Summer Break

Dear Blog Readers:

It’s summer, that period of time between Memorial Day and Labor Day when folks feel the natural tug to slow down and recharge their batteries.  Friends came out to see me last weekend and I lived vicariously through their travels:  one already returned from Florida with wife and children in tow, the other just weeks from heading to his summer beach house.  Summer is a great season.

Life is different in here.  You can do your bid just sleeping away the days, only coming out for meals and the twice monthly walk to commissary.  Or, you can head outside everyday; you run or workout regardless of temperature or precipitation or your own outlook.

I love the summer.  The days are longer, the sky clear, the temperature warm. Summer reminds me of beach trips and bike rides, swimming and runs in the sand.  As I said, summer isn’t the same in here.

This will be my last blog until Labor Day.  There are a number of important issues I need to address this summer which require more attention than I’ve initially given them.  In July, I’m able to petition the Governor to modify the terms of my sentence.  The Virginia Constitution gives the Governor absolute power to modify the terms of any sentence.  Each year, hundreds of inmates petition the Governor to modify their sentences; very few are granted.  I’m not sure what the reaction will be to my petition.  I only know that I can honestly tell the Governor that I’ve done everything possible since my arrest and conviction to atone for my bad deeds.

As I’ve written previously, I have an eBook in the works.  It’s a collection of short stories and essays I’ve written over the last few years.  The working title is “40”.  It’s the title of a story I wrote while in receiving in the heat and humidity of a Virginia August.  My four months in receiving taught me more about the ills of humanity and the possibilities of redemption than anything I’ve ever experienced.  It was horrible, and disgusting and painful.  And, I consider it, in hindsight, a blessing.

“40” is based on a real young man I met.  He was going through heroin withdrawal while locked up in the Henrico County Jail.  Watching that young man suffer as his body, physically craving the drug, broke down before my eyes is an image I will always remember.

But it’s the story of hope.  It was during that same time frame, as I’d talk to that young addict and then return to my cell and battle the self loathing I felt, the intense internal call to give up, that I read on one particular sad, lonely night Isaiah 40.  I found verse 27 and froze.

 “Why do you say and assert your way is hidden from the Lord, and the justice due you escapes the notice of your God?”

It was addressing the people of Israel who had squandered their chosen status as “God’s people” and were in the midst of a loss beyond comprehension.  Exiled and enslaved in a foreign land, their life, their home destroyed, they wondered “Where is God?”  And in those few brief, beautiful verses Isaiah tells them:  God sees you; God knows what you are going through; and, God will deliver you.  “And those who wait on the Lord will soar on wings like eagles.  They will run and not get tired.  They will walk and not get weary.”

I cheered my young drug-addled friend on, telling him he could survive withdrawal and he could turn his life around.  And I told myself the same thing every night as I recited those verses over and over.

That’s “40”.  That’s part of the book.  More importantly, it’s part of my life.  I’ll be working on that over the next two months.  When new blogs return I hope to do more interactive things, direct readers to groups pushing important issues like prison reform and restorative justice.

So, it’s off to draft my “Dear Governor McDonnell” letter.  I look forward to the new and improved Bars-N-Stripes blog after summer break.  Now, go enjoy this weather!

 If you would like to contact Larry directly during the summer you can do so at:

Lawrence H. Bidwell # 1402909
Bldg. 4A, Bed 81
Lunenburg Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 1424
Victoria, VA  23974-0650


There are some restrictions on sending mail to the prison and everything is read before Larry receives it.  Envelopes must be no larger than # 10 and no heavier than 1 oz (i.e. one postage stamp).  No stickers or other object may be glued or taped to the envelope.  They will only accept an envelope with a return address label, mailing label and stamp.  If you have items that exceed the 1 oz weight limit, you must split them up into several envelopes (each weighing no more than 1 oz) and you can identify them (as 1 of 3, etc.).

