In prison, reputation can mean everything. Countless times throughout my thirty plus years incarcerated, I’ve heard the refrain, “All you have in here is your word. You ain’t got that, you ain’t got nothin’.” Typically, I tend to think of reputation in terms of individuals. He’s a scam artist. This guy’s a battery for “ding energy”. That dude’s living the change. Et cetera. Recently, however, I’ve become acutely aware of reputation as it relates to a group of people. Just as with an individual, a group’s reputation has a profound impact.
I am a proud member of the Restorative Justice Committee here in MCF-Faribault. For any unfamiliar with RJ, it’s a justice philosophy centered on accountability and healing in the wake of the harm caused by crime. Committee members facilitate classes on RJ, help fellow inmates write apology letters to those they’ve hurt, and organize fundraisers whose proceeds are donated to victim service organizations, among other duties. We are expected to lead by example and hold ourselves to a high standard of behavior both while in prison and after release. We are the face of RJ. Unfortunately, not all committee members have always taken the commitment to RJ ideals seriously or truly assimilated them into their core thinking.
Prior to joining the RJ Committee in Faribault, I served on the committee in the Moose Lake, MN prison. Shortly before I applied, one unscrupulous committee member stole the fundraiser food for an entire living unit and sold it for his own profit. This brazen act of criminality severely damaged trust in the entire RJ Committee at the facility. New rules were implemented and some committee members who had done nothing to stop the theft slunk off to find more permissive organizations out of the spotlight. New potential members like myself were screened much more thoroughly. The Committee cleaned up its act. Then, we all had to put forth a huge effort to repair our group’s reputation. It was tough, but enough trust was extended to us (albeit with a lot of scrutiny) that we were able to make significant progress in a reasonable amount of time. Such was our hard work and integrity that RJ’s reputation in Moose Lake was largely rehabilitated by the day I transferred to Faribault in 2023.
Once at my new facility, I applied to join the RJ Committee. I found myself in a similar situation, becoming part of a committee whose reputation even now – over a year later – remains tattered and torn. Here in Faribault, it’s proven challenging to even discuss what precipitated the committee’s fall from grace. The wounds are deeper than those at Moose Lake were and resist healing. From what I’ve managed to uncover, the abuses here were of a greater scope and duration, plus were carried out in a more systematic fashion. Corruption on the committee was more widespread. Inmates waiting to get into an RJ class were extorted to pay a fee or be passed over on the list in favor of those who capitulated. Members used RJ resources to create goods sold on the black market. Fundraiser items were stolen, sold, and distributed in an elaborate process that made pinpointing the guilty next to impossible. When things finally came to a head, the RJ Committee’s good name was obliterated. It fell due to inmates who never thought or cared about the devastation they were wreaking under the guise of adherents of a philosophy all about personal responsibility and making amends.
Thanks to these miscreants, the RJ Committee and I continue to deal with the high cost of a shattered reputation. It isn’t easy. Unlike at Moose Lake, staff here are so traumatized by the violation of their trust, it is all but impossible to extend the barest speck of it now. Simple tasks require unraveling a Gordian Knot of bureaucracy set in place to eliminate all possible abuse. When tasked with creating a flyer for an RJ event, allowing me on a computer becomes unthinkable, despite the fact I work on a computer every day in a trusted position. The group reputation overrides my personal reputation. No one will risk becoming involved in another fiasco. Just as terrible as the lost trust of staff is the lost trust of other inmates. I’ve met inmates burned by the selfish schemes of former RJ Committee members. The experience has left them bitter. In effect, the well of good will has been tainted and people are understandably skeptical. Suspicion now dilutes the positive message of Restorative Justice and causes those it may help to shy away from it. By sowing chaos and discord, damage from the past reverberates through the present and still inhibits the repair of a thrashed reputation.
Can the high cost of a shattered reputation ever be overcome? I hope so. The current committee members and I are committed to trying our best. It’ll mean finding creative solutions to bureaucratic hurdles. It will mean taking whatever grain of trust is offered us and demonstrating unequivocally that it was not misplaced. It will mean having the integrity and authenticity of belief in Restorative Justice to embody its principles, even when we think no one is watching. By doing these things, by being our best selves in the face of temptation, it is my belief that the RJ Committee’s shattered reputation can be restored, its message spread effectively, and more lives healed here in Faribault. After all, our word – our reputation – is all we’ve got in here.
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