Olaf Growald
Have you ever heard the saying, “There’s no such thing as a bad person, just bad choices?” That’s bullshit. Some people are rotten to the bone and inherently evil. Some people carry nothing but ill intentions and criminal aspirations. Some people don’t think twice about who they hurt. Some people don’t deserve their freedom in society. This may seem harsh and unforgiving, but I feel I can say this because I spent over 10 years of my life with them — I was one of them.
Eighteen days after I turned 18, I was arrested for shooting a drug dealer in what was supposed to be a quick stickup and charged with armed robbery, aggravated assault, burglary of a habitation, and assault on a public servant. Before I could comprehend what my future had in store for me, I was sentenced to 20 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), where I was immersed into the dark, nefarious, and violent culture of the prison system.
In certain sectors of TDCJ, the culture and social dynamics are almost unbelievable. Things like drugs, crime, violence, and racial segregation aren’t just accepted — they’re encouraged and oftentimes the only thing you can rely on to avoid being ostracized or victimized.
Despite the warped mindsets and immoral structures, there are clear values, distinct customs, and unwritten laws amongst the lawless that govern this corrupt society.
As I walked into my first prison dorm, the metal doors locking behind me, the guys on the pod started excitedly hollering “Quota Check!” Quota checks (i.e., heart checks) are the initiation process when one arrives at a new prison or is introduced to one of the many prison gangs. They’re called heart checks because they’re a test to prove the level of courage one carries in their heart. Depending on who you are, what clique you’re affiliated with, or which prison you end up being assigned to, heart checks can be anything from one-on-one fights to two-on-one beat downs. You hear the war stories in the county jails from guys who have been to prison and given or received their heart checks. Most of the guys do thousands of pushups, shadow box, get into real fights, and mentally equip themselves. Whether that preparation was out of fear or bravado, I was never certain.
I was one of those guys who did a lot of preparation for the moment. I exercised daily, got into numerous fights, and equipped myself mentally for the impossible odds. As I lay the few belongings I had on my bunk and scanned the environment, realizing that all eyes were on me, I was approached by a leader of the Aryan Circle (one of the white supremacy crime families that originated in prison). At least 6 feet, 6 inches tall and 220 pounds, this guy wasn’t exactly in my weight class. All that exercising I did for this moment got me to a whopping 155 pounds with my boots on. He held his hand out to introduce himself — first by name, then by title. We went through a couple casual conversation items: “Where are you from? How much time do you got? What gang are you with?” When the conversation hit a dull point, I asked if he’d be the one doing my heart check. He laughed and assured me he wasn’t. “We don’t do heart checks here,” he said. “It’s pointless. The guards will lock you in solitaire for having a black eye, and the dorm will get put on lock down. We’ll see if you’re going to fight or not. Time will tell where your heart’s at.”
It wasn’t minutes later when I heard the familiar scuffles of a fight in the back of the dorm. I look up to see two guys fighting, and out of nowhere, another guy jumps in and beats the shit out of one of them. A few guys scramble to get the two cleaned up and wipe up the blood splatters off the ground and tables before the officers came in for their routine count. Sure enough, the guards noticed the trail of blood and immediately spot the guy with a mangled face. Just as the giant told me, he was thrown into solitaire, and the dorm was placed on a 24-hour lockdown.
Come to find out, the third guy who dominated the fight was actually in the same gang as the one he assaulted. Apparently, the guy who was brutally beaten violated one of the unwritten laws of prison; when the conflict started, he hit someone who wasn’t squared up to fight. In my neighborhood, that’s called getting the first punch in. In prison, it’s the spark that can ignite a riot. It was an eye-opening moment for me — two members of the same gang were forced to fight from high-stake social pressures in order to prevent further violence and conflict.
There are many unwritten laws like this in prison. They’ve been constructed from events in the past that led to horrible outcomes — similar to the way we construct laws in society. Only the outcomes in prison include gang rivalries, the disruption of criminal enterprises, violent racial or gang riots, and, in some cases, homicide. In a community of those who habitually show disregard for the law, the most typical form of enforcement is violence implemented within the structures of gangs.
I never joined any of the gangs inside the fences (although, I was heavily associated with several — it’s hard not to be when 95% of your community is affiliated). Regardless, I learned to govern myself in accordance with their laws. After watching that guy get brutally beaten by a fellow gang member, I realized I had a lot to learn in order to get through my sentence — not out of fear or obedience but out of acceptance and allurement. It was social compliance at its worst.
Growing up, I had both positive and negative influences simultaneously teaching me what was right and what I could get away with. My mom was a strong Christian woman, working hard to provide for two young boys and instill values that would make us men. My dad, on the other hand, was a career criminal — mostly cultivating and trafficking narcotics. While I watched my mom struggle to make ends meet doing what was right, I watched my dad have an easier time doing what was wrong.
I was 14 when my dad was released from federal prison, and shortly after, he put a pound of marijuana in my hand and told me, “If you sell this and bring me the money, I’ll give you two pounds on the next re-up.” Three days later, I had more money in my hand than I’d ever had, and there wasn’t any looking back. Crime became my means.
