Doing Life

Reflections Of Men And Women Serving Life Sentences

Howard Zehr

• Publisher: Good Books
• Year: 1996
• ISBN:
  9781680992298
• Topic: Kunst
• Subtopic: Fotografie

What does it mean to face a life prison sentence? What have "lifers" learned about life—from having taken a life? Photographer Howard Zehr has interviewed and made portraits of men and women in Pennsylvania prisons who are serving life sentences without possibility of parole. Readers see the prisoners as people, de-mystified. Brief text accompanies each portrait, the voice of each prisoner speaking openly about the crime each has committed, the utter violation of another person each has caused. They speak of loneliness, missing their children growing up, dealing with the vacuum, caught between death and life. A timely book.

LOIS JUNE FARQUHARSON

“I was in my 40s when I came in. I’m 67 now. I was a practicing psychiatrist and I’d like to get out of prison and contribute. But if I can’t, I hope that I’ll do as well here as I can in any community: contribute and not make life intolerable for myself or others.”

AARON FOX

“If I have one wish, it is that I would be forgiven my sins.”

LARRY HOLZ

“I’ve gotten somewhat wiser. More patient. A lot smarter. A lot friendlier. A bit heavier. Lost a lot of my hair. But my greatest fear is dying in here.”

I’ve been incarcerated 24 years. When I came here, I was a ninth-grade dropout. I was young, fast-moving, thought I knew everything. Then I came across some older lifers. There were some who had served more time than I’d been alive. We started talking. They said, “Here’s a little something for you to read.” I said, “Okay,” and came back the next day to give the book back. They said, “Did you read it?” I said, “Wait a minute—let me read it again.” I saw they were serious.

The book was Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. It dealt with an individual’s experience in a concentration camp, which is not too unlike the situation that we’re in now. He was in the midst of hell, and yet all around him were examples of man’s nobility. Man needs to rise above his conditions and experiences. It touched me. I read it, and we started talking about it. And they said, “Here’s another book.” And another. I began to see that the world was immensely larger than I had every imagined. I hadn’t been off the step. The universe was limitless.

Over the years I’ve acquired a couple of degrees. I have my teaching certificate, a degree in education, and a degree in business administration. I started officially teaching classes in here, and I found that the best way to learn is to teach. When I walk away from a classroom and I see my students’ eyes have brightened up and the lights are going on in their heads, it’s a good feeling. But it’s an even better feeling when I walk away from the classroom having learned something myself.

I try to teach my students the relationship of one thing to another. Everything touches something else. And my teaching has affected my life—my relationships with my family, the people I

associate with, my ideas.

Life to us has two meanings. Life is life—the generic term. Being alive, waking up every day. Life is also a sentence to serve. In Pennsylvania, life is to be served until you die.

That life term—you can’t get away from it. If I succumb to the pain of it, it would indeed be dangerous; it could do things to the mind, to the spirit. But a life sentence can and should be served with your mind open, aware that life is all around you. That life is being influenced by you, and life is influencing you. We happen to be isolated, but that doesn’t limit the mind. Since I’ve been incarcerated, I’ve traveled the universe. I’ve met a host of people, but, more importantly, I have met and come to understand myself as a person, a member of the family of life.

IRVIN MOORE

IRVIN MOORE

“A life sentence is like an insect encased in amber. Amber at one point is a fluid. As it is exposed to air, it becomes more viscous. Sometimes insects may get trapped in it. As it hardens, you see the insect’s movements become slower. When it solidifies, he’s just there. Thank God that I have been able to move enough to keep the liquid around me from solidifying.”

I’ve been in just two years. The first year was a real struggle just trying to adjust. I was overwhelmed. Then I went through a period of extreme withdrawal. Then some of the bitterness and anger started coming out. I said, “I don’t like this; I’ve got to pull myself up and start doing something.” And that’s where I am now. I still want to be a whole person. I want to be a good person and I’ve got to go for it.

At this point, I’m just trying to deal with my crime. The hard part is not being able to really talk to anybody about my crime. I want to. I’m lucky right now that they just hired another psychologist and I started seeing her, so hopefully I’ll be able to talk through some things with her.

One of the things I have a lot of difficulty with is all the anger that’s around me. And I’m finding it in myself now, too. That’s scary. I never felt a lot of anger in my life. At times I would feel a lot of hurt. I can see now where the hurt can build up and turn into anger.

I think it’s very hard for my friends on the outside. In the beginning, I was very dependent on them and was letting out a lot of pain about what was happening in here. Now I realize the people I have out there truly care and love me, and it hurts them. They’re saying, “I love this person but there’s nothing I can do.” So I have so little to say to them about my life in here. When we meet, I keep it light chitchat. I know there’s nothing they can do. A couple of times I’ve seen tears in their eyes and I just say, “I can’t do this to them.” Through my crime I hurt enough people. I don’t want to hurt people anymore.

