Ghosts

The other day during lunch one of the vocational teachers came into our chow hall and pulled two of his aides aside.  He told them that two hours prior a recently retired officer had committed suicide.  Mr. Townsend was a thirty year veteran of DOC.  He was a good, kind, decent man.  His death caught many of us by surprise.  We had no way of knowing the pain he carried.

We learned that Mr. Townsend’s wife was terminally ill.  Near death and hospitalized she would soon leave her husband alone.  The retirement had taken away his day to day purpose; he couldn’t bear to lose his wife as well.  Mr. Townsend’s son is in Afghanistan, again, in a war – like all wars – that has lasted much too long, caused more death and pain than success, and causes you to wonder, when will we learn?

Ghosts.  Mr. Townsend had ghosts.  And I prayed about him that night knowing that we all have ghosts, and we can’t let the ghosts rule.

On a recent documentary about James Meredith’s admission to the then all-white University of Mississippi, the narrator asked, “What is the cost of knowing our past, and what is the cost of not?”  I thought about those words a good deal the past day as I wondered why Mr. Townsend felt that all was lost.  His demons overtook him, and that is a tragedy.

We all have things that weigh us down.  In here, I see it everyday.  The vast majority of men in prison come from dysfunctional, uneducated, economically depressed homes.  Abuse:  alcohol, drug, home violence are common almost daily occurrences.  Stability is a concept alien to their life as is self respect and love.  And crime, feeling victimized, lacking remorse and empathy is the only way many of these men cope. 

So, they do horrible things, violent things, impulsive, reckless things and the carnage continues.  It’s strange when you hear someone explain shooting another person or beating them senseless.  And you wonder how do they live with the guilt, the shame, of their actions?  You look at the dullness in their eyes, the repeat trips to prison, and you realize they don’t.  Unlike Mr. Townsend, who placed a gun beside his head, these men kill themselves slowly.  And the results are the same.

Ghosts.  I lived with mine for a long time and my friends, they couldn’t tell.  That’s how it is with ghosts.  We see them every day, the guilt and self-loathing knowing we weren’t being true to ourselves, our better nature.  But no one else can see them.

There’s a great verse in the book of Isaiah.  The prophet tells the beleaguered, desperate citizens of Israel, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” (Isaiah 60:1)  It took me a long time to figure out what he was getting at.

It’s a simple message:  get going.  You can’t sit back in pain and self-pity.  Fight on, even when you’re hurting because God is with you.  No matter what, God has your back.  It is a wonderful, powerful message of hope. I wish someone had taken the time to share it with Mr. Townsend.

I write a great deal about this broken, desperate prison system full of broken, desperate men and the rubble that is their lives.  It is not a place to find much solace and hope.  And that, I think, is precisely the people and the place Isaiah was sending his shout out to.

I’ve had a weird week in here.  Amidst the polarization of the election, the damage of Hurricane Sandy, the fights and thefts and lies in this place, and the officer’s suicide, I felt as calm and at peace as I can ever remember.  Ghosts, I’ve learned, can be let go.  And, the past – and the present – don’t define your future.  Even for the guys in here, there’s hope.  Life doesn’t have to continue as it was.  And prison – not prison with walls and counts and years – the prison of our guilt, and actions, and fears, can be put behind us.

Dear Anonymous

I received a print copy of your 10/20 response to a recent blog about a “typical” week here.  I’ve been busy teaching my own class (yes, they’ve given me some independence to get guys ready for the GED!) and thinking about the election, but your comments deserve a response.

First, I appreciate you reading my blog.  When I started it two and a half years ago, my goal was to connect – in some way – with the outside world.  Too often, prison – with its security apparatus and “scarlet letter” understanding that “bad people are behind the fence” – isolates and alienates those incarcerated.  Simply put, we forget what its like out there.  Twenty-four seven we are watched and cared for.  We lose connection with decision making and those things that should matter in your daily life.

Compounding that, most people locked up come from less than desirable lives.  Drug and alcohol abuse, broken homes, poverty, lack of education, lack of stable employment, the list of social ills that most of the incarcerated have lived through is enough to teach graduate level sociology.  And I don’t say that to make excuses for people’s decisions. But, until we as a nation have the collective will to – as the words of the U.S. Constitution so eloquently state it, “provide for the general welfare” – tackle the manifest despair in poor, broken families, we will fail as a nation.  That’s not a Republican or Democrat idea.  If anything, it’s part of my faith journey.  “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  After four and a half years in here, the answer is a heartfelt “yes”.

