Major Changes

They brought in a new chief of security this week, a new big hat, a new Major.  DOC has a weird facility operations system.  A warden sets policy for the compound with day to day help from an assistant warden.  Third in charge is the Operations Director who runs everything on the compound non-security related.  But, security trumps everything.  And, security is always in the control of a major, a big hat. 

I’ve been here at this level 2 facility almost four years and this will be my third major in charge of security.  The first one was easy-going.  He wanted things to run smoothly.  His officers were mostly older.  Both he and his staff had been in the system a long time.  Many of them had been at the higher level facilities where stabbings and other random, mindless acts of violence were daily occurrences.  They – and he – knew what it was like to lock a prison down for nine, twelve, or eighteen months.

So, they gave some latitude to things.  After all, this was a level 2.  Guys spend years getting their level down to come to a compound like this.  A two hundred series charge now and then was nothing – it didn’t cost you your job or good time.

That first major retired and number 2 came in.  He was from a receiving unit, a facility where level 5’s (capital murder, rape and more) mingled with petty larceny or DUI level 1’s.  Those prisons, as I learned on my own, are cesspools; they are powder kegs which erupt almost daily in fights, robberies and worse.  

Security’s goal there is simple:  lock ‘em in until they’re classified and ship ‘em out.  The officers did their jobs; you acted out, you went to the hole.  They were detached.  They walked the floor when required; most times they stayed by the booth.

That attitude took hold here under Major # 2.  Soon there were almost weekly memos about bed areas (what was permissible to have).  Charges were regularly written.  And, even two hundred series charges (“minor” infractions) cost men good time and employment.

Was the prison more secure?  No.  There were just as many fights, just as many drugs, just as many gang members.  In fact, things deteriorated.  Is that the Major’s fault?  Probably not.  See, the prison population was changing as well.

When I first arrived here, most guys locked up were older and they had time yet to do.  Then, Governor McDonnell announced his re-entry program and turned this into an exit point for this region’s soon to be released inmates.  What you get now is a mix of very young, very dumb guys who have little time to do (and came from short jail bids), or very old, long serving inmates who have been everywhere in the system.  They come with health problems, few prospects for successful reintegration into fast-paced society (many have never used a cell phone or ATM), and years of scars built by the violence and degradation of surviving higher level prisons.  They young guys think they’re in camp.  They act out.  The old guys have seen the worst.  They smell b/s a mile away.  Both don’t care about any state announced program.

There are a little more than 1,000 inmates here and maybe a core group of 100 of us run the school programs, maintenance shop and factory.  The rest are short-timers who don’t give a damn about another re-entry program that was just like the last.

The prison has changed; the inmates are worse; the problems more noticeable.  Into that comes Major # 3.  What’s he like?  He’s young, not even 40.  That in and of itself is different.  And, he carries himself like a military officer: pressed uniform, perfect posture.  He was a captain at a higher level, cut his teeth on the violence and degradation at level 4.  And, he’s checking things out.

No one, especially in prison, likes change.  But, some change is good, especially if it cuts down on knucklehead behavior in here.  So, I’m going to take a wait and see approach.  Now, if they’d only come and clean house on the re-entry program…

 

A passing thought:  Why do Americans think the 2^nd Amendment is so sacrosanct yet the 4^th Amendment can be circumvented in the name of security?  I’m not sure what I think of the NSA leaker, but I know this – the founding fathers were deeply concerned about Government’s ability to search without justifiable warrant.

No less than Ben Franklin remarked that people who are willing to give up their liberty for security will soon have neither.

I can tell you from living in here, under daily surveillance, that freedom and privacy matter.

Honcho: A Tale about Water

It’s pouring and they’ve canceled rec for the day.  Tropical Storm Andrea is off the coast and bands of rain and gusts of winds are making an already dismal prison day worse.  My friend DC convinced me early this morning to head outside and run in the torrential rain.  I was game.  See, we’ve been locked down since 6:00 am Monday – our twice a year shakedown ritual – and didn’t see the fresh air until Thursday after 6:00 pm count, save for the walk down the boulevard for our meals and our hour and a half in the gym waiting on a strip search and officers digging through your stuff. 

No rec.  So much for getting soaked to the bone and taking my mind far away from here.  Lockdown is difficult to describe.  In receiving, we were confined to our cells for four and a half days straight.  Meals and mail were brought to us.  We never moved until our cell was shook down.  Handcuffed and patted down, we stood outside our cell door while two officers tore open everything my cellie and I had, then left all those possessions in a pile on our bunks.  And that, truthfully, is nothing.  I do time with guys from higher levels who endured six, nine, twelve months of lockdown. 

Here, it’s just sit around and wait for your building to be called.   No one ever gets caught with anything.  Now, with the budget tightening, DOC can’t bring that many extra officers in.  And, shakedowns matter a whole lot more at higher levels where stabbings and rapes are part of daily life.  Here, it’s form over substance.  By Thursday afternoon the officers were exhausted, the buildings stunk, and guys were plain tired of the loss of even the little bit of freedom you have in here. 

I put on classical music – Mozart and Franz Liszt chamber music seems to work the best – and I think about the waste that is almost every action by DOC and almost every life inside.  One thing about lockdown, if you can’t get along with someone day to day, it’s magnified by the 24/7 time spent together for those wasted days.  And so it is for me dealing with Honcho.

Who’s Honcho?  He’s the guy in the bunk above me and he is a caricature of everything you think of when you imagine a multi-bid offender with six kids, a wife and girlfriend, and all before reaching age 33.  Honcho isn’t in the college program.  He’s one of those guys who come here straight from the regional jail to do their eighteen to twenty-four month sentence.  We have a few open bunks in here and we end up with the “extras”. 

These guys are all the same, and that – I think – is what pisses me off the most.  Honcho, like thousands of others, is a drug dealer and user:  small time – weed, crack, and powdered coke; give it away to your “homeys”; let your baby’s mamma get state aid while you drink Hennessy; wear your pants low, call everyone “”bro”, and sing nonsensical misogynistic rap lyrics by Lil Wayne or some other knucklehead.

