Young Voices Change Prisoners' Perception of Crime
The inmates listened to the children’s sad, soft-spoken voices played on the small recorder in the middle of the room. The children expressed the pain they have suffered because of their parents’ imprisonment. “I wanted to die because they took my mother away,” said one young girl between heart wrenching sobs. “I want her to be with me.” When they spoke of their hopes for the future, nearly all said they wanted their father or mother to come back home. “I wish my family could be together,” said an 8-year-old-girl. “The prison for me is ugly,” said another, “the first time I went there I got scared.”
Though these inmates—all convicted of drug trafficking and participants in PF Bolivia’s first Sycamore Tree Project® (STP) in Oruro—were aware of the pain their separation had caused their family, few had connected it to their individual crimes. As sellers and users of drugs, they believed their offences were victimless and so felt no responsibility for their actions. Participation in the PF Sycamore Tree Project® taught these prisoners that there are in fact many victims of their crimes, starting with their own family.
In addition to playing PF interviews of prisoners’ young children during the STP sessions, the programme included another type of victim—the mother of a drug addict. A broken-hearted mother, named Marta, explained that her son’s long-time struggle with drug-addiction has adversely affected her entire family. She said the drugs have “destroyed the whole family,” and turned her other children against her son, who will often go missing for days and stay in a drugged state for hours at a time. Though her son recently completed an 8-month rehab programme, he continues to wrestle with his addiction. “Even if it is only a gram, it will end up in the hands of someone’s children, even your own children,” she warned the prisoners.
Her personal story and the plaintive voices of children of prisoners (all but one of the participants have children of their own), were especially effective at convincing the prisoners that their drug trafficking crimes were hardly victimless. The participants could now see “the end result rather than the positive, lucrative side of drug trafficking,” said Julie Noble, a PF Bolivia volunteer who facilitated the STP project in Oruro. “They may have been making quick money, but at what cost?”
In the sixth and final class of this STP session, the participating prisoners prepared a “symbolic act of restitution,” as the STP curriculum dictates. “The participants shared from the heart,” recalls Karen, PF Bolivia volunteer who worked with Julie on the project. One prisoner knitted a doll to remind her of the suffering that children of prisoners experience and she vowed not to let this happen to her children again. Other participants acted out skits and created drawings to illustrate the danger of drugs and the hope of the cross. One of the mothers in the session said she would never sell drugs again because she didn’t want her son to become involved with drugs.
One of the children interviewed by PF staff said, “I would like all the parents to be out of prison because their children are suffering too much.” Thanks to PF Bolivia’s STP sessions, there are eight prisoners who are more aware of such suffering and are less likely to re-offend. Building on the success of this programme, PF Bolivia will run their second STP programme in early 2009. Instead of targeting drug offenders, these sessions will focus on those convicted of murder and manslaughter.
