I Refused to Commit Violence in Prison — and Paid the Price

Robert Porter IV explores what it means to refuse to commit violence in prison, arguing that true strength lies in restraint, compassion, and moral clarity rather than force.

The Expectation to Commit Violence in Prison

Moe came through the front door of the housing unit and motioned me to a nearby cell. “We need to talk,” he said, a slight edge to his voice. Moe was a bit larger than average, in an unmuscled way, with light brown skin and greying, cornrowed hair. Our prior conversations had revealed his tendency to assert his opinions as facts, disregarding other viewpoints.

Par for the course in federal prison.

Moe was our unit rep, the liaison between the Ohio guys in our unit and the rest of our car elsewhere on the compound. He had just come from the yard, and by his tone I suspected there had been some discussion about me. I entered the cell, followed by four of the other homies, along with Moe, who got straight to the point. “You let the chomo chalk you, and the homies on the yard ain’t feeling it, so you go to go.”

Translation: I had chosen not to assault a sex offender (SO) who failed to pay me some commissary items he owed me, and for that I now had two options. I could voluntarily put myself in the hole and transfer to another prison, or I could get jumped by all five of them, possibly stabbed, and then end up in the hole anyway. Either way, I was getting ran up, prison shorthand for being forced into segregation by violence or the threat of it. The only real choice was whether to go peacefully or to take some of them with me and collect a few wounds along the way. For someone trying his damnedest not to become prison-ossified, that’s not much of a choice at all.

Before I clarify the incident involving the SO, I should explain how prison dynamics can cause something so backwards–going to the hole for refusing to assault someone–to occur. Absurd, illogical, inverted. Backwards. It’s a word I will return to often.

When I first arrived in federal prison for bank robbery, I was asked what car I intended to be in. A car is a group of inmates who coalesce based on some geographical, racial, ideological, or religious commonality. To belong to a car means you are “on (that car’s) time.” You could be on, say, New York time, Blood time, white time, Muslim time, and so on. Because I am no gangster and believe that racial separatism is for small minds, and because I am from Ohio, I chose to be on Ohio time. In a geographical car, the other members are referred to as your homies.

I did have the option of not joining any car, which would mean I was on “man time,” or basically alone. No table in the chow hall. No backup. Maximum exposure to prison treachery. I did give strong consideration to being on man time, but in the end the benefits of being in a car seemed to outweigh the disadvantages of not.

A car is a cohort you ride with, hence the term car. “To ride with” is a prison colloquialism that means, first and foremost, that we all have each other’s backs in the event of a confrontation with other cars. The verb ride also doubles as a synonym for fighting itself. If someone says, “I am down to ride if shit pops off,” they are saying they will go to war without hesitation. Cars also eat together, socialize together, and look out for each other in various ways.

A car might seem like a gang, and in some ways it is, but the differences matter. A prison gang–Bloods, Latin Kings, Aryan Brotherhood, and the like–has a defined hierarchy. A nominal leader makes decisions, lieutenants enforce them, and strict, codified bylaws govern behavior across institutions, often nationwide. Break a rule and you’re sanctioned: jumped, stripped of status or membership, sometimes forced to cover tattoos, or in certain prisons, killed.

A car, by contrast, usually has no single leader and operates as a loose democracy where the majority rule. Some articulate individuals naturally emerge as spokesmen–yard reps or unit reps–but they do not wield unilateral authority. There are no official bylaws, only expectations shaped by tradition and consensus*. Those expectations begin with two cardinal rules of prison politics: no snitches and no sex offenders.

In the more violent prisons, some of the cars will additionally demand that you “put in your work” before they accept you. This means you are required to go beat up someone to prove your backbone. The target is preferably a snitch or SO, if they can find one they haven’t already “beat off the compound.” If you refuse you may become the target instead.

Of course, you will go to the hole for a couple months, lose good time, and forfeit privileges such as commissary, phone, or email. A prison disciplinary record for fighting is likely to derail any hope of sentence reductions, compassionate release, or other legal forms of relief.

The cars do not care. That’s the part that is so deeply backwards. These are the people claiming to be your friends, but only on the condition that you sabotage your own future to earn their approval.

Thankfully the place I was at did not require me to put in work because I would have refused and accepted the consequences of not compromising my values, just as I am now (as you will see). Jump me if you have to, but I am not going to assault some stranger from Missouri because some other stranger from Indiana says I have to.

