A BOOK ON U.S. APPLICABLE LAW
Deacon San Nguyen
PRISONERS: LOVE OR HATE?
When talking about prisoners, many of us have prejudice against them. Some people are afraid to come near former prisoners because they think that prisoners are the worst class of citizens in a society and may be dangerous to the society. Generally, that opinion is neither totally wrong nor completely right because there are many different causes that put somebody in jail. For instance:
- A husband accidentally kills his wife and her boy friend in anger. In this case, the murder is not a threat to community.
- A murder plots to kill somebody to take over his or her property. In this case, the murder is a real danger to the society. He will continue to kill until he is arrested by law enforcement.
- South Vietnamese officers and officials were sent to jail after 1975. This case was totally different with others. In my opinion, instead of blaming the prisoners, we need to salute them due to their sacrifice to their own country.
On the anniversary of 17th year as a Chaplain of Prison and 30th year as a Deacon, I would like to share with you some of my experience on communicating with prisoners. Generally, the prisoners whom I observed were of all ethnics consisted of 90% Americans and 10% of all others in State and Federal level.
I still remembered the first day when the Oklahoma Archbishop called on me and appointed me as the Chaplain for Catholic Diocese of Oklahoma, I wondered how long I could perform this job before running away because I was always scared of criminals. My idea at that time was all prisoners were deserved with what they committed. I wished that all of them be living far away from community and then be dead in some remote areas so that honest people could live in peace.
However, after a year working with prisoners, my prejudice was completely gone. I felt that prisoners had to be pitied more than be hated. Most of them were victims of the society where they lived in.
Only a small number of felons were very dangerous and malicious like wild beasts. Those were not human- beings anymore. It was necessary to keep them away form the society in maximum security jails until they died.
Nowadays, in most States, there are Town Jail, City Jail, and County Jail. Normally, if a suspect is kept in City Jail for 3 days but the District Attorney finds not enough evidence to prosecute him at Court, the suspect must be released immediately. If there is enough proof to prosecute, the suspect must be transferred to county jail. Therefore, County Jail is crowded with all kinds of felons and criminals.
At the present time, I have worked at a prison where 2400 prisoners are estimated. Among them, there are 400 females, more than 200 Mexicans, and 15 Vietnamese. Because the screening process is not completely done, the security system here is very tight. Even with Lawyers, Priests, Pastors, nobody can visit prisoners freely. They are allowed to communicate with prisoners through glass windows for 30 minutes max.
In spite of that, we Chaplains can see prisoners face by face, but one at a time. Due to those visits in private room, prisoners feel that they can share their spiritual burdens with me much more easily than with others. Therefore, I realize that 80% of them are abandoned by their parents. Most of prisoners’ parents marry and remarried 2, 3 times. The parents already had had their own children from their first or second marriages, and now, they have had common children from the current marriage. That is why there is no love among them. Step fathers or step mothers often beat the young children very hard. They unintentionally pushed the children to crimes. After dropping from school, the children become thieves, gangs, or peddlers who sell drug or marijuana. Some teenagers kill or rape somebody to revenge their parents’ brutality.
First Story: A Rapist
Bill, 32 years old, a rapist with a sentence of 20 years in jail.
When Bill was 5 years old, he saw his mother having affairs with many men. Whenever Bill’s father went away for work, usually one or two-week time, his mother took her boyfriends home (different man at different time) and had sex with them. To keep Bill’s mouth shut, his mother gave him money to buy some candies. The images of his mother having affairs with several men gave Bill biased opinions on women. When Bill turned 18, he had a girlfriend. The couple planned to marry each other when they graduate from college. One day, when Bill’s class was canceled because of his teacher’s illness, Bill happily drove to his girlfriend’s apartment with the intention to surprise his fiancé. Having a key to the apartment himself, Bill opened the door and unexpectedly saw his fiancé in bed making love with one of his closest friends! Being traumatized with such bad experiences by his mother’s and his girlfriend’s actions, Bill became a woman-hater. He promised to himself that every year, he had to rape at least one girl or one woman. After a long time doing this, Bill was arrested.
Knowing Bill’s unfortunate life, I visited him and counseled him with all my might. Bill then saw through his life and realized his sins that came from his avenged soul that was full of hatred and intention to harm other innocent people, he had confession and communion weekly before transferring to a state prison to serve his 20-year sentence.
Second Story: Lacking of Parent’s Conscience
Bob, 60, and Mary, 58, married each other, each had a son of their own. The sons also married and lived in different states with their parents. Bob’s son and his wife lived in Kansas. Mary’s son and his wife lived in Colorado. The children were doing fine but the parents were in a bad shape: Bob and Mary were addicted to cocaine. They sold cocaine to support their habits. One day, a coincidence happened. Bob’s son and Mary’s son took their wives to visit their parents on the same day. When the sons called on their parents, they knew that Bob and Mary did not want to see their sons at home but at a motel. All of them were surprised but they came anyway.
At first, they were very happy to see each other. After about 2 hours of catching up and sharing some laughs, suddenly, there was a knock at the door. When Bob answered to the door, four police officers burst into the room. They searched every corner and found a volume of cocaine and marijuana hidden in the room. Immediately, all six people were arrested. Although the sons and their wives knew nothing about this illegal stuff, they were put in jai without bail.
The strangest thing happened when the parents refused to confirm that their children just visited them without any knowledge of their parents’ illegal stuff. Both Bob and Mary kept silent when being asked about the presence of their children! The parents wanted to have their children to be in jail with them, too! Realizing that this situation would harm the two young and honest couples, I tried to convince Bob and Mary to report that their sons were accidentally being at the scene, but both kept refusing doing so. They intended to say that all of them were involved in this matter because they believed that “more accomplices, less jail”. That was why they wanted to draw both sons’ families going down at the same time so that they would receive a light sentence!
I had no choice besides telling the sons about their parents’ fault. Knowing the truth, the sons got very angry about their parents’ bad attitudes. One of them roared and promised that if he had a gun now, he would kill his parents without hesitation. Another issue that made them angrier and angrier was that the bail bonds were so high and nobody could afford it. They had to stay in jail and wait for the trial at Court. Nearly 8 months later, the Judge found that two young couples were innocent and released them immediately. Bob and Mary received 40 years time for each.
A strange thing happened. About two months later, I accidentally met the sons who visited their parents in jail. They already forgot what they said the other day about their wish that was to kill their parents. Anyway, they still remembered the good old days when they parents were not drug addicts. The sons still loved their parents somehow. “People could have many wives,” they said, “but only one mother.”
In this story, we realized that even parents could do harm to their children if they were addicted to cocaine. Drugs destroyed critical thinking. It also kills abilities to make sense in life. I really hoped that this was the rarest case in which a parent had intention to harm their innocent children.
Third Story: Murdering a Mother
A felon told me that he was addicted to drug since he was young. His mother knew that but was unable to stop him from the start. Gradually, the young man became a serious addict. He could not think clearly. When the time for a smoke came, the man felt everything upside down. He could not recognize his mother as the person who raised him through her hard-working but a denial. When he insisted to have some money to buy drug for his smoking habit, his mother strongly refused him. At a push for a smoke, the man swung to his mother and killed her without thinking. Now he regretted that moment very much. He wished that he could be dead instead of his mother. But it was too late.