Everything this dude does pisses me off.  He’s dirty, sloppy, loud and ignorant.  And worse, you can see it in his face; he carries on because he has such a low opinion of himself.  It’s so obvious with so many of these twenty or thirty something black guys.  They tell you how “bad” they are, but you see right through it.  They are cowards, and worse – they are failures.

Three times this guy’s been to Lunenburg.  Each time for two years, or so.  He sleeps all day, plays dominoes all night, and burns up the phone begging one of his women to send money so he can eat ($200 to $300 each month on commissary).

I say what I think.  “I’m just doin’ my bid, Bro”, he’ll tell me.  “I’m not your bro crack head.  Get your head out of your ass and do something constructive with your life!”  I reply and guys look shocked that anyone would dare speak to Honcho or another home dog like that.

Here’s the weird thing.   I get away with that because I intimidate these guys.  No less than my buddy DC has told me, “these guys are afraid of you, the way you carry yourself, your self respect”.  So I tell them what I see.  And, what I see in Honcho is a guy too scared, too self loathing to say to himself “Damn it, I can do better”.  And, it pisses me off.

So many people in the “real world” see prison and prisoners as caricatures.  They think they know all about lawbreakers and prison life and they’re so dead set sure that everything that happens inside here to these men and women behind bars is divine or karmic justice.  They couldn’t be further from the truth. 

The late, brilliant American write David Foster Wallace gave a commencement address back in 2005 at one of America’s premier liberal arts colleges.  And, it wasn’t a typical graduation speech about reaching your dreams and self-aggrandizing plaudits for having a liberal arts diploma.  Instead, it was harsh and direct. He spoke about thinking, real thinking, the kind that says “I’m not the center of the universe” and the kind that doesn’t get numbed by worshiping money and status. 

Wallace began with a story about two young fish swimming along when an older fish comes the other way, nods at them and says “morning boys; how’s the water?”  The two young fish look at each other and say “what the hell is water?” http://youtu.be/SFt7EzpsZQo

The point of the parable:  that too often we go through life numb to the world and the people around.

Real thinking is built on empathy and being aware of what is, as he said “so real and essential”.  Truth, he said, is all about life before death.  A life is more than the sum total of your failures.  And even guys like Honcho can grow into someone if they only learn to think, think beyond the numbing rat race of life and their own shortcomings. 

There is as much humanity inside these walls as there is outside.  And Mozart sounds just as sweet.  Honcho is failing, but he’s not a failure.

There are horrible people in prison who have done terrible things and, if let go, they would do perhaps even worse.  But, there are also regular people trying to fit in, trying the wrong way to make it. People like Honcho who succumb to the numbness around them and become so desperate to be “somebody” they’ll do the wrong thing.  I know, I was one of those guys.  And they deserve our encouragement and occasionally a kick in the ass.  As I sat here during lockdown I realized I didn’t know Honcho’s life, hadn’t walked in his shoes.  All I could think was, “this is water”, and somewhere I hoped David Foster Wallace was smiling and saying “he gets it, he’s thinking”.

Flat Time

A few years ago my friend DC explained how he came to do forty straight years behind bars.  Let me write that number again:  forty.  He was locked up in 1972 for an armed robbery.  Back then, with parole in place, a twenty year sentence meant eighteen months and you could get out.  Of course, if you’re a “difficult” inmate, if you break rules, you wait awhile longer.

DC was one of the worst.  From the moment he arrived at Virginia’s state penitentiary, a/k/a “the Walls”, he was a violent, brutal con; in a sea of Darwinian excess where survival of the worst played out every day, he was at the top of the pecking order.  Instead of eighteen months, he did four years.  Then, in 1976, DC made parole.  He found out on a Friday afternoon.  “You’ll be released Tuesday morning” he was told.

You would think being that close to the front door and freedom would cause you to re-assess all you’ve done while inside.  After all, who would want to be locked up again?  That wasn’t how DC thought.  It was time to settle scores.  He grabbed his shiv (back then every con carried at least one blade) and headed across the compound.  There, in the stairwell of another cell block he settled a score, killing an inmate before that inmate had the chance to kill him.

DC didn’t leave the following Tuesday.  He’s never left.  Twice the state tried him for capital murder; twice they sought the electric chair; twice the case ended in mistrials.  They finally settled with DC.  “Take a murder two plea”, they said, “and we’ll give you thirty-five years.”  DC took the plea.  Problem was, the murder sentence ran first, and ran as “flat time”.  There was no parole, no good time earned during a flat time sentence.  You got thirty-five, you did thirty-five.  Then, you pick up your other sentence and start doing that.

Fair?  Just?  Hard to say.  DC took a life.  Thirty-five years may or may not be enough to make up for the murder of a fellow inmate.  But, it’s the idea of “flat time” that confuses me.  In reality, all prison time is “flat time”.  If you really want to address the problem of recidivism you have to change that.

Last week the re-entry building erupted.  Fights are pretty common here.  Pack almost eleven hundred men into space built for half that many , deprive them of basic living comforts, and the noise, filth, and despair cause you to blow.  But, what happened in “3” Building was different.  It wasn’t a one on one fight, it was more:  six to ten guys.  This on the heels of a beat down the week before that sent a half dozen from “3” to the hole.

So, the fight erupted, blood was spilled and then the ratting out began.  Inmates started telling on each other.  Soon “3” was locked down.  Drug dogs were brought in and the building searched while its residents were held in the gym.  Then, the shakedown of each guy.  By the time it was over, “7” building, a/k/a “the hole”, had sixteen “3” building offenders held in segregation.  Here’s the crazy part:  all the residents of “3” building are within six months of going home.  “3” building, you see, is the Governor’s re-entry initiative in action.  And, it is an abject failure.  Why?  Because prison – for all the self-aggrandizing speeches by politicians – isn’t about re-entry and rehabilitation.  It’s about flat time.  Flat time runs futures.  It doesn’t make any errant man – or woman – a better, productive citizen.  It just sets you up for failure.

