Justice Isn’t Fair: A Collection of Monologues

by
Alessandra Ferriso

A THESIS

submitted to

Oregon State University

Honors College

in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the
degree of

Honors Baccalaureate of Arts in English and Speech Communication

(Honors Scholar)

Presented May 29, 2020

Commencement June 2020
 AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF

Alessandra Ferriso for the degree of Honors Baccalaureate of Arts in English and Speech Communication
presented on May 29, 2020. Title: Justice Isn’t Fair: A Collection of Monologues.

Abstract approved:_____________________________________________________
Michelle Inderbitzin

I always knew I was interested in the criminal justice system, evident from the hours I
spent as a child binge watching Law & Order, Rizzoli and Isles, and Dateline when my parents
weren’t home. I very nearly pursued criminal justice as a major, but ended up going a different
route and tackling English and Theatre degrees instead. Despite my devotion to theatre and
acting, criminal justice has always been a part of my academia, and my passion.
I travelled to London, England the summer before my junior year to take a class titled
1000 Years of Crime and Punishment with Michelle Inderbitzin and was immediately invested. It
was there where my passion evolved into more concrete interests and pursuits and where I had
my first opportunity to begin working and learning right in the field. As a class we visited
Brixton Prison, a nearly 200-year-old men’s prison with a dining program that allows prisoners
nearing the end of their sentences to work as cooks and servers at the prison’s esteemed
restaurant, gaining job experience and the opportunity to work with others in a productive and
meaningful way.
I continued to have experiences like this and have now visited three different prisons and
made acquaintances with countless prisoners, both currently and previously incarcerated.
I needed a way to get these stories out, to make the general population understand that we
have a highly flawed system that deals with some of the most vulnerable members of society, to
express all the lessons I learned from my firsthand experiences and to give voice to those on the
inside who don’t quite have the same opportunity to do so that I do. I wrote a series of
monologues to give you insight into what happens in our country, to allow others to get their
stories heard outside of the prison walls, and to inspire a change in the way we think about
incarceration as a whole.

Key Words: monologues, theatre, prison, justice system, prisoners, performance

Corresponding e-mail address: ferrisoa@oregonstate.edu

©Copyright by Alessandra Ferriso
May 29, 2020
 Justice Isn’t Fair: A Collection of Monologues

by
Alessandra Ferriso

A THESIS

submitted to

Oregon State University

Honors College

in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the
degree of

Honors Baccalaureate of Arts in English and Speech Communication

(Honors Scholar)

Presented May 29, 2020

Commencement June 2020
Honors Baccalaureate of Arts in English and Speech Communication project of Alessandra Ferriso
presented on May 29, 2020

APPROVED:

_____________________________________________________________________
Michelle Inderbitzin, Mentor, representing Sociology

_____________________________________________________________________
Scott Akins, Committee Member, representing Sociology

_____________________________________________________________________
Elizabeth Helman, Committee Member, representing Theatre Arts

_____________________________________________________________________
Toni Doolen, Dean, Oregon State University Honors College

I understand that my project will become part of the permanent collection of Oregon State University,
Honors College. My signature below authorizes release of my project to any reader upon request.

_____________________________________________________________________
Alessandra Ferriso, Author
Introduction

I always knew I was interested in the criminal justice system, evident from the hours I

spent as a child binge-watching Law & Order, Rizzoli and Isles, and Dateline when my parents

weren’t home. I very nearly pursued criminal justice as a major but ended up going a different

route and tackled English and Theatre degrees instead. I am devoted to theatre and acting, but

criminal justice has always been a part of my academia and my passion.

I travelled to London, England the summer before my junior year to take a class titled

1000 Years of Crime and Punishment with Michelle Inderbitzin and was immediately invested.

Through that program my passion evolved into more concrete interests and pursuits and where I

had my first opportunity to work and learn right in the field. As a class we visited Brixton Prison,

a nearly 200-year-old men’s prison with a dining program that allows prisoners nearing the end

of their sentences to work as cooks and servers at the prison’s esteemed restaurant. This program

provides job experience and the opportunity to work with others in a productive and meaningful

way.

I continued to pursue experiences in this field and have visited three different prisons and

made acquaintances with countless prisoners, both currently and previously incarcerated.

I needed a way to get these stories out and to make the general population understand that

we have a highly flawed system that deals with some of the most vulnerable members of society.

I needed to express all the lessons I learned from my firsthand experiences and to give voice to

those on the inside who don’t have the same opportunity to do so. I wrote a series of monologues

to give insight into what happens in our country, to allow others to get their stories heard outside

of the prison walls, and to inspire a change in the way we think about incarceration.
I Fell

I fell in August of 1998.

In a lot of ways, I was set up for this kind of life. In a lot of other ways, I wasn’t. My

parents raised my brother and me on a 52-acre piece of farmland. We didn’t have electricity,

grew up in a fairly old-fashioned kind of way, but I was fine playing in the woods, living in the

wild fantasies that occupied my mind where I robbed banks and commanded a gang of drug

dealers.

My dad went to prison when I was nine, leaving my brother and I to take over as men of

the household. My mom did her best, supported us in the ways she could, but when it came time

for my brother to go off to school at sixteen, my intrigue followed.

His friends were cool, the type of guys you see in the halls that strike both fear and

admiration, and I did whatever I could to solidify my place in that group by proving myself: I

always had weed. I always had money for booze. And when I was 14 years old, I committed the

ultimate act of loyalty. I killed an innocent man.

I was picked up joyriding up around Oregon and thrown in a youth facility while my

brother, who wasn’t even involved in the murder, was hauled off to federal jail. I spent about

eight months there before they told me I had to leave and go back to my own county facility.

That scared me. Those eight months I spent in that youth facility became the life I’d known

longer than anything else, so when I moved, it was like I left everything - my routine, my people,

my...confinement - behind. Getting acclimated to a whole new environment was tricky, and they

don’t exactly set you up for an easy transition. Just when I got used to a whole new life, I moved

again to the adult county jail where crime was a badge of honor. The one good thing about adult
county jail was that my parents could visit and they were able to bring me fast food, which is

what I wanted at sixteen.

The lawyers grilled me again and again and again, and while my story changed over the

years, I was consistent in not taking responsibility for my actions. See the way our system works

is that the longer you deny what you’ve done, the more beneficial for you in the long-term. At

least that’s what the lawyers told me. Justice is one big chess game, and the more you can

prepare and anticipate, the better your outcome is likely to be.

I played my chess game for 17 years, 6 months, and 3 days, attacking and retreating and

checking then getting caught and back-tracking and trying again. By the time I walked free, I

lived my days under an umbrella of anxiety and trepidation. I was living in limbo, waiting for

that letter, that call, that told me my freedom had an expiration date and that my existence would

never be without limitation again.

It came. Twice. The courts told me that I may have been reformed, but that I still had to

be punished. That I would pay for what I did at 14 for damn near the rest of my life, that there

was no guarantee I wouldn’t turn around and do it again to the next innocent man driving along

in the wrong place at the wrong time. But every time they took me back, I lost everything again.

When I was released the first time, I got a job, gained rapport in the community, started a

life 31 years late, but started one nonetheless. All that traction I made, everything I put in motion

following my release, was put on hold because the system had decided that I wasn’t finished yet.

But when you’re presented with something and told that’s what justice is…

I don’t tell people this story just to tell people. I’m a resource in a different kind of way. I

owe it to the community, to the kids who come after me, to give back in a sense. Kids are still
gonna mess up, of course, but if someone can catch them before they fall too far, well, there’s

something to be said about helping kids instead of throwing them away without a chance.

I fell in August of 1998. I was offered a hand in February of 2016. And from then on,

I’ve made the choice to keep standing.

I Fell Narrative

Trevor Walraven and his brother were convicted of the 1998 murder of William Hall. At

fourteen years-old, Trevor carjacked Hull at gunpoint and shot him execution style before

retrieving his brother and evading the police for several days before they were pulled over along

I-5 and arrested for murder.

I first met Trevor in the spring of my sophomore year when he spoke to my class about

his story. I have not forgotten this emotional and mind-bending experience.

I have heard him tell his story three times now and each time he does so with an

incredible stoicism and genuine openness. This monologue is taken almost entirely from quotes I

wrote down during my most recent experience listening to him speak. He always opens his talks

with the invitation to stop him along the way and ask any questions we may have. “Nothing is

off-limits,” he says.

After Trevor was arrested in 1998, he was taken to a youth facility where he was adamant

that his brother had nothing to do with the crime, but because his brother was eighteen years old,

he was taken to a county jail because of the Measure 11 statute, which, if applied, mandates a

minimum prison sentence that cannot be reduced by judicial authority for youth above the age of

fifteen (Marion County Juvenile Department). After eight months in the youth facility, Trevor

was transferred to a newly built detention center in his hometown county before being
transferred again at sixteen years-old to an adult county jail. It was here, he said, that the mindset

surrounding offenders changed: “In the juvenile systems, they’re pretty open to the idea that kids

are still growing up...they see the humanity in people in a way the adult system doesn’t”. The

good thing about the adult county jail was that he was more accessible to his parents, and they

were able to visit him much more often. He was sentenced to thirty years to life and spent the

first three years of his sentence at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn,

Oregon. Trevor reflects on his time there as “the first place [he] established a peer group that [he]

fit into that was [his] own age.”

