Getting Out of Prison

June 28, 2021

Last week four jailbirds came into my living room. They were all invited, but they won’t be coming back.

Three of the men had committed serious crimes (murder, statutory rape), and had spent many years in San Quentin Prison before being released in the last two years. Now in their sixties, they’ve repented for their crimes and are now leading constructive lives back in society. They came into my home via a Zoom meeting, in which they told stories of their crimes and rehabilitation.

The fourth jailbird is a wealthy young man who I’ve interviewed two or three times at his beautiful home near San Quentin and a short sailboat ride away from the former penitentiary on Alcatraz Island. This time I interviewed him by phone from my living room because his paranoid belief in conspiracy theories has convinced him not to get a Covid shot. He lives with his parents, and they won’t permit any visitors until he can escape the prison of his mental illness for long enough to get vaccinated against Covid. So I had to conduct my health survey by phone with this particular inmate. I’ll call him James.

It might seem odd to lump a spoiled rich young white guy with three older criminals, two white and one black, who’ve killed or abused other human beings. After all, the young man has not, to my knowledge, ever harmed anyone but himself. But what James has in common with Dwight, Fred, and Gino (their real names) is that all four men have suffered from harsh limitations upon their freedom. Whether those limitations were caused by genetics or dysfunctional family dynamics or stupid youthful mistakes is debatable. What is clear is that, like all of us, these men have made and continue to make choices for which they are responsible.

Dwight, Fred, and Gino were wise enough to participate in San Quentin programs designed to help them heal themselves: anger management, parenting classes, religious and spiritual forums, and Restorative Justice. That latter curriculum teaches its participants to come to grips with the crimes they’ve committed and the impact those misdeeds had on the victims, the families of the victims, the families of the perpetrators, and the community at large. They learn to be accountable to others, and perhaps most importantly, to be accountable to themselves. Most of the younger inmates have too much anger and pain and too little maturity to take advantage of the opportunities that were so helpful to Dwight, Fred, and Gino.

A major factor in the rehabilitation of Dwight, Fred, and Gino is their belief in the possibility of redemption. Dwight and Fred have become devout Christians, and Gino expresses his spirituality through chanting and other means. Gino adds that he has learned to think good, wholesome thoughts. All three have reclaimed their humanity and dignity through service to others and through their connection to God. They’ve learned that though they were punished for their transgressions, no one is eternally damned.

Dwight, Fred, and Gino have graduated from the San Quentin school of hard knocks and are now on parole and leading productive lives in southern California.

James, sadly, still lives in his gilded cage in northern California. He and his parents may be rich, but he suffers from, among other things, a poverty of spirit. He probably needs hope, or God, or some sort of epiphany or spiritual breakthrough, to give him the courage to overcome his psychological challenges.

I suppose we’re all in the dungeon of limited beliefs about who we are and what we’re capable of. So I wish James a successful jailbreak in escaping the shackles and blindfolds of his suffering. He could learn a lot from his three former neighbors at San Quentin.