To Free the Truth

Sam Pruett in the early 90s

My father was raised in penal institutions. He was placed in reform school at age 10, and at 17, he ‘graduated’ to the penitentiary. He later spent several terms in Texas and Missouri prisons before killing Ray. 

As I’ve written, violence is the order of the day in here. You are conditioned to respond aggressively to any perceived threat. My father was a very violent man from this sort of conditioning. Anytime someone appeared to challenge his manhood, he became aggressive. He used to scare the hell out of me when he’d go into a rage on someone. From 1986 to 1995, he stabbed 3 different people on 3 separate occassions. Each time we had to move in the middle of the night so he wouldn’t go to jail. There wasn’t any running away from Ray’s murder though.

My point is that prison conditions people to become aggressive and violent with my father being the perfect illustration. After a couple of years inside, I started noticing my father in me. A part of me was proud that I had respect amongst the convicts, that everyone knew I would not only fight, but that I was a force to be reckoned with… It had become almost instinctive to be aggressive when I felt disrespected. I wouldn’t tolerate violations of my personal space or boundaries. 

The day that I realized that I was becoming my father was a depressing one. Don’t get me wrong, I love him and always will. In my heart, I know he’s sorry things happened the way they did, and I know he’d give anything to change it all. But, he was a product of his environment–one mean son of a bitch. I didn’t want to be that way; it brought tears just thinking about it. But, to renounce violence in prison is equivalent to losing all respect. To lose all respect means to concede to rape, robbery, and the whims of the predators.