Just When I Thought You Couldn’t Get Any Dumber

One of my favorite movies of all time is the Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels comedy “Dumb & Dumber”. In one particularly absurd scene, Lloyd (Jim Carrey) having traded away the pair’s van for a moped to save money and fuel, comes rolling down a two lane highway where he meets back up with Harry (Jeff Daniels). Lloyd explains how he traded the van straight up for the moped. Harry then utters this amazing line:



“Just when I thought you couldn’t get any dumber . . . you go out an redeem yourself!”


That movie and that quote rolled through my mind as I read this morning’s Richmond Times Dispatch editorial praising then Governor Allen for implementing no parole.


http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2011/jan/18/TDOPIN01-results-ar-780195/

The editor then cites as “facts” a number of statistics that are contrary to DOC’s own data.


What was the main reason for his “love letter” to George Allen? Virginia has a brand new, $100 million prison in Grayson County sitting empty. Ipso facto (ain’t Latin a grand language) Virginia has plenty of bed space to lock up criminals. And, he concludes, Virginia’s inmate population actually shrunk 2.8% last year.


“Dumb & Dumber” should be the name of the Times-Dispatch editorial page.


Allow me to point out the facts for the editor. I would also challenge him to get off his ass and see what’s really going on in Virginia’s prisons.


In 1995, when then Governor Allen proposed, then signed, abolition of parole, there were approximately 9,600 inmates held by DOC. In 2010, there were approximately 37,000. That is a 400% growth in prison population in fifteen years. DOC’s budget exceeds $1 billion annually. The department employs over 13,000 people, the largest state agency in Virginia.


It costs Virginians approximately $25,000 per year to house an inmate. It costs about $25 million per year to operate a prison. Want to know why the new Grayson County prison isn’t being used? It’s money. Virginia can’t afford to operate more prisons. What the editor failed to recognize is that prisons drain money from other pressing needs, like education and medical care and help for the handicapped.


No less a conservative pundit than Newt Gingrich has spoken out about the excessive incarceration rate in the U.S. As this blog previously noted in his recent Op Ed piece in the Washington Post, contrary to what the editor wrote, states with aggressive parole and liberal release actually have seen greater reductions in crime.


If Allen was such a genius, why has the recidivism rate in Virginia remained relatively constant while the number of inmates and the cost to house them has skyrocketed? Good questions to ask Mr. Editor. It’s a shame you didn’t think of it.


Let me also say a brief word about the false statement the editor makes about “available beds”. Fact: Virginia’s prisons are overcrowded. Virginia fails to comply with ACA (American Correction Association) standards for inmates per officer and living space per inmate. In the dorm I live in, two officers (one in the booth and one on the floor) are responsible for 192 inmates. The standard is one officer for every 40 dorm inmates. Instead, 96 inmates are jammed into a building made for half that many with each man having less than ten square feet of living space, rather than the required 25.


Think it doesn’t matter? Tell that to the families of inmates murdered at Nottoway, Greensville and Red Onion prisons this year. Tell it to the thousands of inmates exposed to Hepatitis C and other diseases.


I challenge the editor to read DOC’s own December 2009 “Task Force Report on Nonviolent Offenders”.


http://www.justicefellowship.org/images/AlternativesforNonViolentOffendersReportfinal_3.pdf

Better yet, get off your ass and come out here and see the Virginia prison system in action.


I challenge the editor to invite George Allen to come with him and sit down with me and listen to what’s really going on in the “corrections” system. It ain’t pretty. In fact, it’s immoral and should be seen as an embarrassment to any semi-intelligent person.


Neither the editor or Mr. Allen will take me up on my invitation. It’s far too easy to hide behind the fiction than face the facts.