Finding Hope When You Have a 120 Year Sentence

In September of 2023. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice experienced a system wide lockdown. The result of an influx of contraband, namely drugs and the problems they cause. While drugs are undoubtedly a serious concern that needs to be addressed. I would argue that TDCJ doesn’t have a drug problem, as much as a hope problem.

Throughout the 27 years of my incarceration, the prison system has grown progressively punitive. Every transgression by one prisoner — such as an escape, serious staff assault, or some other incident that gets the media’s attention — has been addressed by adding more sanctions to all prisoners. They ignore the fact that in nearly all incidents that make the news and bring scrutiny to the institution, are isolated events that usually result from guards failing to follow existing policies, rather than a lack of adequate rules or policies to begin with.

However, as a result of this progressive punitiveness, we have reached a point to where the majority of Texas prisoners live without hope. Predictably, incidents of suicide and drug use have skyrocketed during this period. The prison system has reacted to these problems with more punishments and sanctions against inmates.

The influx of get tough on crime politics in the 90s lead to prison sentences growing longer and more draconian. Today it’s common to see thousands of black and brown men in their twenties sentenced to decade-long prison sentences of 60, 80 and even a 100 years.

In 1999, at the age of 19 and a first time offender, I was sentenced to 120 years in prison. And with parole rates continuing to fall, the hope of rehabilitation and eventually making parole has become a fantasy to all but a very few. Very few Texas prisoners can hold out the hope of going home on parole. Those who do make it are usually low-level offenders who probably shouldn’t have been in prison to begin with. If it weren’t for our societies over-reliance on incarceration as a balm for every social ill.

A balm that has proven not to work, but that we keep turning to judiciously.

Currently in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, with exception of volunteer-led NA and AA programs, there isn’t one licensed state funded drug rehabilitation program for inmates struggling with addiction. The programs that exist are “parole voted programs” where an inmate must make parole in order to join.

However, for the inmate who is currently using illegal drugs and doesn’t see parole for another two decades, there is nothing beyond a combination of Nancy Regan’s failed “Just Say No” campaign and a promise of internal prison sanctions should he or she get caught possessing or using drugs or under the influence.

But think about it. If we could punish our way out of drug use and addiction, America would be the most drug-free country in the world. But punishment for drug use and addiction doesn’t work out in society or here in prison.

Until prison administrators get real and address the root causes of drug use in prison — as well as suicides — nothing will change. The policies the prison system has instituted in the last two decades have taken away prisoners’ hope.

Hopelessness combined with harsh living conditions, long prison sentences, little hope of making parole and few, if any, positive reinforcements, has created the current nihilistic state of the Texas Prison system — one where suicide, drug use and hopelessness are synonymous.

Kenneth West is a writer and an artist from Houston who can be found at: thekennethwest.com and artistkennethwest.com. He holds a Master’s Degree from UHCL and has written a total of 19 books. 

Kenneth West 846812

Ramsey 1

1100 FM 655

Rosharon, TX 77583

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