Two Reentry Tales

This is the story of two different reentry experiences.  These are real men who did their sentence, “completed their bids”, and returned to society.  The conclusion, “how should we handle reentry?” will be apparent.  It’s a shame the politicians don’t see it.

Ten months ago “Wolf” left Lunenburg.  Barely thirty, Wolf was completing his third prison sentence, all centered around his drug use and his quest to find money to support his habit.  And it wasn’t one drug with Wolfe.  Though he used crack regularly, he also had a taste for ecstasy, crystal meth and just about anything else he could get his hands on.

Wolf lived with his mom.  He couldn’t hold down work.  How could you when you spend your daylight hours passed out and your nights chasing a high?  He was barely literate having never completed his GED.  He’d be forced into a class for a month or two, quit, lose “good time” for a year and then repeat the cycle.  But what does good time matter when you’re only doing 36 months and you’re going home to the same life?

I met Wolf through Big S.  Big S had gotten him enrolled in a vocational program.  “You need job skills Wolf, a trade”, Big S would tell him.  Wolf, just a big, goofy looking white man-child would just shrug his shoulders.

He had artistic talent and was considered one of the best tattoo men on the compound.  But, could you trust him to do your tattoo?  He let a guy tat him up and didn’t even notice that his name was on backward (“Flow” instead of “Wolf”).

No education, no job skills, Wolf resided in 3B, the “transition” dorm.  When he was in there they hadn’t completely instituted Governor Bob’s reentry regimen, the touchy feely “therapeutic community” program where guys are paid to be “cheer managers” and “word of the day managers”.  What, you may ask does that have to do with returning to society as a productive, rehabilitated citizen?  Only Governor Bob knows.  But, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he built the program knowing it would fail, just so he could say “I tried, but nothing will change these guys.”

Some people did care about Wolf.  The vocational instructor gave him the name of a man who owned a lumber yard in a rural county not far from Richmond.  “He’ll hire felons.  Just go see him and promise me you’ll work hard.”  And of course, Big S tried to keep him on the right path in here.  “You only get so many chances Wolf,” he’d tell him.

Wolf completed “transition”, was released and went home to live with mom.  He even got a job at the lumberyard.  So far, so good.  But drug addiction is an insidious devil.  And a ten week, feel good “drugs are bad” program put on by DOC and administered by one of their “treatment counselors” is doomed to fail.  Want a new oxymoron to toss around besides “jumbo shrimp”?  Try “prison counselor”. 

For nine months, Wolf kept his job and functioned.  He wasn’t drug free, just on the days he was urine tested by his probation officer.  Urine tests, drug treatment, costs money.  But prison costs more.  So why does Governor Bob – and all his predecessors – spend over $25,000 per year to keep a man locked up, but only $2,000 per year to ensure he succeeds?

Around Christmas the lumberyard told Wolf they were letting him go.  The economy was tough.  Wolf’s source of funds for his habit dried up.  Within a month the Richmond morning news had Wolf’s mug shot on air.  He broke into an elderly woman’s home, beat her, forced her to drive to an ATM and give him money.  He then pulled off to the side of the road and put her out, returned to her house and set it on fire.  A short while later, he was arrested, still driving her car.

Wolf is facing six felony counts.  Every guy in here knows Wolf will probably never see the streets again.  He’ll pull thirty, forty years maybe even life.  And, every reasonable thinking guy in here knows every time a released inmate reoffends it makes it that much tougher on the rest of us still doing time.  Recidivism, you see, plays to society’s base fears and prejudices.  “Inmates are vicious beasts, incapable of rehabilitation.  They aren’t like law abiding folks.”

As I have noted numerous times in this blog, the Governor’s reentry program, the very mission the Department of Corrections espouses, is doomed to failure because it addresses the wrong core issues.  Drug and alcohol abuse issues are not treated in prison.  Mental illness is even worse off.  And Mitt Romney and all the other political pundits are wrong when they tell you there’s “a safety net”.  Folks, the safety net has a huge hole in it.  You take people from broken homes, with parents having limited schooling, limited resources, you have them live in poor neighborhoods with inadequate housing, schools and access to medical care; and they pour through the huge holes in the safety net.  We have a society where there is a caste system with millions and millions of folks who don’t have a shot at “the American Dream”.  Instead, they cycle in and out of prison, feeding a corrupt system that lines the pockets of a select few while sapping $60 billion annually from the nation’s coffers.  And the politicians return to the same tired programs (Governor Bob’s reentry program is the same “therapeutic plan” used and discarded by DOC in the ‘80’s and the ‘90’s because it proved ineffective).

A nation that accepts 2 ½ million people behind bars, a nation that accepts 15% of its citizens living below the poverty line, is a nation on the cusp of collapse.  There has to be a better way, a saner way.  There has to be a way to break the cycle. 

Is it hopeless?  No.  Because as badly conceived as Governor McDonnell’s reentry program is, some good, some success is happening here.

Five men who’ve been educated under the IT grant program have been released over the last five months.  All five, with the daily help and encouragement of staff at Goodwill Industries, have found stable employment.  All five have residences that they are paying rent on.

Sure it’s so soon after they left.  But the key is they worked for a goal in here.  They believed education and community support would give them a second chance.  And isn’t that what “corrections” is supposed to be about?  Over 90% of the incarcerated are going to go home.  Society could shorten sentences and prison by prison set up programs like the “campus behind walls” community we’ve built here.  Let us earn our way out.  Inmates don’t need fancy brochures touting “reentry”.  Sorry Governor Bob.  What inmates need is education and a chance to succeed.  Do that and they’ll be less stories like Wolf’s.