Too Much Material/Too Little Time

The past few weeks I’ve been inundated with work – getting adult ed students ready for the GED; prepping and reviewing 30 guys’ college essays – and personal projects.  I set a goal for myself to get an e-book out on Amazon by September.  Stories and essays are written, cover art in process (thanks to a guy in here named “Troll”) and I’m trying to understand the whole process of e-publishing.  Still, life goes on in here.  And it’s not life like outside. In so many ways we are sheltered from the day to day stresses of the “real” world.

But, things happen each day that I jot down and think “I want to remember that”.  These little snippets form most of my daily journal entries as I continue trying to understand why we do what we do.  In reality, it’s more material than I can ever use.  Still, things stand out...

We never had a spring lockdown.  I know that sounds weird.  We usually have two per year.  They lock us down (restrict us from leaving the building) and building by building search everything, including us (you get used to strip searches after your first thirty days, that is if you every really get used to standing fully exposed before two or three officers).  They very seldom find anything of significance.  And why would they?  They can’t swoop in and hit every building, every inmate at once, so stuff gets tossed and hidden.

Instead of a general lockdown they now spot check us.  Two or three guys every day, make sure you really own the electronics listed.  And, they find stuff.  In my building four guys lost TVs (bought from other inmates).  There were knives, a little tobacco, and of course, fresh vegetables and fruit from the kitchen.  I’ve been through it and, living like a monk (my only “living on the edge item”, and extra set of sheets), five minutes flat I was cleared.

Prison is a constant battle between what you can have versus what they want you to have versus what you can get.  The simple truth is you can get anything inside.  Another truth is if you get caught, you lose good time.  And, a final truth, you’re better off without all the extras.

Some day they’ll lock us down for a full sweep.  But right now, it’s business as usual.

I got a new mattress the other day and it’s extraordinary.  For close to three years I’ve slept on a standard prison issued mattress.  Barely three inches thick and lumpy until the stuffing begins to breakdown.  But the other day, Mouse went home.  After ten straight years, Mouse walked out a free man.  He has already been admitted to school down at the beach, with financial aid, and Goodwill lined him up a job cooking at a beach restaurant.

Mouse had a Cadillac mattress, triple-stuffed and re-sewn (that’s the key; if it’s sewn its legit).  I spent a lot of time the past two years working with Mouse on his college classes.  He left as an honors grad.  The night before he left he gave me his mattress, close to seven inches thick!  I don’t feel the metal frame anymore.  What a way to sleep!

Randy – our fitness guru – wrote the other day.  He’s been home since January.  As I’ve written before, Randy earned his Associates Degree while locked up and became a certified personal trainer.  His last year here he put a business plan together to start a personal training business.

Randy joined a gym in the west end of Richmond and began signing up clients to train.  His goal was to gradually build his client base over eighteen months, then open a studio.

I’m pleased to report that on July 1^st, Randy will have his own gym.  His business is booming with more clients than he ever imagined.

Randy is one of the success stories from prison.  They’re few and far between it seems at times, but it is possible.  Prison can be transformational if you are willing to struggle and dedicate yourself to learning in spite of the circumstances.

I want to tell you about Dom, a/k/a “Fat Boy”.  He’s from Petersburg and has experienced the difficulties of life beyond his thirty-four years.  Given up at only eighteen months old by an alcoholic mother (his father was in and out of prison his whole life), he went from foster home to foster home.  Finally, at age six his grandmother was given custody.

His mom fought in court to get him back (“She wanted the state check”).  The courts returned him to his mom where he was routinely beaten by her (“I looked like my Dad; she just did to me what he did to her”).  He’s a large man – 250, 260 maybe, and 6’2” tall.  He was known by everyone in the projects of Petersburg.  He was the muscle for all the dope dealers.  You needed someone hurt, you called Dom (“It was the only time my Dad told me he was proud of me.  ‘They fear you son,’ he’d say.”).