It wasn’t long before I started testing the boundaries of what I could get away with. I quickly escalated from selling a little weed at 14 to stealing cars at 15 to breaking into houses at 16 and, by the time I was 17, I stole my first pistol. Some of my older friends were making fast money sticking up all the small-time juvenile drug dealers in Arlington, and I wanted a piece of that pie.
I was just released from jail for possession of marijuana and had nothing to my name but an illicit agenda. One of my contacts called looking for a connection, and I saw an opportunity to make some of that fast money.
We met at an apartment complex for what he thought was going to be a quick transaction. I knew it was going to be something entirely different. Within seconds, guns were drawn, and I began demanding his money. Somewhere between my hostile slurs and aggressive assaults, he attempted to grab the gun out of my hand. I fired once and then twice. Almost as if time had slowed down, I remember realizing how severe the situation had just become and how urgently I needed to get out of there.
For the next couple of nights, I bounced around houses in Arlington. I wasn’t certain whether he was alive or not, but I was very certain I was in some serious trouble. On the third night after the incident, I was apprehended and charged with armed robbery, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, burglary of a habitation, as well as assault on a public servant. After a trial, I was sentenced to 20 years in TDCJ.
You’d think being sentenced to 20 years at the age of 18 would have been my wake-up call and changed the trajectory of my life for the better. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. As I immersed myself in the prison culture, the like-minded inmates I surrounded myself with fortified my warped sense of morality. We reminisced on our wicked ways and built systems of mutual respect for one another based on our violent and illicit tendencies. Suddenly, the positive and healthy qualities that were instilled in me through adolescence were replaced with the desire to be ruthless, nefarious, and diabolical.
For the first five years of my incarceration, I immersed myself into the prison lifestyle. I got into fights for little to no reason, I broke every administrative rule I felt like, I was tattooing, doing drugs, trafficking contraband, and manipulating guards. All the while, building a respectable reputation amongst my peers.
Within my first year, I got kicked out of my first minimum security prison because the administration determined they didn’t have the level of security necessary to house me (before that makes an impression, let me say this happens a lot. It’s so typical at minimum security prisons that we just call it “getting G4ed off the unit”). Regardless, at 19 years old with the mentality I had, it sure did make me feel like a badass.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice classification department in Huntsville reevaluated my custody requirements and sent me to the medium/maximum security unit Gib Lewis in Gatesville, Texas. At the time, Gib Lewis was in the top five most violent units in Texas. It was ranked No. 3 out of the 100-plus facilities for “use of force” — where guards have to use physical measures to restrain inmates. The median age of inmates was about 23, and 95% of them are affiliated with gangs. The majority of Gib Lewis inmates felt the same way as I — like they were a real badass — and they were ready to prove it.
I got established at the unit fairly quickly, made a couple dysfunctional friendships, and continued to digress into the customs of prison culture. I continued my misbehaviors — tattooing other inmates from equipment we hand built from scrap electrical parts, drinking wine we brewed from orange juice and sugar that we stole from the chow hall, and getting into fights because that’s the fastest way conflicts are settled. I was in and out of “population” and medium custody on an annual basis. I’d get in trouble, go to 20-hour lockdown for six months, be released back into regular population, get in trouble again, and repeat the process. It was all kind of a joke to me. It’s hard to feel like you’re being punished when you’re already in prison. I was doing whatever I wanted, regardless of the rules, and became popular amongst my peers for having an indifferent and callous attitude.
The culture in prison places a different value on these qualities. Words that have such negative connotations to the better half of society are glamorized by this class. People adopt and take pride in adjectives like “savage,” “cutthroat,” “greedy,” and even “homicidal,” and nobody blinks an eye. In fact, you can be anything but a sex offender, confidential informant, homosexual, or nonviolent individual. I always found that shift in judgment interesting. You could be a junkie who stole family heirlooms and snatched purses off old ladies’ shoulders to support your habit and be lauded. Just make sure you never told on anyone or find other men attractive; I guess even the lowest in life need someone to turn their noses up at.
Eventually all these qualities I’d developed and illicit behaviors I’d exhibited took me to rock bottom at Gib Lewis’ super-max compound, where it’s 22 to 24 hours a day (depending on whether the guards feel like letting you out or not) in a 6-by-9 cell. And, even then, you’re stripped down to your boxers and handcuffed before you’re allowed out. Almost every privilege you’re afforded in prison is taken from you. You can’t hug your family when they come to visit. You can’t step onto the rec yard to feel the sunlight on your skin. You can’t watch your favorite TV show or play a friendly game of dominoes to pass the time. You’re locked in a cell where your meals and mail are passed through a tiny slot in the heavily secured metal door. This is where the most positive of spirits are destroyed and the most nefarious of spirits thrive.
Closed custody houses the worst that TDCJ has to offer. It’s the darkest and most frightening sub level of prison — it holds a stench of hostility. Inmates are sent to closed custody for acts along the lines of inciting riots, assault beyond first aid, and possession of serious contrabands like knives, cell phones, and drugs. While I wasn’t the worst inmate in this compound, I was certainly in my element.
