Parades with banners, stars and stripes flags, and marching bands; barbeque grills, potato salad and watermelon; open air concerts and firework displays all send the messages of victory from oppression and the “unalienable Rights” that include “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Liberty brings thoughts of a man I correspond with in Texas. He has been incarcerated now for about 15 years for a crime that he says he did not commit. Perhaps he is guilty. Maybe he is innocent.

I have never been incarcerated myself. For several years I worked as a consultant to librarians in State residential facilities. The libraries were for people with severe developmental disabilities, mental illness, and those awaiting trial in county jails or convicted felons in state prisons.

As part of my job preparation, I attended the Department of Correction Orientation program. The tour guide informed us that the people doing time are most likely to have had access only to a court appointed lawyer. The people I would see on the inside, he explained, are those without financial resources or the ability to read. I was amazed by the candor of the orientation. The purpose of the prison system is not to punish or reform, but to separate those who have been convicted from the general public.

I thought about how few “free” people have witnessed what I did when I walked through cellblocks where the decibel level of noise alone makes it difficult to control confusion and anger. The smell of human bodies not allowed to shower while confined in lock down for weeks at a time lingers in my memory even now. I recall the voices of many women and men explaining to me that when they were incarcerated they had not been taught to read. In prison they had the time to teach themselves. They were not stupid, just uneducated. I wondered if I could contain my resentment and rage if none of the rules that governed my day-to-day activities made any sense to me. Would I be able to stay calm if I were myself in this situation? Would my heart yearn for contact with friends or family separated by the walls?

I watched men, released directly to the street from isolation in a space 12 feet 8 inches by 7 feet 6 inches, stumble through the door because they no longer had any peripheral vision.

It is not the nature of the crime that determines where a convicted person will be housed. People who do not display anger at being incarcerated are placed in minimum security. Those who resist the confinement in an overcrowded environment, lack of privacy, limited time outside of a cramped cell; these people are placed in medium security. And those people who display aggressive behavior are confined to maximum security or solitary.

As I write to this man I have never met and probably never will, I remember what I saw and heard in person. It is not easy. I think about liberty and I suspend judgment to simply read his letters and respond.