That is not the Dom I know.  I see a gentle man who spends a great deal of his time counseling young “brothers” to give up violence.  The other night we were talking and he told me about an incident that still weighed on his mind.

“It was with a dope fiend.  He owed a guy money.  I saw him go through an alley and I followed him.  I had a baseball bat.  I caught him and beat him.  You never heard a bat hit bone did you Larry?  It’s a sound different from a ball.  It’s hollow.  Anyway, I did that when I was 19.  The guy was in the hospital for months; fractured skull, broken bones.  I didn’t even know his name.  I still see him at night.”

I’ve learned to take stories like this in stride as best I can.  I’ve learned not to react with revulsion – or judgment.  And, as Dom looked at me I saw the pain he felt for the things he’s done.

I realized at that moment how fragile our lives are.  We hurt people in so many ways.  We break their bones, their hearts, their dreams.  Somehow, God still loves us.

And I knew I’d done a lot of lousy, hurtful things in my own life.  I’d let down the people closest to me.  But, I knew in my heart that God forgave me and was giving me another chance.  And if God could forgive me, He could certainly forgive Dom.

It was reported this week that a number of inmates at Virginia’s Red Onion super max prison were on a hunger strike to protest the conditions at that facility.  Red Onion has been the subject of much negative press the last few months.  Approximately 400 inmates are kept in isolation at Red Onion; there are 1700 in solitary statewide in the Virginia system.

As I’ve quoted on a number of occasions in this blog, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky said you can judge a society by the way it treats its prisoners.

America has lost its moral imperative.  This nation operates both at the Federal and individual state levels a barbaric prison system that lacks safety, rehabilitation and simple humane treatment.

This country spends approximately $70 billion each year to incarcerate and monitor close to 10 million citizens.  Approximately 25,000 prisoners are held in solitary confinement nationwide.  Thousands more work in prison industries for little – if any- pay and in unsafe conditions.  Even the 13^th Amendment to the United States Constitution which disallowed slavery in America still allows the incarcerated to be used as slave labor.

Violence, mental illness, disease and hopelessness are rampant in America’s prisons.  A prison – industrial complex has sprung up with corporations being granted sweetheart deals to provide products and services to predominantly poor, uneducated inmates at exorbitant pricing.  Fraud and price gouging is rampant.

Perhaps things are changing.  No less than conservative Christian leader Pat Robertson has now joined the chorus demanding a massive overhaul of “Incarceration Nation”. 

Can America do better?  What are followers of Christ called to do regarding law breakers and their confinement?  Is the answer punishment or justice?

As Medal of Freedom recipient Bob Dylan once sang, “The answer is blowin in the wind.”

And a final thought.  A friend recently sent me a quote from a well-known minister. 

“The blessings of God always override the curses generated in our lives.”

As I’ve pondered those words I realized that isn’t a bad way to get through this sentence.

Peace.

Moving

A few weeks ago I finally was assigned a bottom bunk.  After almost three years here at Lunenburg, I switched from a “top rack” to a bottom one.  I had other opportunities to switch bunks in the past but decided I wanted a specific area with guys I thought I could live near.  And the area you live in is important.  Cleanliness and neatness matter especially when your personal space is less than two feet to the left or right.  And, being in such close proximity to five other men, you see, hear and smell everything that goes on around you.  You think you’ve “seen it all”, then some new chucklehead comes along and reminds you there is always someone out there more ignorant, more disrespectful, more slovenly, than you imagined.

It’s hard to describe living in such close quarters.  Your bunk becomes your personal island.  There is a list of don’ts in prison and most involve your personal living space.  You never sit on another man’s bunk; you never sit in their chair without permission; going in a man’s cut – without prior approval – is close to breaking and entering; you don’t “ear hustle”, listening in on another guy’s conversation – even when that guy is less than two feet away from you.  Finally, you don’t run your hustle around your bunk to call attention to your cut area.  No one wants the officers snooping around your cut.

