What Do Inmates Fear?

If you walked into the prison I teach in, you might think that it looks like a college campus, except for the razor wire. The brick buildings and the well maintained grounds are pleasant and clean. There is a chapel with qualified chaplains on staff, a food hall, administrative buildings, a large school staffed with fully qualified teachers, a medical and dental clinic staffed with fully qualified doctors, nurses and psychologists, a gym and playing fields with a coach on staff, a warehouse and even a small store.

The officers who work there go through rigorous training in which they are instructed on cultural awareness, use of force only as a last resort, and how to assist inmates in psychological distress. Inmates are fed, clothed, and cared for entirely at taxpayer expense. They pay $4 to see a doctor. Apparently, they want for nothing.

Yet I have never met a single inmate who thought he was well off. I have never met one who would think twice about giving up his place in an air-conditioned Electronics trade class for instant freedom. Why? What do they have to go back to?

Of course, there are no simple answers, but there are a few recurring themes in inmates' reasoning. First, they are in complete denial. This may be because of the trial/conviction process - If you say, "I'm innocent!" enough times, you start to believe it. Second, they forget how bad life was - the incompetent parents, the filthy crack houses, the violence, the anger, the broken hearts. And third, they believe in a future that has no basis in reality because they refuse to begin working towards it -

• "I'll start night school when I get out, but I can't worry about school right now."
• "I don't need job skills because my uncle/father/old boss will give me a job as soon as I want to start."
• "I don't have custody, or even see my kids, but when I get out I'm going to be a real good father."

But the single biggest reason that they all want to "escape" is Fear. And the single thing of which they are all most deathly afraid is each other.

One time, an inmate told me that all fights in prison are over one issue: "respect." An inmate who cannot garner respect from other inmates can look forward to being a Jun-Jun (joon-joon). He will hand over his possessions and do anything he is told, or risk being beaten severely, perhaps even to death. I only know this because that is what I am told "may" happen. Every single inmate who has ever walked into my classroom with a bloody face or an arm in a sling has told me it was an "accident" during a basketball game. Being known as a snitch is a sure-fire way of losing all respect.

We lock our doors and look upon the police as our allies. We check on our loved ones and know they are OK when we are not around. What must it be like to have no such security?

Inmates only have to work six hours a day. Their work is what the rest of us do for ourselves after our work day is done: food preparation and clean up, dorm cleaning, yard work, laundry. If they are in school, other inmates are busy taking care of their needs. It seems such an easy life. Why do inmates keep rejecting the opportunity for self-improvement when it is handed to them for free? For years, I could not accept the excuse that inmates offered for not concentrating on their studies: "My mind ain't straight for this." What does that mean?

I think it means that what every teacher learns in training about Maslow's hierarchy of needs is true. Safety is the most basic of human needs. Without it, we live in fear, and nothing else matters. Inmates are not afraid of being locked up. They are not afraid of the officers who guard them or of anyone in charge of them. They are afraid of the future, and of losing control of situations outside the prison fence. But most of all, they are afraid for their own safety. Their fear is paralyzing and pervasive. And until they can learn to deal with it, nothing else that we provide will make a difference for them.