There is a disconnect between what politicians say goes on inside prison and what actually takes place.  Here’s what I mean.  Politicians will tell you 90% of those locked up will find their way out to society.  They’ll tell the public “we have to be tough on crime” while at the same time “preparing felons to be productive citizens”, with re-entry programs focusing on education, job training and drug and alcohol treatment.  That all sounds good, but the programs don’t match the lofty goals.

The vast majority of those locked up lack basic skills.  It was easier to hustle drugs, break into homes or rob folks at gun point, than to find meaningful employment.  Few of us in here have college or advanced degrees.  Most were failures at school and were labeled “learning disabled”, ADHD, or a host of other problems.  They come from communities where poor schools and poor job opportunities are prevalent.  They come from communities where their friends and relatives have been arrested and imprisoned.  Many are the product of low income, single parent homes.  Relationships mean little; family is a distorted amalgam.

They come in and out of prison expecting the system to screw them.  So they grow callous.  They lack empathy.  They lack drive.  They lack hope.  How does the state, through their Department of Corrections, break this cycle?  They don’t. The “re-entry” initiative puts poorly trained, poorly educated, unmotivated “counselors” in charge of “group” meetings, where applause is directed for the “word of the day”.  Real focus on drug and alcohol abuse doesn’t exist, just “ten week” groups. 

And worse, there’s no motivation for change.  Guys inside are so used to the prison mentality of survival of the fittest or slickest that they thing everything is a scam.

Here’s what happens:  it’s all flat time.  Guys sit in groups telling themselves it’s a waste of time.  Arms folded, cussing, yawning, they think it’s just another stupid program cooked up by the then Governor in office.  He’ll leave and some new program will start.  They may be right:  “Breaking Barriers” (the program du jour was used in the ‘90’s). 

So guys lay around, gamble, smoke, steal, fight and waste days as the world goes on without them.  And, they’ll get out, and two out of three will come back.  The only sound you hear is the “cha-ching” of the cash register:  $25,000 per man (or woman) per year.  Just flat time – wasted time, wasted money, wasted lives.

One billion dollars a year wasted.  Forty thousand lives – not including children, spouses, family and communities suffering.  There are better ways.  Time isn’t flat; time matters.

51

Have you ever felt completely alone, empty, defeated? You aren’t alone. Perhaps it is the inherent nature of being human. Somehow suffering it seems, is as natural as breathing. For some, the moment of desperation and deep-felt anguish is just apparent happenstance, the proverbial wrong place at the wrong time phenomena. For most, it traces back to an errant decision, a momentary lapse in judgment, that brief ego-driven moment when we think we know all the risks. We rationalize away our infidelity, or dishonesty and proceed forward until …

            Call it pride; call it karma; or, call it sin, but we do reap what we sow. And the anguish, the sense of shame and fear and desperation roils through our very soul as we call out “Why? Why God? Why have you forsaken me?” I lived that moment. It was five days after my arrest, the five worst days (or so I thought) of my life. Everything I knew and believed immediately before 8:35 a.m. on that prior Monday was gone. The subsequent days leading to that Saturday morning had been beyond comprehension. In that short period of time I lost everything: my family, my wealth, friends, employment, and reputation. I was, quite literally, in hell. And, it was a hell of my own design.

            You see, there was no one to blame but me. I did it all. Oh, there were reasons, justifications I had for doing what I did. And when life was running smoothly, they helped me to stay numb to my misdeeds. Or did they? In hindsight, the scotch, and the gambling junkets, and the buying – constantly buying “things” – did more to numb my conscience than the rationalization. The guilt was always there.

            It all came out that Saturday morning in a dirty jail cell. For the first time in what seemed like forever I told God everything. I had betrayed my conscience, violated the vows I’d made as a husband and father, and failed to be an honest steward of all the gifts and responsibilities placed in my control. I couldn’t stand myself; I couldn’t live with what I did.

            Looking back to that horrible Saturday almost five years ago I realize my experience wasn’t unique. It goes all the way back to the beginning. We are, I now understand, a fraternity of broken men and women.

            David, the Old Testament describes, was favored in God’s eyes. It was understandable. His heart was purposely turned to his God. David had shown incredible bravery throughout his life. He trusted God no matter what and did what the Lord commanded. As a young man he had destroyed his nation’s enemies. He patiently waited for his day to assume the throne. Under his leadership Israel became a powerful nation.

            But David got lazy and prideful. Instead of leading his army into battle – as required – he stayed in Jerusalem. And on a lazy day, gazing from his palace balcony, he saw her, Bathsheba. She was beautiful and he wanted her and, as King, he had her even though she was married. Bathsheba became pregnant further complicating David’s misdeed. David did what unfortunately so many of us do. Knowing Bathsheba’s husband was away fighting David created an elaborate hoax. He tried lies and deceit, bringing husband Uriah back from the front in hopes of getting him to sleep with Bathsheba to hide his own actions. When that failed, David grew desperate and ordered Uriah placed at the front of the troops in a perilous position. And Uriah died in battle.

            The Old Testament records that after a period of mourning, Bathsheba moved in with David. Israel did not know. David had escaped detection; except, God is all knowing. The story recounts that the Prophet Nathan confronted David. “The Lord knows,” he told his King. David collapsed in shame and regret. He had sinned and betrayed his God.

            There is no more poignant Psalm than “51.” In it, David cries out to his God confessing his sin and begging for forgiveness. Anyone who has ever failed, who has ever gone against what he or she knows is right, understands exactly what David felt as he poured out his soul.

            And God forgave David. But, there were consequences for his sin. The baby Bathsheba carried died. David’s family would forever bear the scars from his misdeed. The consequences, we must learn, usually exceed the sin.

            On that Saturday in that jail cell I knew exactly how David felt. I knew I would go to prison. I knew my wife would divorce me. I knew friends would forsake me. And I knew I couldn’t go on. But God had another plan in mind. And at my worst, my loneliest and most desperate, I felt the presence of my God. It was enough to keep me going. Each day thereafter I thought and prayed “Just see me through today, God.”