Still, guys aren’t locked up because we’re smart.  Everyday someone will leave a plastic knife out (used to cut veggies, smuggled out of officer’s chow).  Everyday someone will leave their locker open with bags of fresh vegetables and fruit in broad daylight; or, they’ll have their TV blasting BET.  It’s stupid, disrespectful, and brings heat on the neighborhood.

So I was careful where I moved.  I didn’t want to live in the “trailer park”, six bunks full of dirty, redneck white guys with trash everywhere.  Nor did I want to move into the “projects”, six bunks of mostly young black guys who listen to RAP late into the night and play poker and tonk nonstop every weekend. 

And I’m happy with my move.  No more climbing up and jumping down from five feet.  I can sit in my chair, watch TV, and write.  And my neighbors are almost all quiet and studious.  If you can have such a thing as privacy and respect living with 95 other guys in the space of a basketball court, I’ve got it.  And, I know, things could be worse.

Lunenburg is changing.  We’re not sure why.  It could be the Gov’s re-entry program, or budget constraints on DOC, or the realization that compounds made for 800 overtax water and sewage at 1200, but the compound population is decreasing.

Those rotten, short middle bunks the warden spent months installing in buildings are being removed.  Top bunks in the middle two rows in buildings 2 and 3 were taken out as were rear bunks sitting in the Fire Lane.  That’s a reduction of 26 inmate beds per building side, 104 less beds on the compound.  And the guys who lived in those bunks?  They were transported elsewhere.  Buildings 5 and 6 are next.  That change will reduce Lunenburg’s capacity to approximately 1,000. 

We’re not sure if our college building (4) or the factory building (1) will also be reduced.  It would be great:  70 guys fighting over four showers and four commodes instead of 96.  But, with 88 students (and more coming in around October 1^st) the college building would need both A side and B side.

Moving is expensive.  To transport an inmate from one compound to the next costs money, but so does keeping a man locked up for a year:  $25,000 and counting.

Ironically, the bunk I moved into belonged to one of our first IT grads who went home.  He’s working, going to school and doing well.  And ultimately, that is the move we all dream about.

Rotten Meat

Shortly after Mecklenburg Receiving Center began its final shut down process in March, our diet here at Lunenburg began to change.  The freezers at Mecklenburg had been well-stocked and the food had to go somewhere.  Lunenburg, less than thirty miles from Mecklenburg, became the main recipient of Mecklenburg’s kitchen closing.

For a few weeks the change was extraordinary.  As with everything else in prison, meals repeat over and over.  The state tells us we are fed a “nutritionally sound” 2500 calorie diet, yet it is heavy (three servings each meal) on starches and carbohydrates and low grade and highly processed meats.  Syrupy, high fructose juice bags are provided each morning as a “fruit substitute”.  Is it any wonder diabetes and high blood pressure ravage almost a third of the compound population?

But, things did look up right after Mecklenburg closed.  We began getting breakfast “hot pockets” with cheese, potatoes and Canadian bacon.  Mesquite and hickory smoked sausage appeared at lunch.  Pork pepperoni, corn dogs, and thick cut pork bologna was served at dinner.  Yes, these were all highly processed meats and probably not the best thing for you to eat (which may explain why I usually eat bean trays almost five nights a week), but it was something different.

It lasted about three weeks.  And then came the rotten meat.  As you can imagine, per day cost for an inmate’s meal must be kept low.  Gravy of some hue is given at almost every meal.  Potatoes likewise appear on every tray.  Meat is usually low grade, a combination of four parts ground chicken to one part ground beef.  It is shaped into burgers which cook up gray.  Or, it is scooped into meatloaf wedges (also called Salisbury steak).  And, it is left loose in pasta dishes from Texas hash (which has no connection to Texas at all), Chili Mac, Yorkisoba (spaghetti noodles and meat).  All these dishes, with the 80/20 mix, while not mom’s home cooking, are edible.

