Frank and Sam and other Lawbreakers

I watched the news this week as two young American hikers were released from prison in Iran and flown “to freedom” to the Sultanate of Oman.  The Sultan, it seems, paid the Iranian authorities $1,000,000 to secure the early release of the two Americans, two years into eight year sentences for illegally crossing the border into Iran.  How ironic, I thought.  The “dark and sinister” Iran has a more progressive early release system than the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Those two hikers – who broke legitimate Iranian laws on border integrity (a favorite topic for the Tea Party crowd:  border security) were released after serving 25% of their sentence.  In Virginia, those two guys would still have five more years to go:  85% of an eight year sentence is 84 months (7 years).

“But those two young Americans are innocent”, you respond.  We’ll come back to that later.  Let me tell you about Frank and Sam.

Frank and Sam are two new students assigned to me in the adult basic ed class I tutor.  Frank was born in 1945.  He is a soft spoken 66 year old black man with a slight stammer.  He reads at the 2^nd grade level.  Sam is a 61 year old black man confined to a wheelchair.  He suffers from diabetes.  His left leg was amputated slightly above the knee from complications with the disease.  Where his leg was, he now ties his state-issued jeans in a knot.  He has sparkling bright eyes and an impish smile.  He reads at the 3^rd grade level.

The law in Virginia is that every “offender” at least be enrolled in adult basic ed with the goal of receiving a state-issued GED.  The law in Virginia is that “offenders” earn a maximum of 4.5 early release credit days for time served per month.  Offenders – in Virginia at least – must serve at a minimum 85% of their sentence.  As Charles Dickens so aptly put it, “the law my dear sir is a ass”. 

Frank and Sam will never earn their GEDs.  For the vast majority of their lives they have been treated as the refuse of a fast-paced economy that values technology but disrespects the integrity of simple labor.  Both men have meandered through life as unskilled laborers, barely making enough to support and sustain their families.

So every day these two guys, Frank and Sam, hauled bricks, cleaned toilets and picked up the trash from those of us fortunate enough to come from families with money.  And their kids?  They saw the same ads for all the “must haves”.  Only they couldn’t have.

So both men over their lives strayed from “the law”.  They broke into houses, sold “hot” property, and sold drugs.  They are part of the vast “criminal” underclass in this country:  men and women who were discarded by the public schools and society years ago, illiterate, forgotten, unable to provide for themselves and their families.

What does Virginia do?  The glorious Commonwealth returns them to prison in their sixties for “probation” violations at a cost, estimated by the Richmond Times Dispatch in an article on elderly inmates in December 2010, of $70,000 per year.  These men are lied to everyday.  “We’re going to retrain you and prepare you for a successful return to society.”  Excuse my language, but that dear readers is a load of shit.

These two older convicts are functionally illiterate men who have been ignored and treated unfairly their entire adult lives.  They have been run in and out of the “corrections” system for three and four year bids at a time. DOC is doing nothing to change their lives.  They will do their bids and return home to no money, no jobs, no nothing.

What good is prison doing Frank and Sam and the thousands and thousands of other inmates just languishing away in these corrections cesspools?

Which leads me back to our two “hero hikers” who accidentally crossed the Iranian border while hiking, “seeing the world”.  They violate Iran’s territorial integrity and are prosecuted under Iranian law.  We react with a great big “how dare you”.  Is Iranian law and trial procedures and sentencing somehow less worthy of support than American or Virginia law and criminal procedure?  And why is it we expect, no demand, Iran release these two “lawbreakers” while we applaud “lock em up and throw away the key” justice in America?

“But they’re innocent”, you remind me. 

Nine chief witnesses recanted in Troy Davis’s case and the State of Georgia still gave him the needle this week.  Perhaps we are no better than Iran.  Perhaps we’re nothing but hypocrites.  Explain the difference to Frank and Sam.