OverWhelmAtion

I am still processing my day so the entry you are reading is not the result of thinking about, but the very act of doing so.
Today was Criminal Justice Day for my Leadership group. We started out by meeting at the city's police station. Our police chief talked to us, then the gangs guy, then the Juvenile Courts Counselor, then the District Judge. He was followed by two social service agencies, both partially privately-funded, who serve juveniles who have run afoul of the law. Then we had lunch. Whew. A full morning.
Following lunch, we boarded a city bus which took us to the edge of town to visit our high-rise prison. Well, for our town it's high-rise. I guess it's about 10 stories? The highest building in Our Fair City is 8. :)
The woman who gave us our tour was phenomenal. She's a case worker for the inmates and gave us a detailed tour of the facility. We walked in the "yard," surrounded by walls topped with coiled razor wire. We were stared at by the inmates as they pumped iron, played basketball, or just stood in the mild afternoon and chatted.
We saw the open showers and johns. We toured the dining hall. Our guide held up a plastic spork and asked how we would like to eat with these for 15 years. Yikes. Crime deterrent, there. No, all jokes aside, the public john is enough to deter me from ever committing a crime.
We toured the un-air-conditioned processing center. We saw the laundry area. There is a furniture factory on the grounds where well-behaved inmates can work, earning up to $10 a day. Most prison have Enterprise opportunities like this. Their products go back to the State.
Finally, we were escorted to a dayroom where four inmates told us about their prison experience as well as their crimes. Three of the four are convicted murderers, 1 first-degree, 2 second-degree, and the fourth fellow was convicted of aggrevated assault. They have all been in for about 15 years and the soonest one to get out will be released in 5 years.
They talked about what it's like to be in prison (you never, ever let your guard down.) They shared that every prisoner cries in bed at night on occasion. They talked about monotony, and missing your family. They were all attractive, young men, 1 black, 3 white; 1 shaved head, 3 with short hair. (We did observe some men in the yard with very long hair, so apparently short hair is not the only option.) They talked about their crimes, although not one of them stated, "I shot a man" -- the wording was always something like, "Someone got shot." They were articulate men, using words like "ironic" and "dogmatic." Had I seen them in another setting, and had the conversation been on another topic, I would never have thought they were convicts, much less killers. Our conversation with them was ended too, too quickly, and we had run out of time. We had to move on to see a SWAT demonstration and K9 unit across the county.

There are 23 people in our program. Bankers, social workers, a hospital administrator, a couple of private business employees, 4 county or city workers, and me. As we walked out of the prison, everyone was chatting, laughing, being very normal -- everyone except myself and one other person. The other gal was overwhelmed by the dehumanization of the whole thing. She felt there must be another to rehabilitate the offenders. She was able to explain clearly why she was emotional.

Me -- I was not so articulate. I was just blown away by the whole experience. Could not understand why everyone was joking and laughing as if things were normal. Why did they not need to be quiet and process all they had just seen? Why were they so loud? I found it annoying, and this further exacerbated my frustration.

I still don't know how I feel -- just that I FEEL. I'm not quite the bleeding heart that my friend was. She felt the prison environment was wrong -- that the inmates were too dehumanized by the whole process. I had to remind her that society deserves protection, too. She begrudgingly agreed.

I am still processing. I don't know that I am capable of figuring out HOW I feel about it all. More likely in a day or two I will find a way to proceed around it. It was overwhelming, and my spirit struggled to breathe.

What a day.