David Scott Milton, a writer who taught composition to inmates at maximum-security prisons for more than a dozen years, just did an Ask Me Anything on Reddit. A few exchanges follow.
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Question:
So are all people redeemable, or are there truly some that have no conscience, and no empathy?
Answer:
One of the astonishing things that I discovered in working in the prison- I had no idea of this from the outside- on the maximum yard, 5 to 10% of the inmates are unredeemable. They should probably be locked away and never thought of again. 5 to 10% (in my opinion) are likely innocent and wholly redeemable. The other 80% run the gamut from mostly redeemable to barely redeemable.
The tragedy is that they’re all lumped together.
Tags: David Scott Milton