« All of a sudden you are the worst person in the world »

« How do you survive? »

Asked how to survive in security prison, Pickard silences for a while, draws a deep breath and briefly describes the situation in the prison, for example, prison guards have been around and tried to scare the prisoners daily.

« All of a sudden you are the worst person in the world and you have to be there forever, die there. How do you survive it?

I myself pondered the morning and morning. Wasted yoga to try to get some relaxation after the tension of the day – screams, doors to clash, loud speakers, air explosions, a lot of injection. « 

He says the simplest things have helped and specifically mentions beloved friends and the remaining family.

« You lose everything when you go into for such a long time. All property, homes, cars and everything, loved ones over the years. Slowly their faces and the feeling of having them close, and love itself, disappear.

One forgets what the world looks like, what trees look like. I was in prison where there was only mud. No flowers, no grass, no trees, no lakes, no mountains – mud. 10 meters high walls, seven guns. So it was a very difficult environment. « 

« Something to cherish »

« People who have been held in for a long time become like a lion in a zoo, just go back and forth, try to remember how freedom was, » says Pickard.

Soon, looks in their eyes will be seen, a look that indicates that they know that they will never be free again – « that they have lost the most precious thing that exists ».

« Then you have to find something to cherish. You don’t find it at the same time, but if you are isolated for a long time, the heart will crave something to cherish, think about, something alive. No family, no children, a few friends, what do you love? »

He tells men then to think of capturing small mice. With small cardboard clips and pencil, they then make a hamster wheel for the mouse to run in. The men then gather and watch the mouse run.

« Large, strong, adults watch the mouse run for hours together, because it is something they can expect. »

Pickard says other people have taken advantage of that the prison was located in the middle of the Arizona desert and provided spiders. « Giant, hairy spiders. Nothing dangerous. People caught them and held them. »

« Large, strong, adults watch the mouse run for hours together, because it is something they can expect. »

Photo/Andri Theyr Andrason

« The greatest punishment that can be applied »

Pickard was among those who could not capture mice or spiders and searched for a small ant hole where the ants came out at night. Several men then stole regular bread from the dining room and smuggled them past the guards who sought them after every single meal time.

They took the bread to the ant hole, put little bread on the ground and watched the ants work, for one to two hours. « Because there was something to cherish ».

« I had nothing to cherish, except the memory of a family, » says Pickard.

When you lose everything, the love of one’s family is the only thing that’s left and he says that connection will be smaller and smaller every year. Then you start to forget their faces and one day the memory is gone, there is nothing left, « and that is the darkest point ».

« The hardest thing in prison is not the watchdogs, or the walls, or the attacks, or the humiliation, or the screams, but to find love die. It is the greatest punishment that can be applied. »

« No weapons, no cruelty, no force »

Pickard emphasizes that prison should improve men, they should « not let monsters back into society but new people ».

He takes Halden Prison in Norway as an example, but Are Høidal, the first director of Halden Prison, also gave a speech at the conference.

« It’s the best example of a prison I’ve seen, » says Pickard.

« In my eyes, they are incredibly civilized. Trees, guards and staff who really talk to you, no weapons, no cruelty, no force. They allow each one to hold their dignity and only so people can come out free of the tricks that came in to begin with. »

In the United States, it can be difficult to finance such a building, but slowly things can hopefully change.

Pickard with Tristan Elizabeth Gribbin his aunt who lives in Iceland and also held a presentation at the conference, and Are Høidal from the Norwegian prison authorities. Are was the first director of Halden prison in Norway.

Photo/Stian Estenstad

« 20-30 pages of legal arguments, every week for 20 years »

At the end of 2018, Donald Trump signed US President The First Step Actfederal laws designed to reduce the return to the prisons, improve the conditions of prisons and provide prisoners with the possibility of releasing sooner.

This legislation says Pickard has led him to be released in 2020.

He had done this and he says the request has been almost the thousandths he had written. He claims to have studied the songs and wrote a request every week, « 20-30 pages of legal arguments, every week for 20 years ».

It took the request for two years to go through the system and was denied by most institutions and officials until she arrived at a new judge, which Pickard had never met.

« For God’s intimacy, this morning, he released me. It was a remarkable day, to get this news, » he says, five years later, still surprised that a judge he had never met had had faith.

« All of a sudden there was silence, I was free »

Pickard says enough has happened in the community in the 20 years he served. So the first day would have been decorative but fun.

It was on Monday morning that was hit on the door to his cell. He was brought into the office and told him that a judge had signed his request and that the prison had three hours to get him out.

« This is after 20 years in this space. So I had 500 kilos of legal documents and they packed it all together and let me have pants, shorts and $ 200. Before I knew it, I was in a car, driving out the world for the first time in 20 years – which was an unimaginable feeling.

The prison worker drove me to the bus station and left me there, for the first time in 20 years I was not under government supervision. For 20 years there was always someone close to me and always panic. All of a sudden there was silence, I was free, and stood there, one. What now?

There was a shrub, with a flower, a beautiful desert flower, and I spent time with the flower for about 20 minutes. Look at it, felt it, touched it, it was fine and alive, in the desert, ”he thinks.

« I didn’t know where the key was »

In 2000, telephone booths were in use, which was put in to call, but they were all gone when Pickard came out 20 years later. He had seen a mobile phone on TV in prison and knew what they looked, but had never seen them in person.

« But I had to call my family to tell them I was free. I saw a young man, with gold chains, a lot of tougher, talk on the phone and had to go up to him. You learn to be very polite in prison because if you are not you can be killed.

So I stood in front of him and said, Sorry sir, I was coming from prison and having to call my family, could I pay you for calling you? « 

The man looked at him rather strangely, told him to « forget the money » and correct him the iPhone.

« I didn’t know where the key was. After a few minutes he looked at me and I just said: Do you know, I’ve been away for a very long time, could you call?

So he assisted me. « 

In 2000, telephone booths were in use, which was put in to call, but they were all gone when Pickard came out 20 years later. He had seen a mobile phone on TV in prison and knew what they looked, but had never seen them in person.

Photo/Andri Theyr Andrason

« So it all went well »

Pickard’s family came and met him at the bus station and had passed since he saw some of them.

« The last time I saw my son he was newborn and I held him in a baby blanket in my lap. So he walked up to me at the bus station – 1.98 tall and massage. It’s very strange to say: I love you a son, and stretch myself to embrace him, but I did, » he says warmly.

That same day, his son returned to the university where he was studying neurological science and is a new graduate today.

« We are very close now and have a good time together. Go hiking and skiing and all that fathers should do. Although we are strange, he is proud of me and loves me. I couldn’t ask for a better boy. So it all went well, » says Pickard smiling.

« For me it is a family’s love »

Finally, Pickard emphasizes that parents in prison must realize that it is not only those who have difficulty with the imprisonment, « it is the children who suffer ».

He says that he had a lot of thought of his daughters, both of whom were small when he entered.

« No matter what pain I was finding every day, I thought of them. Einar in their little beds, have never known their dad or seen him and all the other kids have my dad. But your dad is the worst person in the world and you can’t talk to anyone about it. I thought what it must mean for a baby, » he says.

He then adds that if you learn something in prison, it is what matters most in life, what is most precious.

« For me, it is the love of one’s family. Caring for small, precious, sensitive children and the love of a man’s wife. »