New “old way” to do things

Ms. S, a petite 40-something black woman, walked in our building Wednesday and announced “I am your unit manager.  Everything that happens in the building goes through me.”  Unit manager?  The old heads just laughed.  “We had unit managers in the 70’s and the 90’s”, they said.

Why is it that Virginia keeps recycling the same tired, unsuccessful ideas from the past?  They didn’t work then, they won’t work now.

As I’ve written before, Governor McDonnell and DOC Director Clarke must get creative and daring in dealing with prisons.

Two good places to start are with the recommendations expressed by “Right on Crime” a conservative think tank with support from the likes of Newt Gingrich, Ed Meese and Grover Norquist.  Longer sentences don’t work.  Reinstituting tired ideas like “unit managers” in prison buildings won’t work.  Real prison reform is needed. 

Then there is research by Professor Philip Cook of Duke and Jens Ludwig of Chicago whose research on controlling crime through reducing prison sentences is both cost effective and innovative.

It’s time for Virginia to get some new ideas in corrections.

A "Divine" Week

Merriam Webster’s College Dictionary defines “divine” two ways:  “of, or proceeding from God;” and “to discover by intuition or insight.”  This past week both those definitions came to mind as I watched and lived through another week of prison.

It all started typically enough.  I was at a visit last Saturday when a young guy from the college building asked to introduce me to his folks.  He goes by the name “Divine”.  He is an extremely lean, muscular black man, just 23, soft spoken and very polite.  He always calls me sir as in “sir, would you have time to read my essay?”  I like him (but, my friends in here will tell you I like most everyone).

Divine is a very bright kid and he writes beautifully.  He’s one of the young guys I really enjoy helping.  So, we completed count in the “VI” room and Divine said “sir, I’d like to introduce you to my folks.”  I’ve had that happen a couple of dozen times in my stay here.  That, or guys I work with in school will introduce themselves to my folks or friends at visit.  We walk over and there is this older, well-dressed black couple sitting at a small table (dad in a suit; mom in a dress; late 60’s).  Divine introduced me to them and said “this is the man who’s taught me to write.”  His mother and father hop up and shake my hand.  His mom tells me they’ve known their son was blessed when he got here.  A devoutly religious couple, she added “we prayed he’d meet someone who would befriend him and urge him to be his best.  He’s told us how you work with the young men.  Thank you.”

I was speechless.  All that afternoon I thought here I am a felon, an inmate and somehow I made a difference in this kid’s life.  All the prayers I’d uttered about giving me a chance and I realized I was, in fact, living my chance.  I made a difference in a kid’s life and his parents now have hope.  It was, a humbling insightful moment.

Two days later another A+ certification test was held.  Seven of nine students passed.  The two who didn’t were mere points from passing.  “Mouse”, one of the guys I spend hours with each week honing his English skills, came back from class Tuesday night with an “A” on his paper he’d written about Langston Hughes.  We spent two afternoons reading and re-reading poems and then, suddenly it clicked.  Like a light switch turning on Mouse’s face, he lit up as he got what Hughes was saying.

And then, Thursday the GED was given.  I had two guys sit for the test and those two guys passed.  I’ve been thinking a good deal about unanswered prayers.  We pray about something, it doesn’t occur immediately and we assume God’s not listening.  We forget all the times in our past when our kids were sick, or we’d lost a job, or we were on the brink of divorce.  Somehow God always answered, always saw us through the difficulties we faced.

I have said “but” a great number of times these past three years.  I realized there’s no “but” in “trust in the Lord with all your heart”.  The strange thing is I think I’ve known that all along.  Faith is all about the future.  You believe because your past proves prayers are answered.  A lot of good news came out for the college guys this week and for the GED students.  It reminded me that in any situation good can come.  Remembering that was divine. 

Birthdays, College Acceptances and Homecoming

This was an interesting week.  A few milestones were met for a couple of guys.  Thanksgiving came and went.  It’s never easy celebrating a holiday in here.  You get used to it – at least you tell yourself that – and you spend your day keeping busy so you don’t get overwhelmed with memories.

Two of the guys I’m very close to celebrated birthdays on the same day.  Craig, one of the college aides, the guy we call “the Dean” (because he’s the inmate contact to the college) turned 40.  He’s spent seven birthdays locked up; he has five more to go.  He tried to keep it quiet, didn’t want anyone to know; big mistake.  Most days, after noon count when one of the guys is ticked at an officer a tradition has developed.  We’re standing silently as the COs confirm the number and the offended guy will yell out “4A, give it up for ____.”  The building erupts with everyone shouting “F--- ____!”  Laughter then ensues.

So we’re standing, waiting, and I yell out “4A, give it up for the dean’s 40^th birthday”.  And, well you know the response, followed by cheers and real birthday wishes.  Craig – beet red just looked at me and said “I’m gonna kill you!”

My young sidekick Mike turned 34 the same day.  Mike’s been in prison since he was fifteen; nineteen years incarcerated.  He comes up for parole every year and is denied (“serious nature of the crime”.  He stabbed a man to death).  Mike has an exemplary record as an inmate, but murder, well he probably won’t get out before his mandatory parole release date which, ironically, is 30 days before my own scheduled release date.  I always tell Mike I’m pulling for him to make early parole because I’m assured of getting out a month later!

I can’t imagine doing “this” at fifteen.  He was kept at a juvenile center until 17, then shipped to “real prison”.  Back then, DOC operated a facility called Southampton.  It was for young, violent offenders:  age 17 to 30.  And, it was a zoo.  A good number of the guys I know here who are mid-thirties to 40 and who’ve been “down” 15 to 20 years started at Southampton.  Southampton was known for stabbings, rapes and drugs.  Chaos ruled.  Somehow, this quiet, tall white kid avoided it all.  He stayed to himself, avoided being a victim, avoided the gang flare ups between the Aryans and the blacks, and he got his level lowered to Lunenburg. 

When I first met Mike he was painfully quiet.  Introverted was defined by “see Mike”.  But, Craig and I saw he was bright – very bright – and we convinced him to come work in my classroom.  And, as is my habit, I talked to him (I talk to everybody).  Mike started talking.  I’ve turned him into a regular chatterbox!  He’s a great tutor, well-read, a “Seinfeld” fan, and I can count on him to hit the occasional “that’s what she said”, when needed.  Nineteen birthdays in prison; nine more to go.  He came in a teenager; he’ll head out in his forties.

