Graduation - June 9, 2010

I attended our facility’s graduation ceremony yesterday. I went in thinking it was a big waste of time – after all, why recognize guys getting certified as bakers or auto mechanics. In my arrogance I assumed a ceremony in prison couldn’t compare to my college or law graduation. What I witnessed taught me how much I still have to learn.


Education programs in prison are run by the Department of Correctional Education (DCE). DCE provides vocational education – electrical, building and maintenance, HVAC, masonry (to name a few) and academic education. By Virginia law, all inmates without a high school diploma or GED are required to attend class to be eligible for early release. DCE also manages an on-site library and college classes through a local community college.

From the time of my arrest I served as a GED tutor, first at the jail I was held at and now here at the prison. I daily work with men – some as young as 17, others over 70 – who struggle to learn to read and write and do basic math.

Yesterday’s graduation ceremony involved about 100 men who had completed various programs. Many of these men have never completed anything meaningful in their life prior to being recognized here yesterday.

The Warden – a remarkable woman who looks out of place in a place like this, yet has a heart of gold – spoke briefly and said the following: “incarceration is a daily struggle. It’s difficult, and painful, and tough.” But, she added, the men that are able to succeed in this environment prove you can overcome this.

I was deeply moved by her words. No one can truly understand what this experience is like until you’ve lived it; the loneliness in the midst of cramped living conditions the loss of family, of friends, of freedom; the boredom, despair and sometimes, fear.

Virginia currently has incarcerated almost 40,000 men and women. They are someone’s mother or father, brother or sister, son or daughter. The money spent to house this number (over $1 billion) could provide educational opportunities for ten times that number.

What kind of society do we desire? What is our obligation to those on the fringe of society? What does it mean, really mean, to forgive, to reconcile, to rehabilitate? What hope is there for an inmate upon his or her release?

I ponder these questions as the GED students proceed forward to get their diplomas. Family and friends who came into see the ceremony cheer; some cry. Bob Dylan’s words echo through my mind: “the answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind”.

Four men earned associates degrees from the local community college. At minimum, it takes five years to get enough courses completed for the degree.

The student speaker was one of those men. His parents – naturalized Cuban-Americans – drove up from Miami. “Grac” is 42 years old. He has been incarcerated since 1996 and has 3 years remaining on a cocaine distribution conviction. In the time he’s been in prison he became HVAC certified, earned his journeyman status as an electrician and now, completed his associates degree.

His brief remarks focused on how much he hated prison, yet how in this struggle he found meaning, and, a purpose. He then spoke to his parents in Spanish. Choking up, he thanked them for standing by him, loving him unconditionally, never being embarrassed by his situation.

I thought of my own circumstance – a mother who continually points out what I lost, who can’t visit without crying. I thought about losing my wife of 28 years who hasn’t spoken to me in the last 2 years, deprived me of access to my youngest son, and made me realize all those years I felt she was cold and distant from me was because she never truly loved me.

And, I watched these men smile and wave with pride. Regardless of their crime, or their background, or their circumstances they made it. They graduated.