Ending Cycles of Shame and Isolation in Prisons [and why it matters]

A reflection from Rebecca Shasberger, Renovare Music’s Founder/Director and Cellist.

“My mom thinks that I should be doing different things with my time,” shared one of our Oberlin Conservatory student teaching assistants recently as we walked across the yard of the Grafton Correctional Institution (GCI). “She doesn’t really understand how teaching music in a prison makes a difference.”

This is a sentiment that I’ve encountered repeatedly since I began teaching stringed instruments to incarcerated men and women, often expressed in various ways:

“With all the problems of our prison system, how does learning a string instrument help?”

“If playing violin won’t be their job when they return home, what’s the point?”

“What does learning to play music even accomplish?” 

There are many ways I could respond to these questions, but I want to focus on two powerful impacts: learning to play the violin, viola, or cello in a supportive group setting transforms the shame that incarcerated men and women experience, and it interrupts the isolation that characterizes prison time.

1.Transforming Shame

Shame is an ever-present reality for those in prison. It stems from the harm they’ve caused, the sentence they’ve received, the ways prison staff can dehumanize them, and the impact their incarceration has on their loved ones. This overwhelming stigma often leaves people feeling voiceless and diminished.

With this truth in mind, when our ensemble at Grafton Correctional Institute (GCI)  finally went through a process to pick a creative name, they landed on “Unmuted Strings.” This name reflected a deep realization that learning to play an instrument helped them regain a voice they felt they had lost. Not only that, they gained confidence in themselves and began to see themselves as capable of contributing to something positive. 

In addition, they began to see that their family members were viewing them differently, and listening to them more. Not just as musicians, but as humans. 

In this way, their experiences of shame were (and are!) transformed through learning to play a string instrument.

2.Interrupting Isolation

Isolation is at the core of how the prison system works in the United States. People are removed from their home communities, and often moved to a location far from the public eye. This makes it difficult for friends and family to visit (if inmates have people who are willing to visit them at all). Additionally, companies charge exorbitant fees for phone and video calls, and the physical structure of the prison space itself—from cells to chairs (instead of, say couches)— magnifies this isolation.

But music can even bridge these divides! The following story from one of our cellists at Northeast Reintegration Center (NERC) illustrates this truth:

“My daughter played ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ for me on her cello during our video call this week! She didn’t believe me when I told her she needed to fix her bow hold, but I knew exactly what was wrong with it.”

When this woman’s daughter was assigned to play the violin at school, she asked if she could play cello instead, because she wanted to be like her mom. When her teacher said yes, she started practicing with her mom each week via video call. It was a joy to hear the stories of what they were working on together.

For this woman and the others in our program at NERC, playing a string instrument is interrupting the isolation of incarceration. 

But Why Does It Matter?

Why address shame and isolation in prisons?

Danielle Sered speaks to this in her stunning book, Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair:

“Decades of research about the individual-level causes of violence (as opposed to community conditions like poverty and disenfranchisement) has demonstrated four key drivers: shame, isolation, exposure to violence, and a diminished ability to meet one’s economic needs. At the same time, prison is characterized by four key features: shame, isolation, exposure to violence, and a diminished ability to meet one’s economic needs. As a nation, we have developed a response to violence that is characterized by precisely what we know to be the main drivers of violence. We should not be surprised, then, when the system produces exactly the results we would expect.” (Sered 67)

Instead of disrupting problems of crime and violence, our prison system perpetuates them. From violence inside our prisons to up to 80% of those locked up in state prisons being rearrested within five years of release, these destructive cycles do not promote a “safer” society.

The Difference Music Makes 

With over two million people behind bars in the United States, it can be tempting to think that the system is too big and too broken to see any change. But for the dozens of men and women that Renovare works with in our prison string ensembles, we see two detrimental aspects of incarceration—shame and isolation—being combatted weekly.

Together, with the men and women in our strings programs, we are learning to see ourselves as more than our past, and more than the labels society has put on us. We are learning to believe in the possibility of who we could be. And we’re creating meaningful relationships with one another - Renovare musicians, resident musicians, and their family members who journey with them and gather to hear them perform.

What difference does teaching music in a prison make? Possibly a world of difference. One image bearer of God at a time.