Just recently, I read a purely fictional whodunit book by Benjamin Stevenson, Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone, which is not my typical read. One quote interestingly reflects on prison: “Prison is a good perspective, it feels like everything stays still while the world spins around you.” Often, I have described the federal prison experience in Morgantown as an insulated bubble or like taking a step back into a time when technology was just advancing in the 90s, but I wouldn’t necessarily have used the word “good” but “different” or some variant to describe the perspective. For two years now, I have been wrapped in a time warped bubble, rightfully missing out on daily freedoms, and solely focused on righting my wrongs through the rehabilitative journey. About 99% of the time, I do maintain a positive disposition of this prison journey, but I would be remiss if I failed to reflect on the terrible reality that prison is still a prison. The absence of loved ones, the redundancy of controlled environments, the stale encounters with other criminals, the mundane wasting of life, the loss of anything personal, including space. With risk of losing myself, I consciously refocus any negative, paradigmatic evil thoughts that compose the essences of prison to finding hope and opportunity in this soulless institution. These two years have been instrumental life lessons of why not to come to prison. Occasionally, I will reflect on my life choices resulting in different outcomes from my actions that do not involve prison: the what ifs. I do not like to think about this sort of mental rabbit hole. I hear it all day long from other inmates. The worst and most commonly
vocalized “What If” is what if I didn’t get caught or what if someone didn’t snitch, which is certainly the mentality that leads to repeat offending. While these two long years have been a reprieve from the treacherous legal peril that I caused, the experience has still been a terrible one. If I hadn’t had this experience, I wouldn’t really understand what term sentences of years really means when it is reported in the news. Such and such has been sentenced to 5 years, to 25 years, to life. While I understand the deterrence that comes with hefty sentences, I can only justify keeping grown humans incarcerated for such long durations based on the heinousness of the crimes and not on lesser petty ones. Otherwise, the psychologic destruction a prison experience has on a human person is simply torturous. Sadly, a lesson that I needed to learn, but wish I would’ve known what this experience would have really been like. I would have never even given into any of my neurodivergent shenanigans and irrationality.
While these past two years have been trifled with anxiety, shame, regret, and remorse, the outpouring of love, encouragement, and support utterly surprised me, not only by family and friends, but strangers too. Throughout these two years, I have sought for forgiveness from those that have felt harmed by my actions and of course anyone that has felt that I’ve wronged them. If America is able to elect a felon to the highest office, then I am hopeful that society will welcome me back and permit me to correct the injustices that I’ve caused. While I remain in prison, I am inspired by my loved ones not to allow the last two years define me but inform my successful future. My daily goal is simply not to let down or further let down anyone that has unconditionally supported and loved me. Thank you for taking the time to check in on my prison journey and let me provide a more melancholiac reflection on two years of being at Federal Prison Camp Morgantown. Please continue to look for any little miracle in your life this week 🙂
Ken Gaughan
Federal Prison Advocate and Consultant