The Train Doesn't Care About Your Story

"One of the reasons I'm the lead curriculum developer for Colorado T.E.N.T. instead of the director is because my job has never really been making people feel good. My job has always been paying attention to signals. For years I worked as a jailhouse lawyer, and when you're doing jailhouse law, the question in front of you is usually pretty simple. Can this guy win? Does he have a legal issue? Is there a way to get him relief? Those are important questions, but they're not the same question as whether somebody is ready for the street. Sometimes the answers overlap. Sometimes they don't.

Over the years I've helped people get out who I was absolutely convinced were never coming back. I've also helped people get out who I suspected were riding a track that was eventually going to bring them right back through the same gate they just walked out of. The thing that took me a long time to understand is that most people think desistance looks like compliance. No write-ups. No fights. No contraband. No trips to segregation. No problems with staff. Those things matter. They matter a lot. But after enough years inside, you start realizing that compliance and desistance aren't the same thing.

Prison is full of conformists. It's full of people who know how to stay off the radar. It's full of people who know how to tell authority figures what they want to hear. It's full of people who understand exactly where the line is and how close they can get to it without getting caught. What I want to know is something different. I want to know what happens when there isn't anybody standing there to tell them what the next move is. I want to know whether they can recognize a switch in the track and intentionally throw it.

A train can stay on the rails for a very long time without the engineer learning how to throw a switch. That's the part people miss. There is absolutely a track that leads out of prison. Keep your head down. Stay out of trouble. Do the classes. Avoid getting caught with stupid stuff. Don't create too much noise. If you do that long enough, there's a decent chance you'll eventually find yourself standing outside the gate. The mistake is believing that means you've learned how to stay out.

Years ago, there was a guy I worked with who was very good at navigating the system. Smart guy. Stayed off the radar. Knew what was expected of him. Knew how to comply. Knew how to avoid unnecessary attention. Eventually he got out. Years later he was back. When I heard he was back, I wasn't shocked. Disappointed, sure. Nobody wants to see somebody come back. But shocked? No. Because the track he had been riding was always a conformist track. He was good at doing what was required in front of him. What I never saw much evidence of was intentionally throwing difficult switches. The system provided the structure. The system provided the decisions. The system provided the boundaries. Once those things disappeared, he was left driving a train he had never really learned to operate.

Then there was another guy. Different circumstances. Different personality. Different story. But the same pattern. Every time somebody pointed out a problem, there was an explanation. Every time somebody raised a concern, there was another reason why the concern didn't apply. Every switch in front of him was treated like it was optional. Every warning became something to be argued with instead of something to be examined. Eventually he got out. Eventually he started gaming systems the same way he had always gamed systems. Eventually he came back.

The part that bothered me wasn't that he came back. The part that bothered me was knowing who was going to get hurt in the process. His mother was a good woman. She loved her son. She wanted him home. She wanted him to succeed. That's what makes situations like that so painful. People who love somebody often have a hard time distinguishing between helping and enabling. It puts everybody around them in an impossible position. What are you supposed to tell a mother who desperately wants her son to succeed when every signal you're seeing says the train is headed in the wrong direction? That's not a conversation anybody wants to have.

Then there was a friend of mine who came back after being out for several years. Unlike the others, he had actually shown signs of growth. He wasn't perfect. Nobody is. He still had blind spots. But there was something different about him. When those blind spots got pointed out, he didn't immediately run from them.

One day he was talking about how much his child was struggling because he was back in prison. He talked about all the things that weren't happening because he wasn't there. He talked about the mistakes other people were making. He talked about how different things would be if he was home. So I asked him a simple question. If your child is suffering because you're back in prison, doesn't that make your child one of the victims of your decisions?

The reason I remember the conversation is because he could have done what so many people do. He could have changed the subject. He could have rationalized it. He could have explained it away. He could have used our friendship as a shield and tried to duck the question. Instead he looked down, sat there for a second, and said one word.

"Motherfucker."

That was it.

No speech. No excuse. No story. Just a moment where reality landed.

That's what I'm looking for.

Not perfection. Not compliance. Not somebody who never gets it wrong. I'm looking for people who can stop defending the track long enough to look at where it's actually going. Because eventually every person reaches a switch. The question isn't whether the switch exists. The question is whether they can recognize it and throw it.

To me, that's what desistance looks like. Not staying out of trouble. Not getting through prison without write-ups. Not learning how to navigate the system. It's learning how to make the next decision before somebody else gets hurt. It's learning how to recognize the moment when the train is headed toward creating a new victim and having the willingness to change tracks before it gets there.

Because in the end, the train doesn't care about your explanations. The train only cares about the track.