Realizing that he was in it for the long haul, Trevor decided to invest his time wisely. He

joined the Oregon Youth Authority as a mentor to assist troubled teens with avoiding prison

sentences. Despite his extensive involvement, Trevor said he would not participate in a violent

offender treatment program, taking the advice from his lawyer that taking responsibility would

only work against you in subsequent court appeals or trials. This is an aspect of the system that

sheds light on the “game” of it all. Lawyers, prosecutors, defendants, victims are all trying to

“win” whether that be the best sentence or the harshest punishment, instead of focusing on

rehabilitating those who have hurt and have been hurt (Bjerk, 2005). My observations and

conclusions drawn from research is that our system is a punitive one, not a restorative one.

Trevor was moved again to Snake River Correctional Facility, then moved again to join

his brother at the Oregon State Penitentiary. In 2011, he took his first Inside Out class with

Michelle. It was there, he said, that he realized the power of others believing in his worth despite

his past. “Being seen as a human was a really unique thing for me...and as Michelle says, ‘once

you know, you owe.’”

 Halfway through his sentence, Trevor decided to pursue a second look hearing, which

provides an earlier parole hearing to individuals who committed their crimes under the age of

eighteen, understanding the lack of brain development before the late twenties and recognizing

the potential for maturity, growth, and rehabilitation. Though his plea was denied by the

Department of Corrections, his attorneys gained approval through the Oregon Supreme Court

and his second look hearing was held in September of 2015, after Trevor spent sixteen years

behind bars. The judge at this hearing ordered Trevor’s release within forty-five days. The

Department of Corrections did not feel as though they had to comply with this order and did not

issue his release until they were ordered to do so again by the Oregon Supreme Court following

another year and a half of incarceration. On February 2, 2016 Trevor was informed he was going

to be released the following morning.

Trevor was taken to Marion County where he was fitted with an ankle monitor, taken

through a psychological evaluation, and released to his mom and fiancée. He began talking to

students and classes, telling them his story, but it wasn’t long before things got complicated.

Trevor won an appeal that his lawyers had been pursuing for a while, but in doing so, it vacated

his previous conviction and caused a technicality issue where it appeared as though Trevor had

taken several lives rather than a single victim, and overturned the ruling, allowing a warrant for

his arrest on the original murder charges to be served to him in January of 2017.

Once again, Trevor was taken to county jail, where he spent twelve weeks behind bars

and took a plea agreement for his same sentence. He was granted another second look and was

able to contribute new information from himself and his parole officer, and again, his ruling was

favorable. He was moved to OSP for three days, and released again on May 3, 2017. During the
four months he spent re-incarcerated, Trevor lost his job and any other traction he had in

building a life, and essentially tried to start from scratch.

This is one person’s personal experience, but it sheds light on the way our justice system

works and has worked over the past twenty-one years. It has also taken me three times of hearing

his story to understand the complications behind his back and forth with the courts, but this is

something that happens frequently in criminal trials and proceedings. There are plenty of little

rules and loopholes that keep people incarcerated for longer periods of time than necessary.

The question when considering release is how you know someone is or can be reformed.

It is a question we’ve been struggling with for eons without anything concrete in the way of an

answer. Many argue that the people we lock up either can’t be reformed, warranting life

sentences as a punitive measure, and even more are under the impression that reform comes

naturally following a long, harsh, seemingly never-ending sentence, because nothing else will be

as effective (Lynch and Sabol, 1997; Hirschi, 1986). This thought process came about as a result

of vast amounts of discourse surrounding crime and the appropriate punitive responses, many of

which will be discussed later. This kind of thinking is problematic.

Excessive incarceration is inhumane. Restricting one’s living space so severely results in

unsanitary conditions as well as a clear loss of human privacy and dignity. The deterioration in

facilities, as well as the frustration with being stripped of any freedoms results in a general unrest

amongst the prison population, resulting in extreme frustration with the system and the society

that forced them into it (Frank, 1998; Lynch and Sabol, 1997). Authors Lynch and Sabol also

mention that some of this frustration comes from the disruption of social ties in communities

with these lesser charges, especially because imprisonment has such a negative impact on
younger individuals who leave prison with financial burdens and stigma and are then less

attractive as fathers and husbands, damaging their family structure (Lynch and Sabol, 1997.)

Furthermore, “‘every problem you meet on the street [is] incredibly magnified when

you live one foot from the next guy’” (Astrachan, pg. 12). This leads to increased violence

within prison facilities which then affects the ability of the staff to control the population,

“resulting in chaotic prison environments...the problematic conditions created by overcrowding

inevitably impact the physical and mental health of all prisoners, as well as their ability to

rehabilitate while serving time” (Frank, 2018 pgs. 123-124). We can assume that this issue only

multiplies as we continue to pack more people into prisons without introducing increased

opportunities for educational, therapeutic, and rehabilitative services. As a result, prisoners are

not provided opportunities to work through the issues that got them into prison in the first place

nor have they developed any beneficial conventional life skills while incarcerated (Lynch and

Sabol, 1997), leaving them extremely vulnerable to recidivism upon release with rates as high as

50% (Fazel, 2015). Seeing as how most sentences are not life ones (Bjerk, 2005), most prisoners

will get out and face this exact scenario before ending up in prison and starting the cycle all over

again.

Another justification for incarceration is deterrence: the idea that the fear of harsh

punishment will prevent people from committing crime. Rhetoric surrounding this issue stems

from the early 1980s and refers to criminals as dangerous individuals who would be reformed by

observing the development of mandatory sentencing (Lynch and Sabol, 1997). However, in

standard deterrence theory, there is an assumption that “offenders are rational agents capable of

taking into consideration the consequences of their actions” (Lee, 2017, pg. 3). This doesn’t hold

because there are a number of offenders who are not rational and physically cannot comprehend
the punitive consequences of their actions at the time they commit, perhaps as a result of mental

illness or substance addiction, and therefore they are unable to be deterred by others’ prison

sentences (Hirschi, 1986, pg. 106). Furthermore, because a variety of criminal acts occur so

quickly and impulsively, there is little room for thought about consequence and possible

punishment.

Deterrence is also the main reasoning behind programs like Scared Straight, where

“juvenile delinquents” visit prisons in order to get an understanding of what life in prison is like.

The intention of the program, which was started by New Jersey prisoners in the 1970s, was to

provide an honest view of where a life of crime would lead. A study conducted following the

introduction and implementation of this program showed that the program worked for those who

most likely didn’t need it in the first place, but for those who had already become familiar with

juvenile detention facilities, the exposure to life in a maximum security prison did little to phase

them. In fact, recidivism rates actually increased for a good chunk of participants following the

program (Feinstein, 2005, pg. 41; McCord, 2003; Petrosino et. al, 2000), and these findings were

echoed in subsequent surveys following additional aversion programs. The Campbell systematic

review assessed the effects of these programs on 946 juveniles over nine studies and found that

prevention programs were more likely to cause offending than doing nothing (The Campbell

Coalition 2017). The Coalition for Juvenile Justice published a compilation of negative effects of

Scared Straight including the lack of deterrence and prevention, increased offending, cost-

inefficiency, potential legal violations of combining youth and prisoners, and ineffective funding

budgeting (Coalition for Juvenile Justice). The Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study, which

compared incarcerated youth from treatment and control groups where treatment groups received

copious amounts of resources such as tutoring, counseling, YMCA and Boy Scouts, referrals,
etc., found similarly that programming still had increased offending rates for participants

(McCord, 2003, pgs. 17-18).

Due to the many external factors contribute to juvenile delinquency, a short program

assuming you always have the choice to enter into a life of crime or the willpower to avoid it is

an unrealistic deterrent. However, these programs persist because society is incredibly

uncomfortable with the idea that they are doing “nothing” to prevent crime. By continually

funding programs and passing policy that receives positive feedback from its participants, even if

they weren’t really the concerns, we are able to point to something to say we’re doing our part,

seeing as how treatment is already dismissed as ineffective at preventing recidivism (Petrosino et

al 2000).

We can see the negative effects of prisons: the recidivism rates in this country are among

the highest in the world (Fazel, 2015). We know that programs such a Scared Straight, that

expose people to prison life in a pretty harsh way, do little to deter crime. So how can we justify

the idea that longer prison sentences are effective in working towards a more cohesive society

with less crime? Some argue that even if incarceration isn’t a deterrent, it can be a means of

ensuring victims’ safety and peace of mind by removing offenders from the environment in

which they are capable of committing crime, otherwise known as incapacitation. This then

becomes the default reason for incarceration when deterrence and retribution are disproved: “’at

a minimum, [society] must be able to protect itself from dangerous offenders and...also a frank

admission that society really does not know how to do much else’” (Crimmins, 2018). However,

in the long run, rehabilitation programs aim to provide safety by eliminating the issues that lead

people to crime, which should be the method we use to go about protecting society.
 Those that are skeptical of a total reformation just have to meet someone like Trevor to

question their preconceptions. While there are always exceptions, Trevor is the kind of person

who contributes more the community on the outside than the community benefits from him being

in. In his words, “What interest does it serve for me to be incarcerated and released when I’m 40

or 50 or 60 when I can be a positive contributing member of society now?”

