Character Matters

            You would think morals and ethics aren’t very popular topics inside prison. Most times, you’d be right. Oh, guys have opinions on everything; and, most of those opinions are black and white. But, in here, when push comes to shove, you learn early to not comment on somebody else’s wrongdoing. “Let me do me,” is a catchphrase for anything goes if it doesn’t bring heat on you. In that mix there is the college program and a little thing called the honor code.

            As I’ve said before, I was never a proponent of campus honor codes. I thought they were bogus. If you are willing to cheat, you’re willing to lie and say “on my honor.” And, it isn’t my job to rat out the guy next to me. That used to be my attitude. Watching college be held in a prison setting changed my opinion.

            Honor, character, ethics, those aren’t merely words. They matter and they matter especially in here. This is an environment where every day you are confronted by dirt and dishonesty; bad decisions, bad behavior, carries the day in here. The college requires the men in here to “pledge” that they neither gave, nor received help. Imagine a room full of men, the vast majority of whom have never known educational success. They obsess on their grade point average; it isn’t what you know, they think. It’s having a “4.0.” Add to that the vast majority are used to lying, cheating, and stealing their way through this place. Honor codes, like the law, only matter if you get caught.

            Yet, the vast majority of men in here do their own work and don’t cheat. Perhaps it’s a higher percentage than on the “street” (after all, a twenty-four year old inmate going to school isn’t that different from a twenty-four year old in the “real world.”). Still, a few guys will try and cheat.

            Here’s the unique thing about “college life” in here. Guys won’t “look the other way” when another student is cheating. They let me know. And me, I play dad. Like this week, I see a guy turn in a paper. I haven’t seen him pull out a computer yet and here it is, three pages. And someone “tipped” me off – he had help. I have a simple rule – if I ask you, tell me the truth. So I ask him, “Is that your work?” He opens up a notebook and there it is, all written out. “I hate typing so I paid a guy to type it. He edited it a little bit too.” I give him the old “you need to do the paper – typing and all – yourself.” But, it’s ok. See, he didn’t cheat and he was straight up with me when I asked.

            Character matters. You don’t learn that in prison. Prison breaks character; prison promotes unethical conduct. But college – and especially professors who treat these men like students and scholars – brings out the best in men in trying circumstances. Honor is alive and well in our college program.