That all changed.  Mecklenburg had low grade “mechanically separated “ground turkey.  What is “mechanically separated”?  Imagine turkeys going through a jet engine.  In principle, the meat (and feathers, fat and skin) being lighter are forced through the rear of the engine.  Bones fall below.  This shredded, compressed amalgam of everything on old Tom Turkey is then forced into cinder block size cubes (five pound blocks).  It is a sickly off grey color with specks of red blood.  And, it smells.  Filler is added as well to “stretch” the cubes use out.

You can always tell when this turkey is being served:  the chow hall stinks of rotting meat and the bean line is out the door.  A pet owner wouldn’t serve his family’s beloved dog or cat this hideous meat mixture.  We’ve had it on at least one tray everyday for almost a month.

A curious thing happened the other day however.  Staff has their own chow hall.  A “perk” of the job is one free meal each shift and subsidized pricing for other meals.  The staff chow hall has a salad bar, ice cream and pre-made sandwiches.  For entrees, they are served the same main course as the population (sided are different and better).  This week, following repeated complaints by the staff, mechanically separated turkey was removed from their chow hall.  Cold cut sandwiches have been substituted until the rotten meat issue is resolved.  The population found out about the staff’s objection to the mystery meat and now a flood of inmate grievances have been filed.

No one’s suggesting we eat steak and get a salad bar (though it sounds delicious!).  But, the state has an obligation to serve at minimum; healthy, safe meals.  When the state takes a person’s freedom away, they must provide at minimum, a set level of care, health and safety.  Budget problems don’t excuse the state’s responsibility.

Tonight is Chili Mac night.  Good news is they’re serving navy beans!

This is our Year

Last night, the New York Rangers defeated the Washington Capitals in playoff game 7.  It reminded me of an incident years ago, an incident I’ll never forget.

I’m a sports nut and I find many life lessons, shall we say, in sports.  With the exception of football, I am a New York fan through and through.  And that is tough at times; especially when your baseball team (the Mets) can count only two World Series Championships, your basketball team hasn’t won since 1973, and your hockey team, well. . .

Patience.  I think about that word, that virtue a great deal.  I’m not a patient man.  And yet, with my teams, I have the patience of Job.  Every spring I prepare for baseball knowing “this is our year”.  And every year – except for two – my heart is broken by October.  And still, as winter rolls in I say “wait ‘til spring.  We’ll get em next year.”

And then there’s hockey and the New York Rangers.  I discovered hockey as a little boy, eight or nine years old.  Ironically, I can’t even skate.  But watching those guys fly around the ice, I was transfixed.  And the Rangers?  They played at Madison Square Garden; their jerseys were red, white and blue; and they were New York’s team.  It was then I learned of the curse.  “Rangers haven’t won since 1940”, I was told.  It didn’t matter.   I knew they’d win.

And year in and year out they wouldn’t.  Not in the ‘60’s, or the ‘70’s, or the ‘80’s.  Years would come and go and the Rangers wouldn’t win.  Not once in all those years did I give up on the team.  “That’s what a fan does”, I’d tell myself.  And I’d always know there was next year.

Time moved ahead to 1994.  We were living in Virginia.  It was spring and the Rangers had the best record in hockey.  A future hall of famer – Mark Messier – had signed with the Rangers at the beginning of the season and he had promised “the cup” would come to New York.  All season it seemed that way.  The Rangers were unstoppable.

We only had one son at that point.  He turned six during the hockey season and he was a “little Larry”.  Every night, as we sat down to dinner, we’d talk sports.  I’d tell him about memories of baseball, football, basketball and hockey games.  And I’d tell him “this is the year the curse is lifted . . . the Rangers are gonna win.”

The playoffs began and it looked as though once again the Rangers would break my heart.  More than once they faced elimination; more than once Messier would come out and “guarantee” a victory.  Sudden-death overtime games, it didn’t matter.  Somehow the Rangers survived and lived to play one more day.

