is not yet the safe place many of us hope it can one day become and that there are many threats around us, in public and in private spaces. I'm also aware that many of those threats come in the form of troubled, angry, desparate men. (Yes, there's a definite gender dimension here. Men are much more likely to commit violent crimes.)
For these reasons, and others, I support prison education programs.
Studies have shown a connection between access to education and other prison programs and recidivism. That's because men who behave like the "monster" who attacked Ms. Lombardi all those years ago aren't necessarily monsters at their core. They're not born criminals. Like the rest of us, they're capable of self-reflection and growth and change.
Art programs, education classes, twelve-step programs, religious fellowship, and technical training are tested and true means of rehabilitation. That, along with punishment, is supposedly a goal of our incarceration system. I'm glad that it is. Even if I didn't care about the welfare of prison inmates, I care about my own. I feel safer knowing that convicted men aren't just sitting in their cells fuming about their condition, but learning skills that will make them less of a threat to me and my family upon their release--and more of an asset to their own.
The anger expressed in Ms. Lombardi's essay reminds us of the high cost of crime that comes in the form of the scars its victims bear, sometimes for life. I wonder if we as a society do enough to help them to mend their wounds?
I'm sorry for her pain, but I'm not willing to sacrifice my safety to satisfy the cries for vengence issued by those former crime victims who sadly are still struggling with their own healing.
Posted by rebeccaginsburg on April 20, 2006 at 5:00 PM