Two guys who I helped with college applications received letters admitting them.  “Mouse” was notified of acceptance beginning next fall at his local community college.  He’s halfway toward his associates degree which he’ll complete while working toward a degree in culinary arts.  Then there’s Todd.  Another mid-thirties guy.  Did 5 years in Tennessee prisons and another 5 here for dealing drugs.  Todd is one of my favorite students.  He puts his all into his studies and has maintained a 4.0 GPA.  This week he learned he will finish his studies at a four-year state university after his release early next year.  He was one of the few guys who passed the IT “A+ certification” exam.  He’s going to get his degree in information technology.

I’m waiting to hear about five more guys who’ve applied to colleges next year after their release.  Imagine, going to college in here and then being able to complete your studies in a real college setting.  A college education is the number one determiner in breaking the recidivism cycle.  That these guys have a shot is remarkable.

And then there’s Solo.  Our famous “porn king” heads home Monday.  Nine year bid coming to an end.  Solo’s going home to his wife, his two kids, a job (at his family’s restaurant) and college.  Solo looks like Buddha with a bowl haircut.  He was known – back when smoking was permitted – to slow jog around the track with a honeybun in one hand and a cigarette in the other.  Solo always has a smile on his face and hardcore porn in his pocket.  He’s completed his sentence – nine years for selling powder cocaine (the deal went bad, he was stabbed in the arm severing a major artery.  He was arrested at the hospital once the police realized he wasn’t going to bleed to death).  Solo will spend Christmas with his family.  His last prison holiday behind him.

And me on Thanksgiving?  I enjoyed my meal and watched football.  Later, I ate some ramen noodles and refried beans.  I drank a ginger ale, laughed with the guys in the building and tried not to think about Thanksgivings before.  As I paused and read my afternoon devotional the words from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians came to mind:

“Pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks….”

I realized it had been a very good, blessed week.

Pet Peeves

Living in a space the size of a basketball court with 95 other guys takes some getting used to.  The sheer number of bodies compressed into that small a space is bound to generate tension (and odors!).  Troubles – whether in the form of arguments or the occasional throw down – are a natural result of putting men in cramped space with limited mobility and virtually no regular contact with members of the opposite sex.  Privacy is created in one’s own mind (you would be amazed what guys will do in their “private bunks”) and an uneasy “live and let live” attitude develops.  Still, it is a daily battle not to go bonkers over some of the foolish and ignorant behaviors guys in here exhibit.  Here’s my current list of pet peeves.

There are guys who insist on slamming lids:  washing machines, ice maker, commodes.  If it has a lid…bam, just let it drop.  We live in a solid block building with metal everywhere.  It’s not what you would call acoustically well designed.  Any sound reverberates off the walls.  There is a constant hum in the building from the washers and driers with the occasional “beep” of microwave timers and watches.  But the lid guys, they are oblivious to the decibels expended when they just let the washer lid slam.  Almost every day one of those losers will be recipient of “heh a-hole.  Quit droppin’ the lid!”  They can be counted on to retort “What?  I was just checking the wash.”

Noise.  I love days when I head out back to the ball court at noon and there’s no one anywhere.  I hear the birds and the silence, the sweet sound of silence.  The building is always loud.  Foam earplugs, are a regular purchase on commissary day.  But it’s the out of the way noises, the lids that drive guys crazy.

Closely following “lid slamming guy” is “vegetable bag guy”.  Every day is like a farmers market in here.  Whatever fresh fruit or vegetables are served end up back in the building.  Add to that hard boiled eggs, bread, butter, sausages.  If it can be smuggled out of the chow halls it will find its way to the building.  The more the COs pat down and search guys coming out of chow, the more creative guys get with sewing pockets in pants legs and coat backs.  The market for fresh foods is a big dollar business (one of my students “Stoney” is so adept at taking apples that he brought 27 back in his coat at one time and was patted down.  At 2 apples for 1 ramen noodle - 30¢, he makes decent money).

I don’t begrudge the black market.  Fact is, DOC feeds the inmate population nutritionally suspect meals.  Only guys on religious diets are provided fresh produce.  Illness and disease contributed to by poor food are major problems inside prison.  No, I understand why guys steal the veggies.  What drives me nuts is the storage.

Guys use large chip bags to chill their veggies overnight. Every try and pack a crinkled plastic chip bag (think mid-sized “Lays” bag) with ice?  And the bags are notoriously unstable so they fall over and ice and water (because a good number of the men in here still don’t comprehend the science behind melting) go everywhere.  Twice, I’ve found Katrina-like flooding under my locker due to the infamous chip bag collapse.  And, melting ice has to be replaced.  It never fails.  2:00 am some chucklehead decides to repack his ice.  Crinkle, Crinkle, splat (from the water and ice hitting the floor), then slam – ice maker lid.  From around the building then comes the melodic chorus “shut the f--- up!”

How about the guy in the bunk next to me who insists on shaking his package of oatmeal vigorously five times before opening it.  Not six, not three, but five every pack.  And, he’s an angry shaker.  Four times a day (again, not two, not three, everyday four) he huffs and puffs and grunts his way through five oatmeal shakes.

Pet peeves.  We have six guys who don’t wash their hands after using the bathroom.  Six guys who don’t have the sense to use soap and water after defecating.  Imagine seeing one of those six health nuts using the microwave when you’re getting a meal ready.

Then there’s singing guy.  He’s the guy who likes to sing at the top of his lungs.  He knows every rap lyric known (“yo, yo mama, bring me sum sug…”), yet 1) he sings everything off key; 2)  he sings loud;  3)  he lacks basic knowledge on things like balancing a checkbook, reading a lease, you know – silly things that don’t mean anything.   If there was only one singing guy it’d be tolerable; but, Friday evening, 6:00 pm, BET does “freestyle” Friday, a show about ordinary Joes rapping off against each other.  All the singing guys unplug their headphones and crank up the volume and let everyone know what ordinary Joe just spun.  My response?  I’ve been known to breakout a John Denver tune or throw down my own rap.  Last week, I even got two guys (surprisingly, both young rapper wanna be’s) to let loose with “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Don’t Stop Thinkin’ bout Tomorrow”.  The reaction was initial dead silence followed by laughter and applause and a half-dozen “you’re crazy Larry’s”.

