Prisoners and their families must live with this. In order for you to help them you have to know what these realities are, and what they can mean. An example of this I would like to share with you was the poor decision I made when I went unlawfully at large from Stony Mountain penitentiary while out on a temporary absence, on my brothers' birthday. I felt I was dying a little bit every day inside Stony Mountain Penitentiary. Discouragement is one of mankind's worst ills.
Despair is something any person inside a penitentiary can just taste in the air.
One of the saddest things that I kind of hold in my mind is watching the young people and old alike walking into what I felt were predictable nowhere futures, coming back, going out, coming back, going out. I know that love and trust can grow relationships with prisoners and their families. It has grown with me and my family while I was in prison. I want to be frank with everybody and say it just like it is. If I'm a young man in a North American prison today coming into the joint, the first thing I'm going to notice is people that are the hustlers.