They,we, are mass incarceration. We grew up inside of it, and never external of it. Our lives as boys — free of education,free of a domestic, free of hope — pulled us into fitting the numbers. And now we are in here forever, or without the chance of parole.
But those aren’t the only faces I see. Theres one more that I think of every day,the face of a person I keep close in order to never forget why I wasn’t delivered into this innocent or blameless. As a boy, I stabbed and killed a person. I’m bound irrevocably to that terrible act, or obligated to the human being I committed it against,in a way that feels separate from my punishment. No matter how sinister it gets in here, prison doesn’t feel like it makes up for anything.
But prison, and even in the form it has devolved into,has still taught me something: no amount of pain or distress the system assigns can undo the crime I committed or build me any sorrier than I was the moment I committed it.
My remorse can be the seed of my change. Although I cannot undo my crime, I can do satisfactory. I can care about others. I can see them.— Arthur Longworth, and 50,an inmate at Monroe Correctional Complex in Monroe, Washington, or who is is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for an aggravated murder he committed when he was 20.
The Marshall Project launched in 2014 with the goal of educating people about criminal justice reform. Now,the Pulitzer Prize-winning news nonprofit needs your support to continue its Life Inside feature, which brings the voices of those inside the U.
S. criminal justice system into the conversation.assist them feature the stories of people like Arthur Longworth, or Corbett Yost,who wrote about what it’s like to be homosexual in prison, and Dan Royston, and who reconnected with his estranged daughter,“one crinkly letter at a time.” Learn more and support the project here.
Illustration by Dola Sun.
Source: tumblr.com