To verify that I wasn’t a snitch or SO, I had followed custom by submitting my paperwork to the Ohio Car. Paperwork is sacred in federal prison. Years ago, it included a presentence investigation report (PSI), a plea agreement, and a sentencing hearing transcript. Collectively these documents reveal whether someone had cooperated with law enforcement or committed a sex offense. Because such details often led to violence and murders, courts and lawyers will no longer send them to inmates–sentencing transcripts only. Nor will prisons allow inmates to receive them in the mail from a third party.

Barring that I don’t care one bit about prison politics in terms of snitches and SOs, I find the paperwork requirement pointless because today’s version–a lone sentencing transcript–proves very little. It rarely reveals prior sex offenses or cooperation, and discussions of cooperation in a current case are often sealed precisely because courts know people get killed over it. At best, a transcript confirms whether the current conviction involved a sex offense. Beyond that it is a hollow ritual, an anachronism clung to out of habit and tradition.

I am from Ohio, not a snitch or SO, and had submitted my sentencing transcript in the allotted 30-day grace period. I was cleared to join the Ohio car. After acceptance the only other hardline rules are to have each other’s backs in a car-on-car conflict, do not steal, pay your debts, and do not get high to the point of dysfunction, though the definition of dysfunction is arbitrary. Violate one of these rules and you can be ran up, a democratic process which requires a quorum of the whole car to vote to oust someone.

I knew I’d never break those rules. I do not steal or rack up debts, and I do not get high anymore. And if an intercar brawl broke out I would do what I could to protect myself and the car.

I was good to go, or so I thought.

As it turns out, there are other nebulous rules for which you can get ran up. Most are common sense. Assault someone from another car without provocation. Get too rebellious with staff and draw scrutiny on the entire car. These things make you a liability, and they are easy calls.

But the “rule” I supposedly broke had never been explained to me at all. This leads to the incident in question.

As Moe eloquently articulated in the beginning of this story, “You let the chomo chalk you…so you go to go.”

A brief lingo lesson: Chomo is prison-speak for child molester, now used as a coverall for anyone convicted of a sex offense, whether minors were involved or not. I suspect the element of “homo” was incorporated into the term to somehow compound its derisive value. Very few refuse to use the term liberally because they consider themselves to be superior in every aspect despite who they themselves may have hurt or affected. But in defense of those quick to judge, it is difficult not to do so when considering the reality of what some SOs have actually done to get here. Indeed, it is that very difficulty that fuels the title of this writing.

Chalk means to not pay a debt. If someone chalks you and you don’t retaliate, you risk being labeled weak–one of the great stigmatized sins of prison culture.

As for money in prison, one need only understand that prison currency is often food from the commissary that can be bartered. It is common to lend food to one another with the promise of significant interest added upon payment. We all get by in here somehow, and lending food is considered one of the more “honest” hustles, as opposed to, say, selling drugs or extortion.

In my case there was an SO named Chad who owed me for food he had borrowed, which he had done many times in the past without incident. On this occasion, Chad had recently developed a raging drug habit and decided to pay his dope debt over me. When I confronted him he explained after much apology that he was more afraid of the big bad dope dealer because I was the least likely to hurt him. And he was right.

True Strength: Refusing to Commit Violence in Prison

Not because I am weak and fear standing up for myself, but quite the opposite. In prison the definition of strength is inverted. It is considered a good thing to be “hard” and a bad thing to be “soft,” but the use of these adjectives is actually backwards.

In the beautiful, apt words of Emily Haines of Metric, it is “hard to be soft, tough to be tender.” It is much harder, tougher to take the soft, nonviolent high road when someone has wronged you, to restrain yourself instead of exploding and spilling blood for vengeance. That is the truly weak option. True strength–true hardness and toughness–lies in self-control and compassion, which can be a difficult response for some to choose.

According to the prisoner code, I was supposed to beat Chad senseless. Not only because he chalked me for a few measly dollars, but especially because he was sex offender. I will take these in turn.

Violence has its place in the human experience. If someone attacks me, a loved one, or a defenseless person in my presence, I will respond decisively. But money is never a justification for violence. That mindset is primitive and tailor-made for returning to prison. People in the free world do not assault each other over debts. They use courts, contracts, or walk away. If I plan to stay free, I obviously must think and act as free people do. Apparently, Moe and some of the Ohio car did not get this memo.

I am trying to go home as soon as possible. A fight would cause me to lose good time. Furthermore, this prison has threatened new charges against anyone who harms one of the SOs. Still, my car–supposed to have my best interests at heart–expects me to risk a longer prison stay to protect THEIR image and reputation. That is backwards.