I spent my first year in closed custody immersed in the deep webs of the criminal enterprises at work within our prisons. I helped traffic narcotics, phones, and money. Despite the limited mobility, this section of prison is notorious for its abundance of drugs and contraband. The gangs control everything — some even have power over the guards — and the majority of inmates only live by the unwritten laws of gangland, showing a blatant disregard for the rules set on them by the administration.
Olaf Growald
I lived a dual life up until this point. While I was known for the bad reputation I’d built amongst my peers in prison, I maintained a positive relationship with a few family members and friends, and I corresponded with people from all over the world through a service called writeaprisoner.com. For all those years, I was both cultivating negative traits within the social structures of prison while trying to nurture the positive characteristics that were instilled in me from my youth. As low as I’d gotten in life and as deep as I was into the prison lifestyle, I never lost myself.
One of the sweetest, most genuine-hearted individuals that I ever got to know through writeaprisoner.com asked me a question while I was in closed custody that I’d never considered: “Have you ever thought about writing a letter to the person you shot?” It was such a basic question stemmed from innocent curiosity. Yet, it sparked profound thoughts and life-changing realizations.
For the first time, I put myself in my victim’s shoes and thought about how the life I led affected him. I also thought about how my actions were affecting others as well. How all those impacted by my lifestyle and poor choices were undeservingly hurt — my family, my friends, my countless victims. With 24 hours a day in a cell, I had way too much time to think about this. But that was exactly what I needed.
Trying to appeal to the people who wanted what was worst for me had cost me almost everything. Meanwhile, the people who truly loved and cared about my well-being, those who knew the goodness in me, wanted something entirely different for my life and believed I could achieve it.
I’ll never forget the moment of my epiphany. Looking out of the little window on my secured metal door, hearing the hostile prisoners screaming from their cells as one of the uncontrollable inmates in maximum security took on a six-man team of guards in a “use of force” to stand up for his ill-adapted principles. Words of encouragement that a friend once wrote to me in a letter came to mind: “Rock bottom is the best solid ground, and a dead end is the best place to turn around.” That was the moment when I finally said, “Screw this. I don’t want to be one of these people.”
When I was released from closed custody after 15 months, I was finally able to give my mom a hug at one of our two-hour visits that she drove over 200 miles to have. I could literally feel the relief in her body as we embraced, and the realization of how my actions affected others really hit me. I had become so numb to my desolate circumstances that I never sympathized with those I was affecting. I thought about how my mom had spent the past 15 months desperately longing to embrace her youngest son; how my family and friends were devastated, sorrowed, and scared for me; and how the weight I had learned to shrug off only rolled onto their shoulders. I couldn’t keep doing this to them.
I latched onto the positive connections I had on the outside and allowed their love and support to influence and reshape who I had become. Instead of living up to the expectations that prison and its culture had beset on me, I focused all my energy and efforts into what those on the outside, who recognized and cultivated the good, believed was possible for me. With the number of friends and family who consisted of my support system, I had too many interested people standing behind me to take any more steps back.
I transferred away from Gib Lewis to enroll in school at another unit and started laying the groundwork for a more promising future. With my support system encouraging me along the way, I distanced myself as far as I could from the prison culture and committed myself toward growth. I first enrolled in a vocational trade school, then a high school diploma program, then college. Going from taking two classes per semester to four, five, and even six at one point. I read every business, self-help, psychology, and personal-development book I could get my hands on. I was learning new concepts, expanding my interests, and tapping into potentials I never knew I had. I just couldn’t get enough.
At one point during this development, I joined a volunteer-led yoga and meditation program called Conviction Yoga, facilitated through the Hughes Unit’s Chaplain program. As my intellect was growing through my studies, my spirituality began to grow through mindfulness and compassionate practices.
All this was so foreign to me. Going to school, practicing yoga and meditation, doing what was right for others as well as myself. One of the most valuable lessons I learned from my mindfulness teacher seemed to stick with me — “everything you ever wanted is just on the other side of your comfort zone.” So, I continued to stretch.
In time, my whole life started to change. My attitudes began to reshape, my values became more well-rounded, and my future developed a brightness that I never thought could have existed. When I was granted parole in 2019, overwhelmed with relief that this chapter was finally closing, I took a moment to reflect on how long of a road it had been. Not in the sense of time, but in the sense of journey. The transformation of who I was going into prison compared to the person I’d become never would have occurred if it wasn’t for those people on the outside who refused to give up on me.
Olaf Growald
Statistics vary, but the state of Texas has an 85% recidivism rate. In other words, 17 out of 20 people released from prison will eventually lead themselves back into a life of crime and be reincarcerated. Reflecting on my personal experience, our prison culture can be counterproductive to rehabilitation. In prison, people are taught ill-adaptive principles that they carry with them once released; this primes their life for failure. My experiences, realizations, and epiphanies carry a certain obligation — an obligation to go back to my roots and plant the seeds of growth in people who at this point in time might not deserve their freedom. To, this time, be the person who is there for someone else.
I owe everything I am today to the people who cared enough to be a part of my life while I was at rock bottom. Because of them and the changes they instilled, I’ll be a part of that 15% that doesn’t lead themselves back into a life of crime.
I love you, Mom.
