Doing What You Got To Do To Succeed After Prison: Can You Do It?

One icy cold day in January, a while back, I was waiting in a long line at the carwash with many other people trying to get the dirt and road salt off our rides after a recent snowstorm. The line was moving very slowly and when I finally got closer to the entrance, I could see why. There was only one black dude, about sixty, working the entrance. As well as being cold as hell that day, it was windy and with that water spraying around didn’t help. I wondered how he stayed out there all alone in the freezing weather to work at that car wash that day. The dude had to be cold and tired but went about his job like a hero. He handed each customer his or her ticket, vacuumed each car, steamed all four tires & rims, hit the hard-to-reach places with a long-handled brush, and then he hooked the tow chain under the front of the car and moved on to the next one, all the time being cordial and friendly toward each customer. I overheard a woman ask him how he could stand it out there and without breaking stride he said, “I’m just doing what I got to do, ma’am”
Just doing what I got to do. Those words stuck with me because so many times when asked why he did what he did to get locked up a guy will say, “I did what I had to do” – or words to that effect. As if selling drugs, or sticking up that store, or doing whatever he did to get busted again was his only option in life. Usually, “I did what I had to do” really means, “I did what I wanted to do”.
While sitting there in my ride with the heat turned up high and the music even higher, I thought to myself, there was a man doing what he had to do to get where he wanted to be. I even had to question whether I would be able to do what he was doing, to make a living. Would I have the guts to stand out there in freezing weather all day for the minimal pay the car wash offers? I tried to think of periods over the past twenty years when I could truly say I paid the price and overcame difficult times and circumstances in order to be successful.
My first job at the fiberglass-recycling factory in the winter of 1979 immediately came to mind. That had to be the worst job ever. Every day I would leave that factory in pain with millions of tiny sharp needle-like shards of fiberglass sticking in my clothing and skin. I would stand up on the bus ride home even though there were plenty of empty seats because sitting down would drive the needles deeper into my skin and hurt like hell. I would sit in the bathtub for hours when I got home to try and soak the glass out of my skin. It did not work.
I could hardly get up at five every morning, six days a week, to get to that factory by six-thirty, but I did it every day because I knew that it was better than being in prison. At the end of my shift, I could go home and be a free man.
In the past, I would have never stayed with a job like that, or any job, for that matter. That is probably why I had been sent back for three (3) new commitments and five (5) parole violations over a ten-year (10) span, back in the day.
The job was awful but it was different that time. I was different also. I was committed to making my jail break permanent. I was never going back to prison and I knew that I had to pay my dues. I looked at that job as just one of the tests I was going to have to pass in order to move on to better things. It was tough and I could not see myself working there for long periods of time. I kept my focus on a better future. I was fortunate enough to find a better job after a few months. It still was not where I wanted to be, but it was a more desirable and higher paying job and that was a step up and forward. I also worked over-time and part-time jobs, until I finally got to where I wanted to be.
How many men today can honestly say that they would be willing to work at the car wash, or the fiberglass factory in 30-degree weather, if that was all that was available in the beginning? Sure, most men in prison will make all kinds of promises about what they’re going to do to succeed after prison, but how many are truly prepared to do what you have to do?
According to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons (2004), two-thirds (approx. 415,000) of the 650,000 people released from prison each year will return to prison within twelve to thirty-six months of release for parole violations or new offenses. The cost of maintaining the more than two million people crowded into the prisons in this country has become too much of a financial burden, so many States are attempting to address some of the so-called “barriers” against the successful re-entry of prisoners back into society with policy changes and other programs and services.
There is a very good chance that despite their best efforts, the prison system will never be equipped to properly prepare prisoners to re-enter and succeed in society. Even with the best programs and services, public attitudes toward convicted felons cannot be legislated. Under any circumstances, it took a long time for things to get the way they are and it is not likely to change overnight, if ever.
Unfortunately, regardless of the best efforts of anyone, there will always be men who will return to prison over and over again because there will always be the so-called “barriers” that contribute to the high failure rate for people returning after release from prison. The long list of complex and systemic “barriers” includes negative public policies and opinions towards convicted-felons; a lack of programs and resources for newly incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people; mental/physical health issues; and the fact that most people released from prison are just not prepared to return to society.
Then there is that self-inflicted “barrier,” a bad attitude or wrong attitude that keeps so many people going back. The men and women who intend to keep doing what they have been doing because they do not mind doing the time. They have become what I call prisonized, and lockdown is a comfort zone for them. For some, being out of prison can be like a fish out of water. They cannot make it on the outside, or they do not believe that they can make it, so they just flop around until they are dead or wind up back in prison.
Yet, I believe the majority of those 433,000 people returning to prison every year want to be successful and not go back. They would rather be on the street working and supporting a family, instead of taking from them. More formerly incarcerated people would be successful after prison, if they knew how to do it.
Too many men create their own, or “self-inflict”, barriers and perpetuate their own ultimate downfall because of an overall lack of knowledge, preparation, and commitment.
Unfortunately, a man involved in the criminal justice system today, who is looking to change his life for the better, cannot wait for possible reforms promising programs, services, resources, and support. He has bills to pay now. Somewhere along the lines every man must be responsible for his own success and find a way to succeed.
This book is intended to inspire, motivate, encourage, and enlighten the man committed to his own success after prison; it is intended to help this individual organize and prepare himself to recognize, understand, and overcome the barriers he will experience as a formerly incarcerated person trying to make it in society.
My book "How to Do Good After Prison: A Handbook for Successful Reentry", represents my personal and professional experiences and observations, first from early on in my life while formerly incarcerated, and then as a professional the past twenty years working in private and government prisons and post-release corrections. I have also borrowed from the wisdom of other formerly incarcerated people who have broken the cycle and made it. I have also learned from those who have not.
Of course, reading this book will not guarantee anyone success after prison and it probably will not be the cause of mass layoffs of corrections officers across the country. There are no magic potions of advice or “shortcuts to success. Achieving success and living the so-called “straight life” – after years in the underside – it is hard work but it can be done.
Will there ever be the moment when each person coming out of prison has gone on to live a successful straight life, never returning to prison or a life of crime again? The day when all the empty prisons have been converted to warehouses, malls, or condominiums because all the bad guys have gone straight. Will there ever be the day when every man paroled or released from prison will have learned his lesson and go on to become a responsible father to his children, a dependable and supportive, companion/lover to one's women, and an overall positive member of the community, one whose mother would be proud? Would there ever be a day when everyone was actually doing what he had to do? Probably not. However, I believe more people want to do better, and I believe more people would actually do better if they were better prepared and committed to doing whatever it takes to never return to prison again. When things are at their worst, it is easy for some to give up and go negative. I challenge each man who says he wants to change to fight the urge to seek refuge in the prison and to take responsibility for one’s own successes and failures. Never… Ever… give up! Have faith in GOD and have confidence in yourself. Continue to do the right things and good things will happen for you. It is up to you to make it happen for yourself – or not.