Sometimes I feel like giving up
On helping crims break the cycle
You load them up with good intentions
Fresh pathways and plans
To come good and give it up
This mugs game we call jail
And you watch as they all come back
The first time
The second time
And forever onwards
Their best years spent futile
Watching sitcoms in the slammer
Or chasing a skerrick of sin
When they manage to smuggle it in
Where’s the fun
Where’s the girls
No parties, no music, no love
Just ugly souls
Living on top of each other
In a cell with a bunk bed
Not much trust, not much friendship
And no freedom to live
Like the wild men they are
They all come back…
Someday I’ll give up
Trying to fix these broken men
—
There’s few things as depressing as seeing a mate get out and come back on new charges. It’s painful to see crims waste their last chance as the sentences get longer and longer and the lessons never sink in. In the six years I was locked up I saw one inmate come and go five times. The last time I thought he had the cycle of crime and addiction beat then he showed up again with fresh charges. Everyone says it’s a mugs game and it is, even if you make the most of it you still miss out on life and family and achievement.
It’s a cruel irony as well that the guys that get themselves locked up are the ones who live so wild on the outside and then are forced into boring tedious lives on the inside.
The recidivism rate is intensely high.
Something is wrong with the system.
