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Thursday, October 17, 2013

Reaction Inside

Last Saturday night around 10:00 pm, as we waited for our final standing count of the day, news broke that the jury had reached its verdict in the George Zimmerman murder trial. As we waited for the officers to whistle us to the ends of our bunks, almost every set of eyes was focused on the decision. In a place like this, where every man in here has dealt with court, and conviction, and sentencing, following trials is as natural as following football. Throw in the racial overtones the case presented and you couldn’t find a man who didn’t have an opinion. Hear the jury foreperson say out loud “not guilty” and you could feel the collective tension in the building rise.
           
It was an interesting next few days and it gave me a chance to analyze my own thoughts on the matter. As with most circumstances in here, my opinions - always asked for - somehow managed to upset both sides of the argument. I guess that means I’m on to something.
            
Does Trayvon Martin’s death have broad social implications? It shouldn’t, at least not any more so than the tragic death of any other young person in this country from random gun violence. The leading cause of death for black teenage boys in this country is shootings. Trayvon Martin is just one of too many young black men who will not see adulthood because of our nation’s obsession with guns. I’m not disparaging the Second Amendment. The fact is, in this country getting shot is as American as apple pie.
            
Trayvon Martin didn’t have to die. Unfortunately, too often we act in a careless, impulsive manner. We put a course of events in motion which soon take on a life of their own. We are at the mercy of the situation we began. It’s one of those laws of human nature as applicable as gravity: our actions have consequences. It’s my story of prison and divorce. It’s George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin’s story as well.
            
Trayvon Martin had every right to walk from the “7-11,” back to his father’s apartment by way of those public streets in that neighborhood. No one has a right to profile a person legally walking the street because he happens to be young, black, and wearing a hooded sweatshirt.
            
The irony of profiling young, black men in white neighborhoods is they aren’t the ones committing the crime there. Black on black crime is far more prevalent than black on white. It is simply prejudice fostered by ignorance that makes white people recoil when a black teen walks through their neighborhood.
            
So Trayvon Martin was legally entitled to be where he was. But, so was George Zimmerman. Zimmerman is the kind of neighbor we all want. He cared about the area he lived in. He knew the people who lived around him. He volunteered to keep the neighborhood safe. How many people, after coming home and finding their home burglarized haven’t wished they had a neighbor who watched what was going on and was willing to call the police? Zimmerman also had a right to carry a gun.
            
Both participants had every right to be where they were and behave as they did. Isn’t that usually how things start out before they go awry? The race baiters are wrong. This isn’t about “open season” on young black men. There’s simply no evidence that Zimmerman was motivated to act by any racial animus.
            
There are problems facing young black men. They kill each other at alarming rates. They are imprisoned at significantly higher levels than whites or other racial groups. But, is it color or class that matters? I keep telling the guys in here that black college graduates have the same low unemployment rate as white college grads. Unfortunately, a significant percentage of black families are one parent families. There is a direct correlation between one parent families, poverty levels, and a lack of higher education. Class, it seems, matters more than race.
           
I see it in here every day. The young black men I share this prison pod with almost all came from broken, single parent households. They knew more people who’d gone to prison than college. And, the crimes they committed: drug dealing, robbery, murder, almost always victimized other black citizens. No, Trayvon Martin’s death wasn’t about his color.
            
But it also wasn’t about self-defense. In here you know what they call a grown man who follows teenage boys: a predator. Zimmerman should have left the kid alone. And more parents, hindsight being twenty-twenty, would tell their kids to watch out for a “perv” on the street.
            
No one knows what led to the altercation between those two. And another senseless death resulted; and two families are forever changed. The prosecutors sought fame by grandstanding their case. They fed into the crowd’s call for blood, for retribution. The talking heads used both these men as caricatures of their biased views.
            
What are we left with? We see the words of a woman, Trayvon Martin’s mother, who after the jury returned its verdict simply stated “Lord, I lean on you in my darkest hour.” The next morning she attended church.
           
I’m not sure what justice is in a tragedy like this. But, I know what grace is. And grace matters more.


In the News - July 2013

As I write this blog, over 12,000 inmates in the California prison system are on a hunger strike. They strike for more humane treatment and decent living conditions, better food, eased overcrowding, improved medical care.
            Two years ago, the United States Supreme Court ruled that California’s prison system violated the constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. At the time, California’s prisons were at 157% of capacity. On average, two inmates were dying each week. It was a corrections system devoid of correction making a mockery of the state’s justice system.
            The court ordered California to reduce the prison population by approximately 30,000 inmates within eighteen months. Since then, California has thumbed their noses at the court, transferring thousands of state inmates to local jail control rather than releasing them. California DOC has crippled local law enforcement who are now burdened with caring for too many incarcerated state inmates.
            The state of California daily violates the constitutional rights of its incarcerated. What, I ask, does that say about our respect for the “rule of law?” And, what does it say about the men behind bars who continue to press their case for lawful incarceration conditions?
            Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said you should judge a man when things are at their worst. Dr. King would be proud of the hunger strikers.
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            At Guantanamo Bay, a number of Muslim prisoners, also on a hunger strike, are being force fed on instruction of the Obama Justice Department. More disturbing, these force feedings are occurring during the Ramadan fast period.
            A Federal Judge has skewered the force feeding policy. It is important to remember none of the men currently being held at Guantanamo have been convicted of any crime. The United States Government has lost two major Supreme Court actions involving detention of “enemy combatants.”
            Benjamin Franklin reminded his founding father brethren that “surrendering your liberty in the name of security leaves you with neither.” I wonder what old Ben would say about the power of the federal government to hold a foreign national for more than ten years without charge and trial?