I would sit up late into the night and watch every second of every game and then the next day replay it for our son who’d sit spellbound as I described yet another improbable win.

And then it came down to game 7, in the Garden, for the Cup.  Our six year old was fast asleep but I’d promised him “I’ll wake you when we win”.  The clock ticked down, so slowly it seemed.  And then there was just thirty seconds left.  “What are you doing?” my wife asked as I ran up the stairs to lift our sleeping son in my arms.  “I promised him.  He needs to see this,” I said and I held him close as the clock clicked down, “10, 9. . .”  They panned the arena and old men, men from the era of World War II and Korea; large lumbering construction workers, wept with joy.  Fifty four years and the Rangers finally won!

Natalie Merchant’s song “These Are the Days” played on the Garden sound system and Messier and his teammates skated around the rink with the Stanley Cup above their heads and I, I held my son close and whispered over and over “I told you they’d win.  You always have to believe.”

That message resonates with me.  Sometimes it sounds like a tired cliché, but the truth is, you have to be patient and believe.  It’s a sports metaphor, but I’ve come to understand through this experience, it’s also a definition of faith.  “Be patient and believe.”

Last night, the Rangers won another Game 7 playoff game.  I couldn’t help but think of 1994 and wonder, with so much facing me, could this be the year?

Doobie

“Doobie” is a guy I know here in the college dorm.  Ironically, Doobie is his last name, just spelled slightly different.  Doobie is also the slang name for marijuana back in my days growing up (the 70’s and 80’s).  I’d listen to “The Doobie Brothers” (“Black Water”, “China Grove”, “Long Train Runnin”) and knew exactly why the band chose the name they did.  You could just look at the band members and know these guys got high.  And so it is with Doobie.  I just knew this dude was in here on a drug charge.  And, I was right.  “Pulled me over on I-95 in Prince George County on my way to Jersey,” he told me.  A pound of home grown weed in the trunk and hydroponic growing materials sealed his fate:  three years in the Virginia Corrections system.  So why write about Doobie?  Because, he’s different, not like most of the men in here.  And watching him do his bid reminds me what a waste of money prison is for most convicted felons.

Doobie is a very intelligent twenty-eight year old white guy from the Florida West Coast.  He’d already earned an associate’s degree “on the street” (in information technology) and was enrolled in night classes working toward his BA.   He was employed in the computer industry, working for a well known internet company.  He also had a green thumb.

Doobie loved growing things.  He maintained his parents’ landscaping.  Photos I’ve seen show lush gardens bursting with color.  He just “had a feel” for the proper combination of water, nutrients and care.  And it was that horticulture talent that led him to creating new and improved weed.  He studied hydroponic growing (raising plants in water) and grew (at least according to drug testing conducted on his stash after his arrest) highly potent marijuana.

He drove north from his home heading to the Jersey shore to visit friends.  He never made it.  A local sheriff’s deputy pulled him over; “Observed driver weaving erratically,” the officer noted.  Somehow, I think it was the vanity license plate “DoBe” issued by Florida and the “Grateful Dead” sticker in the window that led to his arrest.

I know marijuana is illegal. No doubt about it, Doobie broke the law.  But, three years?

The other night, we received “food packages”.  Twice a year, November and May, families are able to purchase special foods for inmates.  There are dozens of cookies, nuts, specialty meats and cheeses to choose from.  Guys look forward to something “different”, something that changes your time up.  And what does Doobie get?  $100 of bacon.  At $2.50 a package, that’s forty packs of microwavable bacon.  Twenty slices to a pack.  “That and Dr. Pepper (ordered on commissary) will get me through another six months.”

Doobie’s a great artist; he’s a bright – very bright – guy.  In less than a year he’ll head back to Florida.  Nothing in Virginia’s arrest and sentencing of him has changed his outlook about marijuana.  What has changed is his view of prison and how society handles nonviolent felons.

