Summary of the Video
Louie Diaz is a Substance Abuse Counsellor, and Reentry Specialist who serves the pivotal role of guiding these former incarcerates on achieving stability and sobriety beyond the wall. The film begins with Louie walking into the Middlesex County House of Correction, where these men were formerly detained (Northern Light Production, 2018). He then proceeds to talk to a group of men guiding and preparing them for life after prison. Looking at Louie’s life, it reveals a perfect encounter with chaos, and he truly understands how life after incarceration feels like. As a youth, Louie sold drugs as wells as stolen jewelry and became involved in a ploy to steal a car. He also struggled with drug addiction. He was later served a ten-year sentence for stabbing a police officer as he attempted to fly a crime scene. He instead ended up serving about three years in a state correction facility (Diaz, 2020).
This film reflects the difficulty of life after prison. For Louie, it is not easy attending to other people’s physical and emotional needs at the same time being haunted by a disconcerting past. As he works in the streets of Lowell, we notice a lot of men gathering under his leadership. These men are in different stages of recovery, and he is always there for them whenever they encounter a relapse.
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Billy Cabrera, an essential character in the film, poses as a former inmate and drug addict. Through an efficient recovery network, his dream of becoming a leading barber actualizes. Billy opened a barbershop in which, together with Louie, they guide people towards recovery. This barbershop has become a crucial link in reentry and recovery with local prisons and jails sending former incarcerates here.
Another character the film explores is Jesus Ruiz. With over 98 charges on his record, Ruiz is set to leave prison and start life out there. He has six children to feed with numerous bills on his shoulders. It is a challenging question of how Ruiz will lead a crime-free life and attend to all these needs. Three other former inmates have to navigate through the same type of challenges before recovering.
Class Material Portrayed in the Video
The dominant class material displayed in the video’s narration is reducing recidivism. Recidivism could casually be described as the act of a previous offender offending again. The film, in its entirety, focuses on helping former inmates in adapting to life after prison. Look at drug addicts; for example, there are half chances they might go back to using drugs once released from prison. Moreover, someone coming from prison has nothing on their name, in regards to material wealth. It becomes increasingly difficult for them to handle economic challenges and mounting bills with no money at all. This quagmire implies that some might resort to engaging in criminal activities just to earn a living and settle their bills.
For recidivism to be reduced successfully, there must be mechanisms at hand to guide in this expedition. The easiest and advisable way is to form a network with former inmates who have undergone similar experiences and have successfully achieved recovery and reentry. Borrowing from Louie’s life, for instance, together with Billy Cabrera, they utilized Billy’s barbershop to help former incarcerates adjust to the new life. They would give free haircuts and cups of coffee to people. It is through the barbershop that they were able to get in touch with Jesus Ruiz. With all those charges on his record, Ruiz was set to live a normal life without any close supervision. Louie devotes his time to help Ruiz whenever he meets him on the streets.
With many outlined ways of reducing recidivism, this film focuses on creating recovery connections with former inmates as the best method. Inmates coming out of prison can learn from those on a higher recovery level and can also take advice from them. Moreover, the presence of an experienced counselor like Louie goes a long way in offering supervisory assistance (Liem, 2016).
Personal Response to the Video
The criminal justice system in American and all over the world concerns itself with jail terms and does not account for these inmates after their time is over. Most of them are irresponsibly thrown back into the world and left to fend for themselves. Incisively, many of these inmates are dealt with significant mental retardation, and adapting to the normalcy of the real world is not that easy and direct.
Arbitrarily, I vouch for a fully inclusive justice system that will be responsible for all former incarcerates until they attain full recovery. In the film, it is Louie’s who does this job as a favor to ensure others do not face similar tribulations he experienced. Furthermore, he uses this method as a way to keep his life on track so that he does not fall into the temptations of recidivism. These life experiences depict how the criminal justice system has failed in addressing a crucial issue. One former incarcerate once said, the problem is never being in prison, but rather staying out of jail. The criminal justice system should, therefore, find a way of addressing this hot topic.
Consequently, one quote I find hugely informative and educative from the film is that of Louie Diaz, which says , “If you continue doing what you’ve always done, you’ll continue getting what you’ve always gotten (Northern Light Production, 2018) .” It is a quote Louie incessantly repeated to Jesus Ruiz whenever he met him on the streets, and it was Louie’s favorite line (Diaz, 2020). Ruiz had spent most of his adult life behind bars, and Louie’s used this line to admonish him on avoiding acts that will land him back in prison. It resonates well with our real lives, and it could be applied in the field of success. It is as simple as you can never do things the same way and expect different results. For one to succeed in life, one must try new things.
References
Diaz, L. (2020). Struggles and Strategies for Survival Beyond the Walls of Jail.
Liem, M. (2016). After-life imprisonment: reentry in the era of mass incarceration (Vol. 13). NYU Press.
Northern Light Production, (2018). Beyond the Wall: After Incarceration, There’s Life. Criminal Justice and Public Safety.
