Surviving in Prison
Among my closest friends, one of my friend, Joseph, had a very spectacular life. Growing up in the streets of Los Angeles, we were heavily influenced by the African American gangster rap culture. Although I was lucky enough to move to the suburbs during my high school years, many of my friends were not fortunate enough to move out of hood, as we liked to call it, and were stuck in a vicious cycle of bad life choices. Sometimes, the bad choices of certain individuals have had significant impacts on another's life. This is the story of my friend Joseph who became institutionalised in the American prison system for more than three years for someone else's mistake.
As I got my voice note application opened on my phone, he looked very uncomfortable and asked me if I could distort his voice in anyway. I had realized that my friend was sort of unsure about this project because interrogation was something very familiar to him. I did not want him to feel like I was trying to incriminate him because for one thing, I knew he was in fact innocent of the crime.
I began my interview by asking, "So, can you tell me why you went to prison?" I could tell that he didn't know where to start, but once he began talking, the momentum took over and he started sharing his story. On November 19th, 2009, two of Joseph's friends decided that they were going to rob money from a random pedestrian on the street. However, when Joseph met up with the two friends afterwards, he had no clue what kind of horrendous act his friends had just done. Completely oblivious to what had happened, he entered a convenient store with one of the friend. He was not prepared for what his trip to the store would have on him. His life was about to change.
"The next day, while I was just resting at home, I picked up a phone call from Paul and he told me that he had bad news and for me to check the news online," Joseph told me in regret. His picture was all over the news under the title Two Teenage Robbers Sought in Koreatown. The CCTV had caught my friend Joseph and one of the accomplice of the act together in the convenient store. I had to ask, "how did you feel when you first saw yourself on the news." He began to express, "I didn't believe it. I was kind of terrified, kind of tripped out (to lose your mind). I was so stressed at the moment that I began to get rashes all over my arms. I was so nervous. It wasn't a feeling that I could really describe. It was just crazy. I didn't know what to do, so I just slept because I thought I had to wake up from all of this." He ended up waking up to another phone call by one of his friend telling him that he had to pack his stuff and leave right away to somewhere the police officers wouldn't suspect.
For three months, he was on the run, without knowing what he was supposed to do. In the end, the detectives were able to distinguish who the two people caught on the CCTV were and began calling my friend's father. This eventually led him to turn himself in thinking that he would be able to prove his innocence since he actually didn't do it. However, I was confused because i didn't know where the friend, who Joseph was being framed for, was in all of this and had to ask, "didn't you feel angry towards Jason for putting you in that situation? Why didn't you tell him to just turn himself in?" He answered, "of course I was angry at him. I had so much emotions running through my head. I forgave him and then I would be mad again. I just had so much time and I drove myself crazy with these running emotions… Well I talked to him during those three months and he told me that he was going to turn himself in and take the fault." "But?" I asked. "He never went through with it and I just had to go to court by myself. I wasn't going to snitch him out (tell on him) and I knew at most, I would maybe do a couple months until the victim told the judge that it wasn't me because I was so certain he had never seen me before."
When he turned himself in, they immediately processed him and sent him to juvenile hall so that he could be trialed. However, on the day of the testimonial hearing, the victim who had three months to look at the pictures of the suspects online, had convinced himself that my friend Joseph was one of the two people who had violated him and took his money. During this time, my friend Joseph was 17 years old and he didn't know anything about law. His lawyer did not even show up to his trials. This confused teenager who was innocent and naive with whatever loyalty he had for his friend, heard his sentencing, 25 years to life. He told me he was devastated. He wasn't aware of the facts surrounding the case and thought he would only serve a minimum of 3 months to 3 years maximum only to find out that there was a kidnapping charge added to his sentence. In California, there is a law that states that if you force someone to move three feet out of their own will, you can be charged with kidnapping. He told me that after 9 months of juvenile halls, he gave up and accepted his fate.
When he turned eighteen, which is the age when one becomes an adult in America, he had to relocate to the big boys' yard, prison. I curiously asked, "Was it hard in the beginning?" He began explaining the layout of the prison he was at in the beginning, where he had to wait in reception in a single 6 feet by 12 feet cell until he was going to be transferred to another mainline prison. "This is when reality hit me that I was actually in jail. At least in juvenile hall, I was able to hang out with others in the day room and have yard time outside. But, my first couple months in reception, I was literally stuck in my cell almost everyday because I came during holiday season and all the staffs were back home with their families. The prison was understaffed due to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, so all the inmates were forced to stay in their cells without even showers most days and when they did give us showers, it was with ice cold water."
When he told me that they didn't allow him to shower everyday, I was baffled. However, he told me in prison, they had to make the most out of their situation and had to take a "bird bath" to wash themselves. He had to explain what bird bath was because I didn't have a single clue. "Bird bath is when you use a cup and the water from the sink to wash yourself," he explained.
The next couple questions were where I had received the most shocking answers: "Are the people in there really like what the movies depict them as?" According to Joseph, "There are so many politics and rules in there set by the inmates themselves to keep order. I thought that prison was going to be chaos myself, but i was shocked to see a system so elaborate and organized. But, the main thing is that everyone is very respectful towards each other. The kindest and most respectful people I ever met in my life have to be the people I met in prison." It was amazing to hear from someone who had actually witnessed himself to tell me that what the film industry had depicted in the movies, vicious thugs who were violent and almost barbaric, were just like any other person. He continued by telling me that people were very respectful towards each other in prison because disrespecting someone was the worst possible thing that one inmate could do to another. "A sign of disrespect in prison can lead to race riots and even lead to an inmate being murdered," he clarified.
"What was one thing you learned while you were in prison?" I asked my last question.
Amongst all his experiences, what he had learned was patience. He had endured long bus rides while being transferred from one prison to another in shackles from top to bottom on a very uncomfortable metal seat for twelve hours at a time, and also countless months of anxiety of what the outcome of his fate would be. He told me that without patience, he would have stressed himself to death. He told me that he learned the most valuable life lessons during his time there. Although he realized how precious youth was after spending his 18th, 19th, and 20th birthday in prison, he does not regret his time there. Even after finishing spending 3 years in prison and having to be deported to a country he had left when he was a baby, it was amazing to see how optimistic he was and how he forgave his friend even after putting him through all that trouble. I respect my friend Joseph because he was able to make the best out of his terrible situation and became a man in the stigmatised American prison system.
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