Pet peeves.  We all do things that annoy others.  We all have our own idiosyncrasies that we do in the privacy of our homes.  Here, everything is seen, every quirk, bad habit and annoyance on full display.  And you see the same things, the same behaviors, the same stupid quirks, day in and day out and they begin to gnaw at you.   Eventually some guys snap.  Me?  I get outside, clear my head, meditate, pray and write.

Ironically, little things used to bug the hell out of me.  I’d blow up at petty annoyances on a regular basis.  Perhaps, just perhaps, that’s one of the good things coming out of my stay here.  You have to learn not to sweat the little stuff.

Still, if the grungy six don’t start washing their hands, I may blow a fuse!

Thanksgiving

This week I will spend my fourth Thanksgiving behind bars.  For the first time during those four Thanksgivings I feel relatively happy and very blessed.  That may come as a surprise to some who know me.  Thanksgiving weekend this year would have marked my 30^th wedding anniversary.  My ex-wife and two sons remain in my daily prayers.  Perhaps the divorce was for the best.  Perhaps things are as they should be.  I only know I miss and love them but have reached a point of peace.

No, even in the loneliness, I’m thankful.  God, I’ve realized answers prayers and He’s with us every moment of every day.  The writer, William James said: 

“We stand on a mountain pass.  Be strong and of good courage.  Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes…” 

I think William James would understand my prison experience.

Nothing is ever hopeless.  No matter how bad things may appear, there is always hope.  As I ran the other morning, I couldn’t help but think of country singer Tim McGraw’s wonderful ballad “Carry On”.

“Carry on

What don’t kill us,
Makes us strong.
There ain’t no troubles we can’t rise above
With a handful of faith
And a heartful of love.”

I speak for the guys in here, building 4A, “the learning community” when I wish you Happy Thanksgiving.

Officers, Officers Everywhere

A couple of incidents this week involving officers and it reminded me whatever system we may design, it ultimately comes to the people in place to make or break the operation. Prisons are despicable places.  In spite of that, some decent folks work here. Change that.  The majority of officers are decent people doing a low paid, blue collar job.  Even at this level, some danger exists.  Most don’t like having to “watch” or discipline the general population in here.  They want to come to work, do their jobs and go home at the end of their shift.

There are others, however, who let the power go to their heads, who get a warped sense of satisfaction out of humiliating the men in here.  Prison is a time bomb.  You hold a man, confined in small, crowded space, you subject him to indignity upon indignity, deprive him of even basic levels of self-respect and privacy, and it weighs on him.  He gets a letter from his wife or girlfriend, who tells him she’s found another.  Or, his family and friends abandon him, and the hurt, the loneliness fester.  That man doesn’t need a reason to lash out; he already has it.  In the midst of that cauldron of anger and bitterness these officers work.  Most keep things cool.  A few set the fuse and watch the explosion.

In “2” building the other day, Sgt. “H” decided to remove a man’s meal from the microwave.  You never touch someone else’s food unless you’re ok’d by the owner to do it.  We live in a cesspool in here.  96 men jammed into an extremely small space.  Some men use the bathroom without even washing their hands.  Sgt. H is (sorry to be impolite) an a-hole.  He pushes men around, threatening charges.  Awhile ago a minor charge was no big deal.  Now, the warden tries to use any charge as a ground to reduce our already pitiful good time allowance of 4 ½ days per month to 3 (twice I’ve won appeals for guys getting their good time reinstated.  “Due process” – as written by DOC’s own good time procedure doesn’t allow it.  Still the warden arbitrarily takes good time).  Any charge is serious.

So H grabs the inmate’s food out of the microwave and tosses it out.  “Dayroom is closed”, he yells out.  What does the inmate do?  He goes at H, slugs him once or twice.  H, however, is huge.  He body slams the inmate and then chokes him into unconsciousness.  The inmate is hauled out and within hours shipped to level “4” Nottoway.  H remains but “2” building is aroused.  Epithets are yelled nonstop.  Word gets out on “inmate.com” our grapevine.

Could that have been avoided?  Sure.  H acts like he’s just enforcing the rules, but he’s an in your face confrontational clown.  Tick, Tick.  2 building almost explodes. 

We’ve had our own problem:  CO “Barky”.  First issue:  he watches guys in the shower.  This isn’t the first building or first time that issue has come up.  Once, in “3” building, an inmate called him out for staring at him while he slept.  Now, we have Barky with us.  He works overnight and sets himself up with a direct line of sight into the bathroom.  Guys call him out on it calling him every name possible.  Barky gets embarrassed – for getting caught – then announces “I’m writing charges”.  He nitpicks and badgers and pesters and the shouts and profanity grows.

A few mornings ago I had a run in with him.  4:30 am, my prayers completed, I sit in my chair and write until I can shower at 5:15.  I’ve done this every day I’ve been here (two years).  “You can’t be off your bunk until 5:15” he tells me.  I point out: 

1.    I’ve done this for two years;

2.    There are a half dozen Muslims praying at the exact time he’s telling me to get in my bunk;

3.    The rule states “during quiet time (Monday – Thursday 12:00 am – 5:15 am) you must be in, on, or next to your bunk.” 

His response, “get in your bunk or I’ll write you a charge”.  This morning, Barky stopped a Muslim inmate mid-prayer.  The reason?  “You can only pray in your cut.”  Problem is, this building doesn’t face East-West.  It is an overlooked rule.  Tick, Tick.

I lost my verbal cool.  “I’ll get in my bunk.  You quit watchin’ us shower!”  He was shocked!  I knew he wouldn’t write a charge.  He couldn’t take a chance I’d tell the building Sarge what took place.

Last night, Barky struck again.  He tried to get IG (my bunkmate) to take a Muslim brother’s food from the microwave.  IG was sharing the meal, but hadn’t prepared the wrap.  Result?  IG received a “minor” charge:  “failure to obey a direct order”.  Here’s the thing, the “facts” Barky detailed are false.  IG has a meeting with the watch commander today to discuss it.  He can beat the charge, even with the Kangaroo Court system we have here to meet due process requirements on institutional charges.

