We are all criminals. Every single one of us. Some of us commit worse or more crimes than others. Under the right circumstances, all of us are capable of the most heinous crimes.

On a daily basis, you break many laws that could have potentially fatal consequences. Today while you were driving, I bet you broke the speed limit a couple of times and thought nothing of it. Well, what if you had gotten in a crash from speeding; one that could’ve been prevented by driving the speed limit. But in that moment, you felt the need to speed. You are a criminal. You thought of yourself over the lives of others.

This is just one of the many crimes that we all commit on a daily basis. So to reiterate: we are all criminals. What makes you any better than the other guy? You’re better because he got caught and you didn’t? Or is it because his crime was a more serious crime and yours was “victimless?” If you had crashed and someone had died, you’d be a murderer. “But he chose to murder someone, I didn’t,” you may say. Well, you chose to speed. You chose to text. It’s no different than choosing to pull a trigger or stab someone.

So now that we’ve established that we are all criminals, how would you want to be treated if you were actually caught for your crimes? I can almost guarantee that you wouldn’t want to be thrown in an overcrowded cell with three other people, sharing one toilet with no way to cover yourself and allow privacy. You wouldn’t want to be stripped of your identity, made to wear the same jumpsuit as the hundreds of other prisoners and referred to as nothing more than a number. You wouldn’t want to have no access to opportunities to better yourself.

What you would want is to feel like a human. You would not want to be degraded. You would not want to be treated like an animal in a zoo. Unfortunately, in America you will not get these things.

Working in the prison system, every day I come face to face with these “hardened criminals” who were caught for their crimes and thrown in to conditions that a normal person couldn’t imagine. These “hardened criminals” are some of the most outstanding people I’ve ever met. Contrary to popular belief, most prisoners do want to change. Americans have become so caught up in their neoliberal ideology that we believe that it’s their job to change themselves. Well, that’s where you’re wrong.

As a student of criminology and an activist for prison policy changes, I have spoken to many citizens about their beliefs about the criminal justice system and prisoners in general. Here are some of the common beliefs I have heard: violent crime is running rampant and increasing, all prisoners are hardened and deserve to be where they are, prisoners take advantage of leniency and waste second chances if they are given them. Each of these beliefs is misconstrued and completely false.

Violent crime has been decreasing for almost twenty years. We’ve been led to believe that violent crime and drug crime is plaguing our society since the 80’s when the “Get Tough on Crime” movement warped our beliefs. Violent crime has not been increasing, but the number of people we deem as criminals has. From 1980 to 2008, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people. The United States has only 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated people.

Most prisoners are not hardened criminals – as I mentioned before, the prisoners I work with are some of the most amazing, smart, and wise individuals I have ever met. They have had their identities and liberties taken from them, but still have hope that someday they will re-enter in to society and be given the chance to be productive citizens.

What gives us the right to take that opportunity from them? Because that’s exactly what is happening – we, American citizens, are the ones who must take responsibility for the fact that so many criminals recidivate and are not allowed the chance to thrive. We throw them into cells and say, “Change,” and then throw away the key. We give them no resources to change and no encouragement along the way. Instead, we strip them of their identities, degrade them daily, and make them believe that this is who they are. Upon re-entry, since we have given them no resources to change and have sculpted prisons that are education centers for criminals rather than productive citizens, they re-enter the community with no hope of a fresh start. Americans have enforced policies pushing convicts into second-class citizenship. They are no longer allowed to receive welfare, receive funding for education, live in public housing, and most can’t receive employment. We set them up to fail. Without a job and no other way to receive money, what do you do? You become desperate and turn to under-the-table ways of making money such as drugs.

Fifty years ago, when a convict was released from prison, he was offered a fresh start. Rehabilitation was available to him and he had the ability to receive employment. This was an American civilization to be proud of. Forgiveness is a sign of civilization. Where has that belief in forgiveness gone? When you make a mistake, you want to be forgiven. When you make a bad choice, you want to be forgiven. Not only do you want to be forgiven, but you want to be seen for the person you’ve become, not the choices you made in your past. Why don’t prisoners deserve to have this same mentality applied to them? Prisoners are humans, too. And every human deserves a second chance.