An Obstructed View

I used to see the mountain vistas outside my barred window. I'd often stare at the staid majestic peaks here in the Catskills as I contemplated my own life's hills and valleys.  But now the view is obstructed by more steel structures designed to cage the current generation of young men who misguidedly seek quick ascent into acceptance, manhood, and currency in an increasingly material world. Those of us here were all caught in cleverly laid traps and snares of our own poorly curated ideas of who we think we should be in this American Dream.

My observations are not the conclusions of preemptive assessments or wise predictions, but of my own poorly lived experiences. This place, Greene Correctional Facility, sits just across the street from Coxsackie Correctional Facility, where I began my sojourns as a prisoner almost a half a century ago. It's been a decade and a half since I've been at liberty.  For me, it's been these obstructed sight lines that have provided perspective and understanding about so much.  Perspective is, after all, everything.

In recognition of my earlier views and actions, I now see life through the lens of consequence, submission, and conformity to the defeats of the past, and expectations of a better future.  But submission and my attendant conformity do not broker full equity for my compliance now.  I still suffer the consequences of my past. But it is my gratitude for each waking day that allows me to move humbly and purposefully forward. What is most difficult to bear is watching those who have come this way after me repeat the sins of their fathers in ways that are compounded by the demands of 21st-century currency.

The young men here represent American subculture writ large. Although Black and Brown people predominate, poor Whites articulate much of the same cultural expression, preference, and pathology as do their counterparts of color, making race and class a much more nuanced sociological proposition than partisan talking points would have one believe. Taking this into consideration, I am reminded to see an individual's humanity first, before all other considerations. Seeing the other’s humanity is the starting point to the resolution of our differences; this is a proposition that propels the opinions herein forward. If everyone's humanity is valuable, the carceral experience must help mediate the sub-cultural inequities and treat the pathology holistically.

As I have previously stated, one's lived experience shapes opinion. COVID and George Floyd engendered a reset of what Americans previously thought to be societal norms around who and what we are committed to and how we execute those priorities, our national Rules-Based Order, so to speak. In 2025, New York's carceral system saw its own communal upheavals like those of George Floyd and COVID. The murder by corrections officers of Robert Brooks and the correction officers’ strike that followed shortly thereafter caused stakeholders to rethink the praxis of corrections. Although Commissioner Martuscello and his administration are honestly--I believe--pursuing a more just and humane carceral system here in New York, a localized cultural buy-in is necessary to facilitate change facility by facility. Cultural animus and ignorance is a serious impediment for both staff and the incarcerated.

For the incarcerated, that rules-based order was and is the adversarial system, lopsided and favoring those with authority and agency, just like we see in our court system. Deterrence and punishment, with an emphasis on punishment (I.e., force and violence) has always been the primary operational solution, traumatizing and making worse the person sent away for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation and the opportunities under its umbrella are significant, but it isn't the lack of willingness to change on the part of its participants that generates recidivism in unsatisfactorily high numbers.  It is the adversarial culture that traumatizes and hardens human beings who are designed to use whatever coping mechanisms are necessary to survive.  

The people who staff prisons come from cultural backgrounds that are suburban and rural.  Communities north and west of New York City vote republican in larger numbers and are supportive of retributive criminal legal system policies. Demographically, correction staff are predominantly white in facilities north and west of New York City. This, in and of itself, does not make for bad human beings; it is strongly suggestive of entrenched cultural values that are resistant to progressive ideals and holistic rehabilitative practices that include educational and therapeutic practices outside the box.

The system is short on comprehensive mental health treatment beyond psychotropics that serves more as a management tool. Restorative justice programs are needed to broker healing and accountability. Innovation is necessary. Prisoners have to mean more than numbers to qualify for state and federal monies

The above only brushes the surface of what is needed to return productive citizens to their respective communities. But if nothing changes, then nothing changes. All the parties involved deserve more than cages for all the blood and treasure spent.

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Reginald Stephens is a 64-year-old African-American incarcerated in New York who has served 14 years of a 16 Year-to-life sentence. Reginald is a college graduate and spends his spare time tutoring and mentoring men similarly situated. Reginald has written extensively for the Prison Journalism Project, as well as writing fiction and poetry. Reginald is an advocate for prison reform and social justice, and looks forward to returning to the community and working for community service organizations.