Doobie, you see, is smart enough to see the hypocrisy built in the system.   He sees the officers showing up hung over; he sees the favoritism promoted for snitching; he sees how black officers favor black inmates, white officers favor white inmates and racial tension and ignorance fester; he sees how Virginia is spending $25,000 a year to keep him locked up for carrying about $3,000 of marijuana; and, he tries not to lose his mind as he’s confronted daily by mentally ill inmates who aren’t getting treatment or the constant and inane ignorance of the rest.

Doobie and I talk a lot.  I understand his frustration.  Every time a judge sentences a person to prison and doesn’t have the guts to say the truth “this is nothing but a way to punish and beat you down” the hypocrisy continues.

Doobie’s content right now.  He’s got his bacon and his Dr. Pepper.  In another year he’ll be heading to Florida.  And Virginia will have nothing to show for convicting another guy of a drug charge.  Just another example of no correction and no justice in our criminal justice/correction system.

Gang Training

School was cancelled last Monday so all the teachers could attend gang training.  “Learn to spot gang signs and tattoos”, the teachers were told.  Gangs are, and will continue to be a major problem in prisons.  Looking at it from the inside there is nothing DOC is doing that is effectively challenging gang influence.  Asking teachers to be on the lookout for gang evidence is no solution.

Gangs exist and their prominence in prisons is a given.  Even at a low level facility like this you can’t help but be walking to chow and see two young guys pat their chests as they pass on the boulevard (three taps on your heart with an open hand signifies blood connection).  You hear expressions, catch phrases, thrown back and forth.  And you wonder, if a 50+ year-old white guy with no exposure to gangs pre-incarceration can spot it, why can’t the officers?

You then realize the prison knows who’s in and who’s not.  The investigators’ office has a “gang board” with pictures of members by rank.  So why is it tolerated?  I’ve written before about the young gang leader “Live”, recently indicted for ordering hits on wayward gang members from inside the facility.  Everyone knew Live was a high-ranked blood.  Once a week he found himself talking to investigators.  And yet, at least monthly, new members were brought in.  What does the facility do about it?  Nothing.  It appears the status quo is easier to deal with than aggressively challenging them.

Things are worse at higher levels.  Extortion, robbery, attacks, these are common place at higher level prisons and the parties responsible are the gangs.  You want drugs, cigarettes, gambling? It’s the gangs who control it.  And for all the talk of “gang intervention” DOC officials spout, they are virtually impotent when confronting it and defeating it.  Gangs are thriving in prisons.

When I was in Virginia’s despicable Powhatan Receiving Unit, I was housed with a high ranking member of the Crips.  In the cell next door, a blood leader.  Both men knew my legal background and asked if I would review their guys’ pending appeals.  Frankly, doing legal research helped pass the time and kept me sane as I struggled daily with 23 hour lockdown and living in filth and despair.

“How much you charge us?” the blood captain asked.  “Nothing,” I said.  “Well we need to show our appreciation,” my Crip cellmate said.  “What kind of food do you like?”  I thought a little bit then said “pretzels and ginger ale” (both items were available on commissary but I hadn’t been to the store yet).  That afternoon, two six packs of ginger ale and three large bags of pretzels showed up on my bunk.

That night, it was my floor’s turn for 30 minutes out of our cells.   I grabbed a ginger ale, my cup and a bag of pretzels and headed down to the first floor to sit by the fans.  After grabbing some ice for my cup, I poured my soda and sipped on it savoring the drink and the salty pretzels.  A guy I’d met on arrival sat down with me.  Ernie was my age.  A white guy back in prison for drug use, he’d been at receiving a month before I arrived.  He was noticeably upset.  “What’s the matter Ernie?” I asked.  “The gang bangers,” he said.  “They came in my cell and took all my commissary.”  Sodas, cereal, snack foods.  Fifty dollars worth taken and there was nothing he could do.  You can’t tell.  Snitch and get beat, or worse.

