We’ve all heard the phrase “hindsight is 20/20.” It’s never been truer or more poignant than in these letters, written by prison inmates to their younger selves.
As part of photographer Trent Bell‘s project called REFLECT: Convicts’ Letters to Their Younger Selves, 12 prisoners at a Maine correctional facility were asked to write letters to themselves, as well as sit for a portrait session. The resulting images — photographs of the inmates’ superimposed with their scrawling handwritten notes — are nothing short of heart-wrenching. From tales of regret to inspired pieces of advice to the realities of life behind bars, these men open up in ways that anyone can appreciate, and their words will make you think hard about your own life.
“In reading most of the letters I found myself feeling surprisingly similar to these men,” Bell told Fast Company. “But I also realized that either their situations were different than mine or that they had made incremental decisions that led them to these situations. The whole experience really made me look at my own life and reflect on why I’m ‘me.’”
MORE: How a Second Chance Can Benefit Prisoners and Taxpayers
About a year ago, Bell, who is mostly known for his architectural images, was shocked to find out that a close friend of his had been sentenced to 36 years in jail. This friend was a professional, husband and father of four. The man was someone who never thought he would find himself behind bars. For months, Bell says he was haunted by the reality that just one bad decision can change a life forever. He kept thinking that it could have been him. “There were times when my son would look up and smile at me, and the finality of my friend’s situation would rush into my head,” he wrote on his website. From this, the idea of REFLECT was born.
ALSO: Meet the Venture Capitalist Who Is Investing in Redemption
At first, Bell intended for REFLECT to be solely a photography project, but then he and his team realized that it wouldn’t capture the prisoners’ emotions in the same way. Of all the inmates they approached, only 12 agreed to be included in the project. The final images, which debuted at the Engine Gallery in Biddeford, Maine, in January, are powerful in their simplicity. But really, it’s the inmates’ words that truly move their viewers. “Our bad choices can contain untold loss, remorse, and regret,” Bell says. “But the positive value of these bad choices might be immeasurable if we can face them, admit to them, learn from them and find the strength to share.”
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Tag: prisoners
This Judge Figured Out How to Keep People Out of Prison by Treating Them Like His Own Children
Steven Alm, a felony trial judge in Honolulu, was fed up with the number of probationers who flouted the rules. If the people Alm saw in his courtroom continued to ignore their probation requirements, the only punishment was to send them back to jail, but only after many months and many incidents, so there were no immediate consequences to most of their violations. Alm told Megan Thompson of the PBS NewsHour, “I thought of the way I was raised, the way my wife and I would– were trying to raise our son. You tell him what the family rules are, and then, if there’s misbehavior, you do something immediately. Swift and certain is what’s gonna get people’s attention and help them tie together bad behavior with a consequence and learn from it.”
Judge Alm launched a new program, called HOPE, for Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement, that targets people at the highest risk for probation violations. Instead of taking drug tests at scheduled appointments, the participants can be tested at any time, with only a few hours notice. For each violation, the courts impose an immediate punishment, such as a few days in jail. This works better for deterrence than threats of larger punishments in the future. Judges also have the option to be lenient with punishments if the probationer is genuinely trying to change his or her ways.
The Department of Justice studied HOPE and learned that participants were 55% less likely to be arrested for new crimes as were people in regular probation programs. They ended up spending half as much time in jail, and were 72% less likely to use drugs. Keeping a probationer on HOPE for a year costs tax payers $1500, while a year in prison costs $46,000 in Hawaii. The results aren’t perfect—some note that this approach makes a lot of work for police officers and other criminal justice employees, and there have been a few participants in HOPE who have committed serious crimes. But Hawaii has decided HOPE is better than the alternative, and seventeen other states now implement probation programs like it.
MORE: A Dog Trained By A Prisoner Helps an Autistic Boy Learn to Hug His Mom Again
Meet the Venture Capitalist Who’s Investing in Redemption
Christopher Redlitz spends his life turning other people’s dreams into realities. Now Redlitz, a venture capitalist and cofounder of Transmedia Capital in San Francisco, is focusing his skills on helping a group that rarely gets a second chance: prison inmates. Through his nonprofit, The Last Mile, Redlitz and his partners select groups of qualified men and provide them with training in technology and entrepreneurship. Through six months of classes, participants learn everything from how to use social media to forming businesses and more, leading up to their very own Demo Day, where they present their business ideas to a select audience. The hope is that, upon their release, the men will have the confidence and skills to work in a paid internship program within the Silicon Valley technology sector, where they can gain real-life experience to aid in the transition from inmate to citizen. The program is already a success at San Quentin State Prison, and now it’s being implemented in an L.A. county jail, with others soon to follow.
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