Manifesto of an Artist in Prison
Bobby Beausoleil·Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Every so often I have come under fire for the path I've chosen around expressing in the creative arts and publishing my work through an online presence. There are people, perhaps well-intentioned, who are adamant in their stance that prison is for punishment, and that people who are doing time for a crime should not be permitted to engage in activities that do not strictly conform to this narrow definition. Since my ability to produce and publish my work in a reasonably meaningful way are occasionally influenced by controversies of this sort, I am taking this opportunity to address the issues head on and describe what drives the kinds of activities that sometimes put me in the line of fire.
To be absolutely clear, I disagree with the proposition that imprisonment for a crime should be all about unremitting punishment and perpetual condemnation. The notion that prisons should be a living Hell where people who have committed bad crimes are made to suffer and suffer and suffer has the potential to turn the entire world into a living Hell. Such an approach to criminal justice takes people who have made bad mistakes and turns them into monsters — monsters who may one day return to wreak havoc in the communities they had formerly lived as citizens.
I was once, long ago, on my way to turning myself into one of those monsters. I had been sent to prison for a horrible crime I had committed against another human being, and then, for lack of being able to see any alternative, I continued along the same trajectory that had led to my imprisonment — desperately trying to find acceptance among the hard-cases that I was living among, trying to fit in by emulating their tough guy posturing, and gradually adopting their bitter philosophies and falling in with their violent lifestyle. Just as I was on the verge of losing myself in that world forever my guardian angel grabbed me by the collar and pulled me back from the edge of the abyss. There's no better way to describe the sudden shift in my consciousness when it came. I woke up, just like that. This was in 1974, not long after I had been caught up in the middle of a battle between warring prison gangs on the lower yard at San Quentin. I was still recovering from having a number of bones broken in various parts of my body. Suddenly it dawned on me that the men I had been trying to be like were behaving like hard-cases because they were just as frightened on the inside as I was. Suddenly it became clear that the only person I needed to prove myself to was me; that the only man whose respect I needed to earn was the one I saw reflected in the mirror.
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