"It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones." — Nelson Mandela
I have heard a lot about prisons in the last weeks and, as I have worked in prisons, I find it sad that we even need them at all. Here are two things I believe. Firstly, that our prisons are the bottom rung of our welfare ladder, and, secondly, that the only form of public housing that has been invested in over the last 20 plus years has been the prisons. I think prisons are an expensive way of making bad people worse. Locking people up, often a great distance from any support networks, doesn't offer an environment for change, it simply strangles the life out of them, an oppressive cage that degrades the self, held within. As Piper Kerman wrote in her book Orange is the New Black — "We have a racially based justice system that overpunishes, fails to rehabilitate, and doesn't make us safer." How can we each take a role in changing our prison system so that it keeps us safe and yet offers hope and rehabilitation for those people who need it the most?
My Angels remind me that most of us live our entire lives in prison. Not physically, but mentally, a prison of our own making. We have accepted confinement in this mental prison. Part of us wants to break free and part of us wants to remain confined. We hold the keys. One day a prison break will take place. We will break free from the cell of conformity and project our minds forward into the success ahead of us. We can be people with vision and dreams.
I believe that action is what takes away our fears and lets us see ahead and follow our dreams. Action is what makes us stronger. Imprisoned we become lazy, making excuses, blaming others and the system, worrying, indulging in negativity and destructive self-talk, complaining — everything but acknowledging our fears and becoming unstuck.
My friends, there is no limit to what you and I can achieve, once we wake up and understand we have imposed the limits on ourselves. So, let's believe in ourselves, let faith be our fuel and forge our way forward in pursuit of a greater lives. Let's find a way of self-discipline and break free from prison into a life of freedom.
Arohanui
Shirley-Joy