Re-entry or Revolving Door?

I recently received an email posting from “Virginia C.U.R.E.” – an organization dedicated to the successful integration of Virginia’s incarcerated back into society – concerning another Virginia Prison’s re-entry program. Posted by an inmate at Dillwyn Correction Center (a carbon copy of this facility), the writer points out that the re-entry initiative is “alive … but it is not well.” It’s as if he’s seeing the same thing at Dillwyn that I encounter here every day. Worse, as the writer points out, the program is “fully funded” (even while other programs lag due to funding problems) yet still not fully implemented.
            
The premise behind the Governor’s re-entry initiative is laudable. When 1 out of 3 released offenders finds his – or her – way back into prison within a year of release, something is horribly wrong. Prisons must be a place of rehabilitation and preparation for returning offenders to society as productive, law-abiding citizens. The cost to feed, house, and maintain an offender in prison is huge (over $25,000 per year). And, as the inmate population ages (20% of Virginia’s inmates are now over 55) the costs dramatically increase to $75,000 – or more – per year. Ninety percent of those behind bars will walk out. Their success – or failure – has a dramatic economic impact on the Commonwealth.
            
Governor McDonnell understood this from the outset of his term. With a combination of economic practicality and Christian grace theory, the Governor created a framework for preparing soon to be released inmates for return to their communities. But, as this blog has repeatedly pointed out, those “re-entry initiative” goals don’t match with the reality of life behind bars.
            
For one thing, nothing changed inside the walls. There is no impetus for an offender to aggressively seek to change. Be a model inmate, take every program available, work, and you still serve 85% of your sentence. Be a clown, you serve 100%. On a three year sentence that equates to about four months.
            
And the way prisons are run, with little regard for the actual rules and policies in place, creates an environment where favoritism and arbitrary enforcement of policies is the norm. Wardens have unreasonable leeway in enforcing DOPs (Department Operating Procedures); grievance and charge procedures are routinely ignored. It is, simply put, a rigged game and the offender population knows it. Anything proposed by “the police” is looked at with skepticism.
            
The second problem is the inmate himself. The vast majority of men and women behind bars lack basic work skills. They write poorly; they are incapable of even basic math calculations; reading comprehension – following written instructions – is beyond the skill level of most of the incarcerated. I am the exception. Most men here have never known educational success. They have never had steady, meaningful employment; many have never had a checking account, used a credit card (legitimately), managed their finances, saved, or bought a house.
            
The Governor’s re-entry initiative pays lip service to the building of marketable skills. The program instead focuses on inane group programs where offenders are given a “word of the day” and then attend group meetings. What is needed is more like a work skills boot camp with education: reading comprehensions, mathematics, oral and written communication skills, and technology training (computer keyboard use is a must!).
           
But, education and skills training take a backseat to re-entry programs. Nothing makes that case more than stating for the hundredth time that Virginia government provides $0 to prison higher education even though earning a degree in prison virtually guarantees that the inmate will not re-offend after release.
            
Finally, there are the “unit managers” and “cognitive counselors,” the fancy titled employees of the Department of Corrections who run the re-entry program. They come with the mindset of a DOC employee, a mindset that says group matters over the individual (even down to the long-term treatment needs of the offender), and security trumps program. Counselor is a misnomer. There is no counseling. There is also no “thinking outside the box.” They run – and manage – the program line by line as it is spelled out in the department re-entry directive.
            
They enforce silly rules which change almost weekly, and operate their groups with almost god-like power. Inmates who curry favor are routinely given plum assignments. They schedule multiple meetings daily and lead men to give up jobs and miss school to attend their programs.
            
They operate off a script. Our building’s cognitive counselor, a flitty forty-something woman, regularly tells the men “I am your role model.” She hands out syrupy psychological advice from her office covered in posters of kittens, balloons, and trite six-word goal statements while knowing nothing of the men’s pasts or their dreams and aspirations.
            
Completing the program is more important than meaningful change. That’s sad because this re-entry program is showing no better recidivism results than prior efforts. And from the inside, the answer is obvious.
            
