Why Some Incarcerated Muslims Don't Want to Leave Prison

[FAH1223]

By Tariq Nelson

A few weeks ago, the Muslim Association of North America (MANA) had a fundraiser at the ADAMS center in which the community there responded very well, Masha Allah. (see the Muslim Link's August 24, 2007 edition) I pray that Allah makes the programs that MANA is proposing successful because of the impact that they will have on our community. However, I fear that many may not understand why some of their programs would be important to the community at large because they seem to be a “black problem” only.

One of their programs being planned is a “community re-entry initiative” which – among other things – will help inmates develop a ‘success plan’ for re-integrating into society.

This plan will be shared and then later reviewed by the local Muslim community via a “Share” (Services for Human Advancement and Resource Enhancement) center. In this center, background information will be given on the former inmate in order to help the community help that person.

Why would such a program be important?

Unfortunately there are many “institutionalized” people in our society and many of them are Muslim. Instead of ignoring this problem -- a Muslim is not supposed to be “institutionalized” -- organizations like MANA have taken the initiative to DO something about it.

What do I mean by “institutionalized”? This is a term people who work with inmates and former inmates use to refer to those that fail to adjust to outside society.
I worked with inmates and former inmates for many years and the most prominent example that I know was a brother who entered the jail system at the age of 15 and was about to get out in a few weeks at the age of 33. So, other than a brief period of a few months, he had spent his entire adult life in the prison system and became Muslim while incarcerated
This brother came to me after our Islamic services and informed me that he was about to get out in a few weeks. I said “masha Allah”, in reaction to the apparent good news, but he immediately began crying and said that he was afraid…VERY AFRAID. He did not know how to survive in the outside world,had no skills, no family support, and frankly no idea how the world worked outside. He knew this from his previous – but brief - period outside the system (as a Muslim by the way) and it scared him.
When he was released the first time, he found that he had to find a job (not easy as an ex-convict in jail since the age of 15), pay rent, find a way to work and a way to feed himself. Then, add to that the loneliness of being a convert. This loneliness can be particularly shocking to a person who converted in prison and comes out of jail with pre-conceived utopian notions of the Muslim community outside.
In contrast, while in prison, he did not have to worry about paying rent, getting a job, how he would eat and he was always in the company of other Muslim inmates.
He admitted to me that during his previous free period, he decided to intentionally commit a crime to get arrested so that he could return to his familiar environment: prison. He was telling me all of this because he was very afraid of getting out. I tried to comfort him and let him know that the community would try to be there for him even though I knew that our small community would struggle with this.
In spite of my assurances, this brother committed a crime inside the prison when he had just a few days to go and his time was extended. He was transferred and I lost contact with him.
This was a sad case of being “institutionalized”. I have known several other Muslims like this. They are in and out of the system so many times that you can not count.
Many prisoners – regardless of religion - are “institutionalized”, but being Muslim, it becomes much harder to survive because there is no support system for them. There is not much of one for non-Muslim prisoners - much less for those that are Muslim.
What many people do not know is that many of these brothers in prison see Islam as their great hope in the outside world. This would be the new way in which I will be able to make it: My brothers will help me. They read books about the nobility of the early Muslims and how they helped each other etc, and they think that we are the same and look forward to receiving this type of help on the outside. Then receive a rude awakening once they get out.
It would usually work like this:
A brother would get out of jail and calls the brother that was working in the prison. The person who was working in the prisons comes and tries (usually with the help of one or two other brothers) to help this brother as much as he can by giving him a ride to and from the masjid, getting him some food, trying to help him get some employment, etc. However, the brother from prison notices that he is not receiving the treatment from the rest of the community. In fact, some are even hostile to him and do not trust him: “Why is he hanging around the masjid?! Let him go home to his family like the rest of us!” one brother said forcefully to me about one of these brothers.
One of the brothers I knew who’d gotten out of prison was told to “go home” because he was hanging around the masjid too much. However, the brother told me that he had no place to go and that he was trying to escape his old life of drugs and partying. His father and mother were both drug addicts and his sister was a drug addicted prostitute. (I can confirm this as I met his family later)
He told me, “If I go home, then drugs are flowing in and out of the house and throughout the neighborhood. My Father will invite me to come get high, and I am weak to that! I don’t want to be around that! So I hang around the masjid.”
Problem is that there is only so long he can hang out at the masjid. He must get a job and begin to fend for himself. So the one or two volunteers try to help a brother like this for as long as they can, before he disappears seemingly into thin air. Then, after a few weeks, he is seen in the Muslim services in the prison again.
In one case like this, I was just glad to see that the brother was safe as I was afraid that something had happened to him because he disappeared so abruptly. I asked him, “What happened? I was wondering what happened to you.”
“I’ve been here for three weeks. I did not want to come to the Islamic services because I was embarrassed. But I wanted to let you know that I am safe”, he responded.
And sadly, a cycle like that repeats itself. (Simply add in “things are going to be different this time”)
The only thing that changes over time is that the “workers”/volunteers get more scarce because of the combination of burn out and growing family responsibilities. One person, spending his own time - not only the time actually there, but also preparing lessons, khutbahs, and driving there - and money (gas, buying books to give away) and putting so much energy into trying to get people to change their lives can burn one out, especially after seeing so few make it. And know that some brothers volunteer in multiple prisons. And there is usually almost no support from the Muslim community for these volunteers.
Some veterans of prison volunteer work have put in so much time and effort that their family at home fell apart. So they became cynical and disenchanted.
Now, there are some -a relative very few in my experience -that come out, stay out, get a steady job,and go on to have families and contribute to the Muslim community in a positive way. There are others that may manage to stay out, but they stop practicing Islam or even leave Islam completely.
So this is one of the questions that I have been stumped on. Besides going in and giving classes what can the Muslim community really DO to help these brothers? This is why I am pleased to see that MANA is taking up this cause.
We have to know that this is not a part time effort that only requires brothers volunteering a few hours a month in their spare time. In reality this will require people to be trained to work in this field as a full time job. I don’t mean that there can not be volunteers, but we can not continue to burn out brothers willing to work for free.
Volunteering to work in the jail is a full time job. Working with brothers after they get out is a full time job. One or two brothers trying to do both can be back-breaking.
And in the end, it is issues like this that make things I write about – that sometimes seem to many of you to be totally unrelated to Islam - more relevant. In light of this issue,things like the increasing cost of living, job training, and education take on much more relevance for us as a community. This is why I am so opposed to the culture of sloganeering that we have adopted.
A program that ignores these realities,while branding them as “kufr knowledge” or “not beneficial”, simply will not be effective. And Allah knows best. So any program we do, in my humble opinion, must be firmly grounded in the realities of the world, how it works and how different people respond to the same circumstances. And guess what? That is Islam.
This is why I get irked when someone asks why they want to help African American Muslims. It is not that they are only helping African-Americans – anyone can receive help in their proposed programs. However, the fact is that the vast majority of the converts that come from situations like the ones I described above happen to be African-American. So in short, the issue is not that no other group should be helped, but that African-Americans should not continue to be ignored.
When you learn about projects like the one MANA is planning, donate and/or see what you can do to help - other than patting them on the back.

Tariq Nelson lives in Northen Virginia and blogs at www.tariqnelson.com.

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