The Weight of Labels

  

(Left to Right) Sr.Mavis, Sr.Mary Sean, Me, and Lucy at Corcoran

 The first few days of June took us to California State Prison, Corcoran, and California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison(SATF); both days were unbearably hot. The kind of heat that settles into your skin and exhausts you before the day even begins. Yet despite the heat, dozens of men still chose to show up for our workshops.

At Corcoran, we facilitated a workshop out on the yard in what was formerly the SHU, the Security Housing Unit, a place once associated with isolation and punishment, now repurposed into what many call a self-help university. There was something symbolic about that transformation. A place once designed to isolate men is now being used for reflection, accountability, and growth.

    More than fifty men sat outside in the beating sun participating in our workshop. Watching them commit to that experience reminded me that accountability is not passive. Choosing to acknowledge harm, own it, and work toward repairing it requires effort, discomfort, and vulnerability.

But this visit also challenged me differently.

For the first time during these prison visits, I encountered men who openly acknowledged their criminality yet seemed unwilling to believe they could truly change. One man shared that he was scheduled for release in July. Sister asked him if he thought he would return to prison, and he responded, “I can’t make any promises.”

His answer stayed with me.

    At first, part of me felt frustrated. Why come to these workshops if you do not believe in change? But the more I sat with his response, the more I realized something deeper: maybe he genuinely could not imagine a different future for himself. Maybe prison had become more familiar to him than freedom. Maybe hopelessness had settled into him so deeply that uncertainty felt more honest than hope.

And still, he showed up.

Even if attendance was encouraged or expected, he was there. Sitting in the heat. Listening. Participating. Part of me thinks that matters too.

Us at SATF
The next day at SATF felt entirely different. From the moment we arrived, there was tension. The chaplain coordinating the workshop spoke to us with hostility and constantly spoke about the incarcerated men in ways that felt degrading, almost as if he wanted us to fear them before even meeting them. It reminded me how easily systems can strip people of their humanity through language alone.

While there, I met a man who is condemned, meaning he was sentenced to death by the state. After the closure of death row at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, he was transferred to the general population at SATF. But surprisingly, he told me he preferred being on death row.

He said he could not stand hearing men on the yard complain about being denied parole when, in his words, his fate was already sealed. He missed his old cell at San Quentin because it overlooked the bay. He told me he would sit there for hours thinking while looking at the water.

There was something deeply unsettling about hearing someone speak about death row almost nostalgically.

As we talked more, I began thinking about the labels people carry and eventually internalize. He mentioned that during one of his trials, someone from the defense described him as “a jungle boy raised in the jungle.” I could not stop thinking about that phrase afterward. What happens when a person hears versions of themselves described as savage, broken, irredeemable, or dangerous enough times? At what point do they stop imagining another identity for themselves?

He spoke as if he had already accepted that this world no longer belonged to him. He has placed all of his trust in God, but he also expressed no real desire to return to life outside prison walls. It felt less like peace and more like surrender.

These visits forced me to confront something difficult: rehabilitation is not only about programs, workshops, or opportunities. Sometimes the hardest thing to undo is the story a person has already accepted about themselves.

And once someone truly believes they are beyond redemption, how do they begin imagining freedom again?