Prison Profiteers

The other evening a poster went up from JPay, announcing the formation of a not-for-profit foundation, "Creative Corrections Education Foundation”. The poster states that 100,000s of children have a parent behind bars. "For the cost of a candy bar" an offender can make a $0.50 donation each month to the foundation in the hopes that $3 million will be raised to create scholarships for children of the incarcerated. How noble of JPay. Meanwhile, JPay gouges inmates' families for the "privilege" of sending money to their loved ones behind bars. JPay makes millions off sweetheart contracts negotiated with state DOC staff; they spend millions each election cycle to "buy" influence; and the state reps are more than happy to oblige. Sorry, but Mr. Smith ain't going to Washington anymore. Politics is about corrupt money influencing policy.

Were it only JPay doing this, you could write it off (no pun intended) to the state trying to simplify a process that--like everything else in prison-is long on time consumption and short on results. But it isn't just JPay. There is a prison-industrial complex that makes billions off the taxpayers of this state, this country and lines the pockets of politicians and CEOs alike. If the state believes in prison then so be it; but, don't outsource a fundamental government function. The loss of freedom is as massive and intrusive a power that the government has; they should not be allowed to sell that function off to the highest bidder for private profit.

Who is harmed by this prison profiteering? All inmates and their families, which, as we know, are mostly poor, uneducated people, people without a voice, people for whom the American dream is but a false myth.

Why does the state contract out phone service and charge inmates and their families more than a 20-minute call to an overseas location? Why does the state sign such a contract and then get a "commission" (a fancy word for kickback) on the contract? Why do we claim that we believe in the free market except where it relates to services for inmates and their families?

Funny questions to ask. Here are a few more: If it costs $27,000 a year to house and hold an inmate, how much of that is really cost attributable to the inmate? Answer, less than 5%. The rest is to support a VA DOC bureaucracy that has over 15,000 employees with salary, benefits, etc. Think those people are in favor of prison reform?

What does the state do with all the money it gets from contract commissions? It certainly isn't used for drug and alcohol programs; at the last general assembly, a state rep proposed that the phone commission be used specifically to fund prison re-entry and education programs. That bill was tabled. Interestingly, GTL-the phone profiteer--has a full time lobbyist at work at the Virginia General Assembly. Can you guess what GTL thought of the bill?

Prison profiteering is, besides being immoral, a waste of taxpayer money. It is wrong. Where is "Mr. Smith" when we need him? He’s probably on a golf junket with some prison contractor!

The ignorance issue

This coming Friday (5/29/2015), I'll be presenting a program; I've been asked by a few counselors to discuss the benefits of education over ignorance. Yeah, ignorance is a real problem in here. Guys talk in their own lingo--"I can't call it" and "true fact." They believe every inmate.com rumor that goes around ("did you hear the governor just brought back 65%?" there never was 65%!). And guys show up for their second, third, sometimes fourth time and tell you, "This is it. Ain't coming back to this rodeo again." Only they do the same stupid things: "I don't need no education; I'm fine just the way I am."

No you're not. The late great Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, "every man is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

Here are the facts:

Poor black kids have almost no hope of reaching the American dream if they come from impoverished backgrounds, no education, and lack two parent families. The only way to break that cycle is getting a college degree.

This nation has a major problem with economic disparity, and, as most realistic people are beginning to realize, you can't separate economic disparity from racial injustice. Poverty is, in many ways, black and white.

A felon has almost a three times higher unemployment rate than a non-felon; add to that the fact that society stigmatizes the newly released, and you create a toxic stew of failure for those who really want to work and make a decent living.

What breaks that? Education. A college-educated felon has an unemployment rate at about the same level as their non-felon counterparts.

American dream? Here's a real eye-opener--the wealthy are getting wealthier and the middle class and poor are languishing. Not since the gilded age or the age of Morgan and Rockefeller have we seen such a disparity of income. Meanwhile, politicians keep talking about more tax breaks for the wealthy (like the estate tax--how many families have the net worth covered by the estate tax? not many).

And we continue to lock up poor people at greater rates than wealthy.

Hey, black kids and white kids use drugs in the same percentages; it's just black kids go to jail and white kids go to rehab.

I'll tell the 150 guys listening to me that the idea of being an "entrepreneur" is a gamble at best--most have no start up cash--who's going to stake you to begin? Plus, over 90% of start up businesses fail in the first year. "Get your degree; get a job with a company with benefits; get your life going."

Those are the hard facts--but ignoring them doesn't mean they don't exist. That applies as well for the country. It's time for a real discussion by politicians about economic disparity, racial disparity and the effects of mass incarceration, poor education, poverty, and economic unfairness in wages on this country's goal of all its citizens reaching the American dream.

Facts are facts. They are not always pleasant, but the truth will out.

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

This blog was written in November, 2014. 

