Editor’s Note: Absence of Light is a project created in collaboration with incarcerated people at Auburn Correctional Facility in Auburn, New York.

Everything, and I do mean everything, I’ve learned in life is from someone and something, whether it be from another human, periodicals, television or my own self. I’ve learned what to expect in life based on my decisions. Even if, ultimately, I end up being wrong, or an outcome differs from a plan that I swear I had figured out. It all enables me to fathom every possibility. The information that I have accumulated, and am still accumulating, is a staple of my ability to adapt to anything.

Now, adapting to “anything” does not mean that I adapted maturely. I wish I could go back in time and change a lot of things. Not situations, specifically, but the handling of said situations. But, hey, we live and we learn. But one thing I was never privy to learn was how to live in captivity. Nothing in life prepared me for such a way of living. No television, periodical or human interaction ever taught me how to live in constant confinement.

Let’s backtrack for a second. We, as humans, are so tolerant of a great number of things that we can understand. Even if only a little bit. The misunderstood tend to get the short end of the stick. The misunderstood get overlooked or mistreated. 

A great percentage of corrections staff are not regarded with the utmost respect because of who they are. Directly and indirectly, it is lost on so many of those that come in contact with corrections staff. Whether it be a prisoner or other corrections staff. Corrections staff are not what their employed titles are first. They are people first, not titles. Losing sight of that lessens that individual, no matter what position that individual holds. However, this is not a one-way street.

Corrections staff who only see an incarcerated person as anything other than a human being first will see that incarcerated person as “less than.” Ultimately treating them as such. An incarcerated person is not what they are in prison. They are a human being first. Wanting, looking, searching, hoping and yearning for the same things that the majority of all humans on this planet are wanting, looking, searching, hoping and yearning for.

The prison system is in itself a gated community. So to speak. A community that does not teach the importance of people but of titles. Being a certain race, color or creed is a title. A label. Other labels? Thief, murderer and all the other titles someone is immediately labeled as when convicted of an infraction against the law. 

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More columns from Absence of Light:

• COVID-19, a Capitol breach and shifting power: A look at 31 days imprisoned
• Absence of Light: Bubbles
• Absence of Light: Happiness and suffering

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Again, everything that I have learned I have learned from someone and something. With the lack of respect for others so rampant in the penitentiary, in this gated community, prison reform is an uphill battle. A battle that requires attention. The more attention we pay to what and who’s around us, the more successful prison reform will be. The more society pays attention to this gated community, the more this gated community will become successful.

We all have a job to do.

Henry Holifield is a Syracuse resident currently incarcerated at Auburn Correctional Facility in Auburn, New York. He is serving a life sentence.

Published on February 14, 2021 at 10:55 pm