Guys here in the building are starting to push paper – dropping anonymous notes on Barky demanding he be re-assigned.  Barky is the worst kind of officer you can have on a compound.  His sexual proclivities, his use of charges to harass, all create a stew of mistrust and anger.

This is a tough environment.  There are hundreds of men suffering from severe mental illness; drug and alcohol abuse issues run rampant.  There are strong predators who prey on the weak.  Confinement, isolation, separation lead to exposing the worst in human nature.  Loneliness, bitterness and anger simmer.  The fact there aren’t more violent episodes is a testament to the humanity of many of the men here and the decency of most of the officers and staff.

America’s prison system is a failure.  It accomplishes almost none of the goals it sets.  In the midst of this abject failure, officers like H and Barky grow comfortable.  They make it tougher on the decent ones.   They make it tough to do your time.  They keep the time bomb ticking.

A Day in the Life

A friend I hadn’t seen in over three years came out for a visit the other weekend.  I think he was a little embarrassed at first that it took so long to get the courage to come out here.  But, he sees my ex every week at church and, I think, there is a difficulty for folks dealing with me while she is in their midst.  So, I end up being placed in exile.  I’ve come to accept that.

He asked how I was “doing it.  How do you pass the day, not lose your mind?”  I had to laugh.  If I think too much about what I’ve lost, think too much about my memories of my ex, our kids, holidays, travel, I would go crazy.  Instead, I told him, I focus my attention on what I do in here.  Days roll over to new days, but I keep the same schedule.

What’s a day like in here?  For every guy, it’s different.  There are the disciplined guys, the guys who work, set schedules, seek books and hobbies to keep their minds fresh.  They seek meaning in their confinement, redemption for their lives.

Then, there are the sleepers.  They waste away, sleeping twelve, fourteen, even sixteen hours a day.  To them, prison is an exercise in passing through with the least exertion of energy, the least amount of thought.  Nothing is different.  They sleep, eat, watch TV and perhaps lift weights.   They plan on going back out, picking up exactly where their lives stopped on their arrest.  There is no redemption; there is no growth for these men.  They feed the system.  They go out and come back.  Prison, by its very organization, leads to a majority of its prisoners fitting into the second group.  These are the hustlers, the predators, the prey, the refuse that makes up so much of the prison class.

I’m in the first group.  From the day I decided that I wouldn’t quit, that I would fight and hope and believe, I created a schedule.  I live each day on the same schedule.  Disciplined living, I’ve found, can overcome the despair of this experience.

So I told my friend I get up each morning at 3:55.  No alarm clock, I just wake up.  A quick trip to the bathroom to shave, teeth brushed and then yoga.  I then read the Bible and pray and meditate for 45 minutes.  5:15 shower and writing until breakfast at 6:45.  I get another hour to write before 8:15 work call.  Three hours every Monday through Friday I teach adult basic ed.  Every afternoon, after lunch, I workout for an hour.  Then, its college tutoring or college classes.  Dinner, reading and at least two nights a week of college classes until 8:30.

I always go to sleep after 10:00 pm count, ending my day with prayers.  It’s a regimented lifestyle.  Other than an hour or so at night – and the morning sports and news – I avoid TV.  A couple of books and magazines read each week.  Each night, the “USA Today” and a crossword puzzle.  There’s music.  Guys are constantly exchanging CDs.  I have the “old stuff” – Marley, Dylan, The Eagles and Allman Brothers.  I’m the go to guy for classical music and jazz.

There was a time when I couldn’t bring myself to even listen to music in here.  So many songs, so many lyrics, reminded me of, well of her and us and our life together and our kids.  The upside of having a strong memory is you remember.  The downside is the same.  Now, I hear “The Band Perry”, or “Lady Antebellum” sing about love and whispers of what was cross my mind. But I can handle it now.  I jot down the lyrics, I write what’s on my heart and I maintain the regimen.

Dr. Victor Frankl, in his remarkable book “Man’s Search for Meaning” chronicles his survival in the Nazi concentration camps.  Finding meaning, in your circumstances, he argued, gives you freedom.

My schedule, how I do my time, get through each day, in spite of my circumstances, helps me find meaning in here.   Victor Hugo, in his masterpiece “Les Miserables” wrote:

            “Liberation is not deliverance.  A convict may leave prison behind, but not his sentence.”

Hugo understood more about prison than he realized.  The path to liberation rests not in the opening of the gate but the disciplining of the mind.

Simon Says (2)

Each morning, Monday through Friday at 7:15, the men of building 3B trudge across the compound to sit in a large circle in the visitation room.  There, under the direction of “specially trained” staff and officers, these 96 men engage in the daily ritual of preparing for release.  They are all within four to eight months of their release date and live together and participate in group programs under the auspices of Governor Bob McDonnell’s “Offender Re-entry Initiative” (he’ll regularly promote his “initiative” in the press).  And what do these men do to prepare for “the real world”?  They play “Simon Says”.

Yes, Virginia, your Governor’s re-entry plan has inmates within months of release playing Simon Says.  Not to be outdone, they also play “red light, green light” and have volunteers stand up and give “testimonials” about how “today I decided not to steal my neighbor’s radio”.  This is Governor McDonnell’s answer to the billion dollar embarrassment that is Virginia DOC. And ironically, the officers and teachers will tell you it’s the same failed program 20 year employees have seen three times before.  Oh, it may have a new name and different bells and whistles, but it’s the same failed concept that every Governor, every “tough on crime” politician has supported to break Virginia’s high incarceration rate, stagnant recidivism level and increasingly cost prohibitive system, while continuing to justify no early release incentives for the vast majority of incarcerated offenders. Bob McDonnell, I have concluded, is just another in a long line of snake oil salesmen who lack either the guts or the intellect to speak the truth and do what needs to be done with Virginia’s bloated, failed prison system.

I’m not the brightest guy in the world (my status as a member of Virginia’s inmate population confirms that) but just one day in prison was enough to convince me society’s approach to corrections was misdirected and doomed to failure.  It doesn’t take a genius to realize the following:

1)    The abolishment of parole has done nothing to either decrease the cost of incarcerating or the rate of recidivism amongst released offenders.  Instead it has created the largest department bureaucracy in Virginia government (13,000 DOC employees) and seen the inmate population swell from 9,600 (in 1995) to almost 40,000 (year-end 2010), a 400% increase in less than 15 years with one of every eight state budget dollars now going to corrections.

