When I was incarcerated at twenty years old, I still had an adolescence mindset. My mind wasn’t on the people I had victimize; it was only on the loss of my freedom. At my sentencing hearing, I didn’t acknowledge that I was wrong for pointing guns in people’s faces. Instead, I made excuses for doing what I did.
After being in prison almost eight years I decided to enter the Challenge Program. The program is a modified therapeutic community that focuses on cognitive behavioral thinking. To be accepted to the program, I had to move into a different housing unit where the atmosphere was extremely different from what I was used to. While other units centered around violence, the Challenge Program focused on positivity and change. In the Challenge Program, participants spent most of the day programming.
I took one program called Victim Impact. Victim Impact is a thirty-day class run by a certified treatment specialist. The program focuses on helping incarcerated people see how their actions created victims. Victim Impact encouraged me to look at people who I had victimized in the past in an entirely new light. And not just the people who I had victimized in my case, but also at the “little things” I did growing up as well, such as stealing from stores and throwing rocks at cars, all the way down age eleven, when I stole bikes. The Victim Impact program helped me learn that every single act I ever committed, even if I thought it was negligible, still impacted someone tremendously. As a kid, I thought throwing rocks at cars was fun. I didn’t understand that my actions created victims no matter how small the damage was, because the damage done to those vehicles has to be paid by the owners, and that makes them victims.
We learned in Victim Impact that our actions created a ripple effect, and that even if harm is caused directly to one person, that doesn’t mean that person is the only victim. For example, if I rob a convenient store, and destroy the business, there are going to be victims. The clerk I pulled the gun on will be my initial victim, because to brandish a firearm on a human can cause them to have nightmares, and even cause that person to be scared to be public. My actions could possibly leave them with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). And not only is the clerk only victimized by having a gun in their face, but their family is also victimized. This is where the ripple effect comes in. I learned to think about that person’s mother and how scared she must be every time her son or daughter leaves the house. She has to worry whether the person come back to hurt her child. Or if the victim has children, the reality of knowing their parent might not make it back it back home would leave any child devastated. That alone can send that child into a depression or maybe even suicide. This would leave the entire family traumatized, causing the ripple effect again.
Next, my act of robbing the store affects the owner. Even though they didn’t have the weapon in their face, they are still a victim. Their place of business is destroyed. The cost of the damage repairs has to come out their pockets. And they must live in fear of the robber (me) coming back. If they are married, their spouse is also a victim. They wake up every day in fear when their partner goes to work, not knowing if the robbers will come back. That alone can strain mental health. The damage can be so severe that the owner has to shut the store down. Now their children are victims because their finical support is gone. What the ripple effect taught me is that no matter the crime, there are always more people victimized then the initial victim.
Next, we learned to put ourselves in the victim’s shoes. This lesson was an eye opener for me because it caused me to think of somebody victimizing my loved ones the same ways I previously victimized other people’s families. It made me see that my choices were poor, and I would be devastated if somebody victimized my family in that way. Victim Impact really helped me change my outlook on crime, not just violent crime, but all crime in general. Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, in an urban community, I perceived crime as normal. But now as a thirty-year-old man, rehabilitation has shown me otherwise. I understand that the physiological effect of crime on victims is devastating. I never plan to victimize anyone again. Also, I plan to help teach Victim Impact classes for the rest of my incarceration, and once I’m released I want the younger generation to understand no matter the crime you commit even if you feel it is insignificant and harmless, somebody will be a victim and I also plan to teach them how to put there selves in the victim shoes. I feel like if we teach the youth why they are still at that callow stage in life, we will be able to stop put them from coming to prison.
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