In order to contribute to the ever-growing compilation of research on prisons and the

justice system, we need to highlight the voices of those who have had that firsthand experience.

Their contribution to that scholarship provides a valuable insight that allows for a furthered

understanding of this culture. They are the ones who have “inside knowledge about prison life

and the social circumstances resulting in the loss of freedom” (Frank, 2018, pg. 117). They are

the ones who can tell you exactly what path led them there and perhaps help you understand

what could have been done to prevent their situation. If the aim is to ultimately better society, in

the sense of punishing those who have done wrong, aligning society’s morals and values,

keeping conforming members safe, and allowing retribution for those who have been harmed,

any input on that matter, especially from those right in the thick of it, should be valued.

There is no justice in keeping people who have made a complete transformation inside

while also depriving the world of those who are ready, willing, and enthusiastic about teaching

others and preventing them from making the same mistakes they did while also using their

background to make leaps and bounds in the criminal justice field. This was one of my first face-

to-face interactions with the legal system, and these lessons were further solidified in each

experience I had moving forward.

God Only Loves the Good Kids

 The judge’s hair looks ridiculous. It’s grey like Abuela’s. She doesn’t look like Grandma,

though, she’s wearing all black and Abuela prefers rainbow. She’s talking to the guy at the other

table, and he’s nodding all serious-like. Now he’s smiling. I know whenever he smiles it's bad.

When he smiles I get sent away. Last time I had to stay locked up all summer and you lose all

your connections when you’re sent away all summer, connections it took me years to build. He’s

still nodding. I hope his head falls off.

Maybe I should pray. Maybe if I start talking to God, He won’t let them send me away.

Okay, here goes. Dear God...wait, is that how you start a prayer? Nobody taught me this shit.

Dear God, I am sorry for punching Carlos. I know it was wrong and if you don’t make me go

back to jail I won’t do it again. Unless he keeps jacking my money and calling me a punk. As

long as he keeps trying me, I’ll keep showing him what I’m made of. I’ll keep talking to Rhonda,

maybe I’ll try harder to do my homework. And I take back the thing about the DA’s head falling

off. Kind of. The end.

Rhonda tells me a lot to talk to God. Every check in it’s “well have you tried praying

today?”. I don’t tell her the last thing I’m thinkin’ about on the streets is God. It wouldn’t do shit

anyhow. Mamá still cries all the time and Papá barely even looks at me when he’s home which

isn’t all that much. At least Daniel and Carlos take care of me, show me the ropes, tell me who to

look out for and who I can trust. They’ve taught me more about life than I’m sure this judge, this

DA, or even Rhonda knows about. They’ve taught me about how things work differently for kids

like us, that our brothers are forever and the adults will just look the other way if we’re being

threatened or tested. That the strongest survive and the weak don’t get a second chance.

Rhonda’s squeezing my hand now, that damn DA’s stopped nodding but that smug smile

still plays on his lips. I yank my hand away. The judge’s hair bounces as she turns to look at me
up and down with disgust, something I’m used to by now, her lips curling to address me, the

Spanish name foreign in her mouth. She pounds her little mallet as if that gets her any sort of

respect, and Rhonda deflates next to me. I knew God wouldn’t help. I shuffle off left, flanked by

two dudes who probably can’t wait to show me how many hours they’ve been putting in at the

gym, and hope my stay here is shorter than last time.

God Only Loves the Good Kids Narrative

My experiences with the juvenile justice system have by far been some of the emotional

and gut-wrenching experiences I have had in studying the criminal justice system as a whole. My

first opportunity to engage with this population came through my Juvenile Delinquency class at

the end of my sophomore year when I was tasked with spending two hours in the Marion County

Juvenile Department of Corrections playing games with and generally entertaining some of the

juvenile offenders.

The kids filed in in light grey sweatpants and crewnecks, setting up tables for us to lay

out the card games and snacks we had provided, and sitting down with us to spend a few hours

outside their normal routine. However, they were much more interested in chatting with the

college students rather than in playing Scattergories. I found myself telling them about my life,

how I did in high school, what kinds of jobs I was working or was looking to be in in the future,

what college was like, etc. Things I would never have thought to be of interest to kids, but that

they were genuinely intrigued and surprised by. Several of them expressed interest in getting

their GED, most were proud to tell me that they were the first in their family to look towards

finishing school and heading to college, some told me they needed to get out and get a job to

support their children. None of them were over eighteen, but some were as young as twelve. It is
incredibly jarring to see children in a context where you’re used to imagining much older, much

angrier, much more obviously criminal people. Those two worlds are hard to reconcile, but they

do exist.

Juvenile delinquency is a convoluted and complicated topic, but what I found to ring true

throughout my experiences with talking to and working with juveniles is Hirschi’s theory of

Social Control. This theory says that criminal activity blooms when an individual has weakened

bonds with society as a whole, and that when potential offenders are faced with a choice in

courses of action, they are most likely to choose the one that will yield the maximum amount of

personal pleasure (Hirschi, 1969, pg. 108). The four main bonds to society discussed in Social

Control Theory are attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief, and they answer the

question of not why we commit crime, but why we don’t (Hirschi, 1969, pg. 58).

Attachments are the bonds we have to conforming individuals. It is believed that a close-

knit family unit or solid friend group is likely to prevent criminal activity because the cost of

participating in such would jeopardize these attachments and result in negative consequences that

the individual values. These attachments are also responsible for teaching the individual social

acceptable behavior (Wiatrowski et. al, 1981, pg. 525). However, when a child grows up

attached to people who show the benefits of conforming to a non-criminal lifestyle, they are

more likely to follow in that path. The deterrence of crime comes from not wanting to disappoint

the ones we love with our choices (Hirschi, 1969, pg. 58). It has been shown that both the

quantity and quality of these attachments for children are able to prevent interest and

participation in criminal activity. The Control Theory Main Effects Model demonstrates this with

a simple chart that illustrates various scenarios in which an adolescent would smoke. This model

suggest that “for adolescents with a parent who smokes, the likelihood of smoking increases as
attachment increases” and vice versa (Foshee and Bauman, 1992, pg. 67). The model, however,

assumes that a parent may only demonstrate conventional norms, which underlines the

importance of quantity of attachments (Foshee and Bauman, 1992, pg. 68). Additionally, when

there is a strong parental bond, but more delinquent peer bonds, those bonds that are higher in

quantity will bear more weight in the mind of the juvenile than the adult. This is known as the

“peer effect” (Chui and Chan, 2012).

Commitment to doing well in life and participating in the offerings of a conforming

lifestyle also breeds the desire to remain on that conforming path. Children that are committed to

certain activities like sports or hobbies and do well in school are less likely to jeopardize that for

criminal activity. It is much easier to see the risk of engaging in criminal behaviors when

something important to you could be taken away. Hirschi describes this bond also as having the

effect of preventing delinquency because individuals don’t want to look bad in front of parents,

peers, teachers, etc. (Hirschi, 1969, pg. 58). In a sense, this is one of the first times kids are able

to understand the potential of that direct impact on their life instead of just trusting their parents

that they are and should be doing the right thing. In regards to school, those who are getting good

grades are likely to strive for the opportunity to attend higher education and broaden their

potential post-graduation, making it less likely for them to involve themselves in criminal

activity (Inderbitzin et. al 273).

The involvement aspect of social control theory suggests that the more involved an

individual is in various conventional activities, the less time they have to participate in criminal

activity. This is not the strongest bond because it is true that some criminal activities actually

take very little time. Additionally, there is always opportunity to commit crime “before or after

legitimate activities” (Hirschi, 1969, pg. 59). However, the involvements an individual does
have in society also strengthens the aforementioned attachment and commitment bonds, which

does prevent inclination towards more criminal behaviors.

Belief is the most disputed of all of the aspects of social control, but theorists think that

they can at least use beliefs to understand how the other bonds come into play in the prevention

of deviance. Essentially, the argument comes down to whether or not an individual believes in

the morality of the conforming laws and regulations present in society (Hirschi, 1986, pg. 59). If

they do, they are less likely to break them because they believe it is morally wrong. If they,

however, feel that these rules are unfair or worthless, they are more likely to rebel against them

simply because they do not feel morally bound to them as a result of their weakened societal

bonds (Wiatrowski et. al, 1981, 526). They will instead give in to criminal behaviors and be

more prone to crime in the future (Inderbitzin et. al, 2016, pg. 274).

Another attempt to explain delinquency, labelling theory, explores the process through

which individuals, specifically juveniles, are granted labels that determine their future decisions

and actions. Delinquency is composed of subjective definitions in the sense that no one act, and

in extension person, can be inherently deviant. Therefore, it takes the label of deviant to make it

such (Inderbitzin et. al, 2016, pg. 319; Stiles and Howard, 1996). For example, if a child is

rambunctious in class, earns poor grades, or acts out at school, they are labelled as

“problematic”. These acts are not chronic and not a part of a personal identity, but someone else

has placed that label on them. This is known as primary deviance (Inderbitzin et. al, 2016, pg.

320). Instead of digging at the root of the problem, adults in power tell these children they are

negative influences in their environments. They have labelled this child and that label carries

weight.
 The adults induce a stigmatization, which can become what is known as a master status: a

label that is “so prominent or conspicuous enough to determine that all aspects of the individual

may be filtered through a particular characteristic or attribute” (Stiles and Howard, 1996, pg.

