Dear Senator Webb

Dear Senator Webb:

I read the recent article from the Daily Beast about your continuing efforts to reform this nation’s broken criminal justice system (http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/09/11/jim-webb-s-criminal-justice-crusade.html ).   As an incarcerated person, currently three years into a fifteen year sentence for embezzlement, I applaud your work.  I speak for tens of thousands of men and women in my situation, and our families and friends, who pray for your endeavors success.  America cannot continue to incarcerate millions of people for billions of dollars especially when, for the vast majority of us being held, our crimes are nonviolent.  We pose no threat to society.

My situation, while somewhat unique, never the less points out the tremendous waste of resources being expended to “punish” me.  I am a former attorney; I freely acknowledge that over twelve years I embezzled over $2 million from my employer.  But that behavior came at a terrible price.  I was depressed, aware of my wrongdoing.  When confronted by my employer I freely admitted my thefts.  I cooperated fully with the investigation, pled guilty to all counts presented and made a significant restitution payment prior to sentencing.

The Court, instead of showing me mercy, sentenced me to serve six consecutive 2 ½ year sentences.  Because of Virginia’s short-sighted “abolishment of parole” legislation passed in 1995, I will serve thirteen years of my sentence.

What have been the results?  For one, the taxpayers of Virginia are spending in excess of $25,000 a year to house me in a low level facility.  My “treatment” plan indicates I am at low risk to return to prison (in other words I am not a recidivism risk).  Because of my educational background (BA and JD degrees) there are no programs geared toward my rehabilitation.  Because of my age (currently 52), it is highly unlikely I will be able to make full restitution after my currently set release date. As a result of my lengthy sentence, my marriage of 27 years has ended.  I am estranged from my two sons.

What I have witnessed and documented over these past three years is appalling.  Virginia’s prison system is hopelessly overcrowded, understaffed and unable to provide meaningful rehabilitative programs for the vast majority of incarcerated offenders.  As my blog has documented, prisons are still places of great violence and degradation.  Simply put, there is no “correction” being accomplished in the department of corrections.  For the vast majority of inmates, prison is a hopeless existence.  Were this only Virginia’s problem it would be bad enough.  That these same problems exist in every state and the Federal Bureau of Prisons is a stain on this nation’s character.

Since my incarceration began, I have devoted myself to helping my fellow inmates.   I serve as an academic tutor for both adult basic education students and college student earning their degrees in this institution’s “campus behind walls”.  I help the men with grievances and legal questions.  And mostly, because of my life experiences, education and age, I serve as a mentor and sounding board to men who have been abandoned, neglected and counted out.  In a strange turn of events, this experience has strengthened my faith.  I cannot undo the wrong I committed but I can work to improve the chances these men – my fellow inmates – have to succeed.

Senator Webb, there is so much wrong with the current operation of America’s prisons.  The conditions the United States Supreme Court found in the California corrections system (Brown v. Plata) exist in every state.  America needs real prison reform:

1.    Meaningful earned good time credit for rehabilitation efforts by inmates must be created.

2.    Alternative sentencing rather than incarceration must be utilized.

3.    Prisons must be places of treatment and rehabilitation, not places of violence, filth and degradation.

ar I urge you to continue your push for criminal justice reform.  I also ask that you come to Lunenburg, speak with me and the other inmates.  I believe you will see that the vast majority of us can leave here sooner, rather than later, and be productive, contributing members of society if only given a chance.