All,
Tomorrow morning, a great thing is happening. One of our J6ers is heading to his half-way house, which likely means, by the end of the week he will begin the home confinement portion of his sentence. He has been in this facility for 13 months on a 30 month sentence. I am so happy he is moving on, but as I have told him, I am so happy to see him leave, but sad to see him go.
Prison is a bonding experience for certain people. The J6ers have a special relationship. In many ways it’s a brotherhood. It’s not a gang, or any type of affiliation that pre-existed before that day. Rather, it’s a shared experience caused by the common experience of prosecution in the same courthouse, often with the same prosecutors, and even sometimes the same judges. My experience is that we lift each other up, encourage each other, do our very best to keep every rule (even the little ones), generally practice kindness and attempt to uplift who we can. We all share the same prayer that this ends soon, that our experience isn’t wasted, and that there is long term meaning and purpose. That collectively we can work to fix some of the issues we have seen with the Judicial, Jail and Prison systems. All that aside, there are times, it feels like a living death.
Matt DaSilva in DC first made this observation. When you are Incarcerated, you are separated from the outside world. You can get some news, and can communicate with select people, but in a big way, you are cute off. You can’t manage your business affairs on the outside, you can’t send instant messages, your calls are monitored. Legally you are Civilly Dead. Your wives and children become prison widows and prison orphans.
Once inside, you start to develop routines. You are in a very controlled environment and start to get used to the people around you, sometimes you become very close to them. Then one day, they leave. It doesn’t matter why they leave. If they are transferred, go home, or sometimes even if they go to the SHU, they are gone. You will not ever hear from them again, until this all ends. They are not dead, but they may as well be. Communication ends instantly, there is zero contact. They move on, and you stay behind. It’s like a living death.
There is a certain amount of mourning. Our life will go on (as far in that we keep breathing), but it just won’t be the same with our missing brother. While we are left in this hell, he will resurrect and go back to life.
May God bless him in his next chapter, I rejoice that his wife will have her husband back, and his children will have their father again.
Taylor