Beyond Prison: Finding Second Chances Through Grace, Resilience, and Community

By William Kenneth Sansing

Beyond Prison: Finding Second Chances through Grace, Resilience, and Community recounts William Sansing's journey from an upstanding, church-going citizen to a three-year stint in prison to a licensed counselor, educator, and prison reform advocate. Juxtaposing stories of early religious life experiences against those o

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manuscripts LLC
• Release date: Dec 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889265498

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

---

I’m William Sansing, a white, southern former farmer, taxpaying citizen, upstanding member of my community and church, and faithful husband and father. During the peak of summer 1997, I walked into the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary Complex to serve a thirty-six-month sentence for wire fraud.

This experience would change my life in many ways, only a few of which were negative.

Going to prison surprised me. The effect it had on me surprised me even more. My first surprise came during a lockdown when a man who was twice my size approached me unannounced. My chest tightened, and I considered how to best protect myself. Instead of attacking me, the stranger extended his hand and said, I’m from the Christian community, and we are going to take care of you until you learn how to take care of yourself.

Based on what they’ve seen on television, people who’ve never been to prison imagine all the ways that interaction could have gone differently. I thought the same thing. However, my fear vanished at that moment, and an immediate, unfamiliar sense of peace and relief shifted my mindset. My core beliefs took a backseat as my neurotransmitters created new brain connections, and a different lifestyle began. Community was a concept I thought I understood. I had rarely felt such ease as I did with that fellow prisoner—safety even. In the shadow of his large frame, there was acceptance. Nonjudgment. Common sharing.

Soon, I began observing and understanding community in ways I never imagined. Those newfound revelations followed me when I transferred to another prison, as I carried out my prison sentence, and into every opportunity I had after I walked out of prison.

I learned many life lessons while doing time that magnified when I began working for a university, completed a PhD program, and became a licensed professional counselor and supervisor. All along the way, people facilitated many second chances and welcomed me into their communities. These experiences were necessary for me to rebuild a successful life, but when I consider the opportunities I got that many others don’t, I often ask myself, Why me?

According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the US spends eighty billion dollars each year on correction facilities, which is 15 percent more than the discretionary budget of the Department of Education (Prison Policy Initiative 2017). Seventy million people have some type of criminal record, according to the FBI Interstate Identification Index (III) (FBI 2022).

Healthy People reveals that two out of three people are rearrested within three years of their prison release, and over 50 percent are incarcerated again. These data are disproportionately greater in black and brown communities. Moreover, 75 percent of men and women in substance abuse treatment report histories of abuse and trauma, and 97 percent of homeless women with mental illness report severe physical or sexual abuse (DHHS 2020).

Somewhat related, forty million adults experience depression and anxiety, twenty-one million experience addiction, only 25 percent of new businesses last over fifteen years, and about 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce or separation (Wilkinson & Finkbeinder 2023). There seem to be a lot of people who need a supportive community and second chances.

When navigating life’s struggles—prison, addiction, relationship failures, being fired, business failures, political turmoil, even apparent success—questions about behavioral change emerge. The silent, overriding question is whether people can even change at all.

While some may ask, What is wrong with people who struggle in life? it may be better to ask, What happened to create life struggles? This question explores early life influences and trauma and forces us to explore what facilitates healing and healthy change.

Difficulties and change also force other questions. Who deserves fully integrated second chances? Are people living in prison or with an addiction any different from nonprisoners or addicts? What level of addiction requires criminal charges? Should addiction be a medical issue instead of a criminal one? How can diverse populations live in harmony? What should life in prison look and feel like?

Some argue that prison should be as harsh as possible and should be all about punishment. Thus, tension arises over a prison’s purpose. Is it rehabilitative? Corrective? Healing? It is a reasonable argument that prison should not be easy. However, if America spends more than $100 billion annually on corrections alone, shouldn’t society work collectively to stop the cycle of generational harm and refuse to kick the problem down the road or onto someone else?

I believe everyone deserves an opportunity to heal and have a fully integrated opportunity to rebuild their lives, including people in prison, living with addiction, or struggling, because, despite any of that, they are perfectly human. When people share common values, anyone can live in harmony. After all, people hurt, struggle, and change, and there just may be common ingredients at the base of our humanity that foster healthy growth while building judgment-free and shame-free communities where leaders address trauma and people heal. When people unite instead of divide, we learn we are far more similar than we are different.

I have experienced prison life and its associated setbacks. My post incarceration time as an educator, researcher, and therapist has given me a unique perspective when communicating these setbacks. In this book, I write about early life influences, what sent me to prison, how I survived, how I rebuilt a second, third, and fourth career, and how I now view life after prison and in recovery. But I couldn’t have done it on my own.

Community leaders who believe in resilience, acceptance, grace, faith, work, and service hold their communities’ healing in their hands. My story is a guidebook of sorts for policymakers, professionals in education and prisons, ministry leaders, and people recovering from addiction or life’s struggles to build shame-free communities that promote healing and complete recovery for everyone.