2)    The vast majority of inmates currently languishing in Virginia’s prisons are either nonviolent offenders or, due to the number of years held, have had their security levels reduced to low custody.  The majority of Virginia’s prisons are low to medium security facilities with dorm-style housing and a majority of the officer corps being females.

You want a meaningful re-entry initiative?  Focus – and resources – should be directed as follows:

1)    Real drug and alcohol treatment. A significant number of the incarcerated suffer from drug and alcohol abuse issues.   DOC treatment plans call for those inmates to attend treatment, however, those programs are group meetings, short duration (ten to fifteen weeks) that use a cookie-cutter “here are the stats” approach.  Meaningful treatment is needed, not boring, earn your certificate classes.

2)    Job/life skills training. I am in the minority in here for a number of reasons but one significant reason is I actually held a real job requiring regular hours.  Prisons have all sorts of vocational programs to teach a person how to be an electrician but there is nothing about paying taxes, running a business, buying a house, signing a lease, keeping a checking account.  The vast majority of inmates committed crimes because they were incapable of successfully navigating day to day life.

3)    Education.  The single most important determining factor in recidivism is a college education, yet funding for prison college programs has been repeatedly cut.  The vast majority of inmates in Virginia’s prisons lack basic skills and don’t even have their high school diplomas.  An un or under-educated offender is the primary driving force behind recidivism.

4)    Meaningful Mental Health treatment.  A significant number of offenders suffer from mental health disorders.  At this compound alone at least 200 of the 1200 incarcerated are on some sort of psychological meds.  Depression, anxiety, guilt, collapse of relationships, all flow freely around the compound like an open sewage ditch.  Yet, psychological counseling is a triage system.  Suicidal?  Drop a note, go to the hole, get antidepressants and a visit with the psychologist.  There is no individual counseling. And the guys on Prozac and all the rest?  Once a quarter they participate in a “video conference” with the department psychiatrist.  He asks three questions:  1. Any problems?  2.  Taking your meds?  3.  Any side effects?  Meds are used to temper behavior, but the underlying causes are left untreated.

Governor McDonnell will tell anyone what a giant step forward his re-entry program is for corrections.  It isn’t.  He is either a bold-faced liar or living in wonderland.  His re-entry program is no different than all the programs run in prison since parole was abolished which have failed miserably.

That much of the prison reform movement is not being driven by conservatives should come as no surprise.  The cost benefit analysis of incarceration proves what one day behind bars teaches.  Prisons fail.

 In a few short weeks the Virginia General Assembly will meet to consider the Commonwealth’s biannual budget.  No matter how much the politicians tell you Virginia has weathered the recession, be skeptical.  Virginia has a tremendous IOU in its state retirement plan.  State employees have again been denied raises.  Governor McDonnell could show leadership, real leadership, and introduce legislation to restore parole or, at the very least, restructure sentences so that offenders could earn significantly more good time.  A real re-entry program could be created.  An offender like me could be released and brought back in to continue the work I do.

The cost to house an inmate in Virginia at even a low level is $25,000 per year.  That’s $68.50 per day.  The cost to monitor that same inmate through “community corrections” (i.e. probation) is $8.00 per day.  Under the current system 60% of the incarcerated will recommit within three years of release.  Prison, simply put, is a sinking hole of quick sand.

I have repeatedly urged the Governor in this blog to put his faith and intellect into action and build a real prison reform agenda.  The time for demagoguery and false promises is over.  Virginia needs real prison reform.  Simon says “now”.

Herman, Jo Pa and Us

Yes, we have cable connections at our beds.  Most guys have TV’s:  clear plastic, 13 inch color sets (remotes are prohibited) that cost over $200.00 but can be purchased in catalogs for $70.00 (electronics are covered by the exclusive contract DOC has with Keefe.  Inmates – just as with commissary, phone calls, and CDs – pay exorbitant mark ups for “personal property”.  And most guys do their time watching TV – a lot of it.

Sports, as you can imagine, dominates TV watching in here (closely followed by BET and Univision (the Spanish network that specializes in beautiful women 24/7).  This past week all eyes were focused on two huge scandals and news and sports converged into a perfect storm of opinions.  Herman Cain, black Republican candidate for President, has been dogged over allegations brought by four white women that years ago he sexually harassed them.  As that story swirled around the building with debates over the veracity of the accusers’ stories and underlying racial component to it, the tragedy that has become Penn State broke.

Penn State:  Football, Jo Pa and pedophilia.  Newscasters flocking to “Happy Valley” to “report” (I use that word tongue in cheek) every scurrilous detail.  With self-righteous indignation, talking heads tell the viewers exactly what the proper moral response should have been from Joe Paterno, the athletic director, the grad assistant and everyone else involved.

And the news reporters:  what must Edward R. Murrow be thinking?  They report as “breaking news” every lurid tidbit they can find.  Each mention of “anal penetration” brings another spike in their Network’s Neilsen rating.  And the notion of innocent until proven guilty?  “Screw that.  We can speculate why Sandusky wasn’t offered a head coaching job anywhere. “

Meanwhile, as their grandfatherly head coach is forced out, Penn State students gather and chant, “Jo Pa” until the cameras show up and the night mixes with alcohol and anger and cars are turned over and windows broken.  All the while we sit in our prison dorm and watch and argue.

Herman Cain.  You want black inmates to feel sympathy for a Republican, run the stories the way they’ve come out about Cain.  The entire episode smacks of the century old fears that black men are hypersexual.  The fact that the black man in question is a conservative Republican only adds to the feeding frenzy.

Penn State.  Regular inmates hate sex offenders, especially pedophiles.  Though this – and all compounds – have their share of them, they survive in prison under the constant fear their crimes will be found out.  If my crime and education carry special status with respect and admiration, theirs is at the opposite end of the spectrum.  At higher level facilities child sex offenders are routinely raped, beaten and murdered.  They spend their bids in “pc” – protective custody – for fear of what the general prison population would do to them.

