Inside: Life Behind Bars in America by Michael G. Santos

Author:Michael G. Santos [Santos, Michael G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780312343491
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Published: 2007-03-31T22:00:00+00:00

12

After so many years living inside penitentiary walls, walking onto the expansive green campus of a medium-security prison brought immediate feelings of relief. I was still locked inside fences, and thousands of miles separated me from family. Yet the new scenery of the FCI lessened the severity of my confinement. I could see through the chain-link fences, over the countless coils of glistening razor wire. Instead of a tall, solid, penitentiary-gray concrete wall that obstructs all vision, I saw mountains and evergreen trees. In the FCI I saw and smelled the beauty of nature. Somehow, that brought a measure of freedom.

As I walked onto the compound I sensed a lower degree of tension. It was not absent, but neither was it as pervasive as I had known. Like in the pen, correctional officers controlled the movements of men from one area to another. There was the heavy presence of guards in their gray slacks, white shirts, and maroon ties. Loudspeakers blasted constant institutional announcements. With fifteen hundred prisoners inside the fences, it was crowded. At a glance, the majority of men struck me as being volatile. Yet the FCI did not seem to be heavily dominated by prison gangs. It looked like a place where I could make better progress.

I caught the final months under the leadership of Dennis Luther, a progressive warden. He used the promise of incentives rather than the threat of punishment to control his institution and those of us wearing khaki uniforms. Through good behavior, we could earn our way to honor dorms; that option had not existed in the pen. It allowed each man a measure of control regarding the company he kept. Warden Luther’s was a management style I embraced because it allowed more progress with my academic program.

During my years inside the walls of the federal penitentiary I began undergraduate studies. I learned by working independently through courses at Ohio University and participating in courses the excellent professors at Mercer University offered inside. In 1992, Mercer awarded my first degree. Hofstra University then honored me with the privilege of studying toward a graduate degree. While in the medium-security prison I could continue my work.

Rather than obstructing a prisoner’s efforts to grow, Luther encouraged us to pursue learning opportunities. In my case he authorized the use of a word processor to facilitate my studies. He allowed scholars from across the country to visit me despite my not having known them prior to my imprisonment—a fact that has always been a stumbling block to such meetings for me in other prisons. When leaders from the American Society of Criminologists invited me to participate in their annual meeting, Warden Luther instructed his staff to provide a video camera so I could film my presentation; he allowed me to send the video out to help me network with other academics. When a distinguished professor from Princeton University offered to bring students of his who were studying corrections on a field trip to the prison, Warden Luther made his conference room available for me to describe my experiences to the group.

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