The Starfish
One day an old man was at the beach tossing starfish back into the ocean that had washed up onshore.
A young man came by and asked him “what are you doing?” The old man explained that if a starfish is
not submerged in water it will bake in the sun and die and he is simply trying to save as many as possible.
“Foolish old man” the young man exclaimed. There must be 10,000 starfish washed up on this beach alone besides the countless other beaches all over the world that have just as many starfish that have washed a shore.
Besides, after you toss them back many will just wash up on the beach again. What your doing is having no impact and will make no difference at all. The old man smiled, bent down and picked up a starfish. He then tossed it back into the ocean, looked at young man and said “it made a difference to that one”.
So often we find ourselves in situations and scenarios that seem hopeless. The Bureau of Prisons is a giant bureaucracy and camps (in my opinion) have no real impact on rehabilitation and only exasperate the systematic failures of mass incarcerations’. Like the young man stated in the story above “What your doing is having no impact and will make no difference at all.” The camps and the federal prison system in general are a revolving door and many will “wash back up on shore”and return for another extended stay. But what about the starfish who is thrown back and never again washes up on shore? This is the camper that applies himself, learns from his mistake and returns to being a productive and contributing member of society. This is the person, in spite of the failures of the system (which are numerous) takes what is available and makes something out of it. Being exposed to this system has been a life changing
experience and not in the obvious ways. I try to keep my days productive and pass the time by reading and participating in every program and resource I can get my hands on. I should have started college courses right away and pursued a degree but having a relatively short stay, I discounted the idea. The best resources are those outside of the system that have a genuine goal to help people not just house, feed and entertain them. There are way to many people being held for way to long and this place in many ways is run just like a for profit business. I hear story after story and have become pretty keen on separating fact from fiction. The fact is that most, given what they did (and by comparison to the non criminal penalties corporations receive whose crimes impact the public on a grander scale) should be on home confinement, working in their community and paying taxes. These are non violent people who pose zero harm to the public and it is really their families that are going time. Collateral damage like the innocent victims of war. The system will change, it needs to and has too.