Those with a tough-guy complex might say, “Yeah, well what about your pride?” Indeed. Pride is precisely what drove me to nonviolence. My pride is rooted in freedom, family, and integrity, not a low-intelligence, barbaric need to prove I can spill blood over some commissary.

Even outside of prison, to those who feel a fat lip is just payment for an unpaid debt, I reply, “But are you facing twelve to fifteen years mandatory if you commit another violent crime?” Their view is not conducive to self-preservation. With my record, a physical altercation outside of prison, even for self-defense, would likely be interpreted against me. Law enforcement would suspect I was the aggressor due to my history of “violence” (Bank robbery, even with a non-threatening note, is considered violent under federal law). Freedom’s prerequisite is the habit of avoiding violence, which is a skill to hone here and now–starting with not assaulting Chad or anyone else who has not physically attacked me.

If violence is so righteous, why is it illegal? Because it’s not right, that’s why. Most spiritual and ideological traditions teach nonviolent, forgiving responses to affronts, touting the paramount importance of love, compassion, patience, and mercy. There is no vengeance so complete as true forgiveness, which wishes the best for those who have wronged us.

Through relentless first-hand investigation and research, I have come to thoroughly understand addiction and the egregious, blind choices it can produce. How can I ask the world to forgive me for my addiction-fueled transgressions if I am unwilling to forgive others, like Chad, who do similar things to me? Does the convict milieu really insist that I perpetuate the criminal mindset and pay forward the offenses that I’ve suffered? Absolutely. The Golden Rule is not, “Do unto others what has been done to you.” But look around here and you’d think that is exactly what it says. It is a self-obsessed cognitive distortion that has coming-back-to-prison written all over it. That is an irrational thought. Backwards.

Perhaps I deserved to not be paid back by Chad as a form of cosmic retribution for some wrong I had done to someone. I believe that when we leave this life there should be a lot more people who have benefited, rather than suffered, from our existence. I am working hard on this. Though there are an increasing number of lives to which I have made positive contributions, I have indeed left a wake of sad faces in my past. If incurring losses helps me clear up some of my karmic arrears, then the Chad incident was a blessing in disguise. An opportunity to pay back. Sure, as prisoners we have paid dearly with years of our lives in a soul-poisoning environment, but certainly some of us deserve to pay materially as well.

As for the violence expected of me because Chad was an SO, that is also backwards on several levels. Chief among them, it is not our place to pass judgment on each other. Whatever Chad did to land in prison is between him and the universe. By me assaulting or hassling him I would be making it between me and the universe as well. I would be assuming some of the karmic debt because I would be adding insult to injury (I acknowledge that I am employing the popular, modern usage of karma as opposed to the Hindu). I’d be part of the disease rather than the cure–a cure defined by love for our fellow humans regardless of what they have done or their station in life.

This is a widely unpopular view when it comes to the general response toward SOs, but the popular perspective isn’t always right. I am not here to be liked; I am here to speak truth.

Let me be clear: It may sound like I am defending sex offenses. I’m not. I’m certainly not suggesting the world should just accept such life-destroying, heinous acts–acts which must be handled in the strictest terms under the law. Like most people, it floods me with tear-eyed pain and red-hot rage to think of unconscionable predators wreaking the most horrid atrocities upon helpless kids. If I were to encounter it in person, I would prevent it by any means necessary. If that required a physical altercation, so be it.

But using violence to stop a sex offense from occurring is a far cry from using it after the incident is over and has been brought to justice. Do SOs deserve violence after the fact? If so, again, why would it be illegal to render it unto them? Would you be willing to do so at the risk of incurring criminal charges?

What I am saying is that if an SO is contrite, then they should be treated by those qualified to do so. The willingness to allow that to happen requires compassion and at least an attempt at understanding, lest we ignore it and allow the problem to persist. If they remain hopelessly deviated and unreachable, the best we can do is walk away. Violence will fix nothing.

It is important to stipulate that not all sex offenses are created equal, yet prison treats them as such. I’ve met people labeled SOs for crimes that bear little resemblance to predatory violence. Case in point: an SO here who was a driver for an adult escort service. He transported dozens of women across state lines for what was ostensibly a legitimate business enterprise. Sure, he knew what the women were really doing, and therefore knew it was technically illegal, and for that he was culpably complicit. But he never touched them, nor did he arrange any transactions. Though he is certainly no saint, all he did was drive them. Yet he is considered the same kind of pariah as the baby rapers, subject to all manner of derision and sometimes violence, often from people who have committed some shockingly violent, albeit nonsexual, crimes against people.

