ver been to a prison? One of the most memorable things you can do while at Dartmouth—or in life—is to spend some quality time in a prison.
Through the Tucker Foundation, I have been involved with Prison Project for the past one and a half years. Every week, we go to the Southeast State Correctional Facility in Windsor, VT. It is a low to medium security women’s prison.
I for one will always remember my first time going to Southeast State. It was my freshman winter, and I was filled with excited apprehension. I was going to a prison (a real prison!)—willingly going inside its walls—and then I would leave, just walk right out again. When I did leave after just two hours “on the inside,” I knew that I was addicted. I was going to come back again and again because of the experience of being with and listening to these women. Their wildly tall tales impressed and frightened me—mostly just frightened—because I knew that underneath their curse-laden glamour was the painful truth.
The women at Southeast State are old. They are old in the sense that they have old spirits and have endured so much more than I will ever experience in my entire lifetime. These women, fueled by their experiences, have distinct fears, hopes and dreams… and they have things to say. They have things to say about their addictions, rough relationships, bad familial ties, frustrations with the way the world functions, how the judicial and prison systems function—and how all of these things have hurt them, and have damaged their lives, ultimately resulting in their arrival in prison. And they have things to say about how these things will continue to damage them even after release.
Our society adamantly ignores the fact that prison doors swing both ways: when someone goes to prison, in time, they usually are also released. But societal denial of this obvious fact resounds in a total lack of ex-offender support networks, rehabilitation programs, welfare or housing accessibility, and job or education opportunities. One of the largest punishments that come with incarceration is attempting to put your life together when you leave.
With only their addictions, rough relationships, and abused lives to look forward to, they unwillingly wait for release. Release means that they will finally be able to hold their children again, but it also means that they will be summarily tossed back into a world in which they are wholly unprepared to live, because the world does not want them. With this in mind, is it really all that difficult to understand why recidivism rates are so high in our country? If a person does not know how to live or function legally before incarceration, how would removing them from the world for several years without educational or rehabilitative opportunities prepare them to live legally post-release?
So, after all this, one might ask how a Dartmouth student could possibly help these women or change this huge, heartless nation. We can make a difference though. Or at least we can start to make a difference, just by listening, which is one of the core ways in which Prison Project volunteers help inmates. We listen to people who have real problems and attempt to understand the circumstances that have caused these problems. Without us, they have no voice.
Listening takes time though. It wasn’t until after six months of listening to the women at Southeast State Correctional that I realized how Dartmouth students could begin to address some of the women’s needs. I realized that our simple regular presence helps the women, especially because many have intense feelings of abandonment and distrust. I realized how listening to them share their thoughts and emotions in an intimate setting helps them.
I also realized that Dartmouth students can help the women connect with their children while incarcerated. That’s one of the highest costs of incarceration—the disruption caused in parent-child relationships, and Prison Project does a simple thing to help these women and children feel more connected. We film the women reading bedtime stories, and then edit and send the movies to the kids—allowing the women to “be a mom.” Over time we may begin to hear more from the women and alter our program accordingly. And slowly we are educating ourselves, doing the research into where reform can be made, researching how to make the system more efficient and beneficial to society$mdash;because these women are part of our society. They are a part of our community. They are poor and severely disenfranchised. They are the ones who represent our nation’s greatest internal weaknesses. We need to start listening.
Unfortunately, there do not seem to be many Dartmouth students who listen, at least not willingly. The prevailing idea of volunteering at Dartmouth is usually centered on working with young children close to campus. This is how many student volunteers “do their good deeds.” This is if the average Dartmouth student decides to engage in a form of volunteerism at all—which many don’t.
It’s ridiculous that on a fairly consistent basis, the same fifty or sixty people who chair service projects make up the core volunteer base for everyone else’s service project. Why is this? Are these people just inherently “good” or “nicer” than everyone else? Of course not. Somehow though, they are attuned to the importance of community service and usually just want to make the world “a slightly better place to live.” Doesn’t everyone want that? It is odd to know so many intelligent individuals here at Dartmouth choose to ignore anything outside of Hanover, because that is where help is truly needed. Our community is not just the town of Hanover, but the surrounding towns, and the Upper Valley as a whole. By reaching out to the Upper Valley, everyone’s way of life improves—it is nearly always a win-win situation.
So, I encourage the campus to look beyond Hanover when considering community service. Recognize where the greatest impact can be made. Look beyond the quick “do-gooder” satisfaction that comes with playing with children who have always been the center of attention and interact with women who have been ignored for the majority of their lives. There are greater rewards that come with listening to and understanding the more disenfranchised, in-need populations. More work is needed to obtain these greater rewards, but the same is true of all other “greater things” in life. With a bit of effort, you can make a substantial difference.
Extending yourself to those who are not young and innocent is difficult. Prison is a different place. But it’s a place worth going every now and then—I think it keeps us all a little more human inside.