Here, they are taunted (“diaper sniper”, “clown hands”), pushed around and robbed.  A year ago I wrote a blog detailing my ambivalence dealing with sex offenders.  How, I wondered, do I meet my Christian duty to be merciful with my disgust over a man who would find sexual release with a child?  I reached an uneasy equilibrium, a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach that allowed me to treat each man the same, to not pass judgment.  And then came Penn State. 

Is Sandusky guilty?  I don’t know.  Should Joe Paterno morally have done more?  I don’t know all the details.  I know this – in a frenzy to get ratings our “Fourth Estate” has sold their souls and we collectively encourage it each time we buy into the “breaking news” of the day mantra.

I know one other thing.  The New Testament Book of James (my favorite Book in the Bible) details in five chapters Christian discipleship.  It is not an easy path.  As I listened to the debates in here unfold about Herman Cain, Penn State and Joe Paterno; one admonition from James kept replaying in my mind:  “mercy triumphs over judgment.”  Wise words if ever there were any.

And for all those who “know” precisely what Herman Cain did and what Joe Paterno should have done Rudyard Kipling said it best:

“If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

to serve your turn long after they are gone
And so hold on when there nothing in you
except the will which says to them:  Hold on.”

Bernie, Jack and Me

I lead a peculiar life in prison. I have remained – at least for the first three years anyway – above the daily fray of theft, two-bit violence, threats and general disrespect from larger, more violent men.  As I’ve written before, Darwinism – “survival of the fittest” – plays out daily in places like this.  That I’ve remained unscathed and only been a recorder of the abysmal conditions here is one of those things I have counted as a blessing from God.  Oscar Wilde, as I previously noted, was quite right when he wrote “what seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.”

Survival of the fittest.  So often that is thought to be the biggest, the strongest, the cunning predator over the weak prey.  I have discovered that brains, education, and your crime, may in fact place you in the realm of “fittest” in this screwy world behind wire.

Which led to a funny revelation for me the last few weeks.  As Bernie Madoff’s wife and son peddled a book attempting to get them public sympathy (at the price of more scorn heaped on Mr. Madoff) guys started calling me “Larry Madoff”.  Newspaper accounts of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, his wife’s “I didn’t know” mea culpa and his liquidation trustee’s multiple suits against anyone ever connected with him (at least the attorneys will be paid in full!) appeared on my bunk and guys would ask for my thoughts.

Then, last week Jack Abramoff appeared on “60 minutes” and the guys lined up to hear my pronouncements on the man convicted of corrupting congress and cheating his clients – various Indian tribes seeking gambling compacts – out of $45 million.  Ironically, Abramoff served less than four years in a medium security Federal prison.  He now works as an accountant for a pizzeria with a $24 million restitution order on his back.  Of course, he lives at home with his wife, children and dogs – same house, same everything – just as he did before his arrest.  So, naturally I was called “Larry Jack” for a few days.

And the questions always followed the same lines:
“Do you really think Madoff’s wife didn’t know?”
“Why do you think she hasn’t divorced him?”
“Does it piss you off that both their wives stayed while yours dumped you?”

Leaving my answers to those questions for another day, both stories got me thinking.  Take Bernie Madoff.  His wife said “he was a wonderful man who got in over his head and was afraid to admit it.  It took on a life of its own.”  I get that.  Like Bernie, my intention was never to steal for twelve years.  I know why I wrote the first check.  I know what I was feeling, what I was dealing with.  And, I knew it was wrong.  But once you cross that line it gets easier and easier until you want to stop, but the fear of getting caught, of admitting what you’ve done, paralyzes you.

Like Bernie, death seemed a better solution than facing failure.  It was a George Bailey moment he – and I – faced.  Only Frank Capra didn’t write the ending; a judge did.

Then there was a comment from Abramoff.  He told the interviewer his pride blinded him.  He was, in his mind, a highly moral man, a pillar of the community.  The money, the access, the perks, corrupted him.  It was true as Bob Dylan so poetically put it, that “all he believes are his eyes…and his eyes they just tell him lies…”  There’s a reason the Bible warns us of the dangers of pride.  As Jack Abramoff spoke, I could only shake my head in agreement.

Bernie, Jack and me.  I told a friend in a letter this week I’m a better man for going through this.  I’m a lot lonelier, but I’m also a lot less judgmental and more merciful.  I’m not sure what Bernie’s doing, but Jack – well, he appears to be a different man as well.

Soviet dissident and political prisoner Mihajlo Mihailov said “whoever follows his inner voice and saves his soul, learns empirically that, so long as the soul is not lost, the most important is not lost.”

Bernie and Jack are not simple, black and white, good versus evil men nor are their circumstances.  The guys understand that about me.  But, it applies to everyone.  Perhaps there’s a little of Bernie and Jack in all of us.

Pieta

One of the world’s best known pieces of sculpture is the “Pieta”.  Latin for “pity” it depicts a weeping Virgin Mary holding the broken, dead body of her son, Jesus.  Christ is prone, across her lap, his arms hanging to the floor.  Mary looks with sadness and love, motherly love, at the body of her dear son.

That came to mind this week as I thought about mothers.  As I wrote a few weeks ago, my younger brother, my only sibling, passed away.  He lived a difficult life punctuated, I imagine, by moments of joy such as at the birth of his daughter.  My brother had a very difficult relationship with our mother.  He lashed out at her frequently.  He could be – and regularly was – verbally abusive.  For much of his adult life he was full of anger and self-pity.  He needed someone to blame and that fell on my mom.

My mom isn’t perfect.  She’s half Italian, half Irish and three-quarters worried what everyone thinks.   But, on her own she was her congregation’s visitation committee.  Birthdays, anniversaries, celebrations, tragedies, it’s my mom who gets cards and meals out.  She goes to hospitals and nursing homes every week.  She was able to reach and help so many, yet my brother was unreachable.  So many times in my life I remember her eyes welling up with tears as she’d whisper “he hates me”. 

Then a strange thing happened.  As my brother lay dying those last few difficult weeks it was my mother he called for.  Going in and out of lucidness he’d call “where’s mom?” and mom was always there.  My father, a stoic Korean War Veteran, couldn’t stay in the room and watch my brother’s life ebb.  He would walk out, go around the hospital halls.  Not my mom.  She took his laundry (t-shirts, pajama bottoms) each night and brought them back fresh the next morning.  When Mark lost his appetite, she made rice pudding (one of his favorites) and fed it to him.