There must be department buy in. DOC must be willing to adapt. Wardens, treatment managers, unit managers, and counselors must be held accountable. Their charges’ (the inmates they work with) re-entry success should be used to grade them. And re-entry should be squarely focused on work skills; job training, education, life skills, not the soft, ambiguous program pushed now.
            
Rehabilitation is an expensive process … but so is locking someone up. It’s time those dollars are used effectively – and only once. Prison should be a chapter, not entire life story.



A Splinter in the Eye

For the past few weeks I have silently observed the increasing drama that has engulfed Virginia’s Governor. While the guys in bunks all around me feasted on the almost daily disclosures of more alleged improprieties. I held my tongue. There were reasons for my lack of comment on the Governor’s potential legal problems. For one thing, there is too often in this country a rush to judgment. This rush is fed by a media which places ratings over careful, ethical journalism. Getting the story first is more important than getting the story right.
          
And the media almost always seeks to sensationalize the story. Everything is “Breaking News.” Every story is told in catchy, rhythmic, two-minute blurbs. Getting the story out is more important than considering the effect the release will have on the people involved. The media tells us how we should view those involved. They almost always label someone a hero. We’ve reduced heroism today to anyone in the vicinity of almost anything.
          
It’s worse if you are an accused. While the Constitution may guarantee a presumption of innocent until proven guilty, no such presumption exists with the press. An accused’s life becomes fodder for the person’s background. Facts aren’t important. Rumor, anonymous sourcing, and speculation routinely take hold.
          
The power of the state to direct a prosecution and bring vast resources to convict an accused is a power that the framers of the Constitution feared. That is why limitations, in the Bill of Rights under the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amendments, became pivotal to the nation’s founding. All of that means that I take what I see on the news about the Governor with a grain of salt.
          
The second reason is along the same lines. We have become a nation built on schadenfreude; you know, we revel in other’s – especially successful people’s – misfortunes. Nowhere is that more evident than in our politics. During George Bush’s two terms, the Democratic Party regularly labeled him akin to a Nazi. He was called stupid, slow, ignorant (and terms I won’t even use in this blog). Not to be outdone, after Barrack Obama’s election Republicans launched their own smear campaign.
          
We love when the rich, the powerful, the famous fail. We are better than they are, we smugly tell ourselves. I have grown to hate that attitude. One thing prison has taught me is that the writer of Proverbs knew a good deal about human nature. Pride does go before the fall. And, all of us are capable of moments of unjustifiable pride.
          
The third reason is more personal. How can I gain any joy out of watching this man’s difficulties? His current legal problems won’t change my status as a convicted felon serving a prison sentence. And the news of his son’s arrest for disorderly conduct in Charlottesville? As a father, I understand the pain and worry he must feel. I would never want anyone’s son – or daughter – to go through the humiliation of booking and arrest, or face time behind bars.
          
So, I’ve held my thoughts about the Governor’s troubles to myself, until now. Here goes.
         
Bob McDonnell is a smart man. He wouldn’t have gotten where he did if that wasn’t so. But, smart men can (and do) do very stupid things. If Governor McDonnell accepted even a dollar from a political supporter and that was used for a watch, his wife’s dresses, or maintaining rental properties at Wintergreen or Virginia Beach, then that was stupid. Gov, you know better. Don’t obfuscate and play semantics. The Governor needs to say what he did and acknowledge it gives – at the very least – the appearance of unethical conduct.
          
Second, this should be a wakeup call to him that something is terribly wrong with the criminal justice system. He is facing numerous felony charges. This could – and should – be an epiphany for him. What useful purpose is served in seeing him indicted and imprisoned? None. The Governor can use his personal difficulties to spur him to transform Virginia’s current punitive sentencing and incarceration terms for non-violent felons. “Walk a mile in that man’s shoes.” I have.
          
Here’s what I mean. President George Bush, on a recent tour of Africa was asked to comment on two polarizing issues: gay marriage and immigration. He told the interviewer he was “not going to comment on political issues. I’m retired.” But then he added, “You know, I don’t know what it’s like for those folks (meaning gay American and immigrants). Who am I to judge them with the log protruding from my eye.” I really love that. He was referring to the Gospel statement by Jesus about pointing out the splinter in your neighbor’s eye while a log protrudes from your own.
          
That same attitude should apply when we see a bright, successful politician like Governor McDonnell face legal scrutiny over impulsive, dumb decisions he made. “As you judge, so shall you be judged.” That’s another one of those Biblical truths that keeps coming more clearly into focus for me from the inside.
          
So, I tell the guys around me not to be so quick to gloat over Governor Bob’s difficulties. “Empathize,” I tell them. “You know what it’s like.” We all do. Everyone (yes readers, “everyone”) will make a mistake now and again. And when those mistakes, those impulsive, or violent, or reckless decisions are made, there is no lonelier feeling than wading through the mire that is the consequences.
          
I’m not suggesting people get a free pass. There are consequences that arise for our behavior. But, punishment must be tempered and must fit the crime. And, it must not be meted out with revenge or glee.