Prison Radio
Kenneth Zamarron

This is called “Hope in the Netherworld”. It’s for all the kids incarcerated for life in Americas penal systems. Hope in a netherworld. 

As a child, I was ordered into a netherworld, a world our society deems the worst possible place an individual in this country can find themselves: The American penal system.  As such, to my great consternation, I came to the stark realization I was literally surrounded by the dregs of humanity: murderers, rapists, child molesters, major drug dealers and armed robbers. 

Given my circumstance, I, like so many other similarly situated youthful offenders, had my share of struggles trying to find a way to simply survive in the violence within which I found myself. As at the time, it seemed many incarcerated individuals who I had met only respected violence or the threat of violence.  Even so, I soon came to appreciate that some widely held beliefs regarding what is normal in prison are completely unfounded. Among other things, certain of America’s supposedly worse criminals simply made a horrible one time decision, often fueled by drugs or alcohol, the consequences of which landed them in prison. 

Moreover, some of the incarcerated individuals by whom I was surrounded saw me as not that different from one of their own children they had failed, and as a result, without asking anything in return, often went out of their way to help me learn from the mistakes they had made in their own lives. Not only the mistakes they had made in the free world, but the mistakes they had made shortly after they themselves had first landed in prison. 

Such sage advice helped me mature and avoid what otherwise would have been inevitable physical confrontations. I would respectfully submit such belovements, on the part of certain incarcerated individuals, were the very opposite of what most people would have expected. In fact, I had came to the realization that not only can wayward incarcerated adults change, but that those who were incarcerated as children have the capacity and often the gusto to change all the more.  If our nation’s penal systems cannot correct and mold all the delinquent children into stable, mature, civic minded adults, what is the point of plastering the terms reformatory or correctional on the front of our nation’s prisons? 

I can state with absolute certitude, from both close observation and personal experience, that many incarcerated individuals who committed crimes as children are, after decades in prison, no risk whatsoever to any other person or any other person’s property. All that being the case, it is up to you, the listener, who, through your actions, can ensure that all incarcerated individuals, pursuants of crimes they committed as children, will one day have a meaningful review regarding a potential release in prison.  It is you, the listener, who can ensure that every state in our nation bans juvenile life without parole sentences and ensures parole eligibility after 15, 20, or 25 years for all children offenders who were sentenced as adults. 

It is you, the reader, who can write to or speak to legislators, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, or fellow citizens, and implore that they join the fight against either de jure or de facto life without parole sentences for children sentenced as adults.  Ultimately, it is you, the listener, who can fight against the greatest enemy of juvenile lifers, a complete lack of hope they will ever be released from incarceration.  As an adult in the netherworld I will always hold on to hope.

These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.