Prison didn’t teach me accountability. Other incarcerated men did | Opinion

He didn’t have to acknowledge me. He was the best friend of the young man I killed more than two decades ago, when I was a child myself. It was a chance occurrence that I met him in prison. He could have ignored me — or worse.

We were standing in a room filled with incarcerated men who, aside from a few people I had confided in, were oblivious to the significance of this encounter. But when I extended my hand and he took it, time stopped. My body was in a prison in Soledad. But every other part of me slipped backward more than 20 years — as if my adult self were walking beside the child I once was, preparing him for a moment of accountability he had never truly faced.

That moment made something unmistakably clear to me: Accountability does not come from “the system.” We are told that the criminal legal system holds people accountable, but prisons do not correct or rehabilitate. They separate people from their communities and confine them to a small space.

Prisons hold people. It is incarcerated people themselves who hold one another accountable.

Inside California prisons, incarcerated men have transformed leisure and recreational spaces into places where the real work of accountability happens. Areas once used for yard time, cards, dominoes, chess and even Dungeons and Dragons became spaces for structured conversations about trauma, beliefs, emotions and what it means to be a man.

When I first participated in Success Stories, a 13-week, peer-led program inside the prison, I knew it was different. While many prison programs are designed to equip incarcerated people with the language needed to perform well before parole commissioners — to be deemed “suitable” — Success Stories focuses on teaching us how to communicate honestly with one another.

Our facilitators modeled vulnerability by discussing experiences and emotions most men are taught to suppress or feel ashamed of. They created a space where honesty mattered more than performance, and where accountability was practiced, not rehearsed. I did not know it at that time, but that 13-week program prepared me for the conversation I was about to have with the man whose best friend I killed.

About a month earlier, I learned that that man was also incarcerated in my same prison. When we crossed paths, I was focused on something else entirely: a spoken-word competition we were hosting. A friend who was competing mentioned he was bringing someone with him. It never occurred to me that he might be bringing the one person who knew me in the worst way possible.

The day of the event, I recognized him the moment he walked in. He didn’t see me. When my friend noticed the look on my face and asked whether I wanted to speak with him, I asked for time. After what felt like an eternity, I told my friend to call him over.

My heart was racing. When he looked up and realized who wanted to speak with him, his face showed immediate recognition.

What I have not mentioned yet is that before I killed this man’s best friend, he shot me five times. After I recovered and retaliated, many people wanted to harm me — including this man now standing in front of me. In that moment, though, we were simply present.

When he came close enough, I extended my hand. He took it without breaking eye contact. I introduced myself. He replied, “I know who you are.”

Before either of us lost our nerve, I apologized for the harm I had caused and told him I was available for whatever he needed. He spoke about his anger, grief and confusion.

Then he did something I never expected: He apologized to me. He said the only reason he hadn’t killed me years ago was because he couldn’t find me. He apologized for having wanted to harm me and admitted that even at that moment, he was still struggling with those thoughts. I understood.

We shook hands, cried and hugged. No amount of time in a cage could have prepared me for that moment of accountability. He actually ended up winning first place in the competition with a song about his best friend. A few weeks later, he signed up and participated in Success Stories himself.

According to the current status quo, that interaction should never have happened — especially not inside a prison. If the institution had known the connection between us, we likely would have been separated, possibly placed in solitary confinement.

The system prioritizes control and risk management over accountability, even when accountability is already taking place. Rather than preventing harm, it often interrupts the very conditions that make responsibility, repair and change possible.

These are lessons that shouldn’t have to be learned in prison, and they don’t have to be. We know what accountability looks like. It is not found in cages, but built through responsibility, honesty and human connection.

Talib Williams is an incarcerated writer and journalist whose work examines incarceration, racialized state violence and Black radical tradition. He is currently editor of the Catalyst, a newsletter for the Success Stories Program.

This story was originally published June 2, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Prison didn’t teach me accountability. Other incarcerated men did | Opinion."