687). In other words, this turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy where the child accepts these

labels. This can be as a method of defense, attack, or adjustment to the labels and the problems

they have created. This is known as secondary deviance (Inderbitzin et. al, 2016, pg. 320). These

juveniles are also aware that they carry this label and end up feeling trapped by how they have

been defined.

Criminologist Howard Becker explains in a 1963/1973 publishing that this does not

always result in a finite future. There are cases in which some begin to label an individual and he

or she decides they do not want to continue down that path and end up turning back. “’If he

makes the right choice, he will be welcomed back into the conventional community; but if he

makes the wrong move, he will be rejected and start a cycle of increasing deviance’” (qtd. in

Inderbitzin et. al 321). However, not every juvenile who has made it this far feels as though they

are able to just abandon the path of delinquency. As an example given in Deviance and Social

Control mentions, if a juvenile commits a delinquent act, gets, caught, and starts to get

monitored as a result of heightened caution, they may rebel out of boredom or defiance. Others

outside the immediate circle will begin to adopt that label for that individual and want them to

separate from their friends and peers. That individual then begins to accept that role, known as

“role engulfment”, and hang out with other like-minded individuals, establishing a more

seamless path towards a deviant career (Inderbitzin et. al, 2016, pg. 321).

Furthermore, this label is continually confirmed. As noted by authors Stiles and Howard,

“One implication of possessing a deviant master status is that deviant behaviors that might
otherwise be ignored or excused are noted and negatively sanctioned because they are regarded

by others as confirming the deviant master status” (Howard and Stiles, 1996, pg. 687). There is

also evidence that suggests such a label could be empowering for youth, “perhaps because they

begin to think of themselves in ways that more closely resemble delinquent and criminal

identities, such as thug or gangster...are more potent than youthful identities, such as kid or

teenager” (Kroska et al., 2017, pg. 86).

Because nobody inherently believes they are a bad person, there are five named

techniques of neutralization that explain why people decide to commit even if they know and

understand what they are doing is wrong. These techniques have been boiled down to five

phrases by researchers Sykes and Matza, “‘I didn’t mean it, I didn’t really hurt anybody, they

had it coming to them, everybody’s picking on me, and I didn’t do it for myself’” (Inderbitzin et.

al, 2016, pg. 275). These rationalizations highlight a society in which children feel neglected,

belittled, battered, unimportant, or angry and lack the resources to find adequate support systems

or outlet for these feelings.

This monologue was inspired by the time I spent watching juvenile criminal court

proceedings. Each time a child, a literal child, walked into the courtroom, shackled and escorted

by someone much bigger than them, I was taken aback. And when charges and accusations were

read against them, I was even more surprised. Fighting and drug possession were the norm, and I

constantly wondered what the circumstances were that lead these kids down these paths and if

they would ever be able to change like they always promised the judge they would. It was tough

reconciling these two worlds in my head - one of youth and possibility and the other of crime and

punishment - and I hoped to convey that dichotomy as I explored the fear and frustration

involved with being a child delinquent.

It’s Not Me It’s...

Listen, I don’t know who the hell you think you are or what qualifications you say you

have but I am not the issue. I work seven days a week to provide for my kids and for you to sit

on your ass and tell me that after two days of your lurkin’ in my home that I’m creatin’ a

“problematic environment conducive to child disassociation and external criminal engagement” -

- you don’t know the goddamn half of it.

Look, I’m trying. These worksheets, these role plays or whatever you call ‘em, these

conversations, your judgment....Ever since Arthur walked out on us, I’ve been the one there for

Henry. I’m the one who keeps a roof over our head, makes sure he’s fed, has somewhere to sleep

at night. I know that you say Art leaving caused him to rebel, go off the rails, but he’s always

been like that. He’s always been a problem, cuttin’ class, starting fights on the playground. Ever

since he was a kid he talked back to us, teachers were calling home all the time, it’s just who he

is and pardon me but your clipboard ain’t gonna do nothing to change that.

I don’t need Art. Him leaving us was the best thing he ever could’ve done. He was a

terrible role model -- I knew that, I knew it and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t get out. I had nothing

that wasn’t his and the only way I was gonna be safe was if he made that choice to leave. And he

did. And it’s crushed Henry but all I can do is hang back and do my best to pick up those pieces.

It’s been a lot harder than I thought, I can barely keep this household running much less

hang around to make sure my kid isn’t sneaking off at lunch and never coming back. So I don’t

know what kinda game plans or resource pamphlets you got in that big binder of yours but one of
them better have a magic wand or at least some money because there’s no way in hell I’m gonna

be able to do much better than this without it.

It’s Not Me It’s... Narrative

I spent the first week of my summer after my junior year commuting to the Marion

County Juvenile Department in Salem, Oregon for a class to learn about how the department

operates and all of the various services they offer. We had the opportunity to meet with

employees from every aspect of operations, including intake and processing, individual

counseling, court operations and proceedings, detention, and family counseling. The family

counseling services through Marion County are focused on helping the family as a whole to

identify the circumstances that may be contributing to problematic behaviors. They work with

programs within Marion County as well as a variety of internal operations to find the best

solution of rehabilitation and assistance for children and families on a case-by-case basis. GAP,

or Guaranteed Attendance Program, is one of those operations that provides an alternative to

detention for mandated youth. It is a residential placement run by Marion County where youth on

probation remain for several weeks to several months. When in GAP, youth are closely

monitored by staff and are consistently working with probation officers, counseling services,

detention, alternative programming, and the court. They engage in day programs outside of GAP

such as school, alternative programs, or work, but then return to GAP in the afternoon and spend

nights there (Marion County Juvenile Department).

One of the things that I have learned in some of my courses as well as from my

interactions with children in detention and employees that work with these children is that when

it comes to juvenile justice. As noted in Hirschi’s theory of Social Control, family and
community attachments are one a crucial aspect in keeping a child on a positive and productive

path in life and society because they are the ones that demonstrate the conforming path (Hirschi,

1986, pg. 58; Inderbitzin et. al, 2016). Oftentimes troubled children come from troubled homes

where there is not much parent/sibling support or where there are issues within the home that

prevent the child from feeling fully supported and safe (Newcomb, 1997). This is not always the

parents’ fault. Marion County recognizes that there are circumstances that make raising a child

naturally more difficult, including systemic poverty, domestic violence partnerships, substance

abuse, mental illness, etc. Parent and family counseling services and the individuals that work

there, most of whom have psychology degrees or backgrounds in professional therapy, utilize

their program, called EQUIP, to identify both the strengths of family units as well as the areas

where reinforced support may be beneficial. This is done through three one-hour in-home

sessions including an initial interview, questionnaires and worksheets, and strength-identification

and feedback sessions. From there, a plan is developed that is intended to promote success in the

child and assist willing parents or guardians in affirming the child’s growth. This program is very

much based on positivity first with critique second, but delinquency and parenting is a touchy

subject regardless (Marion County Juvenile Department).

The counselors I spoke to mentioned that hearing that they may be contributing in some

way to their child’s problematic behaviors can be really difficult for a parent, and at times they

are unwilling to accept that diagnosis and end up living in denial of any contribution to the

negative environment. In order for family counseling services to be effective in any sense, the

parent or guardian must be willing to work with the assigned counselor to develop effective

strategies and move forwards in a productive way (Bernheim, 1982). If this is not the case, they

will see the professional as an adversary, and engage in protective measures such as emotional
withdrawal, superficial compliance, or stubbornness, all of which inhibit the growth and progress

of supportive parental and family counseling (Bernheim , 1982, pg. 637).

In some cases, parents and/or guardians, like the one in this monologue, are doing

everything they can to maintain a running household, and being more involved in their child’s

everyday life just isn’t an option for them. This leads to feelings of helplessness in preventing

their children’s delinquency, and their parental efficacy is diminished (Inderbitzin et. al, 2016,

pg. 197). This struck a chord with me and I was inspired to write a monologue from a resistant

parent’s point of view after agreeing to engage in family counseling services but sensitive to the

idea that they may be contributing to a problematic environment. In this monologue, I hoped to

explore some of the factors that may have put this parent in the position they were in as well as

shed light on what the counseling services work to identify and assist with and give an insight

into how a counselor may try to assess a family and work with them moving forward.

However, parent involvement is only the beginning of juvenile involvement in delinquent

lifestyles. The systemic challenges of raising children in poorer or generally “delinquent”

neighborhoods often lead to these sorts of situations. Social cohesion and collective efficacy, the

desire for neighbors to establish and work towards creating a conforming and crime-free

environment, is a key aspect of prevention, and when individual parental efficacy is lessened, the

collective efficacy also starts to deteriorate (Inderbitzin et. al, 2016, pg. 196). When the

collective community is less invested as a whole in establishing this kind of neighborhood, it

makes it easier for kids to fall into the other traps of poorer neighborhoods, namely gang activity

and a general deterioration of the physical space.

