Barb Wires

Cement walls and barb wires. The watchmen stood unwavering on top of the watch towers. Upon arrival, I felt thrilled. It was an experience drawn from movies, and I, for some incomprehensible reason, let my imagination wandered away to the image of Wentworth Miller from Prisonbreak. Grounded back to reality, I sobered at the thought of a real prison breaking which sent shivers to my spine.Then my unpredictable cognitive mind suddenly triggered a notion of an apartheid when I stared at the cement walls and barb wires at the third glance. It was surreal to wrap my head around the facts. The stuff we observe in Hollywood are real. There is nothing fictitious about the existence of crimes and prisoners. More than anything, I reaffirmed my belief in the fact, that there is nothing fictitious about the concept of justice.

I hesitate to reveal the details for my experience witnessing hearings at the penitentiary for confidentiality reasons. Offenders are humans. Relative to context, I sympathized them and become frustrated by the system. Or I'd become frustrated by the insensitivity of their actions, and would support the sanctions for punitive measures. I encountered real offenders who shared their accounts of prison experiences and their personal reflections of the committed crimes. Personally for me, I sought deeply for answers to the intrinsic assessment of 'what is REALLY genuine and truthful?'

And for the first time in my life, I was in an environment where the burden of justice weighted heavily upon my shoulders. The structure of the institution was a physical representation of the critical conflict between the universal laws of morality and the fallibility of human condition in interpretation. And to think religiously what judgement would be like in the hereafter, is beyond my capacity....and more incomprehensible than this.