CHAPTER 1

MEMORABLE DAYS

---

Ironically, my prison story begins around July 4, 1997. For as long as I can remember, that holiday and the days bookending it have been a family favorite. The only reason the Fourth of July doesn’t trump the Christmas season is because of my family’s love of faith, football, gifts, and New Year’s Eve celebrations. Residing in Mississippi’s red-clay hills, my family of farmers was well connected—on some level—to almost every segment of agriculture in our town and most everyone who lived in nearby communities.

Our immediate and extended families were involved in almost every farming and animal production sector. We sold beef and pork from our small custom meat processing plant and retail shop. Growing up in the family business, I had a head start compared to many of my peers who wanted to work in production agriculture, and I experienced a lot of early success. I was the 1984 District Outstanding Young Farmer and Rancher for Mississippi’s Farm Bureau and earned the runner-up spot in the state’s inaugural debate competition.

I never really wanted to draw attention to myself, but I was pleased when Progressive Farmer magazine featured our family farming business in January and June of 1986. Soon after the publication of these stories, a friend told me many farmers struggled after being featured in publications like that. His insight could have been an omen because the attention brought unrequested opportunities I was unprepared for as we eventually outgrew our capacity.

Mid-July allowed a much-needed break for many farm workers. While everyone had adjusted to the oppressive southern heat and humidity, they needed time to catch their breath before transitioning to the latter half of summer and into harvest season. Everyone connected with the family farm experienced most of those realities.

Because our family operated the town’s retail meat shop, we sold every cut of pork people used for barbecues. It was an understatement to call this time of year busy, so when the fourth rolled around, we were thankful to take a breath, cook our own barbeque, and decompress for a day. Our loved ones came from everywhere to enjoy the cooking, watermelon, field corn, political discussions, and fireworks.

As a textbook extrovert, the fact that nearly all my high school friends worked for or interacted with our family was gratifying for me. I suppose these celebrations and church were where I first learned what it meant to be part of something. Even then, I had a vague sense that community was necessary, but my understanding of how it worked felt incomplete. Little did I know, doors were opening to a deep and broad understanding of community that filled those missing spaces.

As a seemingly successful white Southern man, I never expected my love for Independence Day to become connected to my incarceration. My family and I spent the weekend before my sentence would begin preparing with my mother-in-law’s twin sister and her family in Atlanta. During a time I usually so cherished for rest and recharge, I anxiously wondered what the following days would bring. In those moments, I did not believe family and friends could provide essential support systems. I only felt consuming dread, fear, and doubt.

I focused on how that weekend felt. Even now, it was one of the longest I could imagine or remember. I could not enjoy anything—not extended family, not friends, not my wife, not my children. Questions and concerns replaced peace and relaxation. Why was I told to self-surrender in Atlanta? Why did everyone trust I could manage the family business? Why didn’t I demand help as the company outgrew itself? How would I survive in prison? Would my family survive? What would a convicted felon label mean in five years? In twenty-five years?

The plan became to survive one day at a time. I had heard of the Serenity Prayer, but now, I was ready to embrace it. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference (Niebuhr 1926). Gosh almighty, how this prayer would direct me and my family for the rest of our lives. I wondered how many others were preparing to do what I was about to do, how many more of us were free and imprisoned simultaneously.

The hours and minutes continued to drag on the morning I was scheduled to turn myself in. I arrived at the prison shortly after noon. The exact time isn’t one of the details I remember like it was yesterday, but the sign that greeted me after the walk from my father-in-law’s pickup truck to the door is one I will never forget.

Receiving.

It sounded so welcoming, but I doubted I’d feel anything close to acceptance among a building of lawbreaking strangers as I walked away from my family and into the loneliness of self-surrender.

Self-surrender.

What a cruel reward for being a low-risk and cooperating future prisoner. Self-surrender is something few people can plan or prepare for. After the judge ordered my sentence, he allowed me thirty days to get my affairs in order and spend time with my family. I get it. The consequences for ill-advised choices, which, admittedly, caused life-altering, unintended harm for many others and prison for me, were clearly severe. However, they trusted that I would show up voluntarily at their chosen prison.

Yeah, this makes perfect sense, I thought, shaking my head and rolling my eyes. Still, it was better than the alternative of a bailiff taking me into custody immediately after sentencing with my family, accusers, and the media watching in the audience, downloading the vision of me in shackles and handcuffs in their brains forever.

I have heard it said that critical events scroll across your mind at the end of your life. I do not know if that is true, but shortly after lunch on that hot July day, many critical moments passed through my mind. I almost instantly remembered the day my mom had an automobile accident and died forty-three days later. I was twelve. Those feelings of getting the news of her death while staying at my best friend’s house felt oddly like those of my self-surrender day. Another early July day, as a young teenager, I was overjoyed to be the best man in my dad’s remarriage. How could one holiday hold so much emotion?

