I have been working for the Department of Corrective Services for over three years now teaching art as a casual, part-time teacher. It is not like teaching workshops or in a school. Prisoners are not children. Nor do they play by the rules -- unless they like you, or are particularly interested in the course you are teaching.

Jail is a way of life for many inmates. That, and drugs. You wonder why. It's not a great life. Yet one habitual offender told me, "Jail is not so bad, miss. You get a decent feed and you get to meet the brothers again." Another told me he couldn't cope on the outside, so he robbed a bank to get back in. "I just threw the money about," he said, "and people were grabbing it all around me. I'm glad to be back."

The system isn't corrective. The recidivism rate is very high. Those who do rehabilitate have a strong desire to change their life focus, widen their perspectives, use their opportunities and run with it. It's not easy, but they win in the end and I salute them.

Others, on the other hand, learn how to manipulate the system, seeking out the corruptible in order to satisfy their own agendas and solving problems according to their own rules -- the same rules that got them into jail in the first place. They don't care who it hurts. These individuals are notorious for self-justification (even to the extent of believing their own lies) and they have awesome egos.

The rest keep their heads down and try not to be noticed. If they're lucky, they get through without too many bashings. The jail culture is like a violent village. Many inmates are related. Most keep to their ethnic group if it's large enough. Everyone keeps up-to-date on crime reports and is well aware of what's happening -- even in other jails.

If I think about the crimes my students have committed, I find it difficult to relate to them. I've found it's better to just accept them as they are when I'm with them. There will be a day when they will repent and be redeemed to a relationship with God. I learned many years ago that, in terms of eternity, this life is less than a breath.

Wasted lives are in direct contrast to the hope and joy for the future God gives us in the Bible and through His Holy Days, which remind us that God's plan for humanity is indeed all inclusive. (See "Many Paths to God?" in this issue.)

What I am learning

Somebody asked me what I was learning in jail. After I had thought about it a bit, I realized I'm learning not to be complacent with my life, but to use it as fully and wisely as I can, while fighting my shortcomings.

In jail, life seems somehow more intense, like being in a war or someplace where you need to be very alert and able to recognize instantly what is good, and what is evil. Quite often the education process surprises me and I think that God is teaching me wisdom. (Naiveté may have its charms, but it's not particularly prudent.)

One of the obvious things about jail, particularly with inmates, is the criminality of wasted lives. In Scripture "waste" is translated from several Hebrew words that mean, literally: desolation, spoiling, destruction (Zephaniah 1:15; Isaiah 59:7), vanity, futility and ruin (Genesis 1:2; Isaiah 45:18).

A wasted life

Tim (not his real name) is an example of a wasted life. He is one of my students. One day he came to class early and while we waited for the others, he said, "Do you know what I did for my 46-cents-per-hour today? I folded cardboard cartons!" He shook his head and I watched his eyes fill with tears. The previous week he'd cleaned hair out of reconditioned shavers and depilatory tools destined for resale as "specials." "I actually hid behind a carton and cried," he continued. "We should be building house parts for poor people -- or growing hardwood seedlings for plantations to save logging rainforests, or vegetables for soup kitchens!" He put his face in his hands and raged.

Tim was studying for a degree when he was arrested for a murder he'd committed 10 years earlier. The jury had wept for him and asked for clemency, but the judge, horrified at the killing of a pedophile by such a savage boy, declared that an example must be made. Tim's appeal looks promising, but who can restore his lost innocence or the years he has wasted in jail or the destruction of so much of his potential?

There are too many wasted lives, too much potential destroyed by, at times, outright ignorance, but mostly by outright sin. In this world the loss seems permanent, but God has other plans. There is a world to come and a time of redemption described in the prophecies of the Bible.

My experience in jail has made me very aware that I must not resist God's guidance in favor of justifying my own way. I have to ask myself, Am I using the resources God gives me, or wasting or abusing them? No Christian can afford to squander energies, talents, gifts of the Spirit or time that ought to be spent in prayer or study or fasting or any other offerings dedicated to God.

Prison makes me very aware that Jesus exhorted us to work while it is day (John 9:4). Do harvesters waste the last hours of daylight? No, they work their hardest as the day ends. The night has not yet come for us, and we need to keep working on ourselves and to be a light to this dying world! If we waste our opportunity to work now, how shall we be judged for our reward when Christ returns? What opportunities will we have let go by where we could have benefited others (Luke 19:11-27)?

Let us work with all that we've been given to use, wasting nothing, so that when we stand before Christ we will be invited to take part in God's great plan for humanity by helping to restore others to God's way of life. It's something to look forward to!

Mavis Stucci, is a member of the United Church of God in Sydney, Australia. This article first appeared in the September-October 2000 issue of United News Australia.