            Where’s good Ole’ Forrest when I need him? I’d love his take on the stupidity that passes for “rules” in here. At the outset, let me explain that I’m pro – “dorm” rules. There must be rules, a code of conduct that governs offender behavior. But, rules have to make sense and most of what this Major has put in force is nothing but silly, stupid rules which – candidly – piss guys off and make them more disrespectful of the system and larcenous. Worse, they do nothing to improve the facility’s safety or operation.

            Drugs are everywhere on the compound. Those in charge know who’s using; they’re getting positive drug tests every week. And, we aren’t talking tobacco (that’s all over the place too!). No, we’re talking heroin. More drugs are here than at anytime in the 5 years I’ve been here. How do you suppose all those drugs come in? There are only two ways things make it inside: snuck in under the noses of officers (bad police work) or with complicity of officers (dirty police work). Both are telling examples of fundamental problems inside the fences.

            Some officers – perhaps the majority – care. They don’t want any 23-year-old OD’ing in here. They want a clean compound. But, they’re told by the “program chief” to “tighten up” the building. Two book limit for your locker; all beds must be made with blue blankets tucked in. Then, search to make sure guys don’t have extra shoes, tees, or socks. After all, what’s a drugged out guy in the building compared to a man with 5 state t-shirts?

            This week the “Housing and Program” manager (hell of a title – like jamming this many men in such a tight confined space constitutes “housing” or interfering with education constitutes “programs”) put a new encyclical out. During “dayroom” quiet hours (11:00 pm to 5:15 am.) you are supposed to be in your bed area. This genius changed it to “on your bed.” We have 40 guys each taking upwards of 4 classes who can’t sit on their chairs and study at night. And, ironically, they are now allowed to have computers in the bed area – ever try writing or typing on a rubberized mattress with no backseat?

            Here’s how things work inside: you stress guys out over little things that don’t matter. Meanwhile drugs are everywhere; re-entry (good ole’ bldg. 3) is a complete failure, and fewer men have time to earn their GED. If I didn’t know any better I’d think that those in power were doing it deliberately.

            At the close of World War II U.S. forces poured across the German border; allied troops liberated Nazi concentration camps. Eisenhower and Patton, incensed over the horrific scenes their troops uncovered, ordered local towns people to walk through the camps. “We didn’t know what was going on in here,” the German civilians pleaded. “How could you not know?” Came Eisenhower’s reply.

            “How could you not know?” In his dire portrait of the corrections fiasco in America, researcher Robert Ferguson makes the same argument. Inferno details the violence, neglect, and outright stupidity that is mass incarceration in this country. Which is worse, he asks. Ignorance or knowing and not caring? Prisons are poorly managed with money being poured down a rat hole for stupid rules and little or no measurement of money spent to results achieved. It’s stupid and it’s obvious to anyone who cares. The question is – do you?

The Good Chase

This blog was written in November, 2014.

            I have a friend named Chase and he’s Muslim. He takes his faith seriously, makes his prayers five times each day, avoids profanity, pornography, and gambling. During Ramadan he was undergoing chemo. The med staff here failed in their diagnosis. His jaw swelled about a year ago. Medical said, “You have an infection.” For nine months they ran Chase around with antibiotics and “suck on tart candies” to “stimulate your salivary glands.” Turns out they were wrong. The swelling got worse, started choking off his airway. A quick trip to MCV and the real diagnosis came in: cancer of the salvia gland, stage “3.” Tough to hear anytime, let alone less than a year before you go home after eighteen years. Chase, he took it all in stride. “It’s in the hands of Allah,” he said and he began the treatments. And Ramadan? In his weakened state, he couldn’t participate in the month long fast. That too was ok. He was alive and survived, he said, by the will of his God.

            Chase is a nice guy, one of the nicest men I’ve met either inside – or outside of prison. He may not have always done the “right” thing and like all of us he made mistakes. He was in here for the last 18 years for crimes he committed. But, he is a kind, decent man who strives to live to the tenets of his faith.

            Religion is a tough topic. My 81-year-old father – a Korean War veteran – tried to tell me at visitation the other day that we need to get those “barbarians” in ISIL. And, he distinguished ISIL by their religion. I asked him what Jesus would do? Jesus, I said, would forgive, and freely allow them to behead Him because it isn’t this body that’s important; it’s your soul. My dad just said Jesus wouldn’t make it in today’s world. I thought to myself, maybe that’s the problem.

            “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” That was Karl Marx, a near penniless writer trying to feed a family in the industrial Darwinism that was London in the 19^th century. Marx was angry at his circumstances, angry at the vast disparity between the haves and have-nots. Religion, he concluded, kept the disadvantaged from rising up and slaughtering those who held them in check. As I said, religion is a tough topic. And, it’s easy to draw anecdotal conclusions and apply them to every circumstance. The world isn’t black and white it is hued in a sorts of grays and religion is right in there.

