by Robert X. Holbrook
Lately within Department of Corrections (DOC) around the country all the rage has been around so called Family Values programs the institutions are implementing. The stated purpose of these programs is to introduce the prisoner to the values of society and to teach him the values that surround the family. The assumption being that prisoners have no sense of family and the D.O.C. can instill in us the values of family and our responsibility to society. I find this a incredibly sad approach. How in the world can the D.O.C. teach family values? How can an institution committed to the destruction of the family teach family values to prisoners. How can an institution that sends men 300 miles away from their homes and family as a matter of policy have the audacity to attempt to teach its prisoners family values? By comparison, this would be like a serial killer teaching a course on the sanctity of life and humanity. Only a psychopathic personality, in the case of the D.O.C. a psychopathic bureaucracy, would take such a course of action and see no hypocrisy in it.
There is something else ironic about Department of Correction's attempting to teach family values to prisoners. The D.O.C. belongs to a culture which has turned prisons into a profitable business, to such a extent that rural communities engage in bidding wars for the opportunity to have a prison in their backyards. This behavior is reminiscent of the auction blocks of slavery and the D.O.C.'s policy of deliberately transferring prisoners hundreds of miles from their 'homes and families is reminiscent of slaves being forcibly separated from their families and sent to plantations across the south. How can this institution teach prisoners anything about family values?
There is nothing the D.O.C. can teach me or other prisoners about family values or being a responsible, citizen. I can say that a majority of prisoners are not lacking in family values rather we are in prison because we deviated from the values we learned at home and adopted the values of a society that revolves around greed and the greater pursuit of materialism. We pursued the quickest avenues available to us to obtain the maximum amount, of wealth. Is that not American?
The only thing that separated our reckless and immoral pursuit of wealth from young white kids is they had the option on hitting Wall Street to make
it big while young minorities hit the corners of 18th Street, 15th Street etc. to make it rich in the drug trade. The majority of prisoners acknowledge our actions were wrong and many can accept responsibility for them but cannot accept the D.O.C. ramming the responsibility we owe society down our throats as if our imprisonment is actually serving society. And what society is the D.O.C. referring to? My crimes were perpetrated in North Philadelphia, predominantly Black and Latino territory. Why then am I up here paying my dues to predominately white rural communities that not only share no cultural connection with me but are profiting from the imprisonment of men from Philadelphia? My imprisonment has not made the streets of Philadelphia any safer.
As long as the D.O.C. maintains the facade that its policies and programs are serving the good of society and instills values in prisoners its attempts will land on deaf ears and will continue to fail. The D.O.C.'s family values and citizenship programs are nothing but con games and if there is anything certain in this world it is that a con can recognize a con.
Robert X. Holbrook #BL 5140
SCI Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
See Rob X' regular column at defenestrator.org
