When your name becomes just a number

I first met Jim Samuels in the early 2000s. He was a highly respected defense attorney with an office in Big Rapids, Michigan. I had just started a fledgling organization called INNOCENT (later to become HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS), with an office in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Together, we were attending a national Innocence Network conference in another state. 

Upon learning that we were from the same general area, and that we had similar feelings and intentions regarding incarceration and wrongful conviction, a friendship developed. Over the years, Jim became more than a friend…he was a supporter, an encourager. 

One of the unusual characteristics of Jim Samuels is that he’s not only a lawyer…he’s also an actor and a writer! And so, when he represents people accused of crimes, he not only sees their story from a legal perspective. The artist side of him gives him an incredible sensitivity to their needs, feelings and emotions! 

Jim and I are hoping to collaborate in the creation of a new book. But for now, I’d like to share a piece that he wrote about a young lad facing his first foray into the state prison system. 

A Number Now

By Jim Samuels

 

The time between knowing that you’re going

And the time you actually go,

Is difficult. Hard.

 

Not knowing what to expect when you get there,

The imagination takes frightening roads

That all end with unimaginable anxiety.

 

Will I be beaten? Raped? Shanked?

Will I find a protector, or a tormentor instead?

Can I trust anyone?  Do I take the endless advice

Poured on me when I first get there?

 

Maybe I should keep my own counsel

keep to myself

Or will that be off putting and insulting

To those who surround me day in and day out?

 

When I arrive at the Intake Unit

I can barely breathe

The deputy who drove me here

Told me that I would feel this way for quite a while

“Good luck getting used to it” as he took his handcuffs

off of me to be immediately replaced

by prison restraints.

 

A grumpy looking prison guard

Looked over the paperwork sent by the court.

“This is the last time I’ll call you by name

You are a number now.

Get used to it.”

 

Sitting alone in the quarantine cell

Depression joined anxiety as my emotion companions

And it hit me hard that

I needed to brood my prison self into being.

 

Pray for this young man, and the thousands of men and women in similar situations. They are not just a number.  

"Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them…”

Hebrews 13:3

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