When Healing Enters a Space Built for Control |
I entered a prison in Medellín on a morning when the heat already pressed heavily against the body. The metal doors closed behind me with a final sound that immediately reorganized my attention. Inside the room, men sat upright and guarded, arms crossed, eyes trained on movement rather than meaning. Control shaped every corner of the space, yet the tension in their bodies revealed injuries that long predated incarceration.
The prison relies on structure, surveillance, and predictability to maintain order within overcrowded and volatile conditions. Healing, however, unfolds through openness, emotional movement, and internal awareness, qualities rarely welcomed inside institutions designed to contain risk. As I took my seat, the contradiction became tangible. Violence did not begin inside these walls, yet imprisonment intensified wounds that had never received language or care.
One man spoke first, keeping his gaze fixed on the floor. He described learning as a child to remain alert even while sleeping because silence often preceded danger in his neighborhood. His body had never learned rest. The institution did not create his trauma, but it reinforced the posture his nervous system already carried. That moment clarified why control alone never interrupts cycles of violence.
Inside that prison, trauma announced itself through posture, breath, and movement before it ever reached words. Shoulders remained rigid,........