“I paid my debt to society. I paid my restitution. I stayed out of trouble. Why is my criminal history always going to be at the forefront of who I am? It doesn’t define who I am anymore. To be brutally honest that bothers me, and hurts me, and worries me, but I can’t crumble. You can’t give up—you’ve gotta’ keep going. I can’t quit—just gotta’ keep moving.”
Kenneth Anderson’s frustration is very familiar to the millions of men and women returning to society after a period of incarceration. Despite having spent nearly 20 years behind bars, Kenneth finds himself struggling to find and keep employment, reconnecting to his family, and dealing with personal demons—some that sent him to prison in the first place, and others that were birthed during his incarceration.
A new documentary on PBS follows two men recently released from California prisons as a result of Proposition 36, which mandates a reassessment of life sentences to nonviolent offenders serving time as a result of that state’s “three strikes” law. While Kenneth and Bilal Chatman return to very different situations (Kenneth to a supportive family, Bilal to transition housing with an ailing mother needing his support), both face challenges to reintegration, and handle them with varying degrees of success.
In addition to sharing Kenneth’s and Bilal’s stories, the documentary questions the sentencing guidelines that gave the two men their long prison sentences in the first place, and how incarceration has prepared them for life beyond bars. “I think we should punish people who commit crimes. But how much?” asks Mike Romano, who lobbies for the release of nonviolent prisoners serving life sentences through his role as director of the Three Strikes Project. ” There has to be a proportionality, there has to be fairness, and there has to be effectiveness. You do not need these extraordinarily long sentences in order to keep the public safe, and in fact, they are detrimental. We are creating underclasses of people who can’t get out of prison and are destroying families and neighborhoods. We as a society have to take some responsibility for what we’ve done and try to fix it.”
“[Kenneth] used to say all the time, ‘They treat you like a dog. They don’t treat you like a human being,’” rKenneth’s ex-wife, Monica Greer says, reflecting on his time behind bars. “You know, they needed help, not a long prison time. ‘Cause if we can help them, think about who they can help.”
The story ends on a positive note, with Bilal finding his niche with a new job he loves and a new wife. “Today my life is full, he says. “I have 12 years, six months clean and sober. I will see my mother about twice a week. I have a job that I’ve very proud of and focused with. And, you know, it’s funny—but at the end of the year, I look forward to paying taxes. I look forward to voting coming up.”
“Sometimes we take things for granted,” Bilal concludes. “It’s very simple, though. The worst day out here is better than the best day in jail. I can be out here on my way to work in traffic—hot, and people are honking horns—I can just switch lanes, I can pull over. Life is absolutely wonderful in the middle of traffic.
“The Return” is part of the PBS series “POV,” and is available for viewing online. To watch the video in its entirety, click here.