A Year of Freedom
It's April, and our family has just celebrated a one-year anniversary most people hope never to have to celebrate. Yet it is an occasion for rejoicing. My brother, who was incarcerated for 15 years, has now been free for one year, and has successfully fulfilled the terms of the first year of his parole. He just moved into his own apartment in town. Our church community celebrated with him by providing a grocery shower at his new residence on Friday evening.
His apartment is very nice. The kitchen appliances were provided, but he has been shopping for furniture over the past weeks, and he has it nicely furnished from estate auctions, etc. Knowing his love for tidiness, I'm sure he will keep his residence in tiptop shape. He loves to cook and will treasure that compact kitchen that is his to use.
Witnessing at close range the struggle of an ex-convict to re-integrate into society has heightened my awareness of why the recidivism rate is so discouragingly high. My heart is warmed too by the generosity of the Christian people in our community who have reached out to this brother of mine who has so much to love about him, in spite of some grievous mistakes he's made in the past.
Marcus had been promised a spot in a half-way house upon his release. However, because he still had some unprosecuted charges on his record, he was sent straight to a county prison upon his release from the state system. Those charges were eventually dropped, but by the time he was released several days later, the spot at the halfway house had been given to someone else. With no other approved release plan in place, he faced having to go back to prison.
That is, he was headed back to prison until my father offered that he could stay in their home. That plan was approved, with some stringent limitations on his contact with minors (because he was a sex offender involving minors) and he went home with Dad to a house he had never seen, since my parents moved from this house to that one while he was in prison. He wore a monitoring device on his ankle for a number of weeks.
His living with my parents worked out well. He tackled jobs with gusto, things he saw that needed doing that no one else had ever taken time for. My mother marveled over and over at the things he remembered from his childhood, and he set about recreating many good memories--foods he enjoyed, things he did with the family, good times with friends, etc. He got acquainted for the first time with brothers and sisters-in-law, none of whom were on his visiting list while he was imprisoned. Our two oldest sons were the only nieces and nephews he knew. This group now numbers over 30. He went to church with Mom and Dad regularly and seemed comfortable there with people he had known for many years. The first Sunday he was there we had a special prayer of thanks and blessing for Marcus, with the people sitting near him placing their hands on him while we prayed together.
Without the provision of a family who could give him some of the things he needed to get established, I have no idea how he would have managed. With no money, he could not have rented a place to live, and with no vehicle he could not have gone looking for a place to live. With no job, he had no way of earning money, and with no vehicle he could not have gone to a workplace. Besides that, the terms of his parole required keeping appointments in town, as many as three times a week. Violating any of the terms of his parole would have sent him back to prison promptly.
Having a job was an important part of his re-entry plan, but the job had to be flexible enough to allow him to take a half-day off for parole office appointments. Witnessing this dilemma, I remembered what I had heard earlier about someone whose children were in foster care. The terms of getting custody of their children back required that they keep appointments to visit their children and that they had a stable job. But when they took time off from their job to visit their children in the middle of the workday--the time arranged by the child placement agency, the job was in jeopardy. This kind of catch 22 seems wretchedly unfair, and Marcus narrowly escaped being caught in it.
Marcus' driver's license had long since expired, and the process of getting it reinstated turned out to be very complicated. Because he is a native of El Salvador (our family's glimpse into "illegal immigrant" profiling), he was required to produce proof of citizenship before he could get a license. In the chaos of his life before prison, his citizenship papers were lost, so he had to request a duplicate copy. That process cost several hundred dollars and was projected to take at least six months to process. All that time, my parents provided transportation for him. He finally got his citizenship papers ahead of the projected time when he went through an appeal procedure that expedited the process, and his driver's license was granted. Then he could at least drive where he needed to go, although he had to borrow a vehicle to do so.
Thanks to the kindness of Sam D. and his son Arlyn, who was near Marcus' age and a childhood friend, he got a job in construction. Sam had hired Marcus years ago and trained him for the kind of work that company still does. After some time of working regularly, he was able to buy a car.
Marcus worked at learning to type while he was in solitary confinement because of having taken part in a "rebellion" involving a protest about prison food. He couldn't practice typing on an actual keyboard, but someone brought him a keyboard diagram, and he practiced on that. We could not visit him at all during this time.
Visiting Marcus in prison was always a difficult experience. The hardest part was leaving, and having to leave him behind. The visiting had to take place on folding chairs set in straight rows, in a roomful of people all sitting in straight rows. Even turning your chair slightly so that you could more nearly face the person you were visiting with was not allowed. When he was on restriction, we had to visit on opposite sides of a window, through a "telephone," with Marcus in a small room by himself. Sometimes we waited a long time to see him. That was when they had taken his shoes away as a disciplinary measure, and he requested shoes to go to the visiting room. They took a long time to arrive.
