My M-2 is All I Have

Prison is about control. Although the reality of the prison setting crowds in on a person, in one sense prison is an unreal place because it is so out of character with the mainstream of society. The roof over an inmate's head is not his own home. An inmate may refer to the cell as his "house, but just as often as a "cage." The clothes an inmate wears are provided by the prison, not something he had a choice about purchasing. The food an inmate eats was provided for with taxpayer money, not something that he had the privilege of choosing from a menu at a downtown restaurant or pulling from a refrigerator. With inmate property being limited to what fits in a small steel footlocker and a plastic crate, many inmates do not have enough property to fill even those storage containers. About half of the inmates are not working at a job "inside the walls."

Although commissary items may be purchased if a person has any funds in his commissary account, the wages paid for a 7-hour day at twenty-five cents an hour working in PI (prison industry), appealingly called Pheasantland Industries, don't stretch far when buying commissary items at near street prices. Many of the inmates who are not working have no funds in their commissary account and rely on friends or family to send in a few dollars a week so they can purchase some necessary items for hygiene or a candy bar or ice cream cup as a luxury snack.

In prison, a person is literally locked away from all that he held dear and dear beforehand. In addition to the food, shelter, and clothing not being his, many of one's acquaintances in prison are technically not of one's choosing. In other words, many inmates have nobody and nothing. What we take for granted "on the outside" is more than a luxury in prison, only something to be desired and dreamed about. Stars in the sky, a swim in the creek, the smell of lilacs and peonies in spring, sunrise, sunset, sitting at the movies, eating popcorn, and drinking pop, sitting on a swing with a friend in the moonlit, and many more typical things we partake of or partake in are only fading memories to someone incarcerated, being pushed further and further back in one's memory. As memories fade to the reality of prison, one wonders if it ever really happened.

During walk-through tours with M-2 sponsors, we continually hear the statement, "My M-2 is all I have." As M-2 friends "from the outside," you will never fully comprehend the depth of meaning that the statement has nor the depth of emotion that a prison inmate has when he says that. For someone who has nothing and no one to care, you literally are his lifeline of sanity, his beacon of hope, his light at the end of the tunnel, and his only reason for living. Although your effort to drive to the penitentiary whether weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly requires putting your personal interests aside for several hours, your act of kindness and caring are worth more than a powerful sermon. If it is true that "a picture is worth a thousand words," then your pleasant smile and warm handshake are worth at least a million words to someone locked in a setting that squeezes out love, because smiles are visible and handshakes are tangible evidence that you care

"Outsiders" cannot imagine what it does to one's mind to stare at bleak, blank walls hour after hour, year after year nor means to an inmate, who has neither been physically touched nor emotionally touched for a long time, to receive a greeting card from someone he does not know that says "I've been assigned as your M-2 friend." The anticipation that comes with such an announcement in incalculable. The uncertainty as to when that call will come over the loud speaker may cause an inmate to start counting days from when he received the card or letter in an effort to try to determine when he might be called to the Visit Room. The thrill of meeting a "real person" is impossible to put into words.