            So began my journey through jail and the criminal justice system, prison, divorce and loneliness and – at times – hopelessness. I’ve gained insight into my own failings and the failings of the corrections system. As I watch each day from inside these fences, how prison fails at its self-defined mission to humanely treat the incarcerated and prepare them to return to society as law-abiding citizens, I think of David and the adulterous woman saved from stoning by Christ.

            People are redeemable. That is a tough statement to swallow given humanity’s propensity for murder and mayhem. Our history is a series of bloodlettings, violence, and inhumanity to our fellow man. But God loves all His children and stands ready to throw His arms around the worst.

            Prisons fail because they talk of redemption and rehabilitation but they are constructed for retribution and revenge. And those policies are contrary to Godly justice. Prison makes people refuse to atone and accept responsibilities for their wrongs. It leaves both victim and victimizer embittered and empty. There is a reason one out of three released inmates are re-incarcerated within a year and two of three within three years. Nothing currently being done by the Virginia Department of Corrections in the name of re-entry will change those results. Change, David and the adulterous woman’s story tell us, only comes from within.

            For prison to redeem and rehabilitate a new paradigm must be utilized that reaches the core humanity of each person. When Jesus told the adulterous woman, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more,” He did so understanding the shame, guilt, and remorse she felt. You want to rehabilitate and restore and make law-abiding inmates productive citizens in their communities you must tap into that spiritual bottoming out.

            I’ve seen enough in these past few years to know what is currently being pedaled as justice and corrections is neither. Too many lives are being lost. Too many victims are left feeling aggrieved; too many families and communities are in turmoil; and too many dollars are wasted.

            There is a better way.

Thomas

There’s a young man in the building named Thomas and he goes home in one hundred days. Just twenty-five, he’s spent almost five years behind bars for an armed robbery he committed. He doesn’t look like your typical inmate. He looks like any clean cut glasses-wearing college kid you know. Thomas reminded me of my older son: quick-witted, funny, polite. As one of my students in our college program, I got to know a good deal about him.

            His is a cautionary tale of kids gone astray. But, it also reminds you that prisons are full of regular people who’ve made mistakes. And – to follow up on a comment someone made about prison being about punishment – I’m not sure if sending someone like Thomas to prison is either moral or corrective. Prison isn’t for kids like Thomas and the cost to society and him, while it may not be known for some time, far exceeds whatever retribution – or pound of flesh – the Commonwealth derives from sending him inside.

            Thomas is a good kid. “Sure he is, Larry,” you’re probably saying. Don’t take my word. A law professor and capital case defender from a prestigious law school located in Lexington, Virginia, wrote a letter on Thomas’s behalf before his sentencing. The letter wasn’t written as a legal filing; instead, it was from a father who had seen Thomas in his home on numerous occasions. Thomas was best friends with the professor’s oldest son. “Thomas is a sweet, polite young man who was placed in turmoil as his family went through a divorce and bitter custody dispute.”

            The Professor described Thomas as despondent and depressed. Drugs became an outlet, an escape. And the armed robbery? It was the desperate act of a young man hoping to die. The Professor concluded with a plea for mercy, “I understand fully the ramifications of Thomas’s actions. As an attorney I understand the need for punishment,” he wrote. But he called on the court to temper its desire for swift and heavy punishment and look at the defendant as a whole, not just as a lawbreaker. The court felt otherwise.

            So Thomas, a skinny, bespeckled white kid, was sent to a “level 3” facility. And, he had a tough time. Prison is not a nice place. Before any self-righteous reader thinks to respond with “He should have thought of that before he broke the law,” no young man – or woman – should be subjected to the threat of sexual assault or physical harm in a supposed state controlled facility.

            Thomas finally made it to a “level 2,” and landed here. His prior education qualified him for admittance to the college program. He did alright. He excelled in the computer classes; English was a different matter. He didn’t like putting his thoughts on paper. Most guys learn not to share their thoughts inside. You never know when your comments will lead to a lock hitting you in the side of your head.

            Thomas also had to deal with his depression. Prison is not the place to get mental health care. Thomas was on way too much medication. It numbed him, but didn’t address the hurt, pain, and fear he carried. What did turn him around was God. I know, there’s a lot of jailhouse epiphanies that are all done for appearance. Guys talk religion like they talk football. But you know when it’s real. And, Thomas’s was real.

            He stayed in touch with the law professor. And the professor’s church “adopted” Thomas. A few months ago, an aunt and uncle in Oklahoma came to see him. They’re a professional couple and their kids are grown. They asked Thomas to come to Oklahoma, move in with them and start his life anew.

            Thomas is a young man with peace in his eyes and a smile on his face. He knows he has been led through the valley of the shadow of death.

            In our rush to pass judgment we tend to forget a basic truth: God loves the Thomas’s of the world. Even when we go astray God gives new beginnings. The thing we have to remember is, we’re all closer to Thomas than we like to admit. It’s a shame Thomas’s sentencing judge didn’t know that. Thomas’s last hundred days will go fast and he’ll move on and be alright. The reason is that God is in the rebuilding business. The Commonwealth of Virginia isn’t.

 

Memory Matters

A few weeks ago, a new student started working with me in our afternoon GED class. “CJ” is a thin, gray-haired, sixty-two year old man who has spent the last thirty-eight years behind bars. He’s one of the “old time” inmates. Given a life sentence with the possibility of parole (odd, isn’t it, life but parole eligible), he is one of the approximately 7,000 Virginia inmates who are given perfunctory “parole hearings” annually. CJ’s annual review sheet shows his release date as “none.” Still, every year he appears before a parole examiner via Skype, answers a half dozen questions, and waits three weeks to receive his form letter denying him parole.

            CJ reads at less than a fourth grade level. His math skills are only somewhat better. But, a strange thing happens. I spend a fair amount of time reading to the guys in class. I’ll read a “social studies” piece about the Nazis and concentration camps. A day or two later, CJ will put down on paper with perfect recall every camp name, town, battle, General. It’s freaky to see, as if his mind hears the words and the spelling, then creates a photograph of it to be recreated by him on paper. He has amazing recall. “Larry, you said last Tuesday … “It’s a memory thing.

