Audit Time

Spring is in the air which means it’s time for the compound to get turned upside down in preparation for the ACA onsite audit and inspection. The ACA, the “American Correction Association,” is the organization devoted to setting standards for the operation of America’s sixty billion dollar corrections industry. States love touting that they are “ACA certified,” meaning they comply with ACA’s “best practices” for operating a prison facility in a secure, safe, clean, and humane way.

            If you read the ACA manual (a copy of the published standards – security standards are not publicly available – is kept in the prison law library) you would think prisons are well-organized and run facilities. You’d wonder how disease, injury, drug use, and even death are so prevalent in prisons given the ACA standards. The answer is simple: the ACA is all for show. It has no teeth.

            The ACA guidelines are broken into two areas: mandatory standards (the issues that concern the day to day lives of the incarcerated). For example, ACA guidelines require each inmate in a dorm style housing unit to have twenty-five square feet of personal living space (if you wonder how much space is 25 square feet, mark off 5 feet by 5 feet in your home). ACA guidelines also recommend no more than 7 inmates per commode. These are minimum standards (and, coincidentally are in line with the recent U.S. Supreme Court holding in Brown v. Plata ruling against California’s prison system as violating the 8^th Amendment) but they are “recommendations.” As such, a prison can’t be denied certification for violating non-mandatory standards.

            The ACA sends on-site inspection teams. They tour the facilities checking every nook and cranny. How does the prison prepare? They go on a massive cleaning campaign. Mold is scrubbed off bathroom walls; fresh coats of paint are added in buildings and exteriors; floors are waxed and buffed to a luxuriant shine; food quality improves; visits to medical suddenly are scheduled after months of waiting. It’s all done to camouflage the underlying disorder and distress in the facility.

            We’re going through the cleanup right now. Our floor has never been so shiny. For the first time in three years there is no black mold in our showers. The building has a fresh coat of paint. It smells cleaner.

            The problem is, it’s all for show. The systemic problems that lead to continued recidivism aren’t fixed by wax and paint. Too many men living in too little space with too little hope of success is the reality here. The disturbing thing is, I believe the ACA knows it. They interview many inmates during their inspections and take copious notes. Unfortunately, what they really see here isn’t publicly disseminated. “The findings we issue belong to the Warden.”

            Prisons are cruel, dark, filthy places. They do not rehabilitate. They do not properly prepare the vast majority of men and women behind bars to lead productive lives on release. No honest audit could conclude otherwise.

            If the ACA wants to really set standards for prisons they’d conduct the audits in the light of day with surprise on-site inspections and public release of their findings.

Justice in a Needle

It is a moment of Kafkaesque realization to be in prison as the news drones on and on about a condemned inmate, mere moments from death, awaiting word of any last minute reprieve.  I experienced that realization – again – the other night as our building watched the circus that became Georgia inmate Troy Davis’s last day.

I don’t know if Troy Davis was guilty of the crime of killing an off-duty Savannah police officer.  His guilt or innocence is of little consequence to the absolutely appalling atmosphere that grew around his case.  Here’s what I do know:  a white off-duty Savannah police officer was gunned down coming to the aid of a homeless man being attacked in a parking lot.  That deceased police officer left children who grew up without their dad.  He left a grieving mother who simply wanted justice.

I also know Troy Davis spent over 20 years on Georgia’s death row.  I know nine chief prosecution witnesses recanted their testimony and claimed they were coerced.  I know Troy Davis lost every appeal and still the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a Federal Judge to review the case in its entirety due to numerous, significant questions about the conduct of the prosecution in the case.  I know the Federal Court – after months of review and providing a painstakingly detailed analysis of the case in a multi-hundred page opinion, concluded “Davis did not meet the burden of proving he was innocent” (in a twist of the law, after convicted it is up to the “guilty” to prove they are in fact innocent).

And I know religious leaders from Pope Benedict to Bishop Tutu spoke out against the imposition of the death sentence on moral grounds.

And yet, on Tuesday night, I watched as the circus came to town; the schizophrenic push to execute or stay execution so unique and troubling to America.  And, I was disgusted.  America has lost its moral framework.

