DESERVING OF A SECOND CHANCE
Cynthia Goldberg
Community Organizer
Campaign to End Life Without Parole
“When the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.”
Not everyone believes the gates should open for those who are incarcerated. Nor do many believe that second chances should be afforded to those serving Life without Parole. I find myself repeating the word “opportunity” over and over. Has our society become afraid of the word “opportunity” and is opportunity a guaranteed second chance? For first degree lifers, an opportunity to appear before the Parole Boad is hope. The most incarcerated corridors of the Commonwealth are also the most victimized, and Life without Parole sentences deny the reality that restorative justice has provided more healing to victims than denying redemption through lifelong incarceration.
As the Community Organizer for the Campaign to end Life without Parole, I find myself at each speaking engagement looking into the crowd and wondering if our society understand the difference. For those serving Life without Parole, this is death by Prison. There is no hope for those behind the wall. They are encompassed by a barbed wire fence and often suffer from failure to thrive. These women and men with their robotic footsteps stand for Count, march for Chow, and look forward to the Med Line--with the hope that they will, in fact, receive the proper medication for their aging ailments.
Many of those serving life sentences were sentenced at an early age; children if you will. Who really did not possess the cognitive ability to make positive choices. Many came from impoverished demographic areas, and many endured a life of trauma, abuse, broken families, foster care, substance use disorder, gang affiliation and racial discrimination. As a caring society, and the land of second chances, we cannot define humans at their very worst moments. These humans serving a life sentence were and are someone’s children, sisters, brothers, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and friends. I see two victims in this scenario.
After, 25 years, men and women deserve a second change, an opportunity, once they demonstrate that they have taken the initiative to change through mentors, advocacy behind the wall, restorative justice, transformational justice, education, spirituality, programming, and have a positive institution record. Many have evolved into the most extraordinary individuals. This is not a get out of jail free card, but a second chance. The decision is made by the Massachusetts Parole Board. It is our duty to educate the public and legislators to grant the opportunity to appear before the Parole Board and end mass incarceration.
While incarcerated, I personally witnessed eyes without hope; it is the most devastating, sad and inhuman way to survive death by prison. To Lifers the fence around the perimeter not only serves as security but a fenced in graveyard. There will be no kind obituary, no gravestones with tulips and all that remains; no second chance, no opportunity.
A lifer’s stare is opaque, mundane, lacks luster—a blinding stare coupled with remorse and hopelessness. Housing the elderly is expensive; they often lack basic medical care, and this is a sad, lonely way to die—in a cage devoid of human kindness and touch. Most of the people serving life have lost families, and they will die alone, empty, and maybe if they have any feelings that have not been stripped, a tear will run down their cheek when they take their last breath.
Someone once asked me what prison smells like; it smells of despair. If PTSD had a sound, it would be the sound of the rumblings in prison; the black boot footsteps, the keys jingling, the loudspeakers, “five-minute movement,” “Chow Time,” “Med Line,” “Stand for Count.” Over the years those loudspeakers become bamboo under your fingernails. You wait to exhale, but the exhale never comes because with an exhale comes contentment and there is no such thing serving a Life Sentence. There may be acceptance that your destiny is to die in prison, but you live your life in survival mode. Everything tastes the same; the pallet you once had to taste any form of food becomes like having COVID permanently. You lose your ability to taste and smell. Your mouth develops Stockholm syndrome for prison food.
I personally can remember visits during my incarceration. If a person was wearing cologne it was something intoxicating and as if I had never smelled something like that. I could not concentrate on my visit because the unfamiliar smell possessed my brain. Your senses become numb to prison, and it truly is a world apart. Society, when you are behind the wall, feels like the impossible dream or an unattainable planet.
Life without parole is not a deterrent. It has been proven that the severity of the punishment does not actually deter criminal activity. Permanent incarceration without parole gives up on a person’s ability to ever rehabilitate. It is a contradiction to the notion of restorative justice.
Time is an immovable beast when you’re behind the prison wall. It is like being on life support with hardly any hope, slowly drowning. Then if you are lucky, you get the privilege of parole, and for second degree lifers that is finishing your sentence in society, a place that is very frightening and unfamiliar. You enter society with privilege, and with that privilege, you wear the sheen and shame, ptsd, distrust, anxiety, low self-esteem, anger, hypervigilance, and the stigma that you are, and always will be, an ex-con. While I hate that word, it is a reality.
In addition to being a Community Organizer, I am founding director of The F8 Foundation. Many people that were formerly incarcerated work in the re-entry field, and many, such as me, have changed their life and want to show those struggling with the roadblocks of re-entering society that it can be done and there is help. I do not put on my business card formerly incarcerated but just the F8 Foundation. I do not want my identity to be defined as a person who once made a poor choice.
I can attest firsthand that women and men who have been formerly incarcerated can and are productive members of society. I have run The F8 Foundation for the last ten years. The men that consult for the F8 Foundation are on second degree life with parole. They are the gentlemen that reach back into the community and work with the youth. They are the gentlemen from whom I learned how to be a better person and to appreciate life. They are safe, kind, intelligent, gentle and want to influence those who may not be able to make the correct choices. I am proud to stand by their side daily. They are staunch advocates for helping others.
“Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”