            There are very good Muslims. There are very bad self-professed Christians. There are agnostics and atheists who better represent Jesus than I could ever hope to. Gandhi understood more about the Sermon on the Mount and our call to action as followers of the Prince of Peace than most Christians I’ve met. There is a self-described “man of faith” in here who claims to love his Catholic Church yet he is one of the meanest, most hateful men I have ever met. He is continually angry. He is a racist and a homophobe. Another man watches Joel Osteen multiple times each week yet runs most of the scams in the building and lies about everything from his “wife” to his upbringing. Christian – by affirmation – say both men.

            Chase occasionally will work himself into a frenzy – as do most Muslims and Christians here – when the subject of gay marriage comes up. Life becomes black and white. Homosexuality is a sin, they all agree. I find it ironic that the same ones who profess eternal damnation for that sin overlook their own murders, adultery, or a dozen other “serious” sins. So, I asked Chase if you’re sexual orientation is biologically predetermined (i.e. it’s in your genes) and God is the ultimate constructor of everything, from the simplest single cell to the sun doesn’t that mean God created those genes? “You have a point,” he told me. Islam – like Christianity – professes to judge not the sinner. All are God’s children.

            Free choice. It isn’t God who warps our minds and distorts and alienates. Over and over the New Testament tells Christians “God is love.” We are called to “turn the other cheek,” “forgive as God has forgiven you,” “care for the widow and orphan … visit the sick and those in prison, … clothes to the naked, feed the hungry … give and it will be given to you.” No, religion doesn’t make people hurl insults at Latino children who come here to escape the murderous rage of gang warfare in Columbia, Honduras, or El Salvador. Religion doesn’t cause “church members” to hold signs at a funeral saying “God hates fags,” or shooting doctors sitting in church because they happen to provide abortions. That’s man’s evil side, his – or her “free choice” packaged as God’s will.

            Beheading, torturing a kidnapped journalist in the name of God is evil and sinful. But, so is labeling all Muslims bad; so is calling on your nation to bomb your enemies into oblivion. That isn’t Godly nor is it confined to one nation, one race, one creed.

            A little background on me. In my college days, my mother always told me to consider the ministry. I could talk! Was it because I was so theologically astute that my mom wanted me to pursue a seminary education? No. She just wanted to be the mother of a preacher. But, we were a “churched” family. I was a deacon at 16, read Calvin and a host of other protestant “reformed: theologians. Intellectually, I got “it.” I always wondered, however, when the minister would take a position not in keeping with his congregation’s voting habits how the members would discount the words as not realistic in “the real world.” God and mammon co-existed quite easily in most churches that I’ve attended. Uncle Sam, it seems, sits on the left side of God. My adult life – married, father, ordained elder, Sunday school teacher, I lived quite comfortably with that cognitive dissonance. That all changed in August 2008.

            I understand more now about the infinite power and mystery of God than I ever did. And, everyday I’m reminded how far I must go. Too often guys in here use “religion” as a means of separation, segregation, and self-delusion. They miss the “real” message. Funny but the same is true out there. You ever read Paul’s letter to the Corinthians about love? Every wedding – it seems – uses Paul’s words. I can tell you – 28 years with a woman I still love and pray for everyday in spite of the divorce – we didn’t meet Paul’s test. We failed; almost everyone does.

            Don’t blame God for the evil that’s done in His name. Blame those of us who profess belief and then distort His desires and ways for our own selfish, evil, and petty hopes. And maybe, just maybe, we can all start practicing a little more what we profess.

Popping Pills

This blog was written in November, 2014. 

            Drugs solve nothing yet the biggest drug dealer I’ve ever met is the medical unit inside the prison. I’m not talking antibiotics here (though a young man I know is going out this week for an ultra-sound because he may have testicular cancer. This guy was given antibiotics for the past 3 months, “just an infection,” he was told), I’m talking Prozac and dozens of other pills because guys think they’re depressed. They need pills – or they think.

            First, if you don’t get the least bit depressed over this environment, you are crazy. But men in here want meds. And that is the problem. One of the guys I know went back on Prozac this week. “I’m stressed,” he tells me, worried about going home in 11 months. Now, this guy’s time in here was directly tied to alcohol abuse. He knows he has to avoid alcohol – and drugs – when he leaves. Why then, would he turn to Prozac? More importantly, why would the system so freely give him Prozac (with only a quick visit with the “onsite psychology unit” – read non psychologists – and a 5 minute video chat with a state-employed psychiatrist)? I’ll tell you why – because it’s easier medicating guys than dealing with them. And for the guy I know back on Prozac – he thinks numbing his mind (and sleeping 16 hours a day) will help him deal with the guilt and remorse he feels. It won’t.

            Drugs are everywhere in here. I write about it a lot. But, the other truth is, DOC pushes drugs in here. They want you on meds. It gives them control. Is depression real? Yes. Is there a place for Prozac and Zoloft? Sure, but in proper doses under proper medical treatment. That doesn’t happen in prison. Stop pushing pills in here! There are too many zombies behind bars, too many guys getting hooked on too many substances that will cause them problems after release. Then again, maybe that’s what the powers that be want.