“Do your time, don’t let the time do you! “, is the mantra of prison life. What it means is find your own personal plan to get through a prison sentence without “bugging out” or going stark raving mad.

The toughest part of prison is the loneliness and the utter lack of people you can trust unconditionally. You can form friendships in here, bonds that become very strong, but building up to that level of trust can take years and years, much longer than on the streets. To go years, sometimes decades, without the touch of a woman, or the smell of a woman’s hair is its own special torture.

In my opinion, in order to walk out of prison after X number of years or decades inside after living those years where every thought and decision is not your own without “bugging out”, you absolutely must forget “out there” even exists. You can let the free world enter your consciousness during visits or phone calls, but just as quickly you’ve got to banish it from your mind. You’re powerless to affect any decision “out there” as a father, son, husband, or boyfriend, and thinking you can, will cause untold grief.

Your family didn’t commit the crime with you and expecting them to put their lives on hold while you’re in here is both unfair and absurd. You have to hope that you didn’t damage their lives as much as you damaged yours, so they’ll be in your life upon release.

The greatest numbers of men in prison have committed their crimes for one reason and one reason only—to support a drug addiction. People who aren’t addicts have no conception about just how powerful a drug can control a person’s life, nor do they care.

If a person has a brain tumor that causes him to act anti-social or schizophrenic, and is ordered by voices to attack his neighbor, society can’t move fast enough to get him medical help. Yet, being addicted to drugs is still seen as a matter of willpower and treated criminally. In the 15th century, epileptics were seen as possessed and burned at the stake. In the 21st century, addicts are seen as weak and sent off to prison, except for the wealthy addicts, who can afford the forty thousand dollars for a long-term treatment program that might help them beat their addiction. Otherwise for an addict, it’s prison or death.

We are the last minority in our society to be categorically villified, feared, and hated. God forbid a politician should say anything positive about felons, or help them without fearing their career would be over. Our Puritan past demands that the Scarlet Letter remain for all our days. Even after paying our “debt to society”, we cannot vote, or work a myriad of jobs requiring specific licenses, and here in Arizona, we cannot rent an apartment in most complexes. We will never suffer in society’s eyes to get back to our pre-felony lives.

Society looks at recidivism rates of 70 and 80 percent and scratches its collective head, yet upon release, I’m given 50 dollars and told to check with a parole officer within 24 hours. If I am fortunate enough to still have a family that cares about me, I go home. The next day I will go job hunting and most corporations and franchise outfits refuse to hire felons, so I will get a job at a deli or gas station making minimum wage. I will go see the PO and he’ll tell me I’ve got to go to various classes and meetings, drop off a urine sample randomly, and meet with him once a week. I will have to just pray my new boss will understand taking time off 2-4 times a week. Failure to do any of the above usually means a return to prison.

Now, if your family members understand your situation, you may have finally saved up enough money for an apartment after paying all the parole fees, UA fees, class fees, and any other fees they tell you to pay. You go apartment hunting and place after place says “no felons allowed”, but at last you find a roach infested studio apartment in the heart of the ghetto or barrio. Every morning you get up for work and face a gauntlet of drug dealers that infest your neighborhood, then, do it all again coming home. After paying all your fees, rent, and utilities maybe, just maybe, there’ll be enough for you to eat one meal a day, two if ramen noodles are on sale.

No ex-felon asks for special treatment “out there”. They just ask for the same treatment as anyone else, but even after serving a sentence for their crime society will not give us the same treatment ever. Always there will be barriers and rules designed to make us feel less than the man next door, and you scratch your heads wondering about high recidivism rates? Before I or anyone I know starves or is treated like a dog on a daily basis, we will rob you. Scratch your head on that!