The morning my brother died my mother had spent the night “I just had a sense,” she told me.  At 4:30 am she called my father at the house.  “You need to come back.”  My dad arrived just a few minutes before Mark took his last breath.  My mother never left his side.

A mother’s love.  I have seen grown men in here, men who have been stabbed, beaten, shot, kept in solitary for months, who have never shed a tear in their lives until their mothers passed.  And then?  I’ve seen them weep uncontrollably.  A guy I respect in here told me early on a piece of advice I’ve thought about these past few weeks.  He said “if his mother hasn’t given up on him, he’s still got a chance.”  For nine months after my arrest my father refused to speak to me.  My mom?  Multiple times each week she wrote. No matter what I did I knew my mom still believed I could overcome this.

Shortly after our second son was born, he developed a severe respiratory infection.  His oxygen level hovered, at times, in very dangerous levels.   Our family physician lived in our neighborhood.  He debated hospitalizing our young son but, knowing us and being willing to come by our house anytime we called, he allowed us to keep our son at home.  We were both exhausted.  At one point, late in the evening, I fell asleep on the couch.  When I awoke I looked across the room.  There, sitting in our recliner was my wife.  She held our son to her chest.  He slept soundly under her watchful gaze, his fist hours of restful sleep in days.

I looked at the two of them for the longest time trying to fathom the mystery of a mother’s love.  She would not close her eyes, she would not move while her child lay sleeping. 

Last Wednesday would have been my brother’s 49^th birthday.  I sent my folks a card and called Thursday.  My mother wept when she spoke to me.  “Yesterday was tough,” she told me.  I get that.  She carried that child.  She birthed that child.  She was there when her baby breathed his last.

Thanksgiving is here.   The past few months have given me a new perspective on life, a new sense of hope.   I am thankful for this experience.  More than anything, I’m thankful that my eyes have been opened about my mom.

Three Men I Know

There are three men I know and each, I learned this week, are facing a significant crisis.  How they deal with their particular crisis, how they proceed forward, will say much about them.  As I watch and pray over the incidents that unfold around me I see faith lessons.

Woo was one of our first IT students.  I say was because this week he was sent to the hole, locked up after fighting another inmate in the staff kitchen.  Fight is the wrong word.  It was no fight.  Woo, a man I’ve described in the blog before as having a head the size of a Rottweiler’s is a huge man. He has tremendous forearms, almost as thick as thighs, “Popeye” arms.  He is a large, strong, powerful man.

Woo is a staff cook.  Tuesday, during his shift, another staff worker began running his mouth.  Words were exchanged. Woo has been dealing for months with his mother’s passing.  Because her home was in Georgia he was unable to attend (inmates are prohibited from funerals out of state).  So Woo, dealing with the loss of his mother, the despair of incarceration, and the stress of waiting to see if his federal crack sentence is reduced (he has five years to do on a federal conviction which he starts when he leaves VA DOC in June 2012.  In July, President Obama signed into law, applying retroactive sentencing guidelines, that corrects the harsh disparity between crack versus powder cocaine sentences) snapped out. 

He picked the obnoxious inmate up and threw him on the heated stove causing second degree burns.  Woo pled guilty to a simple charge of fighting (could have been much worse), and is doing fifteen days in the hole.  His security level is being raised.  His good time (what little we receive) taken (adding 90 plus additional days to his sentence).  He has been removed from his job and college.

I have become aggressively pacifistic (an oxymoron if ever I heard one) since my arrest.  Violence is never the solution.  Behavior – fighting especially – to settle disputes in prison is commonplace.  I regularly recite the mantra to the guys “you can’t put your hands on someone in the real world”.  Unfortunately, in the “real world” too often “might makes right”.  Violence begets violence.  As Gandhi said “an eye for an eye and we’ll all be blind.”

How will Woo respond?  How will the loss of his job, college and good time affect him for the remainder of his bid?  What has he learned from this that will ensure he won’t repeat the insanity?  This is Woo’s third time in prison.  I pray it’s his last but this past week gave me reasons to think it isn’t.

Monday night the 5:00 pm news put up the photo of a “convicted sex offender” caught in a high school parking lot in Richmond.  “An investigation revealed the offender had failed to register.”  The offender?  Alexander, the “lawyer” I’d written about previously who made thousands of dollars each month off the hopes of inmates seeking a way out, the same guy who became involved with an officer this past summer which led to him being investigated and her being fired.  The same Alexander who was only released 56 days ago.

As I’ve written before, I met Alexander at the Henrico Jail.  To see someone I knew in jail came as a complete shock to me.  I’d seen him around bar events, legal ed seminars, and the like from time to time.  My gut reaction always was “this guy’s full of it”.  My opinion didn’t change when I saw him at the jail or later when I saw him here.  He was too cocky, too crazy with the officers, and to quick to tell guys their cases were beatable.  I avoided him.

Some of the officers had tipped me off that things weren’t as Alexander said.  He’d tell guys he ran a $4 million plus scheme on the street to gain inmate awe (point of information:  million dollar thefts carry reverence in prison.  I am treated as a genius because I was dumb enough to get caught after steeling $2 million).  He, in fact, took $30,000 from a trust account.  He also neglected to tell guys he had a 1999 conviction for indecency with a minor.

Even worse, there were indications Alexander hadn’t learned anything from his stay in the hole his last three months here – or his three plus year bid.  A number of guys had stopped me the past few weeks asking for help putting letters and materials together to mail to Alexander.  “He’s agreed to have his law firm handle my appeal,” they’d tell me.  Problem is, there is no law firm.  Alexander isn’t a lawyer.  He’s still running the same hustle he ran in here.

Now, he’s back in jail.  He’s facing new charges and these are serious:  failure to register is a major problem for a sex offender.  Being in a school zone as an unregistered convicted sex offender makes things even worse.  Alexander will, in all likelihood, be back in prison within the next few months.  He’ll get new time for his new charges and additional time for his violation of the terms of his probation.

