Hope Within: Discovering Belonging in a Carceral Context

James Hammett

It’s been said that prison is the loneliest place where you're never alone. What an interesting dialectic; a curious tension between two states of being. How can one feel lonely when there are people everywhere around them? What is it that contributes to such an existential flux? I would argue it is the result of dehumanization, a process that begins at the outset of incarceration, and something which has become a fundamental aspect of prison culture. This existential crisis is the result of being substantially alienated from one’s self.

When a person arrives at quarantine (the intake and guidance center for the criminally convicted) they are stripped of their individuality and humanity. Prisoners are assigned six-digit inmate numbers, more reminiscent of Nazi Germany, as opposed to the penal system in contemporary America. Once a number is issued, it becomes a prisoner’s primary identity. All passions, talents and abilities, aspirations, loves, histories, personal traits, and characteristics are voided and collapsed into six, numerical digits. For the remainder of a prisoner’s sentence, they are no longer a person. They cease having an identity, and become a number.

In addition to being stripped of the critical markers of humanity such as a name and one’s personal characteristics, guards and staff are encouraged to create an impenetrable firewall between themselves and inmates, thus exacerbating the feeling of alienation. I was taken aback when I discovered that, per their training, correctional staff are requested to avoid any and all eye contact with a prisoner. There is an intentionality behind this request: it is designed to create the illusion that officers and staff are superior to prisoners, thus diminishing morale and sequestering unity. It is also thought that inmates are so crafty that even looking them in the eye creates significant risk to one’s wellbeing and safety. Nonetheless, the essence of personhood is being wrenched from a human being. Their humanity erodes, and the person that they once were diminishes year after year, until all that’s left is the broken shell of a man; a mere number.

If that wasn’t detrimental enough, prisoners themselves are complicit in the dehumanization process of other prisoners, as much as staff. Due to the way in which prisoners classify criminals and crime within the prison setting, there emerges a hierarchical structure with sex crimes being thought of as especially heinous, while theft, drug sales, robbery, and similar offenses are thought of as more noble offenses. Dividing lines also exist within race, religion, gang affiliation, sexuality, one’s city of origin, financial means, and institutional employment, each with an underlying agenda as well as an inborn sociological underpinning.

Such classifications, ironically, have an adverse effect, and it is within these various divisions that a loss of self occurs. The more one attempts to find true belonging in any given group, the more one loses himself in the process.

Early on in my incarceration, I found that it was extremely difficult to find true belonging and personal identity within any of the various groupings I discovered in a carceral context, mostly because those organizations were built upon an unsure foundation. Most of the “groups” in prison have a plethora of expectations and requirements, often contributing to the erosion of personhood. One simply becomes an organization’s expectations while abandoning both their individuality and their humanity in the process. There was one group of people, however, that I had heard about that offered something counter-cultural. It was simply referred to as "Spiritual Direction."

A long-standing friend of mine was always boasting about this gathering of people on Saturday mornings. I shrugged it off, thinking it was just another typical prison gathering of sheep blending into the herd. Nonetheless, the more he discussed his experiences, the more curious I became. He’d invited me a number of times, and his invitation was always met with derision and rejection. But one time when he invited me to attend, I told him to sign me up; that I would give it a chance. Little did I know that my life was going to take an abrupt turn in a positive "direction."

Upon entering the room where Spiritual Direction was held, I was met by a short, bald-headed man, dressed like a Medieval monk with an unassuming presence named Joseph. His garb seemed entirely out of place for a prison filled with hardened criminals. I almost felt like warning him about the potential dangers of looking a certain way around convicts. It wasn’t necessarily his religious garb that grabbed my attention, but more so his excited and friendly demeanor. He approached my friend who'd invited me, shook his hand and embraced him with a beaming smile that was radiant and entirely genuine. Next, my friend introduced me to Joseph. "This is James, the guy I was telling you about." Joseph approached me and offered his hand, again with a warm smile and a genuine disposition completely foreign to prison culture. "Oh, James, welcome" he said to me in an exuberant and warm manner. To be honest, the first time I met Joseph, I thought he was high on LSD or some crazy drug. Did I join a cult, I thought to myself? No, what I joined was a group of men and women who were discovering themselves anew. People who were solving the puzzle of personal existence together. There were no expectations and no definitive requirements.

Those first few sessions in spiritual direction I observed people being encouraged to explore themselves in a meaningful way. We were gently challenged to delve deeply into what it meant to be human, to be a person. I began to learn about who I was, instead of what I was, or what I had done in my life. A common question Joseph asked people over and over was "Who are you?" The who of my existence had never occurred to me. I had been labeled so many times in my life, I had begun to live out of those labels. My existence was reduced to actions, events, or superficial components of my story, and I had lost touch with the person that I truly am. When asked "Who are you?" in conjunction with certain events, emotional states, or various thoughts, something extraordinary happened inside me. My imagination was stretched to its outer limits and I began to perceive myself in a new way. It was like digging down to solid bedrock and discovering something I could build upon.

A central feature of Spiritual Direction, as well as the notion of building a sure foundation in life, is contemplation and introspection. Using various contemplatives as an initial starting point, we would attempt to peel back the layers of the preconceived notions of life that tend to cloud our ability to see clearly. Joseph showed us, not only a new path, but a new way to illuminate the path before us. What had once been aimless wanderings began to morph into an intentionally guided life, culminating in a greater vision of self. By asking simple questions, Joseph uncovered things that had been overlooked or ignored for far too long. Repeatedly, I became acquainted with the “who” of who I am, in a variety of experiences and events of my life. It was less about belonging and more about being me. As I contemplated my own, unique being in an honest and genuine way, a humanization process began to take shape. All the lies that I'd been fed, and the erroneous things I'd come to believe about myself, were removed in a small classroom inside a prison. It was truly liberating. I felt free, despite the fact that I was incarcerated. I no longer felt that isolating feeling, the feeling that I was alone in the world. I felt connected, not only to myself, but to the world around me.