Born Free

It seems as though every time I turn on the TV, I see Kid Rock singing his new big hit “Born Free”. He sings it at awards shows, football games, you name it. How ironic. The United States of America, our country, where people still recite the Pledge of Allegiance, sing the National Anthem and believe in ideas like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, has more people in prison than any nation on the face of the earth. More inmates than in China – still a Communist country, more inmates than in North Korea, Cuba, Iran, any despot regime on the face of the earth.



Virginia has almost forty thousand inmates in its prisons, the eighth largest inmate prison population “in the land of the free”. That number does not include the thousands of others held in local and regional jails. It does not include the 50,000 individuals under supervised probation or on parole. Nor does it include the 300,000 plus Virginians who, because of felony convictions, have been denied their civil rights. They cannot vote, they are subject to warrantless searches, to just name a few.


Three million incarcerated persons in the United States. Still, Kid Rock sings.


This week the Governor’s budget director announced preliminary budget numbers that call for a six percent across the board decrease in funds. According to news reports, DOC will be especially hard hit with projections of up to eight prisons being closed. Throughout the compound winds of freedom begin to blow:


“They got to bring back 65%. . . .”


“They can’t keep all these guys locked up for their full sentences . . . .”


Anyone with a minimal level of common sense would realize Virginia cannot continue to sentence and house inmates as they have since 1995 when parole was abolished. You cannot spend over $1 billion each year and employ over 13,000 – both items the state’s largest in dollars and workforce number – on corrections and expect to have quality schools and healthcare as well as adequately maintained roads.


Corrections is an oxymoron. The money spent does not get the Commonwealth inmates who are “corrected”. Instead, $1 billion gets you almost 40,000 housed, angry, frustrated people who will, with very few exceptions, all see “the streets”.


No one disputes that there must be consequences to criminal wrongdoing. But, sentences must be proportionate to the crime committed and those incarcerated must be given an opportunity for early release through hard work and participation in programs to correct their behavior. Emphasis should be placed on restoring inmates to society as responsible, contributing citizens, not punitively housing them for lengthy periods of time only to be let out bearing the stigma of felon.


This nation professes that “all are equal before the law”. Go through the criminal process and see if you still believe it. America professes to believe everyone deserves a second chance. We love stories about underdogs and comebacks. All inmates ask is for that chance, that opportunity.


Thanksgiving evening and CNN is doing a show on “Heroes”. Called to the stage is a middle-aged black woman. On her own she began opening a number of half-way houses in the Los Angeles area for released female inmates. These homes provide a safe, stable place to live for women just out of the penitentiary, women who have no home, no family, no opportunity. She gives these women a chance to succeed, a chance to overcome. She gives these women hope.


Freedom is defined as a political right, the quality of living a life with liberty. Shouldn’t that right apply to everyone, even inmates?