"I saw a movie the other day where the cops were brutal idiots, the prison guards corrupt and evil, and the inmates mindless beasts. I've seen these stereotypes a thousand times on TV, and in the movies, so I'm not certain why I was suddenly offended, but I was. Our culture relishes, wallows in, the worst and ugliest in ourselves.

Here I am, a person with a terrible crime who, according to the media, should not only be well-acquainted with such ugliness, I should feel right at home in the cesspit. My reality, however, is quite different.

Many people, with one or two striking exceptions, have overcome the dark evil of my actions, by extending me kindness, warmth, acceptance, guidance, persistent challenges to change, hope. They have rejected the ugly and refused to allow it to grow by adding bitterness, rage, and meanness to it. They have resoundingly condemned my crimes while insisting I am not just my crime. Their goodness has prevailed slowly. Hardly the ingredients of a reality-based made for TV movie.

But this is the reality. The police who arrested me and those who interrogated me were not brutal idiots. Anything but, There were fatherly, gentle, concerned. Obviously grieved by my crimes but never belittling or condescending, let alone violent. My jailers have been as varied as the individuals in any profession. Many have offered me words of encouragement, wisdom, kindness.

I can hear the cynical and suspicious mumbling about Stockholm Syndrome. I'm not in love with my keepers. But I have lived in the midst of cops and guards for many years and I respect many of them as people who perform their jobs with a difficult mix of professionalism and humanity. Are they perfect? No. Are they brutish and mean? Very, very few. And this is the thing: neither are the inmates.

In the movie I watched, which purported to be depicting a Virginia's women's prison, the women were mannish thugs who preyed on each other, especially new inmates. Most of the women I know are protective and concerned for each other, particularly the young and the vulnerable. My biggest problem when I came to prison was not being bullied, ripped off, or sexually assaulted, but being mothered to death.

Does immoral, dubious stuff go on? Of course. But by far the nastiest attitudes and activities I've ever witnessed are on the TV. Just about every part of existence from school to marriage to employment to family life to illness and crime has been trivialized into reality entertainment. We've turned our lives into a giant game show. I have a growing nagging fear that it's just a question of time before "The Running Man," a movie where prisoners play brutal, televised games for their freedom, becomes our reality." (Elizabeth Haysom, Fluvanna Review, March 11, 2004)

Elizabeth Haysom is presently incarcerated at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy, Virginia. She is serving a 90 year sentence as an accessory to the murder of her parents in 1985. This column is from a series, published under the general heading 'Glimpses from Inside.'