Why Prisons Aren’t Correcting

Anyone

BY KEVIN COCKMAN
Prisons are not built, designed or run with “correcting” in mind. Prisons aren’t correcting
anyone. These places are put here to destroy hope, break the spirit of individuality, demean,
debase, and strip a person of his dignity. Prisons are the world’s incubators of hate and evil. This
is the daily battle I have to fight while attempting to grow enough mentally that maybe I will not
bring myself back to this insanity again.
I do not blame my childhood for being incarcerated. I can say with all truthfulness that my drug
use is what eventually led me here. Take away the drugs — and criminal behavior (excluding
traffic violations) goes away.
Some people will think that putting somebody like me in here is a solution. “Sober him up for a
few years and he is good to go.” There is an apt old saying, “Sober up a drunk horse thief and
what do you have? A sober horse thief.”
Locking people up with addictions and mental health issues is not taking an honest look or
approach to a societal problem. Here I am, a meth addict in prison. Locked up with other addicts,
dealers, thieves and drug manufacturers. We spend 12-16 hours a day interacting with each
other, discussing drugs and talking “the game” (street slang for a criminal lifestyle) and sharing
how to do things without getting caught the next time. And dreaming about making the next big
score.
I have learned to avoid this by staying to myself and being extremely selective about whom I
choose to be around.
Now let’s start adding in some of the “stressors” in prison, such as having to watch everything
you say, because some overly sensitive dumb ass is going to take offense and try to assault you,
threaten you, or “punk you” out. Another stressor: the mental health patients who are not on
their meds, or, are on any psych meds they can get a hold of, for a high. Additionally, you have
the undercover gang bangers. These are not prison gang members, but the street gang members
that the gang unit does not recognize as a security threat. This is not only in your living area, it is
everywhere you go.
Then come the folks who are employed here. Imagine your boss coming into your home, cursing
you, and you can’t reply without negative consequences. This person randomly comes into your
space and tosses all your property around, often taking it, throwing away your mail, denying you
food because they don’t like the way you shaved that morning. Only being allowed to sleep for
3-4 hours at a time before someone wakes you up. Having overhead florescent lighting being
turned on and off at different times every night during your sleep time. Having the people in
“authority” bragging about taking more psych meds than the mental patients you live with.
Maybe I am too dense to realize where the “corrections” is in this scenario.
This is a typical day in this place. Now do this for years on end — with only a chance of getting
released, decided by a few people you will not get to talk to — and tell me you won’t start to
develop some “issues” with authority.
I am coming up on my fifth parole review in the next 60 days or so. The time I spent in my first
four totaled less than 10-12 minutescombined. In those four parole reviews, I have seen
three differentparole officers. (And I hear we have a new one this year.) I am not holding my
breath this time around, either.
Yes that is the sound of my hope dying, a little every year.
Kevin Cockman is serving 20 years in Texas for Burglary.