My Weekend in Prison
I spent last weekend volunteering with an organization called The Freedom to Choose Project at Valley State Prison in central California with 200 male inmates.
Freedom to Choose is an organization dedicated to transforming the lives of individuals impacted by incarceration through compassionate experiential education.
I had a lot of fear leading up to this. A few years ago, I attended a transformational workshop for women that was entirely staffed by men. I clearly remember walking into a room with a dozen men and just a couple of women and feeling the strong desire to bolt from the room.
For those of you who are wondering why this is- let me share a few things.
When I was a soldier in the Army National Guard, I decided to stay in the armory one weekend instead of driving back to my college dorm 30 miles away. I was the only woman on the property and clearly remember praying the deadbolt would hold as some of the men tried to break down the door to the tiny room reserved for women that I was staying in at 2 am. This is one of a dozen stories I could tell about my experience in a predominantly male military. I didn’t bring anything up with my superiors because I blamed myself for all of it.
I’ve had men talk about me and my body in front of me so many times that I simply learned to dissociate from it altogether.
When I was walking five blocks home from dinner in the charming Los Feliz neighborhood in LA, I ignored my intuition about walking down a dark street and was attacked by two men who tried to steal my bag. I held onto it, but I got hit in the head so hard with a metal object that I had to get a CT scan to make sure I didn’t have a concussion.
Like many women, I have countless stories like this. I also understand that my stories are mild compared to others.
I have learned- time after time after time, that I can’t drop my guard around men. I certainly can’t feel safe.
One of the reasons I decided to put myself in a room with 200 men in the middle of a prison was because I knew it would scare me. And, I hoped it might change me.
I sat across from men who had committed serious acts of violence. I can’t share much about them because of confidentiality, but I will share this-
A twenty-one-year-old very politely asked to sit with me at lunch after doing a process together. He looked at me at one point and said- I don’t know what else to say when the conversation lagged. I was deeply touched by his childlike innocence and his absolute honesty.
I watched a man open up to share about how he was bullied as a child and cry when he forgave himself for the choices he made to participate in his crimes.
After a participant shared a few details about a crime that previously would have repulsed me, I had to look inside myself and rectify my feelings about his crime with the human in front of me who was sharing his fear, his remorse, and his heart.
So many men took ownership of the choices they’d made over the weekend. They wept with microphones in their hands in front of their peers.
I also shared in the processes we participated in. The men I was with held space for me and offered me compassion and understanding- even when I felt incredibly privileged for the topics I was bringing up.
Halfway through the first day of the workshop, I looked around the room at the sea of male faces and realized- I wasn’t afraid.
In fact, being in that room, I felt safer than I had in a very long time. It wasn’t just due to the heavily armed guard in the corner, it was because I had let go of the judgments and labels I had been putting on men for years.
As many of my teachers and mentors have said, none of us know what we might be capable of given the right set of circumstances. I feel incredibly fortunate that I’ve been given the tools and the encouragement to make choices that have led to the life I have now.
I am definitely going back to volunteer with Freedom to Choose again. If you’d like more information on them, check out their website and apply to volunteer if you feel called.
