Return To Honor

Incarceration is a term with which most Americans are well familiar by now. Enough movies, books and television and news programs have us all well informed by now about all the dark, evil and brutal aspects of being locked up. True, it’s scary and sinister stuff. It’s the darker side of the human experience, and for most people it is evil and even brutal. But it’s our stuff, meaning that collectively it belongs to us. We, as a society, created it and we sustain it by what we believe about it and how we allow others to run it, just like everything else in the political and economic worlds.

In order to do anything about it that makes any difference, we need to recognize it for what it is, and how it functions with our collective acquiescence and indifference…and our ignoring what goes on inside the walls and fences. That includes what goes on in the minds of the people who manage and administer jails and prisons, many (if not most) of whom do so with a sense of vengeance and coldness that only inflames the problems and reinforces behavior patterns on the part of “criminals” that typically make them worse.

I am not a cynic, nor do I have anything against “the system,” such as it is. In fact, I work with that system, in that I counsel and teach both inmates and correctional officers how to recognize behavior patterns that are destructive and counterproductive, and to change those behavior patterns for the better. It’s amazing how small a change in thinking toward others will positively affect their behavior no matter how “brutal” or vengeful they might be.

How do I know this? I was one of them. I was a federal prisoner for 2 1/2 years, which very nearly became 25 years, with no chance of parole. I survived the experience in the face of brutish resistance and hostility toward me because I looked like everything most inmates and criminals have learned to dislike and distrust. But as I made consistent efforts to help them with simple things like reading and writing, their behavior changed for the better, not only toward me but toward everyone else––including correctional officers. What seemed destined to be a 25-year sentence became far less, primarily because of the good that was evidenced as a result of my work inside. Nearly everyone’s attitudes toward one another began to change, and with that came near-miraculous developments that enabled me to not only still be alive, but thriving outside the walls as a useful, contributing member of society.

In order to change anything that has such a huge collective emotional charge such as the criminal justice system, we have to get outside of our own personal issues and pre-conceived notions about crime and criminals, and be willing to change our thinking…if only a little bit at a time. Just being willing to understand is a major step forward. One needn’t agree with or condone criminal or negative behavior, but only be willing to see behind the masks and the negative images we see in the movies and on television. If enough of us do that (and thank God that there is a groundswell of people on both sides now doing exactly that), we can change the way “incarceration” works, and make it work far more effectively.

Don Kirchner
June 9, 2009
www.ReturnToHonor.org

As we near the point of an “official” launch of something I set into motion over ten years ago, I feel it important to establish what this “Return To Honor” concept is all about. It’s about people, essentially, and how to begin respecting one another even though we might not agree with each other about politics, culture, religion or other important things. What is important is that we at least make an effort to understand cultural differences, and causes of ill behavior rather than reacting to the outward symptoms.

What makes me an expert on the subject? I’m not…but for 2 1/2 years I was an inmate in the federal prison system where I learned first-hand the best…and worst…lessons in human behavior, from people on BOTH sides of the fences and walls. I discovered that freedom is not a physical thing, but is emotional and psychological. I learned more about personal freedom from long-time inmates than I ever learned on the outside…and I’ve observed more people in prisons of their own minds on the outside than I did those who were actually locked up in prisons and jails. I laughed harder, cried more and felt more deeply about common human frailties, avarice and heroism on the inside of prison walls and jail cells than I have anywhere else, before or since.

The Return To Honor program was conceived at a time when my eyes, heart and mind first started to open to what really causes criminal behavior…and more importantly, what keeps it going…and its concept is simple but profound. With even a modicum of respect for one another, no matter what one’s personal history may be, we can make a measurable difference in criminal behavior that will have a ripple effect on every strata of American…and even global…society. Crime doesn’t happen because people are innately criminal. It happens because we don’t address the causes of crime. Instead, we react to it out of fear, ignorance and indifference…and we inflame it with racial and social prejudice and favoritism. No matter how “fair” we might think ourselves to be as a nation, we have created a correctional system that is anything but fair. It’s an incubator system where crime only begets more crime…and woe be it to anyone who enters it thinking otherwise. As individuals, some of us might make it through unscarred and untainted, but rarely “corrected.”

My comments and my views are not pointed at anyone in particular, nor as an outcry against “the system.” It’s what it is because we have allowed it to evolve the way it has. My respects to those who work in the justice, law enforcement and correctional systems. They have a horrendous job to do, which only gets harder and more complex as we continue to ignore the simplest approaches to human beings who have made mistakes. Some are incorrigible, granted. But the majority can and want to change. They just don’t know how, where to begin or whom to trust. My contention––and it’s been confirmed by many hundreds of people on both sides––is that we must be stern and resolute in correcting criminal behavior, but we must be willing to understand the causes and treat those. We do that with respect…and with common-sense approaches to creating bridges back “home” for those who have erred…many of whom never knew anything better.

In so doing, perhaps we can all “return to honor” as a nation of intelligent, compassionate people who take care of their own. With over two million men, women and children locked up somewhere in this country, every one of them someone’s father, brother, mother, sister, aunt, uncle or cousin, they ARE “our own.” Statistically, each one of them affects five to ten other people, so you can rest assured that any meaningful attempt to assist any of them in their successful return home WILL make a measurable difference for all of us.

More to come.

Don Kirchner