What Will Freedom Bring?

by Michael Santos

categories: Prisoner Perspective, prisoner reentry

Published July 21, 2009 @ 05:34AM PT

By devoting the majority of each day to writing or thinking, I sacrifice time I would otherwise spend reading. I wake every morning between three and four, gather paper, pens, my dictionary, and journal from my locker, then walk to a room where I sit at a Formica-topped table in solitude. I am alone for these first few hours of each morning, and I feel grateful for the silence. I hear the ventilation system’s forced air, but no loud voices or blaring televisions. I welcome the gift of these peaceful hours, as few prisoners ever find such space.

I serve these final months or years of my sentence at the minimum-security prison camp in Taft, California, about 30 miles southwest of Bakersfield. Administrators of the Bureau of Prisons transferred me to Taft Camp in June of 2007, after I had concluded two years at Lompoc’s prison camp. Before Lompoc, I served 18 months in the prison camp at Florence, Colorado. For the 17 years before my transfer to Florence camp, I was locked in various U.S. Penitentiaries and Federal Correctional Institutions across the United States.

I have been a prisoner for so long that I cannot really contemplate what liberty means. The time approaches when I will walk out of prison boundaries, I know. My release date is scheduled for August of 2013, though halfway house placement, parole eligibility, and possible relief through prison reform could mean I return to society even sooner. But what does that mean?

I am 45-years-old now and in August I begin my 23rd consecutive year of imprisonment, meaning I’ve served nearly half of my life as a prisoner. More than six years ago, I married Carole, a magnificently beautiful woman; though we’ve never shared more physical intimacy than the all-too-brief kisses we taste under bright lights and vigilant eyes of guards in prison visiting rooms. As I sit in this quiet room surrounded by white concrete walls, at 3:45 on a Tuesday morning, I wonder how life will change upon my release.

My daily schedule in prison has evolved with the passage of decades. A kind of avoidance mode carries me through this final stretch, as I need all the space I can find for silent contemplation. Each afternoon, between 5:00 and 5:30, I lie atop a mat stretched across the steel rack assigned as my bunk. I read. First a few pages from the Bible, a prayer of gratitude for my blessings, then I flip through a news magazine, and finally, I read a few pages from a nonfiction book. By 6:30 I’m asleep. I don’t expect Carole will put up with such early nights when I am home. When I am home, however, I will not have to wake before 4:00 each morning to avoid the madness of living amidst crowds of strangers. Between 6:00 and 7:00 each morning, I put my writing gear away to begin a two-hour exercise routine. Although I have exercised regularly throughout my prison odyssey, last December I made a personal commitment of exercising every day until my release. It is as much a matter of will as a commitment to fitness, and I do not allow outside forces like weather or internal aches or pains to interfere. I begin with a 10-mile run, then strength train with pushups on most days. For the past few months I haven’t listened to the radio, and I always exercise alone, preferring the sounds of my steps crunching against the earth to the chatter of others. In the real world, I’ll need to relax these obsessions.

As a prisoner, I have been conditioned to expect the institution to issue my clothing, assign me a place to sleep and work, structure my day, and to provide the food I can eat. Since rules limit my access to telephone and visits, other than through writing, my only contact with the world outside these boundaries is my wife.
I have not touched the steering wheel of a vehicle since 1987, and wonder how I will navigate my way through traffic. I do not earn an income, though since I know release is coming, I constantly fret about how I will pay bills, obtain insurance, provide for my wife, and prepare for retirement.

I doubt that such worries torment other people my age. I suppose I’m institutionalized. This life of acceptance, obsession, and anxiety has become normal for me. What will freedom bring?

[Photo above: By Jenn Ackerman, via Prison Photography Blog]