As for your boyfriend not “sharing” the world in here, I understand that and I hope you do to.  I’ve noted and told self described “tough guys” in here that they aren’t so tough.  Many men refuse to admit they’re scared, or lonely, or just tired and ready to quit.  In here, that is a sign of weakness.  And too often weakness will get you in trouble.  I have something that counters the toughest.  From the day I was arrested inmates knew I’ been a lawyer, knew I had multiple degrees.  Knowledge, education trumps all the rest.  They fear that their ignorance will be exposed.

Your boyfriend keeps you from the “real” prison because, frankly, it’s not pretty.  For most, it is nothing but a waste of time and money.  And sometimes inmates behave in ways they know are wrong.  Getting by, getting along, sometimes is the best approach.

James Lee Burke is one of my favorite American authors.  He understands broken men better than many.  In one novel his protagonist said “the bravest and most loyal and loving people in the world seldom have heroic physical characteristics or the aura of saints.”

I love those words.  They remind me that you can be decent even in a depressed place like this, and love, friendship and loyalty can survive even prison.  I know that in my own life.  I am blessed to have a wonderful group of friends “outside” who have loved and upheld me in the worst of days.

As for your generous comments about my ex, I have a certain sad ambivalence about my divorce.  At some point in this past four and a half years, I had my “Lt. Dan” moment.  I yelled at God and demanded to know why, why was my punishment worse than my sin?  And it hit me.  God is sovereign.  He knows more than I ever will.  And if I truly have faith I have to accept the divorce, the rejection, the loss, as part of His plan to make me to be what He sees.

I hurt, I ache over the loss.  Fact is, I will always love her.  But, it’s OK.  In this – as in every part of this journey I realize I’m not alone and there are amazing lessons – and stories – for me.

Keep reading.  Keep the faith.  And, thanks for your comments.

Election Day, Part 2

This may surprise you, but our college dorm is abuzz about the upcoming election.  Debates are watched, ads analyzed, and the candidates’ positions on various issues studied.  Even without the right to vote, men in this building are following the election.

I’ve paid particular attention to the Virginia race for U.S. Senate putting two former Virginia Governors – George Allen and Tim Kaine – in a bruising battle with repercussions for party control of the senate.  The campaign has been expensive, bare knuckles brawling with little regard by either man for the truth.  Both men are mere caricatures of their parties.  And, as with most political campaigns these days, truth and decency are casualties of polling success.

Both men have stretched the truth in their efforts to seek election.  But one whopper stands out.  In a series of ads George Allen continually reminds Virginians as Governor “he ended parole”.  We all expect politicians to play mental gymnastics with the truth.  Allen, however, is an Olympic gold medal winner.  The truth is, by Allen going along with and pushing the legislature toward truth in sentencing with the abolishment of parole, he did significant financial damage to Virginia that is and will continue to affect this state without massive prison and sentencing reform.

In the early 1990s the Federal government approached the states with a too good to be true deal.  Enact “truth in sentencing” laws which require convicted felons to serve 85% of the sentence imposed and Federal grants will cover the cost of prison expansion.  “Free Federal money” most states thought and across the nation legislatures fell in lock step.  In Virginia, George Allen seized on the opportunity.  “Tough on crime, No parole” became rallying cries for his campaign.  His slogans carried the day and soon Virginia’s General Assembly voted to abolish parole.

And soon after his term was underway, Governor Allen engaged his Department of Corrections chief to begin ramping up prison construction.  Like drunken revelers on a pub crawl, the legislators lined up, all eager to prove they too were tough on crime.  In less than ten years new prisons opened in a dozen communities around the Commonwealth, many of them in rural pockets where employment opportunities lagged.

Virginia went from a state with around 9,000 inmates to over four times that many, reaching almost 40,000 in 2009.  DOC became the state’s largest department employing over 13,000.  And the cost?  Soon Virginia was spending over $1 billion dollars annually to operate its prison system.  One out of every 8 general fund dollars was going to prisons.

The Federal grant money stopped, but Virginia’s costs didn’t.  Politicians were afraid to admit they’d made a mistake.  George Allen?  He kept smiling and distorting his record.  Fact is, locking more people up for longer sentences has nothing to do with the crime rate.  Fact also is, Virginia’s released inmates reoffended at the same rate at before.

But change did come.  For one thing, the economy began to tank.  Virginia couldn’t afford everything the politicians promised.  While millions were being directed to DOC, real spending on Virginia’s colleges actually decreased.  Transportation projects were put on hold.  “Creative accounting” on the state retirement system let people believe the Commonwealth had a balanced budget.

First Tim Kaine, then Bob McDonnell, realized Virginia couldn’t sustain its gulag prison system. They began to shut them down devastating rural Virginia counties who had come to rely on the prison gravy train for economic sustenance.

