Diss. v.t. prison slang. To verbally dehumanize, disrespect, or otherwise devalue the life of a human being directly or by implication.
Summer, 1996, Miles City. The courtroom was quiet and stark. Two prisoners were brought in handcuffed and seated at the defendant bench. Present were some family members of these former students of mine previously convicted of murdering another young man over a confrontation at a bar.
The boys' defense attorney called me as a character witness at this sentencing at the request of the family, because they had been my students and because the boys' grandfather had been a close friend of mine. I saw tears of anguish that day from family members of both the perpetrators and the victim. Throughout the proceeding, the most important verdict became clear to me: no one was winning anything. These boys would never be free men. The young man they killed would not be resurrected.
Why did this happen? What destroyed human respect for another's life in these two young men? I remembered them as generally cooperative, sensitive, fearful, socially clumsy boys. They were diagnosed with fetal alcohol effect, which could explain a propensity toward criminal mentality. But I wanted a more useful explanation.
I did a little research. We in the U.S. kill and incarcerate each other far more than the rest of the world except where there is active civil warfare. A year later I stumbled onto something.
June, 1997, Boston. As tourists escorted by our children, we stopped in at one of many used bookstores so I could feed my addiction. My attention was drawn to Violence: Our Nation's Epidemic and its Causes, by James Gilligan, M.D. I bought it for $2. The book had come out 6 years before, the same month Willie Horton's release and murder rampage destroyed Dukakis' presidential campaign.
In 1970, suicide and murder rates in Massachusetts's prison system had skyrocketed higher than anywhere in the country. Gilligan was hired by the state to reform the prison system. In ten years, these rates were reduced to zero, and recidivism was drastically reduced. The book recounts Gilligan's research and methodology. It was his research that found the most common reason murder happens in prison, as spoken by the perpetrators, was simply that the victim "dissed" the perpetrator.
He then built a program to address the problems this phrase implies. It was a controversial program that emphasized rehabilitation and reform. The presidential campaign of the 80s with Willie Horton and Dukakis highlighting the "coddling criminals" mania was the end of Gilligan's research and credibility in the media. Massachusetts's politicians forgot his research-based system, though it continued to be reworked in academia.
Since then, we as a nation have slumped back into the Old Testament vengeance system God warned against even 2000 years ago (Romans 12.19).
Fall 1980, Kansas. A light came on in my brain that had been shut off in my childhood. Here in a parenting workshop was a list of common phrases used by parents or teachers in correcting children: "Can't you ever do it right?"—"You'll never amount to anything if you don't shape up"—"Why do you always. . . .?" etc.
I had no idea these phrases programmed children's minds to perceive themselves as inferior, disrespected or depreciated. I was raised in a good, God-fearing family. But I learned this negative language.
It was habitual, and at first I was defensive: our children knew they were loved. It didn't matter, so I thought. We two parents talked with our children for the first time about the meaning of my words. It did matter. I began to see how children's minds are either programmed to respect and expect respect from other humans or the reverse.
The way we treat our children can set them up to be respectful or disrespectful, and in the same way, the way we treat our prisoners can do the same.
The controversy in 2007 over Hardin's detention center was underlined by the phrase, "coddling criminals." Have you heard of the confusion between "tough on crime" and "tough on criminals"? It seems some of us think the one equals the other.
It's not that simple. In fact, making criminals suffer dehumanization, disrespect, and being devalued has proven counterproductive to the stated goal of crime reduction. Hardin's detention center program was set to address this reform.
I took the time then for research. The detention program put forth by CEC the company that had contracted to operate the jail, had an awesome record for cutting recidivism through a tough but respectfully human program to habilitate, educate, and reorient appropriately pliable young criminals for restoration to society. It could have turned a Montana prison away from schooling for crime and toward schooling for responsible citizenship. The record is one of true toughness on crime. Too bad we lost that program.
Here on the Back 40 I'm working on the weeds and the imbalance in the soils. Patience, experimentation, advice and dogged attention to scientific research is needed. It's taken years for me to make a dent in the weeds of my own language habits in my parenting and teaching. I found freedom in repetitive practice of simple positive phrases with my young students.
I'm still farming and learning. There's hope.
David Graber
Hardin, MT 59034
www.greenwoodfarmmt.org
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