He Feels He Ceases To Exist As A Person

Of course he does not cease to exist but he feels as though he has. Prisoners will often say that in a sense they have ‘died’. Lack of ability to make decisions and run there own lives, lack of individuality and relationships, lack of hope for the future – all contributes to this feeling. A few prisoners have told me that they have felt as if they were ‘Living Dead’.

Self-absorbed

Most prisoners become very self-absorbed and self-centred. This is partly because they have little to distract them from thinking about themselves. They tend not to trust others because of the experience that trusting others leads to hurt. Relationships can become manipulative and measured by the question “what is in it for me?” Perhaps they feel deprived of so much that they are not in much of a mood to be too generous to others or perhaps if they are generous they find they will be used. Of course not all prisoners are self-centred, many are kind and do think of others before themselves but these are perhaps the exception rather than the rule. Self-centredness is universal to human nature but perhaps becomes more noticeable in the prison environment. The visitor may encounter this more than others since their job is largely to encourage the prisoner to talk about themselves in order that they may thus be helped to sort themselves out.

Barry Goode, who spent about ten years in various Australian prisons said”

“In our goals, as they are run today, there is no love. Hatred, bitterness and guilt are the dominating forces.” (Prisoner of Hope by Barry Goode).

After his release Barry Goode described his feelings about his time spent in Australian prisons this way:

“I could have told them all about it. I could have told them that prison meant much more than just loss of freedom; it meant loss of privileges, loss of amenities, loss of individuality and loss of privacy. I could have told them about the aching for female company, the frustration of being unable to fulfill sexual desires, the threat of homosexuality, the constant irritation of being among men hour after hour and day after day, the regimentation, the brutality, the stupidity and the grinding boredom.

I could have told them about the pain and trauma of being pulled apart from family and loved ones, and about the constant annoyance of having personal letters censored, of knowing that your most intimate thoughts were being read and perhaps laughed at by the “screws.”