Our county has a maximum security state prison. Part of the time during Marcus' incarceration, he was here, but much of the time, he was elsewhere in the state, as much as four hours away. We learned through this time that moving prisoners frequently, without prior notice, is one of the ways the state "manages" the prison population. Proximity to family is not considered. From Marcus we learned that the local prison is known by people in the system as a place to be avoided if at all possible. Not that it made any difference, of course. In one of the other prisons, Marcus was able to work on a grounds maintenance crew, something he really enjoyed. In the local prison, he worked for a time in the kitchen, but most of the time, he had almost nothing to do.
Marcus is very artistic, and he has a lovely singing voice. He won awards in grade school music contests and sold paintings while he was in prison. He is expressive and funny and has a sparkling smile and good work habits. He is determined to stay out of trouble and live well.
One thing grieves me. He never sings in church, due, I suppose, to something inside him that is frozen or scarred. I long for that hard, wounded place to become soft and whole.
On the back of his head Marcus has a patch of bare skin from a wound where his birth father injured him with a machete. Marcus was a young child at the time, and he says his father was trying to kill him and he ducked when he saw the big knife threatening him. He had almost no further contact with this man and he was cared for for a time by his maternal grandmother. When his grandmother became ill, he went to a government orphanage where he was sexually abused by older boys in the same facility. Then he was placed in a Christian orphanage where my sister worked, and he became a member of our family when he was about eight years old. While he was in prison, in a letter to us, he expressed his horror at having become a perpetrator of the same kind of ill treatment he had endured as a helpless child. He was under the influence of alcohol at the time.
Marcus made several childhood Christian commitments. But he gave up, concluding that he is too bad to be a Christian. He is not a professing Christian now. While I sincerely rejoice at the good things that have already taken place for Marcus, I'm still praying for his salvation. His long-term freedom depends on it, I believe. Besides, I can hardly wait to hear him sing again.
His apartment is very nice. The kitchen appliances were provided, but he has been shopping for furniture over the past weeks, and he has it nicely furnished from estate auctions, etc. Knowing his love for tidiness, I'm sure he will keep his residence in tiptop shape. He loves to cook and will treasure that compact kitchen that is his to use.
Witnessing at close range the struggle of an ex-convict to re-integrate into society has heightened my awareness of why the recidivism rate is so discouragingly high. My heart is warmed too by the generosity of the Christian people in our community who have reached out to this brother of mine who has so much to love about him, in spite of some grievous mistakes he's made in the past.
Marcus had been promised a spot in a half-way house upon his release. However, because he still had some unprosecuted charges on his record, he was sent straight to a county prison upon his release from the state system. Those charges were eventually dropped, but by the time he was released several days later, the spot at the halfway house had been given to someone else. With no other approved release plan in place, he faced having to go back to prison.
That is, he was headed back to prison until my father offered that he could stay in their home. That plan was approved, with some stringent limitations on his contact with minors (because he was a sex offender involving minors) and he went home with Dad to a house he had never seen, since my parents moved from this house to that one while he was in prison. He wore a monitoring device on his ankle for a number of weeks.
His living with my parents worked out well. He tackled jobs with gusto, things he saw that needed doing that no one else had ever taken time for. My mother marveled over and over at the things he remembered from his childhood, and he set about recreating many good memories--foods he enjoyed, things he did with the family, good times with friends, etc. He got acquainted for the first time with brothers and sisters-in-law, none of whom were on his visiting list while he was imprisoned. Our two oldest sons were the only nieces and nephews he knew. This group now numbers over 30. He went to church with Mom and Dad regularly and seemed comfortable there with people he had known for many years. The first Sunday he was there we had a special prayer of thanks and blessing for Marcus, with the people sitting near him placing their hands on him while we prayed together.
Without the provision of a family who could give him some of the things he needed to get established, I have no idea how he would have managed. With no money, he could not have rented a place to live, and with no vehicle he could not have gone looking for a place to live. With no job, he had no way of earning money, and with no vehicle he could not have gone to a workplace. Besides that, the terms of his parole required keeping appointments in town, as many as three times a week. Violating any of the terms of his parole would have sent him back to prison promptly.
