Reaping what we Sow?
Reflections from Anna during our #WeAreALifeline Campaign, May 12, 2020
I occasionally wonder if some people think, “Why would I support people in prison when there are so many things and other people I can support?” Let’s be honest, people in prison aren’t exactly puppies and babies.
So, I want to say a thing or two about people who are incarcerated in this county. This is based on working with hundreds of men, women and youth in prisons both in the US and in England. People don’t start out bad. They don’t come into this world as criminals. People are good at their core. Babies are pure love. And then life happens. There’s trauma; there’s mental health issues; there’s poverty; there’s addictions; there’s neglect; there’s abuse; there’s racial inequalities. Many people in prison were raised in foster care or homes not fit for children, often shifted from one place to another from a young age rather than in a stable loving home. All this contributes to people ending up in prison.
Different countries respond to crime differently. Some cultures, like America, are more punitive. There are some attempts at rehabilitation, often unsuccessful. But there are a few cultures where, if someone commits a crime, leadership will look at the community and say, “What aren’t WE doing? What support haven’t we provided? Where are WE failing?”
In our culture, I often hear, “We reap what we sow.” But, as Emily Brault, the Chaplain at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, said (and this really stuck with me) “WE reap what WE sow - as a community, as a country.” Looking at the way we operate, is it any wonder we have more incarcerated individuals per capita- BY FAR- than any other country in the world?
Having worked in prison for a number of years now, I have learned that everyone, whatever they have done, have the ability and innate capacity to change. People sometimes do bad things but they aren’t inherently bad. I have found that underneath the noise humans are yearning to live good lives. Some have just never learned how.
We work with men, women and youth in Oregon’s prisons and we help people break the cycle of recidivism and generational trauma by pointing people back to the inherent good that has always been inside of them.
The Insight Alliance serves as a lifeline for people in prison. Most of the people we work with will leave prison and be your neighbors and employees. We love the people we work with and we believe in them. Please support us in helping some of the most vulnerable, neglected people in our communities: https://donorbox.org/theinsightalliance-lifeline
