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The crisis of mass incarceration in the United States is — fundamentally — a spiritual crisis. There’s no need to believe in any god, nor adhere to any particular religious belief to accept the premise. For everything else it accomplishes — destroying relationships, diminishing lifespans, crippling civic participation, forestalling opportunities in love, education, and employment (and possibly even having some impact on criminal activity) — the experience of modern American incarceration, first and foremost, damages the human spirit. Our approach to overcoming the crisis will only be successful if we aim our efforts, to some significant degree, toward spiritual restoration.

The word spirit comes from the Latin root spirare meaning “to breathe.” Spirit is the breath of life, the force that animates all living things. To feel inspired is to feel as though life has been breathed into us. To aspire toward a goal is to “pant with desire” for something beyond our reach. Incarceration, like any traumatic experience, is dispiriting — the undoing of breath, of spirit, of inspiration and desire. Incarceration accelerates the expiration — the breathing out — of our very life force. 

And the dispiriting is not limited to those who do the time. Locking people up the way the United States does — incarcerating more than 2 million people, which accounts for over 25% of the world’s jailed population despite having less than 5% of the planet’s inhabitants — affects us all. It certainly affects the spirits of the children, parents, partners, friends, and loved ones of those who languish behind bars. It damages the spirits of the neighborhoods, communities, and cities from which the incarcerated are plucked. The testimonies of crime survivors who participate in restorative justice processes — through which survivors and offenders seek healing and meaningful reparation through mediated interaction — suggest that even survivors of crime are negatively impacted by the way punishment is meted out against the people who harm them. And most broadly, society as a whole, and each individual member of it, is negatively impacted by locking up our fellow citizens in such massive numbers. Anyone who has spent time in a prison knows that the only spirits that seem to be suffering worse than those of the jailed are those of the jailors. On a spiritual level, on a cellular level, one cannot help but feel — and be — diminished in the act of denying a fellow human being their freedom, the very thing we all thirst for most. Whether we are the ones who turn the key to the cell door, or cheer “tough on crime” policies from the sidelines, or who through ignorance and apathy permit the brutal practices of contemporary incarceration to continue in our tax-paying names, we cannot escape our own spiritual diminishment. We are the jailors.

To grasp the spiritual dimensions of mass incarceration, to fully understand one’s own role within this wholly dehumanizing system, and to begin imagining concrete ways to contribute to its dismantling, requires a difficult and often painful journey. This is as true for those among us whose lives have been caught up in the system, as for those whose lives seem far removed from it. It’s a journey that sounds much simpler than it is — to overcome “the distance between ‘us’ and ‘them.’” It’s a journey, ultimately, toward the realization of our shared humanity. 

The (unwieldy) story prompt for this week went something like this:

Tell the story of your first transgression — either when you transgressed or when someone transgressed against you. Tell us the story of when you crossed that invisible line into a different kind of existence … Or tell us the story of when someone crossed a line with you, when they transgressed against you, in a way that changed your life. Tell us a story of when you first began to construct the mask of transgression.

As you construct your story, you must follow these commandments:

1. Your Story Shalt Have an AUDIENCE. Who is it? Who are they? Why do you want them to hear this story? What do you want them to feel? What will you consider about this audience to make your story land the way you want it to? (For example, how would the way you tell a story to your beloved grandparent be different from how you tell your parole officer?) What would you add or exclude for each audience? How would your language — and your body language — change for each? Decide who your audience is and think about them when you’re creating your story.
2. Your Story Shalt Have a SETTING. You need to paint a picture — with words and by how you embody and express yourself (i.e., act) within that setting — to bring the setting to life. Whether you grew up in the projects, or in a foster home, or in a leafy suburb, you need to communicate to the audience not just what that place looks like, but what it feels like and what it means. Your audience may have grown up in a place like that, too, but they don’t know it the way you know it! They didn’t experience it the way you did. They didn’t feel how you felt there. Bring us into your world.
3. Your Story Shalt Have CHARACTERS and you have to bring them to life, both through your speech and by embodying and expressing (acting) those characters.
4. Your Story Shalt Have a BEGINNING, a MIDDLE, and an END. This is called the arc or trajectory of your story. Where does it start, where is the turning point, and where does it end? (Pro-tip: figure out your ending first so you know where you’re headed.)
5. Related to #4: Thou Shalt Not Tell Your WHOLE story. Your story doesn’t start at your first childhood memory and end with this moment right now, here, on stage! You have to choose one story at a time.
6. Related to # 5: Thou Shalt Trust Your Audience. Your story doesn’t start with an explanation of what we’re about to hear. Your story doesn’t end with you telling us the point of the story you just told. Drop us into your world, tell your story, and get the hell out! Trust us to ponder your story’s meaning(s) in our own way.
7. Related to #6: Thou Shalt SHOW But Not TELL. This means, allow your audience to experience your story through action, through your words (and the deeper meanings beneath those words, i.e., “subtext”), through your gestures, and by bringing other characters to life on stage (acting). Theater is an art form of now. Words come from your brain. But on stage, the way you capture your audience is by connecting with them on levels including but also deeper than the intellectual. The stage allows you to put your full humanity to work in service to your story. How? By enrolling your body and your emotions, and having them communicate things beyond the power of mere words. Don’t just tell us what happened, show us, using your body, including your very expressive face. Don’t just tell us how you felt, show us those feelings through your acting. We have many tools beyond words at our disposal. Use the fullness of your humanity to bring your audience into your experience‚ right! now! (Pro-tip: Experiment with telling the story in the present tense rather than the past tense. Tell it as if it’s happening now.)
8. Your Story Shalt Have a POINT and a POINT OF VIEW. You are trying to communicate something beyond the details of the story itself. What is it? How can you communicate that without “telling” us (See #7)? You are also trying to communicate how you feel about or relate to the story you’re telling (and how you feel in relation to the setting and the other characters). How can you express your point of view without explaining it to us? (Again: see #7.)
9. Thou Shalt Be SPECIFIC! In everything mentioned above, be specific. The more specific and detailed your story is, the more deeply connected your audience will be. But read #2, #3, #7, and #8 closely. Specific doesn’t just mean using a lot of fancy adverbs and adjectives. You are on stage. Be specific in your words, in your body, and in your emotions. (Pro-tip: After you’ve crafted your story, tell it again without speaking. Rehearse the story using only your body — including your very expressive face! — and your emotions.)
10. Your Story Shall Not Be an editorial. Or as my wise brother, Ryan, says, “Don’t should on me!” Your story is not your opinions. It’s not a list of facts. It’s not a rant. Thou shalt not to tell the audience what they should know, what they should understand, or what they should be doing. Yes, you have a point of view, but that POV needs to come across through the story.
11. Thou Shalt Consciously Choose Every Single Moment. The great American acting teacher, Stella Adler, says, “Your art is your choice.” Every movement you make, every facial expression, and every word must be chosen… by you! To choose is to be specific. We talked about The Godfather the other night. A different director makes different choices that Francis Ford Coppola did, and the film is very different. A different actor makes choices that are different from the ones Al Pacino made, and the film is very different. Think about how specific the choices are in the film. Every camera angle was chosen. Every piece of costuming was chosen. Every glance, every line of dialogue. Nothing is left to chance. And if you rehearse the story 10 times, the choices are the same 10 times out of 10…
    • And suddenly, a cry arises from the people, “But teacher, what about improvisation? What about being in the moment? What about allowing something spontaneous to happen?!”
    • And the old teacher says, “In good time, my children, all in good time. You can’t improvise until your foundation, your technique, is rock solid. Trust me that the greatest improviser of jazz knows every scale and has practiced each one for years… and probably still practices them every day! Follow the commandments above, rehearse until you get bored of what you’re doing and then rehearse again. Be able to tell your story on autopilot. Know every word, every gesture, and movement. Perform it 20 times in the exact same way so that version #20 is a more refined version of #1. And when you get to that point, you’ll discover new things in that story. You’ll feel new things. Your own story will reveal even deeper meanings than you knew of when you created it. And when — and only when! — you are rock solid in your foundation, when the story is in you, when you can tell it without even thinking, when you can turn the mind off and still tell your story, then — and only then! — can you truly be in the moment and see what happens. And that, my children, will be an awesome and powerful day!”
12. And finally, Thou Shalt Turn to Dust After 3 MINUTES! The choices you make are limited by the rules above, and especially by your time constraint. Therefore, cut the fat and get to the meat! Choose wisely!