For children who are experiencing a lack of familial connection at home and a sense of

isolation and disconnect at school, gangs may seem like the perfect solution: “feeling marginal,
adolescents join gangs for social relationships that give them a sense of identity...gangs provide a

way of solving social adjustment problems [and], in some communities, youth are intensively

recruited or coerced into gangs” (Rizzo, 2003, pg. 65). By the time they are fully indoctrinated, it

is nearly impossible to get out of this group, even if they wanted to, which many don’t seeing as

how they’ve created a new family with new opportunities (Rizzo, 2003). And because there isn’t

a sense of community throughout the neighborhood, neighbors tend to turn a blind eye, allowing

for even more kids to fall through the cracks (Inderbitzin et. al, 2016).

Outside of interpersonal relationships and a sense of community accountability, physical

representation of a neighborhood is also said to control the prevalence of crime in that

neighborhood (Inderbitzin et. al, 2016). This is known as the Broken Windows Theory, which

was established by Wilson and Kelling in 1982. It states that “an unrepaired window in a

building leads to other windows being broken. Similarly, in a community, neighbourhood

problems that are not quickly attended to lead to more neighbourhood problems” (Piscitelli and

Doherty, 2018, pg.592). This stems from both the way individuals’ behaviors break down

community controls and as well as the severe neglect of physical property. Signs such as graffiti,

litter, overgrowth, and damage sends signals to others that this is a place where criminal activity

occurs and that little is done to prevent it (Piscitelli and Doherty, 2018).

There is a need for support on several levels if this is to change. First of all, funding for

communities to have clean, undamaged buildings and areas for recreation like parks and gardens

are essential in giving community members a living space to take pride in and keep pristine.

After school programs to keep children occupied and engaged in meaningful activities as well as

providing institutions like Boys and Girls Clubs or Big Brother/Big Sister programs gives

children important peer relationships and even role models that they can look to for success.
Finally, finding support for struggling parents and guardians is a big systemic challenge that not

many people know how to deal with or the form that should take and whether it should be

internal or external, how much financially it should take priority in society, etc. As with many of

these topics that I’ve learned about and come face to face with, these issues come with a lot more

questions than answers, and change has to be on a large scale with plenty of minds working

together to accomplish it.

Perception

“The crime against humanity must never be forgotten”. You know who said that? Ronald

Reagan. The crime against humanity. Humanity is us. Ourselves, our mothers, our fathers,

sisters, brothers, friends, aunts, uncles, cousins. It’s everyone you care about. But humanity isn’t

just “those people”, humanity is a concept bigger than us. It is our belief system. The way we

want to treat others. The way we wanted to be treated.

Most of us are born with this concept. We know how to be inherently kind, caring, show

humanity to others. Sure we make mistakes, we hurt the ones we love, but we apologize. We

show growth. We have promise.

But what happens when someone does not possess that concept of humanity? That same

innate sense of right and wrong? What if they decide that it is okay to take advantage of the trust

that we naturally place in others to treat others with kindness and love?

On Monday evening, the 17 of April, the defendant made the choice to abandon
th

humanity. He, along with several other known members of a local gang, congregated at the edge

of Umberhill Park, a previously agreed upon location, concealing their faces with large hoods

and bandanas, with the intent to distribute drugs. This quickly took a turn for the worse when an
older gentleman walking his dog nearby happened to catch sight of what no doubt looked to be

suspicious activity, and calmly asked the group what they were up to. After an onslaught of

obscenities and vulgar threats, the man informed the delinquents that if they did not retreat the

park, he would get the police involved. It was at this time that a local rival gang pulled up on the

other side of the park and gunfire ensued. This gentleman now lays fighting for his life in the

Emergency Room.

What if this was your father? Your grandfather? Brother? What choice would you want

to be made in this courtroom today?

It is our responsibility to forcibly instill a sense of humanity in those who do not choose

to naturally embrace it. And the only way to do this is to lead by example and show others that a

lack of human decency will simply not be tolerated. This will deter others from making the same

set of unfortunate choices that the defendant has made to get himself into this position today. So

it is for this reason that I beseech you, for the safety and well-being of our deserving society, to

prosecute this crime at the fullest extent, under the Mandatory Minimum law, ensuring this

individual to remain incarcerated where he will be able to reflect and grow and hopefully emerge

in twenty years with the sense of humanity that is not only a requirement, but a basic expectation

of our society.

Perception Narrative

Here is the story I created as a background to this monologue.

A young man, oldest of three, is raised in a poor household. His father is an alcoholic

who physically and verbally abuses his wife. His mother works two jobs to put food on the table

for her children, and is never home to take care of the younger two kids, so this boy is tasked
with taking care of his siblings whenever he is able, which unfortunately comes at the price of

sleep and homework, so he often shows up late to school (when he goes) with missing

assignments. His teachers see him as problematic, know that he’s “one to watch out for”, so

instead of checking in with him, they send him to detention then pass him onto whoever is

unlucky enough to be his next teacher.

Ever since he was about twelve or thirteen, some of the older boys from the

neighborhood would chat with him when they passed him on the street or invite them over to

hang out on the weekends. In search of friends and a fun Friday night, he would take his

evenings to hang out with them. They drank and smoked, but he had made the decision not to

partake because of his father.

When he turned fifteen, some of the older guys approached him and told him he was old

enough to start making some money if they wanted to work with them. Eager to help out his

mother, he slowly started accepting low-risk odd jobs here and there. He did a lot of drug drops,

but never came into contact with anyone for more than five minutes, and he wasn’t using, so he

figured the payoff was worth it. His mother never asked where the extra money came from, but it

was incredibly helpful to the family and he felt that he had the responsibility to keep providing

what he could. As the quantity of the drops started increasing, so did the pay, as well as the

safety precautions he took.

On the night in question, the young man was tasked with delivering to a high-profile

client. Knowing the unpredictable nature of this kind of transfer, his fellow members came with

him, but unbeknownst to him, had come strapped. A car pulled up for the drop, and five

members of a rival gang emerged instead of the expected client, and before anyone could even

process what was happening, shots were fired.

 The young man is seventeen years old.

The District Attorney, otherwise known as a state prosecutor, possesses something

known as prosecutorial discretion. This essentially means that they have the sole ability to decide

whether or not to formally charge a defendant, the charges they are going to bring against that

individual, and how best to pursue those charges.

Most assume that the judge holds all the power of decision in the courtroom and the

lawyers are simply there to persuade him or her to choose their side. However, as a result of

prosecutorial discretion combined with the tough-on-crime mindset that birthed Mandatory

Minimum Sentencing, this could not be further from the truth (Bjerk, 2005, pg. 592). Under

pressure to succeed in cases and please the public, prosecutors are able to decide whether they

want to pursue any number of cases as a Mandatory Minimum Sentence or not (Dahl, 2014, pg.

271). This case specifically could warrant a series of charges with a variety of penalties, most of

them much less harsh than what the DA calls for in this monologue, seeing as how the individual

wasn’t directly involved in the shooting and was simply in possession of a low-class drug. Or, in

an effort to boost the win ratio and win favor with the tough-on-crime crowd, the prosecutor

could bring a Measure 11 crime against the defendant.

Measure 11 was passed in Oregon in November of 1994 to assign mandatory minimum

sentences to certain crimes with no possibility for reduction (Bjerk, 2005). This law also dictates

that any persons fifteen or older will be tried as an adult, and these same strictures will be

applied to their sentencing (Marion County Juvenile Department). At first glance, this may seem

like an excellent method of deterring people from committing crime, but in reality, the

consequences of this measure are more harmful than good (Bjerk, 2005; Feld,

1999). Historically, as a society, we’ve made the decision to punish people based on a
discretionary system which has evolved into the judge and jury courtroom battles that we’re so

familiar with now. The introduction of Measure 11 strips the judge of this discretion, and instead

gives complete discretionary power to the prosecuting attorney, commonly dubbed ‘prosecutorial

discretion’ (Bjerk, 2005, pg. 592). The way our current system is structured allows the

prosecuting attorney to determine what kind of charges are brought against defendants and what

level to charge them at. This allows prosecutors to essentially dictate the trial at hand, potentially

allowing them to focus on a charge that may boost their win ratio over taking into consideration

the details and extremities of the individual case. This is problematic when prosecutors are able

to justify this decision because of the way our system treats juveniles: “On the one hand, states

treat juveniles just like adults [and]...use the adults standard of ‘knowing, intelligent, and

voluntary under the totality of the circumstances’...on the other hand, even as juvenile courts

have become more punitive, most states continue to deny juveniles access to jury trials or other

rights guaranteed to adults” (Feld, 1999, pg. 14). Therefore, if a prosecutor decides to bring a

Measure 11 charge, the judge has absolutely no say in the punitive outcome (Feld, 1999). This

sends the message to defendants, ringing especially clear for children, that society has decided

they are ‘bad’ and that there is no way for them to be labelled any differently, engraining the

word ‘criminal’ into their personal identities instead of providing a suitable punishment and

opportunity for reform. Furthermore, once inside, because there is no possibility for sentence

reduction based on good behavior, there is no motivation for anyone locked up for a Measure 11

crime to behave. They will either be released at the end of their sentence or they are locked up

for life, and their behavior reflects this, inevitably influencing other prisoners whether or not they

are in the same position.