I don’t know what kind of sex offense Chad had committed. But none of us knows what happened in Chad’s life to cause him to do so. I ask every human on Earth a difficult question: If you were born into Chad’s childhood home and experienced every second of his life as he had, can you honestly say without a doubt that you’d be any different than Chad? Most people like to think they wouldn’t have committed a sex offense. Many people were molested as children or had other developmental hardships that were not later expressed by sexual deviance. But nobody can say for sure. I’ve asked that question to other prisoners. They don’t like it.

That raises nature vs. nurture, the impossible debate whether sexual pathology is an innate or developed behavior. If Chad was born with such an illness, was it his fault? Most will agree that it was not, but they will say he was responsible to seek treatment for it before he committed a sex crime. But what if he was unconscious of its severity before it manifested? These are tough questions with no easy answers, which is why most people avoid asking them.

The point is, we don’t know what combination of factors breeds an SO, thus we have no right to pass judgment and hatred. If you ask me, the aggression toward SOs in prison is really born of a need for something to hate–an outlet for one’s own unresolved pain. People with deep, unconscious issues walk through the prison gate and find relief in hearing, “There are the chomos, the ones for you to lash out on, to suppress as you’ve been suppressed. You are above them.”

But are they really?

People who grind so aggressively against SOs might do well to take a personal inventory and see how their own history compares in terms of lives affected. Excepting the wrongly convicted, ultimately we are all here for being selfish. That is the root cause. Our individual crimes were merely symptoms of this underlying selfishness. Stealing, drug dealing, kidnapping, sex crimes, murder, and so on. It is all born of selfishness.

Do SOs have a greater societal impact than, say, murderers or drug traffickers? Many SOs were taxpayers with real jobs, but they were born with or developed an illness that resulted in a horrible victimization of someone. Yet, I have heard many contrite murderers who say, “Hell, at least his victim is still alive, unlike mine.”

What about a person who smuggles and distributes large quantities of fentanyl that will destroy many lives, negatively impact countless others, and kill dozens via overdose? What if that person never had a job or paid taxes? Is that person any better than a low-level SO? In prison, yes.

Again, I definitely do not condone sex offenses, but nor do I condone my crime of bank robbery, or drug dealing, extortion, and so on. It’s all cut from the same fabric of selfishness, and the assumption that one person’s selfishness is better than another’s is erroneous and exhibits a warped sense of entitlement.

The selfishness problem does have a solution. It’s called love, the polar opposite. The antidote. Not only do selfish people require love to heal, but they become whole by learning to receive love and in turn to give love. Through consistent acts of love, selfishness can be overcome because it’s not possible to be simultaneously engaged in an act of love and an act of selfishness. The two cannot coexist in one act.

So that is what I did. I chose to give love to and compassion to Chad, and by doing so I ran afoul of the Ohio’s car backwards and undefined edict. But that is okay because I still belong to a bigger, way stronger car: the love car. And by forgiving Chad I did not get ran up by the love car.

Though I write this from the hole (formally called Special Housing Unit), I stand proud with my integrity and my values intact. I didn’t compromise them for the recidivist mentality of those who have not processed their pain and still must express it in emotionally deficient violence.

For the record, once in the hole, another of the homies came in and informed me that there was never a car meeting on the yard and a majority decision for me to be ran up. In fact, when most of the Ohio car learned what had happened, they agreed there was no justification for it. The whole decision had been a rather private affair spearheaded by the homies from my unit–Moe and the others that followed me into the cell–who made it sound like a car quorum had ruled.

Shocker alert: These were the same guys who “confiscated”–as in stole–hundreds of dollars of my commissary after I was gone (It is a custom of car politics to pirate the cell of someone who has been ran up). It is now clear that was the real motive all along.

Selfishness.

I forgive them I truly hope they seek and find healing so their pain doesn’t continue to spill onto other people. But what did I expect? This is the place where society sends people who can’t conform to its norms, who act from unprocessed pain, entitlement, and fear. Of course it is backwards here. The real question is whether we choose to stay that way or whether we, even in this environment, try to correct a skewed outlook and live by something higher.

Hard to be soft, tough to be tender.

* It should be noted that of all the cars the one that operates most like a gang is the white car. They often have much stricter rules than the other cars, particularly in terms of dealing with SOs or even sharing a cell with another race. Also, my assessment of the cars and prison gangs is derived from my personal experience at medium-security Federal Correctional Institutions. Some of these rules and aspects of cars and gangs might be quite different at United States Penitentiaries, which are extremely political and active in the affairs of others.

The post I Refused to Commit Violence in Prison — and Paid the Price first appeared on Prison Writers.