One thing I am grateful for is the good life that I had before I came in here. I was able to do a lot of things that I wanted to do. Some of these younger women here just didn’t have a chance for anything. Some of them had very hard, very deprived lives.

Ten years from now I hope I’m not here. But I know I will be. I hope 10 years from now I’ve gotten myself together enough that I’m contributing to others in this institution. I don’t want to become a bitter, angry person. That’s the last thing I want out of all this.

GAYE MORLEY

GAYE MORLEY

“A life sentence is a vacuum. Everything is trying to be sucked out of me, leaving me with nothing. I know I have to fight that. I have to create a whole world within myself and hopefully be able to spread that to those around me.”

KIMERLY JOYNES

“A life sentence is a black hole of pain and anxiety that you must learn to overcome through spirituality.”

BRUCE NORRIS

“I don’t have any problem with doing time for the crime I committed. I own up to that. My only problem is how much time should I do? When is it going to end? I don’t mind dying. I just don’t want to die in prison.”

You’re taken out of society, and you’re thrust into an artificial community where someone decides what you do all day long and what you can’t do. Someone decides when it’s time for you to eat. You have no responsibility. And in Pennsylvania it’s without the hope of ever returning to society to be a productive and law-abiding citizen.

It’s like falling out of an airplane. You’ve lost all control of your life. You make no decisions anymore. Gravity has taken over something beyond your control, and you just wake up and go to sleep. That’s it—nobody to love, nobody to care for. Just iron, concrete.

To deal with it, I lie to myself a lot, tell myself that it’s not that bad. People are starving all over the world. People have to live with the violence in their communities. Also, I feel a sense of guilt and maybe I think I deserve to be here. I don’t think I deserve to be here for the rest of my life, though. And I try to keep myself as occupied as possible with worthwhile things.

When I pray, I don’t pray for release. I pray to get through this day. I pray that I don’t make the same mistakes again, that I calm my temper. And that people around me, including myself, learn to get along a little bit better.

The most bizarre thing here is the food. When we get locked up, when they shake the block down, they don’t feed you the regular food. They bring a TV dinner. On the street, the TV dinner was the last resort. Here I look forward to it!

JULIUS SCHULMAN

JULIUS SCHULMAN, now deceased

“One of the best things about going to sleep when I first came to jail was that I used to dream about outside. What scares me is that all I dream about now are penitentiary things. It’s like that other chapter is closed.”

This is my 21st year. I am constantly thinking in terms of how much life I have left. A life sentence is an endurance test. You’re enduring in a vacuum.

What makes it livable is meaningful activity. I’ve been very active in pursuing my own growth and development. Education was important for me, and I was fortunate to get involved in a trade that I enjoy. I’m a dental technician now. But the most important aspect of my education was to get a business degree.

Another very important thing was my connection to people who befriended me from the outside. Friendships, my family—those contacts were just very meaningful for me.

But the main thing that has made it bearable is my religious life. I’m a Muslim, and I’ve been quite active in the religion since I’ve been in prison. When I came in, I didn’t have direction for my life. I got in touch with the Creator. I asked for some guidance. I asked for some forgiveness. I asked that I be allowed to live a meaningful life. It was a blessing that I could pursue the things that I have.

When I was younger, with a different mind, I attached my accomplishments to material things like property and clothing. Now that stuff doesn’t matter that much anymore. I have taken a lot of focus off myself and placed it on other causes and people. I realize that my life is just one life, that I live in a world and I want to make a difference.

If a genie gave me one wish, I would ask that genie to deliver a prayer to God to bless the lawmakers to grant the parole bill. That bill simply states that persons who have demonstrated sincere repentance and who have worked toward bettering themselves could be released and be successful citizens. This bill would put a mechanism in place so that men and women could be judged on a case-by-case basis. A lot of lifers are ready to give something back to society. That bill would do much to raise the hope level, the desire for betterment, reaching for the future with some hope.

I was taught that in this country of mine, a person is redeemable. That is taught in this country and in religion. You deserve another chance; you get good for good. I have tried to pursue the good. My greatest fear is that I will have to go down knowing that I had been told a lie, that I had been expecting payment for work done. And there was no payment.

JAMES TAYLOR

James Taylor has received public recognition for the inmate self-help program, People Against Recidivism (PAR), which he founded.

JAMES TAYLOR

“I find myself wanting to tap all the potential that I have to do something with my life. Getting in touch with my spiritual side and constantly pursuing that through practice has really helped me.”

People think that this is the belly of the beast. But you’d be surprised. There are some positive individuals in here, some really empowering individuals, who are not criminals. By an accident, a freak of nature, they ended up here. And there are some smart individuals, caring individuals who could be good role models and leaders in society. They are leaders of organizations in here. Most of them are lifers.

These are guys that take time to reach back and pull somebody in and say, “Look, you can do better.” At first you’re like, “You’re jiving me.” But seriously and relentlessly they keep on you. Finally you see there m...