 Luckily, the passing of SB 1008 in Oregon has made some headway in reforming this

law, allowing all youth who are convicted in adult court to have access to a second look hearing

halfway through their sentence, during which they may be eligible to be released into parole

instead of finishing out their term of incarceration (Youth Justice Reform). This bill also

eliminates life without parole sentences for youth offenders, and ensures that there is at least a

chance for parole after fifteen years of incarceration (Marion County Juvenile Department). This

is a start, but there is still a long way to go in completely reforming juvenile procedure,

especially as the tough on crime mindset that paved the way for the establishment of this

legislature is still relatively prevalent.

Because we are looking at slowly backing away from a one-size fits all approach to

sentencing, there is a need for a more individualized method of identifying factors that affect

criminal behavior. This is where we introduce the concept of mitigation. Mitigation is the

inclusion of background and contextual information of an offender’s life and circumstances

leading up to the crime (Andrews, 2012). It “includes, but is not limited to, compassionate

factors stemming from diverse frailties of humankind, the ability to make a positive adjustment

to incarceration...the capacity for redemption, remorse...vulnerabilities related to mental health,

explanations of patterns of behaviors...positive acts or qualities, responsible conduct in other

areas of life...any evidence bearing on the degree of moral culpability” (Andrews, 2012 pg. 679).

Mitigation specialists are used by the defense counsel to present any number of these reasonings

in order to give contextual information surrounding the offender and his or her crime and can

come in any form, though commonalities include social workers who have expertise related to

these circumstances, such as child maltreatment, trauma, battered women, development,

alcoholism, immigration, etc. “The possibilities are as diverse as human conditions” (Andrews,
2012, pg. 679). Because there are so many factors that may contribute to the environment in

which one makes the decision to commit crime or engage in non-conforming behaviors, there

should be the same amount, if not more, solutions, both punitive and rehabilitative, for

offenders.

Everyone I have met throughout my studies has had a different story. When we decide

there is a one-size-fits all solution to crime and justice, we ignore the different needs of those

who have been most vulnerable in the environment we have created, which leads to an anger

with the system, a hopelessness outside of the system, and an inability for individuals and

institutions to see much room for change.

Doo-Dads and Gizmos

Hey, lemme ask you. You ever heard of a MacBook? Yeah, like, one of those

little...computers. You know they're barely an inch thick nowadays? When I went in, they were

these giant boxes, took up a whole room, and now, you can fit ‘em on your lap! No wires or doo-

dads or any of that extra stuff.

When Mr. Richards asked me about getting myself one of those for data input, I was so

confused. I thought to myself, how the hell am I gonna wrangle a giant box into work each day

and home every night and I looked at him and I said “sir, I spent a lot of time in the yard while I

was inside but with all due respect there is no way I am gonna be able to manage that”. He

looked at me for a second, chuckled, then wrote down some directions on a little slip of paper

and that’s how I wound up at some big glass building with an apple on the front. I thought he’d

lost his mind, sent me to some newfangled fruit market, but turns out fruit is synonymous with

technology these days.

Everyone in there was dressed in these matching red polos and khakis. I mean I know my way

around a uniform, trust me, but when I say they were matching, I mean...anyways one of the

younger ones kinda bounded up to me with this little bug in his ear with a wire comin’ outta it.

His name was Matt or Mike or Matteo or somethin’ like that, and he was holding this little glass

screen that couldn’t have been much bigger than my palm and he wouldn’t stop tappin on it.

Tap tap, hey how are ya doin’ today, tap tap tap, what can I do for ya, tap tap. I told him I

wanted to buy a computer, that my boss had sent me here to get one so that I could do data input.

His tappin’ got real intense then, I was worried his fingers were gonna snap right off, and before

I could even tell him how to spell “Richards” another one of those red polo, long khaki minions

ran right out with another little bug and wire in his head -- Lord knows next we’re all gonna be

puttin’ chips in our skin or something -- and handed me a box that couldn’t be more than, gosh I

dunno, this big? Then Matthew or Masterson or whatever tap tapped again on that little screen

and told me I was all good to go. I couldn’t even ask where all the rest of the doo dads were

before he scurried off to tap at someone else. I’m tellin’ ya man, times have changed.

Doo-Dads and Gizmos Narrative

I wrote this monologue in response to a YouTube video I watched in one of Michelle’s

classes during my junior year. Although it is entertaining and a little bit silly to watch someone

struggle with how much the world has changed within such a short amount of time, this is a real

challenge for those emerging from their time behind bars and having to create a whole new life

for themselves in a world they’re completely unfamiliar with.

As soon as prisoners are released from their term of incarceration, there is an expectation

that they integrate into society immediately. However, ftude of factors that make this transition
extremely difficult, especially in a short period of time. Most prisoners, if they’ve worked at all,

have only worked in highly-structured and strictly monitored jobs on the inside (Davis et. al,

2013). Although there are attempts, many of these jobs aren’t successful at replicating an

authentic work experience like one that would exist on the outside. Furthermore, these jobs are

incredibly selective, so those who are incarcerated for shorter, though still lengthy, periods of

time will not even have the opportunity to partake in work, especially given the prejudice against

those who are required to disclose their felon status (Agan et. al, 2018). For those who have

found themselves incarcerated for longer periods of time, they may re-enter a world that is

completely different from the one they left behind (Farkas and Miller, 2007, pg. 4). Finally, the

offender may be facing a variety of personal challenges that stem from their past as an offender

or as an incarcerated individual that make it difficult to function at peak capacity. These

challenges include but are not limited to “poor inter-personal skills, low levels of formal

education, illiteracy, innumeracy, poor cognitive or emotional function, and/or a lack of planning

and financial management skills (Farkas and Miller, 2007, pg. 4).

Considering how fast technology is constantly being modified, adapted, and invented,

and how difficult it is to keep up with the fast-paced generational shifts and political atmospheres

as someone living a completely unbarred and privileged life on the outside, imagine how head-

spinning it would be for someone convicted of a robbery at sixteen to spend life behind bars until

they are at least twenty-three-and-a-half, per Oregon Mandatory Minimum Sentencing laws, and

how different the climate and environment would be for them upon release. Now they must face

the hardship of finding a job with little-to-no experience in a world that may be alien to them and

must find a way to work through all of these obstacles, oftentimes navigating this with no

external support.
 If they somehow manage to jump through each of these hoops, they will be constantly

monitored, tracked, and watched, and the standards for them are much higher than any normal

employee. Logistically, this process is complicated, and that is without consideration of the

familial relationships they’ve left behind. Perhaps this individual came from a gang situation,

where their only family and relationships are people heavily involved in gang activity and the

desire to separate themselves from that life leaves them with no conforming support system or

ties to a safe community. Perhaps this individual simply got mixed in with the wrong crowd and

found themselves in a particularly sticky situation, but their family is unwilling or unable to

welcome them back into their lives once they’ve been released, again leaving them to flounder

on their own. These are all situations I’ve heard firsthand accounts of from those on the inside.

Clearly reintegration is an issue, but there are a variety of programs in place that assist

with this transition and provide valuable life and work experience to prisoners either just before

or just after they have been released. My first encounter with this type of programming was with

The Clink Brixton Prison restaurant. This program involves training prisoners who are within six

to eighteen months of release to run a gourmet restaurant and having them participate at a variety

of levels. This provides them with both practical work experience in a restaurant as well as the

experience of working with a team in a traditional job. This type of project has spread to a few

other prisons in England and has shown remarkable success, with recidivism rates reducing to

roughly 12% (Banks, 2014).

In San Francisco, The Beat Within magazine-newsletter publication of writing and art

allows prisoners to publish their stories in whatever form they desire. This program “refashions

wards into writers, artists and in some cases, free men and women” (Sanders, 2004). The Beat

Within publication allows prisoners a creative outlet to explore some of the difficulties and
obstacles in their lives and their incarcerations, while providing them with connections to the real

world and potential employment opportunities following release. The publication also touches

youth who are at risk for criminal involvement, giving them an outlet to express themselves in or

simply giving them comfort in knowing there are other people out there who dealt with the same

things they are dealing with but they can make a different, better choice.

Peer mentoring programs that involve currently or previously incarcerated individuals

have proven to have the highest success rate in reducing recidivism and encouraging positivity in

teens and youth as they reintegrate into life outside incarceration. This is the kind of program

that the prisoners at Oregon State Penitentiary are after with their prisoner-led panels and

workshops with local at-risk youth. They decided to introduce this kind of programming in

Oregon after learning about several other success stories with similar programs. In Silicon

Valley, incarcerated men and women are making the choice to learn how to code through “The

Last Mile”, a program that focuses on training prisoners in some of the highest demanded skills

in California and actually employs them in the prison, allowing them to make wages and

progress towards paying off restitution. Students are also able to coach youth through coding via

Skype (Guynn and Diskin, 2018). The subsequent success of these prisoners is undeniable -

access to knowledge and skill development that is useful outside of prison walls motivates

incarcerated individuals and gives them the tools to succeed in a workplace environment,

ensuring some sort of stability to help with the rest of reintegration.

