Les Miserables opens with a scene that depicts the power struggle between prisoners and guards.
Jean Valjean and Javert watch each other without ever looking into one anothers eyes.
Even while pulling the ship into the dry dock, JvJ knows exactly where his nemesis is.
I am a contracted employee with the Minnesota Department of Corrections. I work in Restorative Justice so I am in facilities around the Twin Cities conducting mediation's, facilitating conversations, and sometimes leading class discussions on how an offender can go about repairing the harm that they have caused. The people inside are offenders and for the time I am there I try to carry myself as a guest. I don't assume things and I ask for permission to do simple things, partly out of respect and partly out of a sense of self protection.
When you go to training's before you enter a facility, you are briefed on personal safety and your personal attitudes and misconceptions of behavior from guests and offenders. You never let your guard down and you always keep a good sense of your surroundings. You watch the offender and sometimes you look where they are looking. You are mindful of what you say and you don't overspeak on a subject, offenders don't like experts to come in and tell them what they did wrong, they know what they did.
The scene where Jean Valjean is being paroled and Javert reminds him he will be a prisoner forever was very emotional to watch, because in my experience an offender is not their sentence, they are a person first. Javert is asserting his authority and reminding JeanvJ that there will always be an uneven level of power between them.
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