Street Roots • Oct. 7-13, 2016
News
Page 5
DIALOGUE, from page 4
The actors exit the stage, murmuring,
“Words, words, words. Words Words,
words.”
ords are at the heart of what brings
the inmates together.
The group at Two Rivers, which changes
depending on whether someone is released
or leaves the group, has discussed
fatherhood, what it means to be a good
citizen, how to Eve a happy life, or a better
life, and, inevitably, why they are in prison,
the mistakes they’ve made in their lives, and
their pasts.
Stallings used to create topics that the .
men would talk or write about But more
often, there is something they want to talk
about - whether it is something that
happened to them during the week or
something from their life they want to
share.
“It’s really just listening,” said Spencer,
31, who co-directed “Metamorphoses” and
helps facilitate the dialogue group at
Portland’s Columbia River Correctional
Institution. “It’s not trying to answer, not
trying to fix, not trying to help; it’s just
giving air time to whatever is going on.”
Rocky Hutchinson, 40, said he was a
broken man when he started attending
Stallings’ dialogue group in 2013. His
mother had died the year before. She was
his only contact outside of prison.
When Hutchinson was a child, his mother
was a prostitute and was addicted to crack,
leaving Hutchinson to be raised by his
W
grandfather who abused pills and alcohol. As
an adult he lived in Portland and had “been
through it all,” using and dealing drugs,
living as a junkie.
Participating in the group has allowed
Hutchinson to step back from his life and
“see my faults, admit my faults.” He finds
inspiration in hearing other people’s stories;
they all find camaraderie in gathering to talk
and, oftentimes, commiserate.
Hutchinson has lost 50 pounds; he
disparages the criminal lifestyle he once
lived. He is at turns serious and thoughtful,
then happy and cracking jokes - it is nearly
impossible to think of him once living life as
a thug on the streets.
He likens Stalling to a compass.
“He pulled me from broken wreckage and
turned me into a pretty decent person, I
think,” Hutchinson said. “He gave me the
ability to take myself back to be who I
always intended to be.
“He brings out what’s in your heart,”
Hutchinson said.
The inmates in the Two Rivers dialogue
group have participated in the group for
years. Week to week, they most look
forward to the two hours they spend with
one another each Saturday.
They have come to love one another -
their closest friends, their chosen family.
“When I was out there robbing banks and
realized that it was inevitable I would be
going to prison, I never thought there would
be a time during my incarceration that I
would meet people who I cared about,”
Baird said.
They have long sentences, up to life
without parole. But sitting in a dialogue
group, a person might never guess they
faced charges of sex abuse, drug possession
and dealing, attempted murder, robbery and
burglary. The inmates are polite and so
forthright and thoughtful about their lives
that it is almost disorienting. Many of them
are talented musicians, singers, writers. One
wonders, what is this person doing here?
And for so long?
The answer is easy: They committed
criminal acts against victims. But many of
them are also victims - of abuse or neglect
at the hands of their parents, of
undiagnosed or untreated mental illnesses,
of growing up and living in a world of gangs,
drugs, poverty, violence, chaos. The odds of
escaping that reality for anyone is miniscule.
For the inmates, it was zero.
“It’s hard,” Spencer said. “They’re sad
stories, a lot of the time. Once I know the
context they’ve lived in, I have a hard time
blaming them for their actions.”
Of Hutchinson, who grew up with drugs
all around him, Stallings said: “His life is
over-determined. How could he not go to
prison?
“Crime is seen as an individual moral
failure: ‘You knew right from wrong, and you
didn’t do the right thing.’ This is nothing at
all like how the world actually works,”
Stallings said. “You could go to any random
house, look in, and decide whether the
3-year-old inside is going to an Ivy League
college or is going to prison.”
Stallings believes we are all that 3-year
old.
“If we get the right nourishment and love
and attention, we get to blossom and
flower,” he said. When we do not is when
many of society’s problems are created,
including criminality, he said.
Undoing the trauma the inmates have
faced, Spencer said, “takes so much self-
work.” That is the overarching goal of the
dialogue group. “We want everyone to see a
better life for themselves ... to thrive and
have joy in their life,” she said.
The inmates in the groups led by
Stallings are self-selecting. There are 16
regular attendees - roughly 1 percent of
the prison’s population. “We do get guys
who are at a certain point where (they say),
‘I’m done with this,’” Spencer said.
Over the years, many inmates have told
Stallings that they had never had the
opportunity to reflect on their lives. Many
tell him they think it’s good they wound up
in prison, saying that at the time of their
arrest, they were on a trajectory of pain and
chaos that would have only worsened,
See DIALOGUE, page 7