WEST LIBERTY, Ky. - High atop a hill in this sleepy Kentucky community is a vista that overlooks the Appalachian Mountains. The view is breathtaking, giving lookers a spectacular view of forest and sky.
It would be much better if the view were not from the front steps of the Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex, a medium security prison.
In Lexington, Ky., one has to go slightly off the beaten path to find the Blackburn Corecctional Complex, a minimum security facility. Here, inmates openly work on flowerbeds and masonrywork out front of the prison with a guard watching from the shack at teh entrance. No walls, barbed wire or high razor wire-tipped fences surround this prison.
Much farther off the beaten path, in Shelby County, seemingly sprouted from the middle of a field is the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women. There are locked doors at every turn, opened only by guards at computer consoles, to say nothing of the high fences, gates, razor wire and guard patrols.
It's not like it is in television and movies. There are no Andy Dufresnes and Reds like in The Shawshank Redemption. These are people here to serve out their time for what they did. Most are just like any other person you would pass on the street. Were it not for the prison uniforms, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. Tattoos are common here, along with bulging biceps. Many of the inmates are older people. Some that I saw will only make it beyond the walls in a coffin. A life sentence might as well be a prolonged death sentence.
I spent time in the prisons over the last two weeks preparing a story. The men and women who work in the industrial and special-task shops are the cream of the crop. They are the smartest, the best-behaved and the most likely to make it on the outside. Some are younger, but none seemed younger than my 21. Most are much older, and gray hair is pretty common. They have spent a good bit of time on the inside. They are used to the routine of prison life. But while most can't wait to get outside and once they do, have nowhere to go but back in, each person in prison industries I spoke to had something brewing in their mind.
Plans.
They were planning what to do with their lives once they were released (whether it be by means of parole or finishing out their time) back "on the streets", as they each referred to it. Get a job, save up money, start a business, start life anew. It sounds like all the other inmates, but there is resolve in these voices. More importantly, there is hope. Their spirits are not crushed. The past is behind them. These men and women live each day, one day at a time, for the future.
I have a hard time finding that kind of a positive attitude on the outside among fellow young people and especially among older people. Apathy is widespread where hope should abound.
How sad that some of the most potent spirit of our society is trapped within minds locked behind bars and walls and fences.