            I regularly read the story of Moses and the Exodus, the wandering through the wilderness by the people of Israel. I find comfort in knowing God never gave up on Moses. He had a plan for Moses’ life and neither his murder of an Egyptian, nor his fleeing Pharaoh to start a new life as a shepherd, would prevent God from carrying out His will.

            One message comes through over and over in the wanderings of the Israelites. “Remember,” They are told, “what your God has done for you.” It’s a message I keep close: “Remember; always remember.”

            I spent almost a year at a jail before transfer to DOC’s receiving unit. During that year I saw daylight exactly five times with three of those times being driven in a police car to court hearings. I arrived at receiving with a sickly pallor. I was a pale as I’d ever been. The first afternoon at receiving, my cell door opened for the daily thirty minute call. I walked out into the sun and heat of an August Virginia afternoon and saw the one-tenth of a mile track around the perimeter of the small rec yard. Without a second thought, I took off and began running. My chest heaved and my legs felt like rubber, but in just a few short laps it all came back, all the runs I’d had in my normal life. And, I ran and remembered running in the woods or around town or on the beach. It was as if the memories wired into my muscles reset the memories in my mind.

            “Remember.” So often guys in here try to forget who they were, where they are from. They create “new” persons who bear no resemblance to the real them. It’s so obvious: Ignore your past at your peril. In almost every letter he wrote to the small churches in Asia Minor, Paul reminded his flock where he came from. He never hid his truth, his life, because the miracle that was Paul’s life was his Damascus Epiphany. “Look where I was; look what I did; and then, God …”

            For a long time, I felt captive by my memories. I tried not to remember; fearful they would haunt my sleep. I would replay scenes over and over trying to understand why and hoping that “this broadcast” would lead to a different result. But, like that first run at receiving, my memories came back, but in a good way. I saw the joy and heartache as pieces of my life with many pieces still to come. And, as guys got to know me, they realized the man they saw wasn’t trying to be somebody he isn’t. As the great philosopher Popeye said, “I am what I am.” What I am is the product of a loving God who never gave up on me even as I went down some paths I shouldn’t have.

            “Remember.” Memory matters. Remember where you came from, who you are, and the path you followed to find your way home. It’s a lesson worth carrying in your heart in this place.

 

Mother's Day Inside

This past weekend was Mother’s day and, like tens of millions of other Americans, I mailed cards to my own mom and my ex. Celebrating Mother’s Day from inside prison is a bizarre experience. It has caused me to reflect on my failures as a son and the heartache my mother experiences with my current circumstances. Being a mom – a good mom – is a tough job. My own life has taught me it may also be the one job where unconditional love is a prerequisite.

            I read an interesting devotion the other morning about Mary, using her to describe the seasons in our lives. Imagine her joy, he wrote, at the birth of her son. How awed and proud must she have felt when the Magi came and knelt beside her newborn or when an elderly Simeon lifted her baby boy up in the temple.  Was their trepidation in her heart as she watched her adult son carve out his own path, traveling the countryside and proclaiming news of Israel’s God? Was she afraid as she watched him take on the powers that be? Imagine her pain at the foot of the cross as she watched her son die.

            Mother’s lives are forged in pain. Bury a child and you bury a part of the mother. It is a difficult, painful role a woman undertakes when she becomes a mother. So many fail. So many of their children’s lives don’t turn out as hoped or planned.

            So guys in prison prepare for Mother’s Day just like you would outside. There are cards to send out and calls to make. And, there are the visits. This past weekend the visitation room was full with moms, wives, and “baby mommas” coming to see their men in prison. I learned early in this experience that you could tell a great deal about any man locked up simply by his relationship with his mom. A guy whose mother gave up on him was as close to lost as there was.

            See, moms don’t give up on their kids. Moms ride with you through the disappointments, and pain of lost relationship, or jobs, or even prison. My mother makes no apologies for letting me know she hates this place. She undergoes humiliating pat downs and searches just to come spend a few hours with me each month. I’ve been here at this facility almost four years and not a month has gone by that my mother hasn’t reminded my dad, “We need to get up to see Larry.”

            There aren’t words I can find to explain what that means. Following my arrest, it was my dad who refused to talk to me. For nine months we didn’t exchange even a hello. Fathers, you understand, have expectations for their sons. And, the consequences of breaking those expectations are swift and sure. My mom never stopped writing, never stopped talking to me, never stopped crying and praying for me. It was my mom who one day just said “I’ve had it. Bud, talk to your son.” That simple act began the healing between my father and me.

            Mothers. Being blessed with a good mom doesn’t mean you won’t screw up. Being cursed with a mother who doesn’t love you isn’t a ticket to failure, but the relationship, that mother and child relationship, matters so much, especially when your life turns and you find yourself in here.

            So guys prepared and preened to get ready for a visit with their moms. A few guys whose moms had already passed quietly went about their days.

            Life isn’t easy. It doesn’t usually go as planned. There is heartache, and difficulty, and disappointment. For those like me who are fortunate, there is the constant presence of a mother who believes there is a future for their child.

            Then, there is Dom. A mid-thirties Black man, Dom has spent his entire adult life in and out of prison. Three years for robbery here, four years for assault there. He presents himself as a hardened man, no emotion, no feeling. And yet, he told me how his mother – seventeen when she had him, drug user, alcoholic – left him at two months old with his grandmother.

            “She’d show up every year or two when she thought she could get state aid as a single mother with children.” Dom was in and out of family court from the time he was two. His mother was in and out of his life. It had, it still has, an effect on him.

             Last week he was sending out cards. He had one for his mother. She’d started writing two years ago and came to his college graduation last January. “She’s trying,” he said, “maybe trying to make up for the past. And, she’ll always be my mother.”

            I got that. Like my mom with my failures, I will always be her son. Maybe that’s the key to the mystery that is mothers and children that even prison can’t break. It is a relationship forged in hope in the future.

Asking About Blindness

There’s a story in the New Testament I’ve been trying to get my hands around for the past few weeks. It concerns Jesus and the disciples coming upon a blind man. The disciples ask “Was it the parents’ sin or his own sin that led to his blindness.” “The Message” records Jesus response in these modern words: “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no cause and effect here. Look instead for what God can do.”