And the inmates?  There were crowded into fewer prisons with fewer officers making the facilities less safe and less rehabilitative.  Inmates began suing and Virginia’s costs continued to climb (over $1.2 billion this year alone).  And George Allen continued to tout his record as Governor. 

Prison reform – sentencing reform – will occur.  The states realize it. You can’t keep locking people up.  There are cheaper, more effective alternatives.

I can’t vote – I’m an incarcerated felon.  But if I could, I’d vote for the candidate who is honest with me about the real cost of Virginia’s love affair with prisons.  They cost too much financially and in the lives they destroy.  George Allen isn’t that politician.

Election Day, Part 1

In July, 1776, delegates from the thirteen break away colonies gathered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to sign their names to a declaration.  From that moment forward the uprising that had begun a year earlier could lead to only one conclusion:  it would be independence or death.

The author of the Manifesto, Thomas Jefferson, borrowed heavily from Scottish political philosopher John Locke when he penned that people “are endowed with certain unalienable rights…”  Jefferson listed three:  life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  The men gathered in Philadelphia, this nation’s founding fathers, understood the importance of the words they were placing their signatures to.  God, not government, gives human beings certain rights.  Freedom, liberty, are God’s dictate, not some privilege that can be handed down by a ruler.

It was a daring statement of faith in the absolute rights of humankind derived from the sovereign Lord.  And, it formed the basis of the most successful experiment in republican democracy the world has ever known.  “We the people…in order to form a more perfect union…”

I write this fifteen days from the presidential election.  Supporters of both candidates will tell you this is the most important election in the nation’s history.  I’m not so sure.   Somehow the crises affecting this country in 1860 when Lincoln was elected, and again in 1864 at his re-election, make this era pale by comparison.

This piece isn’t about Romney or Obama.  This is about voting.  Virginia is one of only four states that do not automatically reinstate voting rights to felons upon their release from prison.  This election day some 350,000 Virginians will be unable to vote solely because they carry a scarlet “F” on their record.  Voting is not a privilege.  It is an unalienable right of a people to have a say in their governance. 

The current Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, has touted his administration’s efforts to restore voting rights to felons.  He should be applauded.  In less than three years in office, McDonnell has streamlined the process (it is now just filing a simple downloadable form with his office versus the former cumbersome process of petitioning), and restored voting rights to nearly 2,000.  That’s more than any previous modern age Virginia Governor.

The problem is McDonnell, like his predecessors and for too many politicians, believes voting is a privilege and that government can decide the terms and conditions of exercising that privilege.  Disenfranchisement, even after over 225 years, still shows itself each election cycle.

It is an irony not lost on me that this nation, “the shining city on the hill” as former President Ronald Reagan described her, is the only western nation that restricts felons from voting.  Even in this country, all but seventeen states automatically restore voting rights to felons as they exit prison.

Ohio State University law professor Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, a critical assessment of the nation’s mass incarceration push, argues that voting is a fundamental right of citizenship which cannot be usurped by a felony conviction.

And the arguments used to deny felons the right to vote are the same arguments used earlier in this nation’s history to deny women, the poor, and ethnic and racial minorities a say in the future direction of this land.

A few years ago, during George W. Bush’s presidency, this nation became transfixed as we watched millions of Iraqis brave bombings and threats of murder to cast ballots in their first democratic election after the overthrow of the dictator Saddam Hussein.

And we watched as these citizens dipped their fingers in purple ink and displayed them to the world saying “our vote matters”.  I remember one man in particular, carried his child in his arms.  He’d been imprisoned during the Hussein years.  And he proudly walked forward and voted.  “I want my child to know it’s not your past that matters.  It’s your future.”

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…”

Amazing words.  It’s a shame this nation, this state doesn’t believe them at election time.

 

Fight Club

Something’s in the water; must be.  While fights are a common occurrence, the last 24 hours set a record.  Two fights were very serious; one, the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.

This morning on the ball court in full view of the tower and one hundred inmates, a Muslim man finally hit his breaking point with a loud, obnoxious Sergeant.  In five short minutes the Sergeant was left bloodied and dazed.  The inmate calmly put his hands behind his back and let officers – who ran from all corners of the compound when “1033” (officer attacked) blared over the radios – handcuff him and lead him to the “hole”.  Within 24 hours he’ll ship to a higher security prison and be held until a street assault charge is brought.  The fight will add 5 years to his time.

But, this environment pushes men to their breaking points.  I oppose violence, but imagine having a man who controls you verbally call you out day after day, question your sexual orientation, your manhood, your religion.  Worse, you see him bully a weaker man.  You snap.  You handle things.  And Sergeant Big Mouth goes down.

