Concern and Hope at Maine State Prison
“Therefore put on the whole armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:13, NIV)
As the year draws to a close, I am realizing I haven’t been this uncertain and concerned about the future in almost 15 years. The last time was back in Two Bridges Regional Jail, in Wiscasset, when I was awaiting my 50-year sentence and regularly hearing that I could expect to be stabbed to death on “The Bloody Mile” of Maine State Prison (MSP).
I didn’t care about my life back then. I hated myself for the harm I caused that led to my incarceration, and I didn’t want to see the end of the 50 years coming my way.
Now, I care. I care about my life. I see the value I have to offer the world. And when I look around this prison, I see an overflow of talent and hard lessons learned through lives of pain that could be used for the betterment of our outside communities.
Over the past year, I have felt a shift inside the prison that troubles me — how much of the substantive progress made under the past few MSP administrations is now at risk in the new political climate? Will I wake up two years from now and realize the past decade of my energies was all for naught? That prison staff, administrators, and other residents who have sacrificed time, reputation, relationships, and even careers to help prove that prison can be done differently were also laboring in vain?
Over the past four and a half years, I have written extensively about the genuinely positive changes happening within the walls of MSP. These changes can, and already have contributed to an increase in public and prison safety. Even when I didn’t agree with a decision, or faced a punishment I saw as unjust or disproportionate to the alleged infraction, I knew I could trust that those in leadership were making the best decisions they could with care for all parties involved, on both sides of the barbed-wire fence.
I don’t feel that care anymore. Not for residents or staff. I’ve publicly kept my mouth shut and my pen still for the past six months to see if maybe I was being too hasty in calling out this shift. But as bell hooks has rightly said: silence is complicity. Too much harm can happen while we wait for better days.
There’s a concept called utopic enactment, coined by Stellan Vinthagen in his book, A Theory of Nonviolent Action: How Civil Resistance Works. Essentially, it means creating a bubble today of the beautiful future we want to see tomorrow. This is done on a small scale and doesn’t last forever. Some internal or external force causes a fracture that bursts the bubble and destroys the beautiful tomorrow before it can expand or deepen enough to really take root.
That’s what this feels like: the impending destruction of the bubble we collectively built here at MSP in hopes of realizing a better future. Reflected on that bubble’s surface are achievements like the establishment of the Earned Living Unit and the expansion of education, work, and avenues of accountability across the walls. Residents, staff and leadership meaningfully collaborated on projects to benefit everyone, keeping the ultimate goal in mind: improving the safety and wellbeing of our inside and outside communities.
Yes, of course there were naysayers and those working to spoil these efforts inside and outside the prison. This whole system, and the society within which it sits, has been built upon a foundation of us vs. them. We have been socially conditioned to believe someone else’s gain is our loss. That is not true, and we must reject this zero-sum thinking that is poisonous to human connection and community.
I remain stubbornly hopeful that tomorrow might be better than today. But sadly, I also fear what the New Year will bring. The future feels tenuous at best, and I have done all I can do for the moment. So I stand.
The walk toward a more healed and hopeful future is exhausting. If you are on this journey with me, please take special care of yourself this holiday season. Or, if you’re like me and have a tendency to put everyone else’s care before your own, let yourself be cared for by those who love you. Take heart, hold steady, press forward as you are able, and when you’ve done all you can do, just stand — and know you are not standing alone.
Leo Hylton is a PhD student at George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, currently incarcerated at Maine State Prison. His education and work are focused on Social Justice Advocacy and Activism, with a vision toward an abolitionist future. You can reach him at: Leo Hylton #70199, 807 Cushing Rd., Warren, ME 04864, or leoshininglightonhumanity@gmail.com.
