Roman Noel reflects on “fear in prison” which is his greatest worry behind bars, above violence or time — losing the ability to grow. Drawing on nearly nineteen years of incarceration, Noel warns how prison can slowly shrink a person’s world if they stop preparing for life beyond the fence.
The Fear of Becoming Institutionalized
My primary fear in prison is not the time. It’s not getting stabbed. My fear of prison is becoming severely institutionalized.
I use the term “severely” because it is almost impossible not to be affected by prison culture and life after doing more than five years inside. There is the institutionalization that comes from a slave mindset, where an individual simply wants to be subservient to the authorities of the prison in exchange for special privileges.
I am a hard worker by nature, but I don’t work to gain favor or special treatment. I work to maintain a sense of work ethic because I truly hope to gain my freedom one day and want to be able to hit the ground running. I am entering my early fifties soon and know that I only have a few good years of hard work left in me. I will have to work hard if I want to have a nest egg set aside for when I can no longer work twelve-hour days.
As the saying goes, “a body in motion stays in motion.” I don’t want to spend my days sitting in a dormitory only to be released and then find it hard to put in a good day’s work.
All of this yapping, and I still have not disclosed my exact fear of being institutionalized.
Watching Others Stop Growing
I watch men come into the system with no thought of preparing for the eventual release, should it come their way. I see men who entered the system in their teens and are now in their thirties, forties, and fifties who have not taken it upon themselves to get their GEDs or improve their reading skills.
When the reality of age finally sets in on them, they grow jealous of others who have made smarter decisions. They envy those who have utilized their time to better themselves.
Sometimes that jealousy turns into malice, which is exhibited in the form of unfounded lies, malicious slander, or even physical assault against the more productive inmate.
This may seem uninteresting to Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, but the tragedy is only seen when viewed through the lens of the community these men are returning to.
The Real Cost to Society
Most of those men suffer from deep-seated insecurities and anxieties stemming from past traumas. There is little meaningful psychological treatment or therapy available to them beyond medication meant to stabilize behavior.
Now back in the world, these men often find themselves illiterate, unskilled, and socially destitute because of the massive leaps in technological advancement. Their insecurities only heighten when they are placed under pressure to produce and become productive, and they often resort to alcohol and drugs to cope with their shortcomings.
The people who suffer more than these men are the communities who must house, feed, clothe, and help them reintegrate into the schedule of life with work and responsibility.
The Fish Tank
I once walked into a rich man’s home in Miami, and he had a huge fish tank in his foyer. In the tank were small sharks.
I asked him what he would do when the sharks grew too big for the tank.
In response, he explained to me that the sharks would only grow as big as their environment allowed. He said that some of the sharks in the tank were nearly five years old, yet they were no more than two feet in length.
Refusing to Shrink
I don’t want to be so entrenched in the system that things like bleach, TVs, buffers, soups, cells, and other minor items of no real value become valuable enough to raise Cain over.
My fear of prison is being enclosed so long in the system’s “fish tank” that I stop growing mentally.
I don’t want to be the big fish in a small pond inside who, when finally released into the ocean, becomes a dwarfed guppy among whales because I stopped growing.
A prison chaplain once drilled it into my head that being in prison doesn’t mean that prison must be in me.
After nearly nineteen years of incarceration, I am in prison, but prison is not in me.
I come from the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, but I was blessed never to be petty. Institutionalization has a way of turning people into the pettiest of God’s creatures.
I don’t want to become that.