Now go forth and tell your story!

We begin.

My name’s Kevin Bott. I’m the founder and artistic director of R4R — a project I conceived of back in the early aughts as a doctoral student in Educational Theater at NYU. The evolution of the project has been a journey, and like every journey worth its salt, it’s taken me to the highest highs and the lowest lows. Truly. My proudest moments as an artist and as an activist have come from this project. So, too, have my most shameful and humiliating moments.

The original version of this website went to seed after I hit rock bottom — personally, professionally, and artistically — after the last iteration of this project was complete, back in December of 2019. (I think it’s important that I share parts of the story at some point because it touches on a lot of difficult dynamics many of us confront in our work: race, class, power, privilege, ego, unconscious biases as well as unconscious agendas, etc.)

But anyway, rock bottom isn’t a place anyone sets out to reach but I know it’s a place we probably have to go at least once in our lives to learn some things we’re supposed to learn. I landed there almost 4 years ago and, since then, have become a different and, I hope, a better human being. A better husband and father; son and brother. A freer artist. An activist and ally with more consciousness and integrity.

A sober person.

What I finally came to understand at rock bottom — truly understand, in my bones, not just in my head — is that the only way I differ from the returning citizens I’ve worked with over the years was that I’d never been physically locked up. But if you want to talk to me about hurting people, about mistakes and regret, about shame and about how that shame made me want to avoid the world, made me feel I was unworthy of both love and community… If you want to talk to me about addiction as a mask for my pain and shame, and about feeling so desperate, stuck, and out of options that ending my own life seemed to be, just maybe, the only rationale solution. If you want to talk to me about trying to figure out how to forgive myself enough so that I could find the strength to reach out and try to make amends to people I hurt… If you want to talk to me about any of those things, then you’ll be talking to a man who knows what it is to be imprisoned.

And like most people trying to come home after imprisonment, I think I’ll always be working to make things right, to make amends, to right the wrongs. To come all the way home.

And so coming back into this work, at age 50, having been to my own hell and back, I come back with a new level of authenticity and humility. I come back understanding something about the dynamics of imprisonment. I come back knowing there truly is no “gap,” as the literature says, “between ‘us’ and ‘them’.”

Before every workshop, we say, together, “Incipimus!” Latin for “we begin.” And at the end of each workshop, we say it again. The savor of every triumph will fade on the palette, and so we must begin again. The sting of every defeat will only linger if we fail to dust ourselves off, reflect on how we failed, and begin again.

We are, all of us, always beginning.

I once came to this work, I think, with a white savior thing operating below the surface, despite my conscious mind telling me otherwise. I thought I could help someone. And it does sometimes bring tears to my eyes to know that this work does do something positive for people. But I realize now that some force beyond my understanding — the God of my understanding, perhaps — brought me to this work, or brought this work to me, because it contained so much of what I’ve needed to learn and understand about my own life.

Which is not to say I’m — as the kids say — “centering” myself in this work… On the contrary, the approach is Freirean — we’re all teaching each other what we know and, hopefully, all getting from each other what we need to grow and evolve.

I’m sure some of you will remember the book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Well, if I ever find myself retired and pondering a memoir, I might call it, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Prison Theater Workshops!.

And so, a third major chapter of Ritual4Returns commences. A post-midlife-crisis chapter as artist and activist commences for me. On December 10th, 2023, the 10 men I’m now working with will tell their stories. And in those stories they will tell a story about their city. They will tell a story about mass incarceration. They will tell a sad and troubling story about America. And through it all they will be exhorting us all, inviting us all:

Incipimus! (Again!)