In Oregon specifically, the Oregon Youth Authority peer mentoring program allows

previously or currently incarcerated prisoners to counsel younger offenders in accountability and

finding the value in seeking treatment. This results in both a resource for the younger offenders

to look towards in seeking reform as well as giving the counselors a sense of purpose in life. As
one graduate-turned-counselor states, “‘To help out other people in the same way others helped

me made me feel like not a bad person’” (Wieber, 2018, pg. 3). Even if programs like these don’t

lead directly into career paths, it allows individuals to process the choices they made and where

their lives lead them, forgive themselves, acknowledge their internal change and progress, and

lead incredibly positive, forward-moving lives.

Grit

You don’t have an excuse in the world to say you can’t be great. I don’t care who said

what about you, to you, any of it. That’s the past, this is the present. I know what it’s like. I was

you. I get it. You’re alone, you go to juvie, everything is “yes sir, no sir”, you don’t trust anyone,

you don’t feel like your truth is gonna help, you do what you can to make your own life, your

own routine. But what you can’t do is succumb to the hopelessness of it all.

Look at these guys around here. Some of them have said fuck it, I’m stuck in here for

what seems like the rest of my life, I’m gonna sit on my ass and eat Cheetos all day and watch

TV and not do anything productive. But some of them have decided to discipline. They’re out

there on the yard, getting fit, staying active. They’re in there taking class after class after class

because they realize they are smart enough to learn, that getting a degree isn’t impossible.

I can see the doubt in your eyes. Don’t trust it, don’t get your hopes up, they’re talking

about goals and I can’t even pick what I want for dinner, but listen to me. Just listen. There are

things they don’t tell you, the staff. They’re not trying to make your life harder, it’s all

just...complicated. Even they can’t keep it all straight and, honestly, it’s not their priority. Not

their job. But there are options for you. There were options for me and there are options for you.
 There are programs. To get you educated, to help with whatever you’re dealing with

personally, conditional release. There are ways and people that want to help you with your fresh

start, but you have to make that choice for yourself. You are who you hang out with. You are

who you decide to be. Your choice is your choice, but when you get out, it’s all a mental game.

Are you gonna stick to what you’ve built or are you gonna slink back to the easy way out, submit

to all those old habits and temptations? I want you to succeed, but whether you do or not doesn’t

cause me to lose any sleep at night or any progress I’ve made for myself. Don’t keep making

excuses. Make the choice to be great.

Grit Narrative

Johnathan Baker has another story that anybody can Google and read about, but that I had

the privilege of hearing in person firsthand. He’s an attractive guy and blends in easily with the

college kids milling about Oregon State seeing as how he’s roughly the same age as most of the

upperclassmen. However, Johnathan suffered a traumatic childhood - he bounced from home to

home after discovering his father dead from alcoholism and eventually landed with a physically

and verbally abusive uncle whose wife fled in search of a better life - that culminated in the

murder of his uncle.

He spent the next week or so after the murder just driving, and ended his run with a high

speed chase where he was eventually detained and taken into a 72 hour interrogation. He didn’t

say a word.

Johnathan’s story is unlike most I’ve heard. Those that I’ve meant on the inside have

readily admitted their crimes were a result of them being wrapped up in the wrong crowd or as

an accidental incident that occurred as a result of bad choices, but this was the first I’d heard
where the crime seemed to be a result of a really genuine and well-rounded individual hitting a

breaking point.

One of Johnathan’s friends’ parents had provided a safe place for him to go after his

transition to living with his aunt and uncle. His grades began improving and, in his words, he

“got a glimpse into living in a house that was actually stable”. It was this family that stuck with

him through it all and visited him while he was inside.

For six years, Johnathan slowly began to work towards a more productive and hopeful

life. Previously struggling with school, he began taking just one class on the inside, trailing a

year and a half behind where he should have been in high school, and ended up graduating in

nine months with a 3.0 GPA. He slowly began opening up, talking about his experiences, and

taking part in the Family Engagement Committee. It wasn’t long before he was mentoring the

youth he was incarcerated with, and in 2014, he was offered adoption by the family that had been

there for him through it all.

Johnathan’s resume is impressive by any standards. He ended up taking 248 college

credits as of this past year, with several more to finish for his degree, worked full-time as a

barber, and spent his free time teaching kids about all the programs offered to help with release

as well as what opportunities college provide and how they could navigate the rest of their

sentences and subsequent future with success and determination. This all occurred while

Johnathan’s lawyers tirelessly worked with him to pursue commutation and get him a

presentation in front of the governor's counsel. Within a month, he was released to his new

adoptive family, free to rebuild his life. This happened at the end of 2019. Johnathan now plans

to finish his degree and become a success coach for youth.

 It is when I meet people like Johnathan that I know individuals should never be defined

by the worst thing that they have ever done. There are so many circumstances surrounding crime,

and, ultimately, there are plenty of people that just get dealt a bad hand. There are always

exceptions, of course, but those that got caught up in something bigger than themselves,

especially at such a young age, do not deserve to spend the rest of their lives paying for it.

It may sound crazy, but some of the most impressive, most humble, most selfless people I

have met have been those that have committed some very intense crimes. And this injustice truly

solidified when I spent three months visiting the Oregon State Penitentiary, studying with and

learning about the prisoners inside.

Validations from Prisoners

Terrified. How could I not be? This country has told me that when I walked through that

gate, I walked into one of the most dangerous situations I could legally put myself in. And

looking back? Hearing that just makes me laugh. I mean sure, some of them were angry. Some of

them had violent pasts. Some of them held hate in their hearts, for the system, for their choices.

But after just ten minutes talking to them, getting to know them, that wasn’t what was

frightening to me.

I used to think the same way as you. I’ve been conditioned from the beginning to believe

what everyone says. An eye for an eye is the only justice, completely stripping someone of every

shred of individuality and independence is the only way we can go to bed at night feeling like

we’ve taken one step closer to getting all the bad guys off the streets. But what I’ve realized is

this country, this system, has shredded to pieces every potential for empathy for those who make
mistakes. Mistakes. And what does it say about us if we refuse to allow someone to even try to

make up for the worst thing they’ve ever done?

Those guys in there are looking out at us, screaming, “let me try, let me make it better, let

me get better”. And we look back at them from our privilege, our freedom juxtaposed with their

two to a cell, behind metal bars, denim uniforms, working day in and day out to scrap together

some meaning of life, and we say no. You aren’t good. And you never will be.

And look at me. I’m white. I’m attending college. I am walking into their lives, into their

literal prison, by choice. To learn. I scream privilege. And I’m asking them to share themselves

with me in an incredibly invasive way, asking them to tell me how they view the world and have

them trust that I will listen, that I will try to understand, that I will do something with what they

say.

It sounds kind of funny reflecting on it now, but yeah, I was really nervous. I was scared

they wouldn’t accept me. Concerned they would laugh at my idea of struggle. Apprehensive that

they wouldn’t realize that I wanted to help or didn’t think I could. Afraid they would think I was

just some dumb girl with no idea about the realities of the world or any of the real darkness that

happens in it.

People don’t get it. They don’t consider prisons and prisoners and jail sentences in their

daily lives because they don’t have to. They don’t understand how incredibly unjust our justice

system is, and because we all aren’t out there, screaming at the higher ups to take a look at how

we treat our offenders, it’s not changing. Not fast enough anyways. There are other people to

help, other problems to fix, other ways to divert our attention away from those that we have said

don’t deserve a second look.

 Just….listen to a story. Read about a case. Think about if your family member or best

friend were in this situation with no way out. Interacting with prisoners is scary at first, but

what’s even scarier is the idea that some of the best people with the potential to make the most

positive influence on the world will never get to.

Validations from Prisoners Narrative

The Inside Out Program is a national program that began in 1995 with the help of Lori

Pompa, a professor in the Criminal Justice Department at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA.

It is an educational program that brings together college students with incarcerated students

inside a prison, jail or other correctional setting. Inside Out believes that higher education is

strengthened when it is made widely accessible and when it “allows participants to encounter

each other as equals, often across profound social barriers” (About Us, 2020). The mission

statement mentions that one of the main goals of Inside Out is to create opportunities for those

inside and out to have transformative learning experiences as well as allow for unique problem-

solving in areas of crime and justice and general social inequality and problems (About Us,

2020). I was lucky enough to take an Inside Out class in Fall of 2018 in Oregon’s maximum

security prison: Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem.

It’s tough to sum up my experience with and reaction to Inside Out into one monologue,

but I’ve had a lot of practice answering questions like “what was it like?”, “what did you even

learn about?”, “were you actually with convicted criminals?”, and the ever-present, “were you

scared?”, to which I respond with this monologue.

 Our class was centered around the topics of evaluating current public policy in relation to

crime and delinquency as well as coming up with our own responses to preventing delinquency

and bringing awareness to the prison population as a whole. The guys inside were particularly

concerned with the programs they had spent time working on in which they held workshops and

panels for at-risk youth to educate them and help them identify the best practices in moving

forward towards a conforming and productive lifestyle. The guys, though more than willing to

share their life experiences with us, were unwilling to do so with the children they interacted

with, because they knew from their experiences as “delinquent youths,” that they were now the

role models that would be inadvertently promoting a message that crime was cool. The kids

would look at them and say, “hey, this guy turned out alright and he committed crimes in the

past, why can’t I?”