            Asking the wrong question. Look instead for what God can do. The words have rolled around my brain for a few weeks. It was with those words in mind that I thought about a response to comments from “Anonymous” on May 3 (see Waiting blog). It struck me funny because the tight knit group of young men in here, who follow what I write and why I write it, had a definite opinion of what my response should be and it was different than what I thought. I told one young guy in particular – who urged me to go forward “with a vengeance” – that you have to step back and see the big picture.

            It really comes down to three P’s: Paul, Punishment, and Perseverance.

            People think they understand another’s circumstances completely and they know exactly the proper response for any situation and they are sure they would do “the right thing.” It’s human nature really. We see our neighbor’s failures, foibles, and weaknesses, and know we wouldn’t do that. Worse, we decide in the rightness of ourselves and therefore lack empathy for those who stray. “Break the law you’re going to be punished.” Simple words, yet wrong.

            I spend a good deal of time reading Paul’s letters to the various small, struggling churches around Asia Minor. I’m amazed at his transformation from law enforcer to grace proclaimer. And, I can’t get over the fact that this man, with the blood of innocents on his hands, was the primary catalyst for the growth of Christianity beyond the relatively small, sect-like following of its post-resurrection numbers.

            Paul was a bright, well-off man of the community. He knew the law and understood that it had to be enforced. Go outside its terms and be punished. His was a simple, cause-effect view. And then he came face to face with God and realized it wasn’t law that propelled us forward, but grace, God’s unfathomable mercy and love that no one deserves, yet gets. Irony of ironies (to me anyway) Paul carried that message of reconciliation, forgiveness, hope, and love all from prison. And, he never shied away from what he had been. He freely admitted his past.

            To the writer of the blog posting I simply say everything you write about my past is true. We could argue technical terms, and I could present a strong defense justifying my behavior. (Then again, I don’t think you are interested in the whole story.) But the fact is, I stole. Fact is, I knew what I was doing was wrong; knew I’d get caught, knew I’d probably lose everything. I don’t shy away from my past sins or “the whys.” Like the story of the blind man, however, I think you are asking the wrong question.

            Then there’s “punishment.” Let’s make sure we understand, I don’t think there is no place for prison. Prison can be a useful tool. But, I did have to laugh at the naïveté of the writer who said, in effect they’d conducted an informal survey of friends and acquaintances and “there is a strong consensus what prison is like.” No there isn’t. Until you experience it, you don’t have a clue.

            And that’s not really the point. I write about the failures of prison because they are so painfully obvious. Forget the philosophical argument (should society, in the name of justice, allow barbaric, cruel inhumane treatment to enforce judgments?), as a practical matter prisons fail. Fact: two of three released inmates return to prison within three years (so much for deterrent effect!); Fact: incarcerating non-violent, low custody offenders leads to worse criminal behavior in the future; Fact: it is expensive and not cost-effective.

            There is a reason conservative Republican politicians are jumping on the band wagon of prison reform. It is the elephant (no pun intended!) in the room when you discuss failed government.

            Now, if your goal is purely and simply retribution, then prisons are great. They destroy lives, tear families apart, lead to generational and community distress; make people bitter – both inside and outside the walls. Prison creates an attitude that seeks to deny responsibility for one’s actions.

            The problem with prison is it leads to more problems than it solves. Over 90% of all the incarcerated will return to society. How they leave this place is largely determined by the treatment they receive while in here, the support from family and friends on release, and education and job skills they possess. Abuse a man – or woman – in prison and you risk spending millions over the course of that felon’s life on additional prison terms and resulting costs on welfare, drug treatment, and more.

            This is neither a left or a right issue. Conservative politicians use catch-all phrases like “tough on crime” with a one size fits all (“lock em up and throw away the key”) approach. Liberals become apologists for bad behavior excusing gang violence, drug dealing, and other crimes blaming irresponsible behavior on a racist society.

            The truth is, prison is expensive, ineffective, and – with the exception of the extremely violent and sociopathic inmates does more harm than good. Prison lacks morality. It is not effective punishment. It is primitive, purposeless, and poisons society’s core values.

            Finally, perseverance. I’ve done a fair number of stupid things in my life. Even though I never, however, did anything with the intention of hurting anyone, I broke the law and accepted (contrary to what the writer said) with no question, my punishment. Easy? No. Suffering? Neither the writer, nor family and friends, know the extent of what I’ve been through (which also caused me to smile when my anonymous poster told me to “suffer in silence.”) I have been blessed in the experience and believe there in a purpose and a reason for it. If nothing else, I write to put real flesh and blood on a group of people long neglected: the imprisoned.

            There is a reason the Psalms, the Old Testaments Prophets, and even Jesus refer over and over to the plight of the “prisoners.” And before I’m told those “prisoners” are a metaphor for someone other than a lawbreaker, remember Paul’s admonition about the law: all fall short.

            People have the capacity for great good and great evil. I have witnessed incredible acts of kindness by men whom most readers (like my anonymous poster) would label beyond redemption. At the same time, I have seen “good, law-abiding” friends and family show unforgiveness and lack mercy and empathy to an extent usually reserved for your worst enemy.

            I began with a story about Jesus and the blind man and asking the wrong question instead of looking at what God can do. It isn’t a physical deficiency that holds us back; it is the hardness of our spirit. The greatest gift I’ve received in this trial is seeing the world through opened, “freed” if you would, eyes. That’s why I’m able to smile when I read the anonymous poster’s response and why I look forward to exchanging personal correspondence with the writer.

 

Heading Blindly Into Traffic

GED graduation will be held in a few weeks and, as I’ve done in the past, I’m helping the student speaker with his remarks. I’m building it around a joke I read recently. A blind man was seen on a busy street being led by his guide dog. Without warning, the dog pulled the man into the street dragging him across the thoroughfare as brakes slammed, horns sounded, and drivers careened left and right to avoid striking the man and his dog.

            Miraculously, the man made it safely to the far side where a crowd of pedestrians who had witnessed his death defying stroll had gathered. The blind man pulled a cookie out of his pocket and held it out for his dog.

