Law and Crime
Should You Be Friends With a Criminal?
Should you end or alter your relationship with someone who's been convicted?
Posted December 23, 2019 Reviewed by Ekua Hagan
“Dear Friend,” wrote inmate #57746 (not his real number). The letter was signed, “Your Friend.” He is one of about 2,300,000 prisoners in the United States, and yes, he is my friend.
With such a startling number of incarcerated people, it is possible that you know someone who is doing time because he committed a crime. It can be a non-violent crime, a drug-related offense, or a violent crime, like murder, rape, or robbery. It may involve money laundering, insider trading, fraud, or other so-called white-collar crimes. And it raises the question: Should you cut off contact or alter your relationship with someone who has been convicted of wrongdoing?
The question is particularly interesting to me because, for six years, I volunteered in the prison system. I worked with juveniles, including many who had been charged with federal crimes and were guilty of the most heinous acts a human can perform.
I spent a lot of time in the facility and corresponded with prisoners between visits. I wanted to know who the young offenders were and how they ended up on the wrong side of the law. It became patently clear that many of them were intelligent, resourceful, and manipulative, and that they came from very disturbed and disturbing backgrounds.
One kid was taught by his father to shoot up heroin when he was 10. Another had a mother who, after his father beat him mercilessly, was furious that he dared to bleed on her new white carpet. A third was bullied at school into revenge. A fourth had a mother who sexually assaulted her. Many had parents who were incarcerated. A considerable portion of the inmates had drug and alcohol problems and struggled at school with learning disabilities. And according to their stories, none of them were guilty.
When I asked a few if they were sorry for what they had done, either they maintained their innocence or shrugged off the question. A security guard told me it was like asking someone in the hospital who was in a cast from head to toe if he was comfortable—“They’re in such emotional pain that they can’t even relate to the question,” the guard said.
Some friends, who knew about my volunteering in the facility, asked how I could possibly spend so much time with those who had done awful, unforgivable things, and how I could remain non-judgmental. After all, since they had hurt others and destroyed lives, they weren’t deserving of compassion and care.
My answer was that when I got to know those convicted of crimes, I wanted to help in any way I could to expose them to a more positive, hopeful world. Many of them were raised with economic hardship and didn’t even dream about prosperous, fulfilling lives. I talked to them about travel.
I brought in architects and actors and journalists and artists to work with them, to encourage them to express themselves and their creativity; many had never done that before. They learned how to analyze poems and write their own. One said he “hated poetry,” and then retreated to a corner where he wrote rap lyrics. They took art lessons from one volunteer and learned to play guitar with another.
It was impossible to imagine cutting them off or excising them from my life because of their previous ones. I felt terribly sad for their victims and sad for them and the mess they had made of their young lives. If they didn’t change their ways, understand what they had done, or try to change their mode of life, they would end up as adults in a permanent prison cycle.
Sometimes, even if they changed, even with good intentions, even after they had served their time to pay for their crime, they would be released and fall back in with the same gang, or the same crime-oriented crowd. They trailed a prison background that made it difficult to find employment. They were on the outside until they did something that landed them back on “the inside”—as they called incarceration.
Every day, I read about people arrested for despicable crimes against children, people of color, women, or others of different sexual or religious preferences. I am horrified at hate-fueled acts of racism, violence, anti-Semitism, cruelty, and victimization of innocent people. I feel judgmental, angry, and unforgiving.
But I always come back to the same question: What would I do if one of them were my friend? Would I cut off contact if it were a violent crime? A non-violent crime? If the crime were premeditated? Are the crime and the perpetrator one and the same? Is there a part of the offender that may be caring, responsive, or sorry? Would I only be friends with someone who acted out in a moment and then, later, reflected, apologized, and grew beyond such behaviors?
What would you do? Would you sever the relationship, especially if the crime were something appalling? Would maintaining a friendship mean that you forgave the perpetrator, minimized the crime, or compromised your values or morality?
Or do you believe that anyone, any person, can change, and can decide to do and be better in the world?
There is no pat answer and no easy reply. But asking the question may inspire you to think about what you would do and if your job in life is to judge, forgive, or a combination of the two. Would it serve a purpose to cut off a friendship, and would it help the innocent victims of the crime? Would it be a stance you feel good about?
Working with youthful offenders, especially those who were guilty of violent crimes, made me think that in each case, their lives were untenable, the emotional pain was unbearable, and they checked out. And when you check out, when you are not emotionally and mentally present in your life, you are capable of doing horrid things.
Again, I do not have an answer. I would love to know how you feel about this. Perhaps you already have a relative, a friend, or an ex-friend who has been convicted of a crime. Or perhaps, one day, you will. Maybe you draw lines between the kinds of offenders you can interact with and others with whom you would never engage; it depends upon the nature of the crime.
In a prison I visited in Yucatán, Mexico, the enlightened warden walked around in shirtsleeves, unarmed, and ran the facility as though it were a community. Prisoners had access to classes, produced art, and could learn skills that would get them jobs when they were released. Families came to visit on the weekends and, among other activities, were entertained by an inmate who dressed as a clown.
“Are any of the prisoners your friends?” I asked a man who worked there.
“All of them are,” he answered.