Thinking of our family business, I recalled the day I signed a promissory note—with no application or approval process—for a two-million-dollar line of credit to buy cattle. Soon, a banker said I could access as much of a twenty-five million dollar line of credit as I wanted. I recalled the day in early March 1996 when I left my wife a voice message at her job that I would not be at home when she got off work. I walked out into our woods, sat under a tree, and put a gun to my head. For reasons I can’t explain, I felt a spiritual presence. That presence, as fiery as my mother’s red hair and as still as her soft voice, whispered, William, you can’t do this. Get your butt up, dust yourself off, and get into the house. I am going to take care of you. I have too much work for you to do!

In the Atlanta Prison Complex parking lot on Independence Day weekend, I asked myself how anything positive could come from the place where the government sends you to give up your freedom. I sat a while longer in my father-in-law’s pickup, looking at the massive, dingy walls surrounding the Atlanta Penitentiary.

I stepped out of the truck and turned toward the receiving area. I couldn’t look back at my wife, Ann, or my father-in-law. Carrying some meds, a cherished Bible with some family pictures tucked in the binding, and fifty bucks my father-in-law thought I might need at the last minute, my gait shifted to something unfamiliar and unsteady. I arrived at the receiving area, still asking myself how the hell I’d ended up here, pulled open the thick steel door, and stepped inside. Looking around, it felt like that voice in the woods had lied.

As I peered at the darkened entrance, a sizable CO (correctional officer) shouted, "Who the hell are you? We don’t have any self-surrenders scheduled for today!"

Staring at him in disbelief, I stammered, My name is William Sansing. The probation office told me to self-surrender here today.

His eyes locked in on me. Sansing? We got no Sansing on the list.

Maybe this was a mistake after all! Shuffling my feet, I said, Well, I tell you what… I’ll go back home and come back when y’all get this straightened out. The place smelled like a high school locker room.

The officer’s expression hardened. Hell no. No one shows up here looking for the local McDonald’s. Come on in. We’ll process you and figure out the rest later. Get your ass over here and strip.

Stepping inside a cold, well-lit room, I began taking off my clothes. I trembled, unsure of how much was due to the cold and how much was due to nerves. Then came the instructions you always remember.

Looking squarely at me, the officer commanded, Stick out your tongue! Wiggle it around.

Twisting my ears and shaking my head, he ensured I had nothing hidden in my hair. Then came something even worse.

Spread your ass cheeks!

Before I regained my composure, he commanded, Now lift your nut sack, squat, and cough!

Something changed for me forever in that moment of dehumanization.

Pointing toward a large table, he barked, Now, step into the clothing room, and we will issue you basic toiletries: two pairs of pants, two shirts, three sets of underwear, four pairs of socks, and a pair of work boots. You’ll have to buy anything else you need at the commissary.

Then, grinning from ear to ear, he said, Oh, here is your very own prison ID card, complete with your Bureau of Prisons ID number: 10662-042. Sansing, this has now become part of your permanent record. You will use it at the commissary in any of our wonderful institutions.

Commissary? I thought a commissary only existed on a military base. How did a commissary work in prison?

Soon, I would learn about all the ways the outside world and the inside of a prison coexisted.

Gathering my newly issued items, the gruff correctional officer, who had just seen the inside of my butt cheeks, escorted me to my new living quarters.

Good lord, what a day.

Walking from the receiving area to my new housing unit, we passed all the essential buildings on the compound, each looking like the other. Passing the kitchen and eating area, chapel, and library, and arriving at the housing unit, the CO only told me what each was, though little about the buildings or when I could go to any of them.

When I stepped inside the housing unit, I first saw a common area with a few tables where men played cards and chess and a TV mounted on a dark concrete block wall.

The CO barked, Sansing, you gonna look different than most men here, so I would advise staying away from this area. Just stay in your living area, shower quickly, and find friends to help you, and you’ll be okay.

My eyes could hardly process these surroundings, so there was no way my brain could comprehend what the CO was saying. However, I got the part about keeping my nose clean.

The walls were smooth concrete. The door was solid steel instead of a sliding rail of bars. Once through the steel door, we entered a sea of concrete living spaces. This was nothing like I’d expected.

Noting my puzzled look, the CO, who must have been reading my mind, asked, Sansing, you look extra confused. Did you expect to be in a cell?

Stumbling through my words, I replied, Well, I had not thought much about it, but I guess I did. Just coming to prison was about all I could process.

Laughing, he replied, Well, there are multiple security levels here at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. We house maximum security inmates across the inner wall. You will see when you get your work detail. On this side, lower-level men live in cubicle-styled dormitories. The shower is in the back. Phone on the back left. You can call anytime you are in your housing unit. Fifteen minutes at a time as long as you have money in your account. Come on. You are down this way on the right.

Taking in my surroundings, I saw four rows of cubicle-like living areas, about twelve cubicles per row. Each had