            One of the pedestrians said, “Why are you rewarding your dog? He nearly got you killed!”

            The blind man replied, “To find out where his head is so I can kick him in the ass!”

            That joke made a lot of sense to me. Most of the men in this facility, myself included, have gone through life blindly taking our lead from a host of guides. And, we get drug through reckless, self-destructive, and sometimes dangerous circumstances. The consequences of our actions make us want to kick someone’s ass. Unfortunately, we really only have ourselves to blame.

            I think a good deal about the cycle of incarceration. Most of the men in this re-entry facility are not new to “the system,” the short-hand name for police, courts, and prison. In my building there are less than fifteen men out of the 92 who can say, “This is my first extended stay.” Three of those fifteen have been locked up over twenty years. Prison, it seems, is a wayside for most, not a defining moment. You behave in a certain way, get arrested, and they send you back to prison. The officers stay the same. It’s like homecoming: “Yo, look whose back!” And then the conversations start. You know, the ones where the guy tells you how great he was running his “hustle” on the street, but someone ratted him out. His lawyer – a buddy of the Commonwealth Attorney – got paid off to throw the case.

            The conversation suddenly changes direction. “You know, I ain’t comin’ back again.” Great words except without genuine change they are hollow. One out of three released in the first year gets locked back up; two out of three find their way back in within three years. The results are dismal, like being blind and trying to cross a busy street.

            Is it hopeless? Some days I think it is. A couple of examples: Thursday a guy in the neighboring building saw the college intern (a petite, young student at the local college) working with a building counselor in the eastside chow hall. After saying hello to her, he walks five or six steps away then suddenly drops his pants and exposes himself. Officers rush in and take him to the “hole.” All the while, we continue to eat our lunch.

            The young lady is, as expected, shocked and thrown off stride, some genius at the table next to me blurts out, “What does she expect, coming to work in a prison?” (As if exposing oneself is ok in here.)

            The same day, a brawl breaks out in “3” building.  Six guys are locked up for fighting. Now fights happen all the time. Except, “3” building houses the re-entry program. To live there, you have to be within eight months of release. So, guys who can taste freedom still find it necessary to fight.

            Then, there was the raid in “2” building which led to the recovery of a baggie full of sleeping pills. The guy caught in that shake down was one of my GED students. He’s also currently in the “hole.” (Now you understand why there are twenty-four solitary confinement cells!) All his earned good time will be taken meaning instead of getting out in twenty-two months it’s now closer to thirty months.

            And then there is the reality of release. Thursday, the U.S. Department of Labor released its April unemployment information. In a very positive development, the national unemployment rate fell to 7.5%. The jobs report indicated that since the recession began, over two million jobs have been created for college graduates (and some college attendance). The national rate of unemployment for that category is 3.9%. High school graduates don’t fair nearly as well (7.4%).

            Here’s the rub: Education and stable employment are the primary determiners in recidivism rates for released prisoners. Virginia currently provides no money for prison college programs. Absent receipt of a grant, our college program will fold. That means thirty men currently working on the associates degrees will have no educational program available while they complete their sentences. That means that forty men every nine months will be unable to earn thirty plus college credits and certification in IT work. That’s a whole lot of reasons to feel hopeless.

            But, as the joke reminds us, the blind man somehow found his way safely across the road. No state-mandated re-entry program will break the cycle of recidivism. Government does not do redemption and rehabilitation very well. But men will succeed, in spite of the odds. I believe it and I’ve witnessed it. People can change, “I once was blind, but now I see.” At some point, some man – or woman – behind bars will decide that there is more to them, and their life, than this place. Their eyes open and they realize they’ve been blindly, impulsively following the wrong dog into traffic. Government – the Department of Corrections, the Governor, and the General Assembly – can be a positive force and help prepare the soon to be released for life on the outside – or they can continue to do the same things that don’t work and watch more and more released return to prison wanting to kick someone in the ass for running them blindly into traffic.

 

"Healing" Orwell Style

There was a time in America where high school students were required to read great literature in English class. Twain, Hemingway, Steinbeck were part of the curriculum. So was George Orwell’s “1984.” It’s tough to believe that I was in school before 1984, the year Orwell’s novel declared – “Big Brother” would be the interwoven with every facet of your life. It was a portrait of a world where freedom was usurped by pure, unadulterated government power. It was a world of “wordspeak” where words such as “peace” meant the exact opposite. It was a world very much like prison.

            I know, the people behind bars deserve to be treated the way we are because after all, we broke the law. That’s a great way to look at things until you – or a loved one – find yourself on the wrong end of that relationship. You’re no longer an “us,” you’re a “them.” And, there’s nothing worse than being a “them,” when all the power is vested in the “us.”

            Wordspeak is alive and well in Virginia’s Department of “Corrections” (corrections – “to effect change, to amend.” Funny, prison does none of that).  This past week posters appeared throughout the compound that our little slice of heaven here was now classified as a “healing environment.” What does that mean? We are being housed in a “kinder, gentler” facility, one where punishment ceased when we walked through the gate. Everything here is now geared to rebuilding the errant man and preparing him for “successful recently into society as a productive citizen.” Beautiful! The words bring a tear to my eye. Except …

            Except that it isn’t true. At the same time that the posters went up about “healing,” and “respect,” and “restoration,” memos were put up in the building advising the population that “Big Brother is watching” –  more video surveillance; more audio surveillance. Stricter visitation rules, general movement rules, and living area rules were put in place with the proscription: “Failure to comply will lead to disciplinary charges and a reduction in the offender’s good time earning level.” Doesn’t sound very “healing” to me.

            And that’s just the point. Prisons are not organized and operated to be places of atonement and redemption. They are filthy, crowded, violent places where control matters more than correction. They are places where individual wardens wield virtually unyielding power to put rules in place as they wish. Each prison becomes a mini-fiefdom for the warden in power and, like nations around the world; some prisons are run like Norway while others operate like North Korea.

