"The Other Recidivism"
I was speaking to my father about how many people get released and then come back to prison, and at a certain point we began to talk about how people on the outside think they are free but they are trapped on the proverbial Hamster Wheel. Just look at the hamster. He's stuck in a cage, and in order to feel like he's going somewhere, he gets on his wheel and runs until he gets tired then he gets off and at sits in his cage. He doesn't know that he's going nowhere fast. He repeats this cycle over and over.
When we look at recidivism, we only look at it from the perspective of those who are physically incarcerated, then released, and then find themselves incarcerated again, but I would like to take a little different look at recidivism. For me, one doesn't have to be physically incarcerated to be in prison. Some people are locked in the prisons of their minds, caught up in a recycling rat race of striving to escape social ills like economic oppression, addiction, abuse, etc.,etc. I understand that when I am released I cannot leave one type of prison just to substitute it with another so I strive to be a visionary with ideas that can bring about not only my liberation but also that of my family, community, and the human family as a whole.
Some people wake up, go to work, come home, eat, sleep, weekend, party (escape), repeat. Wake up, go to work, come home, eat, sleep, weekend, party (escape), repeat. And then on Sunday, some people go to church (or the mosque on Friday, or the synagogue on Saturday). The cycle just starts over again (stuck on that Hamster Wheel). They work hard, but no matter how hard, they can't seem to get a leg up. Just going nowhere fast. They have no true vision for their own future. They strive to advance their careers which are based on someone else's vision, and not their own. Free thinkers are rare, an anomaly in fact, who don't conform to the status quo. You must think outside of the box that has been constructed by classism within this country to truly be liberated.
So when you think about recidivism don't just think about prisoners being released and then going back to prison, think about how people recidivate everyday into the prisons of their lives created by social conditions that are worse than cells, and then you will be able to see how the system of mass incarceration affects us all. Criminal justice and prison reform must go hand in hand with social reform, for most of the time, it is the social conditions of oppression we face in the prison outside that give birth to the criminality that feeds the beast called Mass Incarceration on the inside.
Hassan Shabazz, VAPOC