Regardless of what you believe about the morality of capital punishment, can you honestly justify strapping a man on a death gurney at 6:00 pm and leaving him strapped down for five hours, until 11:00 pm, when the United States Supreme Court finally refused to issue a stay of execution?  Does that sound humane?  Does that validate this society’s alleged belief in the sanctity of life?  Does it pass Constitutional muster under the 8^th Amendment’s prohibition to cruel and unusual punishment?  More importantly, is America a better country having executed Troy Davis, a man who uttered as his last words “You are killing an innocent man.  May God have mercy on your souls.”

An interesting expression, “May God have mercy on your soul”.  They utter that at every execution.  Fact is, God has mercy for us.  No matter what we’ve done God stands ready to show us mercy, grace and forgiveness.  And what do we do as salvaged, forgiven people?  We set a legalistic standard.  We hold the Troy Davis’ of the world accountable for their crimes while we muddle through our lives sinning and conniving and being unmerciful.

May God have mercy on our souls.  The African American poet Langston Hughes wrote “O let America be America again.  The America that never was.”  This nation was founded on an ethos that God ordained freedom and dignity for all men.  And every time we witness the disconnect between that fundamental ideal with the reality of a legalistic, revenge motivated society, we realize God’s ordination is nothing but a pipe dream.

As I wrote earlier, I don’t know if Troy Davis was guilty or not.  I do know his execution is a stain on this country.  America is not the land it can be as long as capital punishment is imposed.  It’s time for mercy and justice to roll down like a stream over this land.  As I sit in this trash heap of America’s love affair with punishment I can only pray “May God have mercy on all of us.”

Supreme Fallout

There are waves beginning to roll toward state shores following the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision in Brown v. Plata holding that California’s correction system violates the 8^th Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

The majority decision clearly states that if a state insists on incarcerating a person, they must have adequate bed space for the incarcerated and provide at minimum, adequate medical care.  In other words, if you support locking people up for breaking the law, you have to also expect the state to follow the law when operating its prisons.  California has bed space for 80,000; they choose to imprison upwards of 155,000.  No rational person would today argue for separate “white only” water fountains (the norm, the law, back in the segregated south into the early 1960’s).  No rational person can likewise support a system that allows a state to keep so many people incarcerated with no adequate living space, medical or mental health care under the guise of “public safety”. 

There is a bigger wave coming.  It is a tsunami called the Federal budget deficit.  A bipartisan Congressional Committee is looking at slashing $5 trillion in Federal spending. And, spending on corrections only lags behind Medicaid spending at the state level. 

Bob Dylan had it right:

            “You better start swimming
             Or you’ll sink like a stone
             For the times they are a changin.”

In 2009 and 2010 forty states cut spending on corrections, including Virginia.  As Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin (D) noted when recently signing a bill into law allowing the state to release certain nonviolent offenders, “We underestimate the number of non-violent offenders we have in our systems”.

Alabama is considering a law allowing non-violent offenders to “check in” at centers while living and working from home to alleviate overcrowding in a system currently at 190% of capacity.

Other states, such as North Dakota are placing additional resources into education and training – the two primary determining factors in recidivism rates.

As The Washington Post noted in its recent editorial discussing the Supreme Court’s decision (aptly titled “Cruelty in California”):

“Budget shortfalls and overcrowding have forced states across the country to reconsider their approach to law and order and the enormous costs associated with incarceration.  The Supreme Court’s decision – and its implicit warning…if states fail to take steps to provide the type of decent and humane prison conditions demanded by the Constitution, the courts may now step in to ensure that they do.”

And where is Governor McDonnell during this discussion?  I’ll tell you where he’s not; he’s not visiting his prisons; he’s not questioning his wardens to ensure they are behind his re-entry initiative, an initiative that is long on words and short on action; he’s not coming out with any “faith based” standards that show he believes the Gospel’s call to minister to the prisoners.  No, Virginia is doing nothing and the inmate population (per DOC itself) hovers at 137% capacity, the recidivism rate remains constant and $1 billion in taxpayer money will be wasted this year supporting a system in dire need of repair.
Meanwhile, a $100 million, 1000 bed prison sits empty in Grayson County.  Why?  Because the Commonwealth can’t afford the $25 million per year to operate it.

Virginia likes to think of itself as a leading state.  Its high time Governor McDonnell acts like the leader he promised to be.  As the story of Exodus so beautifully detailed, over and over the Lord said “be courageous”.  Be courageous Governor McDonnell and institute sentence reform with good time/early release available to inmates working to rehabilitate.  Be courageous and let nonviolent offenders go to house arrest or “check in centers”.  Be courageous and change the system.  Your legacy, our future, depends on it!