            Can you create a healing environment when the population, largely uneducated, ignorant, and feeling bitter because of the clearly inequitable treatment meted out by the American justice system thinks the “new and improved” re-entry initiative is just a rehashing of the tired, old re-entry programs of the ‘80’s and ‘90’s? Can you create a healing environment when the Commonwealth falsely declares it’s “truth in sentencing” laws and it’s abolition of parole have made the state safer; when sentences don’t provide for sizeable early release for those truly committed to rehabilitation, taking responsibility for their actions and returning to society as productive citizens? Can you create a healing environment when those released are treated like second-class citizens denied full restoration in society?

            Prison is Orwell’s “1984” come to life. Funny thing is, the “street” is getting a whole lot like prison, what with expanded drone use by Federal and state government and with security camera use on the increase.

            Orwell understood you can’t be truly free and secure at the same time. Too often, in the name of safety and security, Americans casually cede their inherent, God-given freedoms. And, wordspeak like “Patriot Act” become common place terms all the while more freedom is eroded.

            In here, guys expect the worst. The more hopeful it sounds, the more it’s going to be used to control and add time. Perhaps Orwell was a seer because he understood what prison was all about in the 21^st century. Funny how prison mirrors life.

 

This Running Life

Monday and I was off work. I headed out for a long run by my prison standards: six miles during an hour door break. The past few weeks I’ve been running more, for days each week I’ll go out and turn four miles. And my times? I use my watch and clock laps and miles and consistently average 8:30 miles. Not bad, I tell myself, for a fifty-three year old.

            But Monday? I wanted to get a 10k in - six plus miles - because they were running the Boston Marathon. It was cool and overcast when they called morning rec and I headed out the back of the building and walked the quarter mile fenced path to the track. I started the run, fell into a comfortable stride and thought and prayed about life. Running, I’ve found, is a form of meditation. I feel closer to God somehow when I propel myself forward and hear my breathing and feel my heart.

            It was with those thoughts in mind that I watched albeit briefly, the news of the bombings at the Boston Marathon. My mind remembered running a marathon in 1999 shortly after my fortieth birthday. I remembered that experience as I tried to digest the news of a dead eight year old boy, killed by the explosion just moments after he and his family watched friends complete the race.

            1999 and I turned forty. At thirty-eight I’d become a father for the second time. Our younger son was a handful, more rambunctious and demanding than his older brother. There was even less time for my wife and I to be a couple. Work, church, and now new family responsibilities pulled at both of us.

            Forty was a tough age. When I was twenty, I had my whole life ahead of me. I was one of the top academic students at my small college. I had a myriad of choices about my future: law school or graduate school. I knew everything (or so I thought). I had dreams, long dreams of travel and writing and a life that mattered. By forty, all those dreams were gone. You tell yourself those dreams were just the foolish meanderings of a young man, but then you look at the grey hair, the fleshier jowls, the slight paunch and you realize the guy who used to run ten miles an hour is gone.

            A marathon. Then and there on my 40^th birthday, I decided I’d run a marathon. I’d never run more than twenty miles at one time. I decided at forty I would run 26.2. It strained an already stressed marriage. After all, I needed three hours each Saturday and Sunday to run fifteen to twenty-five miles at a time. And. I started leaving for work even earlier to get morning runs in. But I knew I needed to run those twenty six miles. My life wasn’t what I’d imagined. I had started heading down a path that would eventually put me in prison – and lead to a divorce and a whole host of other results. At the time, in the circumstances I was in, I thought I understood the risks. They were risks worth taking (at least I thought). But the marathon – running that marathon I thought would restore my life, my dreams.

            That November, I ran my marathon on a cool, clear day. Truth be told, it was tough. The first half was easy. The last six miles, I was dehydrated. My legs ached. I wondered why I thought a run could change my life. And then it happened. I turned onto the college campus where the race began and ended. I was a half mile from the finish, just hanging on, and I saw him. It was my little boy, just a few months over two, and he saw me and began running toward me with that grinning, toothy smile he had. “Daddy,” I heard him giggle. Seeing him, hearing him, suddenly made everything right with my world.

            I thought about that moment yesterday evening as I thought about a father being greeted by his eight year old at the finish line. A smile from his son, a shout of “Dad,” and then the horrible, awful reality of the bombing, and death, and despair.

            Prison. This is a God-awful place. There are men I deal with daily who have committed unspeakable acts. Murder and violence is as normal to them as breathing. Still, maybe it’s my need to atone, but I try and see the humanity in them. And then there is the father, and his son, and the marathon. The guys watch and they call for vengeance. “Kill the bastards who did this. Blow up their kids.” An eye for an eye. But, the father and the memory of that moment at the finish with his precious son and runners in stride propelling them forward, and breathing, and life … How does vengeance help that?

            The last few weeks I’ve been having a debate in my mind about two Bible passages. For someone prone to a “realistic” view of life (that things happen, bad things, and people suffer for no good reason), the passages make no sense. Of course, so much of what God tells us doesn’t make much sense.

            “This is the day the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it.” God makes every day. But rejoice? Be glad? Even when your world is turning to hell? I should have rejoiced on August 18, 2008, when I was arrested, led off in handcuffs, and spent the first of many nights behind bars? How about September 5^th? Exactly twenty-nine years from the night of our first date, my wife’s complaint for divorce was granted. Rejoice? Will the father cling to the memory of his little boy or, will it be the aftermath?

            “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice.” Impossible with all the turmoil, and violence, and sadness in the world. Except, except the writer of those words wrote them while imprisoned in conditions more barbaric than we who are locked up today can imagine.

            The running life. The father of that little boy will run. Because it is in the run, the breathing, the heartbeat as he goes forward that he will feel the presence of his son. He will feel and he will remember the smile, the words. I know this to be true.

            We focus so much on the retaliation, we forget the life. Violence begets violence; anger begets anger. Kindness, mercy, forgiveness, they alone overcome. I think about those things as I grapple with the violence all around me. Men who think they are justified in their violence, both inside this prison and in the “real world.”

            And I think of my marathon, the patience and endurance through pain and difficulty until I turned and saw my young son and I knew, I knew love, and hope, and peace. My prayer for the grieving father in Boston is that he, somehow, finds that and he remembers on his runs to come and, in spite of it all, rejoices.