Last night the Bloods decided a member had to go.  So, in our bathroom at 11:00 pm, the member was de-ganged.  You’re “jumped” in (beaten to join); you’re “jumped” out the same way.  It was brutal and afterward, the former “banger” went to his rack and slept knowing his life inside was now changing.  To his former “brothers” he was now a failure, an outcast, dead man walking.

And the “funny” fight?  Two rollie pollie guys in our building started throwing punches at each other.  Why?  “He licked my ear.  I’m tired of his gay act!”  Like two lumbering walruses, they threw big overhand slaps hitting their rolls of back fat and man breasts.  After a few minutes they were both left utterly exhausted.  Some guys have no business fighting!

Welcome to the world of corrections.  It’s always just beneath the surface, the anger, the tension, the violence.  And DOC is either unable or unwilling to stop it.  Unlike Fight Club the movie, this isn’t a dream.  It’s every day in here.  And if it happens here with guys close to going home, imagine what it’s like in higher security levels.  Is this what people want from their prison – sorry “corrections” system?

EBC

No, those aren’t the initials of some new condition that a pharmaceutical giant developed a “cure” for; EBC stands for the new philosophy being implemented in Virginia’s lower level prison facilities.  “Evidence Based Corrections” has become the mantra for administrators and staff.  It’s a “kinder, gentler” management style.

“We’re just trying to hold the lid on things.  Look the other way at small infractions, not get in guys’ faces, keep fights and disruptions to a minimum.”  That’s what a day sergeant told us the other morning as he was heading out to interview for a lieutenant’s job at another facility.

The corrections philosophy change has been implemented by DOC’s Director, Harold Clarke, two years into his job and trying to put his stamp on the system.  And, some things have improved.  While still notorious for their denial of publications (VA DOC routinely wins a “muzzle” award for their censorship of books, music and magazines) access to books, magazines and CDs has improved.  The grooming policy has been updated allowing for some facial hair.  But, every change came as a result of DOC losing a lawsuit brought by an inmate to address a violation of constitutional rights.  Yes, inmates still possess basic rights, not as a proactive policy idea. 

Is DOC finally realizing they can find better ways to operate?  I like to think so, but my years in here tell me otherwise.  First, DOC is straining.  There are too many inmates and too few officers to adequately run a facility.  The expression “shit happens” was written with prisons in mind.  Every day fights breakout that go unnoticed by the staff (see my next blog); every day, guys are getting high on the ball court; the gambling operation in here would make Vegas proud.

The honest officers will tell you they can’t keep up.  “Just keep a lid on things”, is the slogan.  “Do your shift, avoid paperwork, collect your check.”  Is it working?  It would if along with that there were incentives for early release.  Instead, you have an overcrowded facility with half those in prison not a threat; you lack sufficient manpower to adequately staff; money is so tight you can’t provide programs to meet the treatment needs of those incarcerated, treatment needs that you-in-fact have identified as necessary for success upon release.

And the policies you implement?  They are poorly worded (English teachers would react in horror at the failure of DOC staff to issue lucid, coherent memos), poorly thought out (there is no detailed analysis of the ramifications of policy changes) and poorly enforced (favoritism, racial issues, and a general lack of educated staff mean most policies are either selectively enforced or ignored altogether).  It creates a toxic environment of rumor, open hostility, and further contempt for authority.

Mix hundreds of young inmates with officers poorly paid, poorly trained, poorly educated and from the same neighborhoods and you have a recipe for disaster.  Many of the young men coming here are fresh from jail (Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville).  They spend three to five days in Lunenburg’s “hole” for receiving then come out on the compound.  They’re pulling sentences of ten months to two years.  This is camp to them.  Momma – or their “Boo” (girlfriend) send them $200 or $300 each month.  They’re too short for vocational programs to learn any trade.  There’s no money for college so the ones with a high school diploma have no educational opportunity and those without a diploma, well the waiting list is too long and there aren’t enough classrooms, or teachers, or hours in a week.

So they do what they do.  They sleep, play basketball, lift weights and gamble.  They grow more contemptuous of society and regale each other with their next street hustle.  And that’s at a re-entry facility.  Imagine what it’s like at a higher security level with guys looking at 20, 30, even more years “under the gun”. 

“EBC”, nice concept.  Unfortunately a concept not fully thought out, fully implemented with adequate staff, programs, money and incentives for participation, is doomed for failure.

I don’t have all the answers, but I could suggest that Director Clarke – for all his good intentions – would be better served coming out here and talking to a few of us.  Without that, EBC is just the start of another failed corrections philosophy.