The Prison Mirror

How Can You Win?
By Len Marshall

I've been reading articles about society and about crime and rehabilitation, and though I am not a writer, I'd like to mention a few little things that no one else seems to have discovered or brought to light.

Society should give a man every chance to make good, when he has paid his debt in prison. He needs all the faith and understanding he can get.

Sometimes a prisoner has a loved one, a wife or a sweetheart, who means his whole life and future happiness to him. What happens? The girl friends or wife's family or others, attempt to judge the individual feelings of both parties. They try to break up the love and faith that two people have for each other. It's as hard on the girl as it is on the prisoner. She is alone with only her love and faith, and the constant fussing at her, can wreck the strongest love in time. Who can she turn to for understanding if her own family refuses to help her? Sure, they think they are helping her by telling her, "So and so is no good, forget him; he's a criminal and a bum!" All that is created is frustration and confusion, two people are hurt and one life possibly ruined.

When a man falls into a well, you don't throw dirt in on top of him, you try and lift him out. When a man makes a mistake, or even several errors, nothing is gained by throwing dirt upon him while he in helpless at the bottom of society's well. If you desire to cast dirt at a person, it is much better to cast it when he is standing on level ground with you and able to defend himself. There is no honor, courage or Christian spirit in hurting a person who is already hurt and struggling to better his plight; trying to help himself become a better person. Not all of society is like that. There are a lot of good people out there who do understand. If only there were more!

Society is not too much to blame. The families of wives and sweethearts are only doing what they believe to be the best thing for their daughter. In some cases it may well be the best thing, but more often it is not.

I once read, "That the basis people use to judge others, is themselves." and I believe it is to a great extent. No man can be truly judged and condemned because of a few acts committed under frustration. A great many men in prison have spent the greater part of their lives living and working in society and abiding by its laws. Why judge a man or acts committed in the space of a few minutes or hours, when he has spent years in worthwhile living? I do not speak of professional criminals for there are few such criminals in any prison, nor do I speak of mental cases. I refer to the anti-social, frustrated acts of petty crime which fills prisons to overflowing.

No, society is not too much to blame, for they don't understand, and it is hard to understand something unless you've been close to it and had it touch your life experience.

If anyone understands at all, it should be another inmate or ex-inmate, but there are a few who leave prison and seek to better their own status at the expense of another helpless inmate left behind in prison. I know of cases where an inmate has gone out into society and visited the loved ones of another inmate still in prison, and tried to slander him to gain his own selfish ends.

I cannot think of anything more vile or more wrong. When inmates themselves will not even try to help each other, they have little to gripe about society's apathy. Fortunately there are few such inmates and they always seem to pay for their lies. I am a firm believer in the law of retribution, I have been a victim of it myself, and it has taught me something I'll never forget: that no matter how bad you are and get away with it, some day you'll pay in many little or big ways, sooner or later.

Love and faith are too rare a commodity in this old world for anyone to try and destroy. I just wanted to get this off my chest, and as paper is for that purpose, I thought I'd try to express my feelings: not with any personal motive, but in general, Thanks for the space if you see fit to use this.