I realized the ginger ale and pretzels I was enjoying had been stolen from Ernie – and some other “non-affiliated” guys.  I couldn’t prove it, but I knew.  I went back to my cell, got a six pack and bag or pretzels and gave them to Ernie.  Then, I told the two gang leaders I didn’t want anything else from them.

DOC could break the gangs.  But, prison fosters gang life.  All the training in the world for DOC teachers won’t stop gangs from flourishing in here.  Gangs survive because this environment feeds them.  Change prison culture, kill gangs.  Or, keep doing what you’re doing and the cycle continues.

Missing Something

I’m up early and I can’t sleep.  When I say early, I mean its 3:30 am.  Over and over, I hear the discussion I had yesterday afternoon with two young guys in here.  Over and over, I think “how can they miss the point?”  Over and over, I wonder is it the system that made them this way or are they like this and the system just makes it worse?  Either way, I’m worried.

Empathy is defined as “understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, the feelings, thoughts and experiences of another.”  Simply put, it means getting it when someone is hurting.  I’ve written before about the millions Governor McDonnell spent investing in the “Compass” computer questionnaire which, in 120 questions, allegedly measures an inmate’s likelihood to recommit.  I say allegedly because, as with any psychological profiling tool, you can – or should – see what the proper answer is.

Our grant for IT certification uses results from the Compass test to screen candidates.  You must be “college eligible” (in other words, possess a high school diploma or GED) and you must score high on the compass recidivism risk indicator scale.  On a ten point scale you must have at least a “5”.  Most of our candidates score 8, 9, or 10.

The compass test measures self-awareness of things like personal responsibility, violent tendencies and anger issues, and empathy.  Candidates for our grant are pre-screened using their compass results.  Likewise, every inmate in the system during their annual review is tested.  Results are tracked year upon year.

I’ve taken the test two consecutive years and registered “1” both times.  In bold lettering with green color the screen indicates “low risk of re-offense” in ten measured categories.  The two young guys I spoke to both took the Compass last week as part of their annual reviews.  One is a recent grad of our IT program set to go home in October.  The other is a current student set for release next February.  Both came back with scores of “9”, highlighted in bold red.  Both, for perhaps the first time in their prison lives, were worried.  “Is this accurate?   Does it really matter?”

It does, I tell them, and here’s why. 

Typical question:  “You see a person crying.  Your initial reaction is:

(1)  Much concern

(2)  Some concern

(3)  No feeling one way or the other

(4)  Some scorn/ridicule

(5)  Much scorn/ridicule

Empathy tells you when you see a person crying, your initial reaction should be at least some concern.  Both these guys chose “4”.  So I explained to them how empathy, a “social conscience” means feeling emotionally connected to my fellow man.  Here are their responses:
“What if it’s a chick on her period?”
“What if it’s a guy acting like a bitch?”
“Why isn’t “3” the right answer?  Why should I give a shit about some guy crying?”

And I couldn’t get them to understand you care, you empathize, you feel, because we are social and we have a conscience.  They looked at me with blank stares.

Prison does not make people lack compassion, kindness, or empathy for others.  But it does allow negative, anti-social behavior to fester.  Caring, compassion, and kindness are signs of weakness in here.  They are exploited and ridiculed.  The system, rather than teaching and fostering empathy, allows just the opposite to fester and grow like a virus.  It is this highly toxic Petri dish of ignorance, and violence, and despair that takes lives in and spits them back out.  And nothing, I fear that DOC is doing, is combating the problem.

What’s the answer?  I don’t know.  I just know prison doesn’t make a person empathetic.  And without empathy our social compact cannot survive.  Ignorance and violence will win out over compassion, mercy and justice.  Something is missing.  This system is not the answer.  And I think the reason I couldn’t sleep is not because of these guys.  It’s because I realized the folks out there don’t care enough to demand more from their representatives.  No person with a social conscience can think the corrections system is just.  Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see much empathy to overcome this sick system.