Prison is a Place - Book Review

I've often thought about what it must be like to be imprisoned.  Although I believe for the most part, criminals deserve to be punished, what a terrible thing it must be to be stripped of their freedom.  I know for one, I wouldn't be able to bear it.  Not to have privacy and comfort, or to be denied the ability to go wherever whenever you wanted.  I've always been a bit claustrophobic myself and can't imagine how that would be magnified to be constrained to a cell.  I won't even go on a cruise because I don't like the thought of not being able to get off the ship at any given moment.  Same thing with air travel and being trapped on a plane.  I can hardly stand it.

One of my co-workers, Brent Andrews, edited and published a book recently that was written by a late friend of his.  The friend had been in prison for a long period of his lifetime and had apparently always intended to have the book published, but it never was until Brent happened upon the boxes of manuscript, pages and letters.  Brent spent months putting it all together and the book has just officially come off the press.  After reading it this past weekend, I know the writer would have been proud.

The book is called Prison is a Place and it's by Harley M. Sorensen.  Harley had a difficult life from a very young age and he made some bad decisions along the way and ended up in prison.  He spent over eight years of his life behind bars, but to hear him write about it, it wasn't as bad a place as I always imagined it would be.  Of course this was back in the 60's and things were done differently then, and as he points out several times throughout the book, the prison he was in was one of those rare prisons that has a smaller than normal population with very few unpleasant incidents among inmates and good interaction with prison staff and authority figures.  He made the most of his time there and worked as much as he could, spending his time writing and playing chess, among other things.

One of the projects he worked on while in prison, and the subject content of his eventual book, was to reach out to a local teacher in hopes of corresponding with a class of students to get their ideas of what they thought prison really was.  He found a young teacher willing to embark on a letter exchange and it was fascinating to see what the students had to say and what Harley said in reply.

I especially liked the exchanges between Norman, a silly, smart-alecked boy and with Debbie, who I'm sure grew up to be valedictorian of her class and maybe even went on to be a prison administrator herself.  She was wise beyond her years and Harley seemed to enjoy them both.  Reading all the exchanges was enlightening in so many ways. 

As I read the book, I kept thinking to myself how this type of letter exchange would probably never be possible in today's society.  Parents would highly object to their children corresponding with a convicted felon and teachers would be forbidden to even consider such an assignment.

Brent, I'm so proud of you for getting this book out for everyone to read.  I know Harley would have been so proud.  It would be interesting to find some of these kids now that they are in their 40's and 50's, to see if they even remember Harley and his letters, and to see what each of them has become.  I wonder if he influenced them at all?  I hope he did!