Going to class each week was an event. All ten of us (including Michelle) had to drive to

Salem - a full forty-five minutes away - but left about two hours or so before class started

because of the lengthy procedures we had to follow to get access to our classroom, involving

metal detectors, lining up in alphabetical order and affirming our pre-screened names with a

guard, exchanging IDs for badges, then getting buzzed through several mechanized barred gates

and climbing to the top floor of the building to set up some folding chairs in the small classroom

allocated for our evening. Once in class, chatting with the guys about how their weeks had been

before settling into whatever topic we were diving into that day, it was easy to forget our

environment and the different paths that lead us there. We were just connecting as people with

the desire to learn and the drive to change. However, we were harshly reminded of the institution

we hung out in at the end of the night, again marching in order back through the prison, buzzing

and badges and bars galore.

 The history of the prison is an interesting one that is inextricably tied to a long history of

racism and oppression. In 1718, the passing of the Transportation Act allowed British offenders

to be shipped to America and work off their sentences through manual labor, the first real

example of prison labor (Barnes, 1921). Throughout the 1700s, the concept of “prison” involved

intense work and a less-than-human treatment of incarcerated individuals, echoed by the

invention of the word “penitentiary” by John Howard, revealing the intention of prisons as places

to force penitence on their occupants (Barnes, 1921).

The realization that a person’s environment often shapes their lives is not a new one, and

people began to recognize the problematic nature of forced prison labor. Talk of reform took off

by the end of the 1770s, and was catalyzed by the American Revolution, which involved

reducing the amount of crime one could be punished for. In the 1870s, the development of the

National Prison Congress concretely defined their view of what the purpose of the prison system

is: “’The central aim of a true prison system is the protection of society against crime, not the

punishment of the criminals’” (Edge, 2009, pg. 16). Delegates were able to establish a sentencing

method called indeterminate sentencing, where judges were able to dictate minimum and

maximum sentences for convicts, and good behavior, along with the consultation of parole

boards and prison guards, would actually determine the release date (Barnes, 1921).

It is clear that we have aggressively strayed from these ideals, instead rooting for harsher

sentences, longer incarceration times, and a significant distaste for early release (Morris and

Rothman, 1998). The United States is currently home to 5% of the world’s population, but 25%

of the world’s prison population. We have the highest rate of incarceration in the world. When

the thirteenth amendment was passed to abolish slavery, the loophole that we kept in place was

that slavery was indeed illegal, “except as a punishment for crime”, allowing power figures to
use it however they deemed fit (13 , 2016). This came at the price of African American freedom,
th

and the first prison boom in America came quickly after the Civil War as incarcerated black

labor was used to rebuild the southern economy. In order to justify this mass targeting of

individuals, depictions of black people were animalistic and always included some form of

criminal narrative. Lynching and executions were plentiful and the Klu Klux Klan rose to power,

and segregation ensured that there were tangible and legal determinants between “us” and

“them”. This is really where the country’s fascination with crime and punishment began, the fear

of the monsters they’d created themselves encouraging slogans like “justice delayed is justice

denied,” allowing the continuation and perpetration of what, by the time the 1970s rolled around,

we can now identify as a wave of mass incarceration.

With Ronald Regan’s election came the infamous War on Drugs, a movement that

sparked a universal excessive arrest and charging reaction to drug crimes that continues even

today. Thousands were incarcerated for lower level drug offenses, and the scapegoat continued

to fall on the black Americans, whose association with drugs made them easier to vilify and

continually incarcerate. This resulted in the first form of mandatory sentencing, in which crack

cocaine sentencing was harsher than cocaine, the white drug of choice. The continued speech and

conversation surrounding these “superpredators'' and drug criminals only perpetuated the fear of

crime, and the public completely bought into it. As the Netflix documentary 13 puts it, “when
th

you make people afraid, that always justifies putting them in the trash can” (13th, 2016), a

mindset that has undoubtedly driven the support of tough on crime penalties and the eventual

lack of consideration of incarcerated populations today.

Furthermore, prison is often used in place of mental health care, especially for those with

addiction problems, resulting in an overall deinstitutionalization of mental health care facilities.

It is estimated that anywhere from 14 - 26% of incarcerated individuals suffer from mental

illness, yet there is an extreme lack of accessibility for medication and therapeutic care within

prisons (Frank, 1998).

Having this history in the back of my mind was infuriating as I befriended these

wonderful individuals who, yes, had made mistakes and committed crimes, but had worked and

were still working to be better, but our country had decided long ago that rehabilitation either

wasn’t possible or wasn’t a priority, and never looked back.

Seeing as how I first engaged in understanding criminal policy in England, I took a

notable interest in the way countries around the world were operating their prisons. The general

consensus around the world is the very notion that we vehemently reject: rehabilitation is and

should be the primary goal of restricting someone’s freedom. Norway and Finland are primary

examples of this mindset. Baz Dreisinger, author and researcher, took it upon herself to travel the

world’s prisons and document her findings in her novel, “Incarcerated Nations: a Journey to

Justice in Prisons Around the World”. When touring prisons in Norway, the governor she spoke

to casually commented on American prison systems: “Treat people like dirt and they will be dirt.

Treat them like human beings and they will act like human beings” (Dreisinger, 2018).

This is reflected in the system they have established, commonly referred to as an IKEA

prison by those on the inside as well as the surrounding community. Incarcerated individuals in

Norway live in shared units without uniforms and bars, equipped with nice furniture, gyms, a

climbing wall, opportunities for artistic outlets, a library, and a variety of health services and

drug treatment options. And upon release, there is no stigma. The assumption amongst society is

that reformation has occurred and that they are ready for a second chance at life (Dreisinger,

2018). This may seem lax, but the 20% Norwegian recidivism rate compared to the 76.6%
recidivism rate of the United States proves Norwegians may be onto something. Their view is

that the restriction of freedom is enough of a punishment, and that when the focus is on

rehabilitation with prisoners knowing that they will eventually be released - there is very, very

little life sentencing that occurs - they are more inclined to use that time to work on themselves

in a positive and productive way (Sterbenz, 2014).

Finland has introduced the concept of an “open prison”, which is the final step before a

full reintegration into society. Prisoners essentially roam freely in a confined community in

which they work, pay rent, go grocery shopping, and live their everyday life relatively

unrestricted with the opportunity for several vacation days to visit their family on the outside.

This idea was developed in the 1930s as a response to research conducted about the inefficiency

of prisons, research that the United States is just now starting to catch onto (Bichell, 2015).

Knowing that we are potentially decades away from integrating concepts and institutions

like this into our own country’s system but having direct interaction with those who could

benefit greatly from it is heartbreaking. But the way they keep their heads up and push harder to

inject meaning into their lives because they believe they can is inspiring. It’s a strange mix of

emotion that is hard to put into words.

Taking a class inside a maximum-security prison with convicted criminals, most of

whom are locked away for life or close to it, is clearly an experience unlike any other, and one I

will never forget and never get tired of talking about. I met and became close with many of the

guys I met on the inside, learned their stories, their personalities, their goals and ambitions, and

they learned mine. We related to each other in a way I never imagined possible for two sets of

people from completely different circumstances and situations and with so many different paths
in life ahead of us. We were all connected in the sense that we knew there was something about

our justice system that was broken and we all had an ache to do something about it.

Conclusion

As I composed this project and up through my defense, I was asked about why I chose to

present my work, my experiences, and my research in the way that I did. Why did I decide to

write monologues in lieu of say, a research paper, a collection of interviews, a one act play, etc.?

First and foremost, these experiences I have had needed to be shared in a personal and emotional

way, and allow for testimony, both from myself and from those I met, so I decided to embrace

the skills I have been honing from my English and Theatre majors and present everything I have

done and learned in a creative way.

Theatre’s primary goal, as I have been learning over the past four years, is to tell stories

and to do so in a way that unites people from all different walks of life. What I have been

experiencing are a collection of stories unlike any other. A collection of interviews presents a

snapshot of a conversation without commentary and does not allow the agency to inject emotion

and emphasis the way creative writing does. A one act play demands unity and a cohesive story

with a single focus. Neither of these things encapsulates what I have seen and heard over the past

four years.

A collection of monologues allows a series of disjointed, unrelated, yet completely

intertwined stories and voices to be heard. It allows each individual person and experience to

occupy the entire space they are given to share their perspective and their message without

having to relate in some way to another. Monologues are inherently performative, and having

actors read them to a camera to present at my defense allowed for the genuine emotion and
stakes that makes people care about these stories to shine through. I asked people to keep in mind

that these monologues, though they were well-read and genuine, were not memorized for the

purpose of reminding everyone that these are the stories and experiences of others and that they

are the ones getting the chance to speak through another’s performance.

Moving forward, I am pursuing an acting career, but this project is dear to my heart and I

do not expect to let it go anytime soon. I plan to engage in as many opportunities as possible to

work with and for the incarcerated population and share their stories in whatever way I can.

Perhaps I will write more monologues, perhaps I will find advocacy in another way. I hope to

bring theatre and acting into prisons and use it as a method of healing and conversation starting

for those on the inside. And as for this specific collection, I hope to make it accessible to those

who are willing to hear it in some way. Whether it’s a piece of social justice theatre with injected

commentary and context surrounding each monologue, whether it’s a web series that I can

continually add to and speak through, whether they become circulated in the world of auditions

and monologue competitions, I want them to be heard by more people because we have a long

way to go in terms of getting voices heard and making changes happen.

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