From a victim to a survivor

As a child I thought like a victim now that I am an adult I think as a survivor.

Having my father taken from my life at the young age of eight, I thought as a victim that revenge was the best solution to the situations. I wanted the person who murdered him sentenced to death or far worst, for someone to kill him and watch him die slowly as my father had, but after I recently visited Angola prison my outlook on the death penalty and life imprisonment has changed.

Due to the amazing experience I had at Angola I am able to think as a survivor and see that revenge is not the best decision for it does exactly the same thing that was done to me, takes someone from their family. Seeing and speaking to several prisoners was like talking to the dead, for most of the individuals I spoke to are going to die there. Before going I had a pre-existing conception that prisoners never change and they deserve to rot in the hell they created from the actions they committed. Since I got to talk to several and hear their stories my opinion has changed. One particular gentleman had a great impact on that opinion, he is 47 years old and serving a life sentence for a murder he committed when he was 17 years old. I asked him if he thought being in prison had change the way he looked at life and he told me “no, it’s not prison that has changed him its life.”

I asked him how. He said “because some people been in prison just as long as he has and they’re still acting and doing the things they did when they were out while some changed because they were tired of doing the same thing.”

After thinking about what he said I began to realize that even though we as a society thinks it is retribution to confine an individual to an eight by ten cell with someone telling him when to eat, shower or anything else is the best decision, it is not because no matter what he is still a human being. For a judge and jury to decide what someone’s punishment should be is the same as the murder who decides how his next victim should be killed. We are committed a crime for another crime. So when I think about the young boy who took a father from a young girl and six boys who needed a man in their life, I think he shouldn’t have to spend his life confined because that want change him. He will only change when he’s ready, jail does reform prisoners it just houses them, keeping them from society but it also produces a war zone.