Having a job was an important part of his re-entry plan, but the job had to be flexible enough to allow him to take a half-day off for parole office appointments. Witnessing this dilemma, I remembered what I had heard earlier about someone whose children were in foster care. The terms of getting custody of their children back required that they keep appointments to visit their children and that they had a stable job. But when they took time off from their job to visit their children in the middle of the workday--the time arranged by the child placement agency, the job was in jeopardy. This kind of catch 22 seems wretchedly unfair, and Marcus narrowly escaped being caught in it.
Marcus' driver's license had long since expired, and the process of getting it reinstated turned out to be very complicated. Because he is a native of El Salvador (our family's glimpse into "illegal immigrant" profiling), he was required to produce proof of citizenship before he could get a license. In the chaos of his life before prison, his citizenship papers were lost, so he had to request a duplicate copy. That process cost several hundred dollars and was projected to take at least six months to process. All that time, my parents provided transportation for him. He finally got his citizenship papers ahead of the projected time when he went through an appeal procedure that expedited the process, and his driver's license was granted. Then he could at least drive where he needed to go, although he had to borrow a vehicle to do so.
Thanks to the kindness of Sam D. and his son Arlyn, who was near Marcus' age and a childhood friend, he got a job in construction. Sam had hired Marcus years ago and trained him for the kind of work that company still does. After some time of working regularly, he was able to buy a car.
Marcus worked at learning to type while he was in solitary confinement because of having taken part in a "rebellion" involving a protest about prison food. He couldn't practice typing on an actual keyboard, but someone brought him a keyboard diagram, and he practiced on that. We could not visit him at all during this time.
Visiting Marcus in prison was always a difficult experience. The hardest part was leaving, and having to leave him behind. The visiting had to take place on folding chairs set in straight rows, in a roomful of people all sitting in straight rows. Even turning your chair slightly so that you could more nearly face the person you were visiting with was not allowed. When he was on restriction, we had to visit on opposite sides of a window, through a "telephone," with Marcus in a small room by himself. Sometimes we waited a long time to see him. That was when they had taken his shoes away as a disciplinary measure, and he requested shoes to go to the visiting room. They took a long time to arrive.
Our county has a maximum security state prison. Part of the time during Marcus' incarceration, he was here, but much of the time, he was elsewhere in the state, as much as four hours away. We learned through this time that moving prisoners frequently, without prior notice, is one of the ways the state "manages" the prison population. Proximity to family is not considered. From Marcus we learned that the local prison is known by people in the system as a place to be avoided if at all possible. Not that it made any difference, of course. In one of the other prisons, Marcus was able to work on a grounds maintenance crew, something he really enjoyed. In the local prison, he worked for a time in the kitchen, but most of the time, he had almost nothing to do.
Marcus is very artistic, and he has a lovely singing voice. He won awards in grade school music contests and sold paintings while he was in prison. He is expressive and funny and has a sparkling smile and good work habits. He is determined to stay out of trouble and live well.
One thing grieves me. He never sings in church, due, I suppose, to something inside him that is frozen or scarred. I long for that hard, wounded place to become soft and whole.
On the back of his head Marcus has a patch of bare skin from a wound where his birth father injured him with a machete. Marcus was a young child at the time, and he says his father was trying to kill him and he ducked when he saw the big knife threatening him. He had almost no further contact with this man and he was cared for for a time by his maternal grandmother. When his grandmother became ill, he went to a government orphanage where he was sexually abused by older boys in the same facility. Then he was placed in a Christian orphanage where my sister worked, and he became a member of our family when he was about eight years old. While he was in prison, in a letter to us, he expressed his horror at having become a perpetrator of the same kind of ill treatment he had endured as a helpless child. He was under the influence of alcohol at the time.
Marcus made several childhood Christian commitments. But he gave up, concluding that he is too bad to be a Christian. He is not a professing Christian now. While I sincerely rejoice at the good things that have already taken place for Marcus, I'm still praying for his salvation. His long-term freedom depends on it, I believe. Besides, I can hardly wait to hear him sing again.
posted by Mrs. I at
6:18 PM
1 Comments:
What an amazing story. Thank you so much for sharing. My family has experienced the correctional system and its many counter-productive protocols as well. Recently I've been thinking about how many (though not all) criminal offenses stem from a lack of early childhood attachment, yet prisons are structured to prohibit any sort of attachment to other humans or creative interests. I understand that this is done largely for security purposes, but our sky-rocketing prison population and fragmented families are just a few of the prices we pay for exacerbating an existing problem. Why do we expect that denying all choices will spontaneously teach a person to make good ones?
Warmest congratulations to your brother and to your family! In light of national statistics, this anniversary is truly a monumental achievement.
(By way of belated introduction, I believe I found your blog either through MennoDiscuss or HansMast.com.)
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Anonymous, at 4/21/2008
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