Are You Free? A Prison Chaplain’s Reflections on Freedom

As a new prison chaplain, I have been thinking a lot about freedom and what it means to be free. As I drive onto the campus of the prison where I serve, I have rights that end as I enter the gates. As I leave my car, there are a myriad of objects that I must abandon. I no longer have the right to carry my phone, my computer, any glass objects, or any hardcover books. Everything else I have must be carried in a clear plastic bag. Each time I enter the prison, my belongings are searched and I am patted down by a guard. Yet, I feel free because I am choosing this job, and I choose to enter the prison each time I come to work. I am also being paid to do so.

For me, freedom has a lot to do with agency and choice. So, while I am required to follow these rules, I am not required to work in a prison. At the end of my work hours (which, by the way, I get to choose) I also get to leave. As I leave, no one searches my belongings or pats me down. I just leave, get in my car, turn on my phone, and drive away to wherever I choose to go.

So, is freedom the ability to choose? Is freedom found within our agency to direct our own lives and make our own choices? And if so, how many of us are truly free?

A common definition of freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Dictionaries like Merriam-Webster also describe freedom as the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.

Are you free?

Before choosing to become a prison chaplain, I worked at a small college as a mental health counselor. Often, when I met with a student who was suffering from anxiety or depression, or who was not thriving academically or socially, what we discovered together was that they did not want to be there. They had not chosen to go to college; they felt they had to go to college. They often said they had been coerced into going, felt obligated out of necessity, or felt they had no other choice given the constraints of their culture or family of origin. None of those students would have described themselves as free, and most ended up leaving college, becoming the next statistic we “in the field” referred to as “Early Exits.”

The world of higher education is obsessed with lowering the percentages of these early exits. I assume this is because the data points to higher education not being the best choice for some would-be students who had, at one point, declared our school as their choice. But rather than celebrate their freedom, in the sense that they reclaimed their agency and right to choose, we declared their choice a “failure,” either on their part or on the part of the institution.

Are we free?

None of the currently incarcerated individuals in the prison where I serve chose to be there. I assume they did not have “go to prison” in their five-year plans as emerging young adults. Yet, when they leave, there is much celebration, and we pray they do not return, ever. We pray they feel and live free.

What is freedom? It is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. It is the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.

Recently, I dropped my adult child off at university. The particular university she chose is a large SEC school. That is what she wanted, and she was afforded the privilege to attend. So now she is there, by choice. I do not know how long she will choose to remain, but I hope she always knows she is free to stay or leave. I hope that while she is there, she is grounded in her agency and does not fall prey to extreme anxiety, depression, or hopelessness, as so many college students do when they believe that, given their cultural constraints, they have no other choice.

When I left the prison to take my child to college, we had zero residents on suicide watch. “Suicide watch” is a term used to describe the level of observation needed over a person to ensure their safety, given the level of potential threat they pose to themselves following an attempt at self-harm or a clear statement of intent. In the prison I serve, as of one week ago, we had zero individuals on suicide watch.

When I dropped my child off at college, I was stunned to learn that, at that exact moment at this large SEC school, there were approximately 2,700 students actively on what the university calls “Suicide Watch.”

I am going to give you a moment to take that in.

In the prison I serve, as of last week, we had zero individuals on suicide watch. At my child’s university, there are right now approximately 2,700 students on suicide watch. One hundred percent of them are female.

Are they free?

Freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint, and the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action. Why are there currently 2,700 females at this large SEC school on active suicide watch?

Because they have all chosen to rush sororities. That is the only reason why.

Every female student who chooses to rush a sorority at this university is instantly subject to being on active “suicide watch”. This means each of these students must check in with a mentor in the morning at exactly 8:00 a.m. and throughout the day at specific times. If they do not answer when their mentor calls, the campus police will come to their dorm to perform a wellness check.

If this news is upsetting to you, I understand. That makes sense. It is sad and shocking. However, it is a very good thing to be deeply and profoundly curious about.

What does it mean to be free?

Freedom is not inherent in agency, mobility, privilege, wealth, access to resources, or institutional and cultural power. While all of those aspects might offer a particular lifestyle, appearance, or status, they do not guarantee the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. In fact, what many consider to be the traits of freedom actually limit our power to act, speak, or think as we want. They may actually  increase the necessity, coercion, and constraints on our ability to choose.

Freedom is not an either-or proposition. We can be free in prison, or we can be free citizens who are slaves to obligation. We can have the resources to choose anything, go anywhere, and become whatever we wish, yet we might act in ways that lead us to feel depressed, anxious, or even suicidal. That is a simple truth of being human in a social environment that has rules and expectations.

For some, the rules lead to daily pat-downs and searches. For others, the rules lead to a Greek life where dress, appearance, and behaviors are as strictly imposed by the group as they are by the officer who greets me every day at the metal detector with rubber gloves and an obligatory pat-down.

I do not have an easy way to end this blog post. I do not have a nice twist at the end to make us all feel better about our choices, obligations, presence, or lack of coercion. But I do have a suggestion, a hope, really that after reading this, you might call a person you love dearly: a friend, companion, partner, parent, or child, and just ask them this question:

“Are you free?”

And if their answer is anything other than a resounding “Yes!”, my hope is that you become so deeply curious about their choices that you allow them, maybe for the first time ever, to speak their mind and heart’s true longings aloud, without hindrance or restraint.