For the guys in here still doing time, it’s just another dumb ass who gets out and screws up and makes it that much tougher on the rest of us to get out early.  Will Alexander ever get it together?  The answer appears to be doubtful.

And then there is Gary.  Gary is an Episcopal minister, a rector at a well-established church in Richmond.  Shortly after my arrest a dear friend who came almost daily to see me telephoned my minister.  The minister’s response when my friend asked him to visit me at the jail?  “I’m not getting in the middle of his legal problems and his marital problems.”  He wasn’t the only one from my church who rejected me after my arrest.  But the sting of being rejected by my clergy was deep.

My friend turned to his own pastor – Gary – to visit me.  Gary didn’t know me.  He’d never met me.  I wasn’t a member of his flock.  Yet, this man, this stranger, called on me at the jail.  He continued to do so monthly.

When I transferred to the hell that was receiving, Gary showed up.  He listened to me.  When I cried out asking “why” he didn’t offer simple, easy explanations for the mystery that is God.  Shortly after my arrival at receiving he sent me a card with the archangel Michael portrayed.  “Michael is the angel who guards and protects the Lord’s people” he wrote.  I put that card on the bunk so that every night as I lay there hearing the screams throughout the building I saw Michael.  That card, that angel, greets me every time I open my locker.

Throughout my stay here at Lunenburg Gary has written me – and visited.  He sent two amazing books about Christian meditation that helped me “silence the noise” in my head during prayers and bask in the quiet presence of God. There are two men that have led me to a deeper understanding of the mystery and magnificence of the Lord.  Gary and my friend Harley, who asked Gary to visit, are those men.

When I seek to model my Christian life after someone, it’s Gary I think of.  He had no reason to reach out to me.  Yet, his faith led him to me.  I am surviving this because of people like Gary.

Last night I received a copy of a letter Gary mailed to his parishioners.  My friend sent it with a short note that said “keep Gary in your prayers”.   Gary advised his congregation that he’d been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.  “The doctors are optimistic” he wrote about his prognosis.

I have taken to heart conversations and letters I’ve shared with this wonderful pastor.  Life does indeed not appear to make sense sometimes.  And trials and suffering make their way into our lives and they test us to the point of breaking.  But, God is good.  He is in the midst of all storms and He does see us through.

Every night since that first visit he made to the jail, Gary has been included in my prayers.  I don’t understand why or how cancer strikes.  I don’t understand why good people suffer.  But I do know Gary will be fine.  He is a good man and has the love, respect, and prayers of many.

Three men I know this week confronted trials.  Like all of us, some of the trials faced were the result of anger and impulse, or pride and arrogance, and others just visited upon us for no reason.  I pray for all three men that their trials awaken in them the true purpose God calls them to.

And these three remind me of a story:  “A Rottweiler, an attorney and a priest walk into a bar…”

Dreams Deferred

I had a conversation with my bunkmate the other night that got me thinking.  I must confess I didn’t like IG very much when he moved into the bottom bunk.  He was extremely cluttered – to the point of being sloppy.  He also brought a lot of “irons in the fire” with him.  He ran a few hustles:  parlay sheets, poker games.  On more than one occasion I lost my cool with him.  On more than one occasion Big S had to tell him to “tighten up”. 

But gradually over the past six months, we’ve developed a friendship.  He’s a very bright, polite kid:  just 24, already locked up seven years.  And, when I’d snap, he’d very quietly just, well, take it.  “My mom told me to be respectful of my elders” he told me one time.  That’s something you don’t hear very often in here.

IG has changed a lot.  He’s much neater and better organized than he was (though still not up to the standards either Big S or I maintain) and he’s become a voracious reader.  Almost every afternoon we have a conversation.  He’ll read something in the paper or come across an author he’d not read before and he’ll want to discuss it.

He’s a young, bright, black man trying to grow up and learn and ultimately make something of himself.  And to do that in this environment is a statement about his character.

The other night I was reading the newest issue of “Esquire” and there was a brief interview with comedian and actor Tim Allen.  IG saw me reading the piece and asked me about him.  I’m not sure why, but I read him the part where Allen refers to his first night in jail and the resulting three years he spent in California’s DOC for cocaine possession conviction.

“He went to prison?  How old was he?”  IG asked me.  I told him he was in his twenties and explained how he started honing his comic skills in prison as a means of passing time and protecting himself.  IG grew quiet.  “Larry, can I tell you something real personal?” he asked.  “Sure,” I replied.  “When I was in high school I did a couple of plays.  I wanted to be an actor.  That was my dream.  Then I got locked up.  I won’t ever be an actor.”

“Why not?” I asked.  “Why can’t you be an actor?  Why does your conviction have to define your future?  Why can’t you dream?”

Nothing is more destructive, nothing more harmful, than giving up your dreams.  I know from personal experience.  I also know a prison sentence doesn’t have to be the end.  It can be a beginning. 

One of the biggest hurdles I face dealing with the guys in this college program is overcoming their belief that no one will give them a chance as a felon.  Unfortunately, the evidence supports their view.  Virginia may lead the nation in discriminatory practices toward convicted felons after release.

And still there is hope.  For a long time I agonized over my future.  Perhaps it was the words I read in a letter from my ex:  “You’re a convicted felon.  You have a huge restitution order against you.  You have no home, no money, no future.  You’re not much of a catch.”  For more nights than I wish to recall I lay awake wondering what would become of me.  I’d be homeless, I thought, living under a highway overpass, alone, unloved, with nothing.

And then something happened.  And I remembered my dreams, dreams I put aside for years.  And, I realized, I could come back.

Guys in here think I’m a hopeless optimist.  Maybe I am.  It doesn’t mean I’m not scared or there aren’t days (and nights) that I don’t cry out “God, what will become of me?”  And a day doesn’t go by than I’m not lonely and loneliness is as bad as hopelessness.  I told IG I decided I would endure, I would persevere.  And as the words came out of my mouth I realized I was talking to IG about faith.

IG and I made a plan.  We’re writing to some colleges to get information about theatre degrees and looking for someone willing to mentor him.  I realized dreams don’t have to die.  No matter these men’s circumstances they still can follow their dreams.

The African-American poet Langston Hughes said it best,

“What happens to a dream deferred?
does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?”

No one should have their dreams dry up.