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.

A Letter to the Director

Dear Readers: 
Effective January 1, new dorm rules were instituted at Lunenburg.  Many of these rules are quite trivial.  They concern issues drilled down to the minutiae, such as how many books are allowed on your shelf, where laundry bags must be stowed, and the like.  Most are a mere annoyance and inconvenience.  But, in many aspects, that describes prison.  The rules make little sense and bear even less relationship to the security of the institution or the mission of the institution which is namely to serve as a re-entry facility for offenders preparing to return to society , housed in a humane environment, with emphasis placed on programs which foster rehabilitation. 

Prison is a difficult environment made even more difficult when those in charge act in an arbitrary and capricious manner, flouting not only the law but basic human decency.  Such is the case currently at this facility.  If the Governor and his DOC Director are serious about breaking the cycle of recidivism amongst the incarcerated then it begins here, at the institution level.

Week after week I seek to give people a snapshot of the insanity, the silliness that passes for prison.  But, you can never forget no matter how much I gloss it over, prison is a dangerous place.  You deprive someone of basic rights in the name of security and then you add to that by being disrespectful and disingenuous, and the results will not be pretty.

Malcolm Young, founding executive director of the Sentencing Project, recently wrote the following: 

“Except among highly committed corrections staff, advocates and a handful of political leaders, it is difficult to discern direct evidence of a genuine consensus favoring reductions in prison populations.  So far, neither the dollar nor human costs of a massive system of incarceration and its racial and class impacts, have ignited a widespread, energized, political or social movement opposite of that which resulted in mass incarceration.  This has to be a concern if there is any chance of reversing four decades of prison expansion.”

The simple truth is there is no reason for many of us currently incarcerated to remain so.  It is a waste of precious resources and exists because of the illogical conclusion that long, harsh sentences effectively punish crime.  Nothing can be further from the truth.  I remain hopeful that with the appointment of Harold Clarke to lead Virginia DOC, real, dramatic and effective change will occur in the Commonwealth’s prison and sentencing philosophy and many of us will be restored to society sooner, rather than later.  But hope, I fear, is fleeting.  The mindset of the administrators of the facilities must change and Mr. Clarke himself must become an advocate for real change including early release credits tied to inmate performance.  It’s a difficult task, but not impossible.  The following letter is being sent to DOC Director Clarke.

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Dear Mr. Clarke –

I hope you are enjoying the New Year.  I am currently incarcerated at Lunenburg Corrections Center in Victoria Virginia which, as you know, is a level two facility and one of ten “re-entry facilities” as designated by Governor McDonnell’s Offender Re-Entry Initiative.  I write you directly to make you aware of recent policy implementations made by your administrative leadership here.  Ultimately, you, as Director, are responsible for the policies and actions of those in charge here.  And, many of the policies implemented run counter to the purpose and goals behind both the Governor’s directive and your publicly stated views on corrections.

As you know, the United States Supreme Court in its last term handed down the decision of Brown vs. Plata specifically finding the California corrections system to be in violation of the 8^th Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.  The Court found California’s system to be plagued by substantial overcrowding and gross mismanagement leading to inadequate medical treatment and rehabilitative services for the offender population.  Those same issues confront Virginia’s prison system. Simply put, with the tireless exception of the dedicated employees of DCE – and their offender aides – there is little “correcting” going on here.

As you know, both Virginia administrative code and A.C.A. (American Correction Association) regulations indicate that Lunenburg is excessively crowded.  I live in a building (side A) dedicated to college programs (I work as both an adult basic education and college tutor).  Ninety-six men – four rows of twenty-four double bunks – are packed into our side.  We have less than ten square feet of personal space – another ACA violation.  We share three urinals, five sinks, and four showers – also a violation.  There are typically only two officers assigned to our side and its mirror image side next door.  That’s two officers for almost two hundred inmates.  At least once a week the water turns dirty brown.

Lunenburg, as a re-entry facility, is supposed to be preparing men to return to “the real world”.  Instead of providing offenders more freedom, more responsibility, this administration does just the opposite.  For example, new dorm rules were recently implemented allowing only one inmate at a time access to the bathroom during “quiet hours” (midnight until 5:00 am).  Imagine as an adult man having to ask permission to urinate in the early morning.  As you know, the 8^th Amendment to the Constitution (as interpreted by Federal Courts) considers denial of access to bathroom facilities cruel and unusual punishment.  The “new rule” bears no reasonable basis to security (rules are already in place to prohibit homosexual activity and tobacco and drug use).  Officers can enforce these rules instead of this new rule which your own officers acknowledge does nothing other than raise the stress level in the buildings.

The recent emphasis on enforcing DOC’s grooming policy (clean shaven with the exception of a neat moustache) has generated considerable pushback most notably because many of your own officers arrive at work unshaven and in dirty uniforms.  There is a noticeable lack of physical fitness and professionalism in your officer corps including numerous Sergeants who cuss and holler at inmates.

Finally, the current administration has used the disciplinary hearing process as a Kangaroo court.  Officers routinely write inaccurate, unsustainable charges that fail to comply with the procedures set out in DOP 861.1 and which are required as part of the due process guarantees an inmate is afforded.  As a former attorney, I can assure you, given your officers lack of knowledge on proper charge writing, almost every charge could and should be dismissed.  I do not object to enforcement of the rules.  But enforcement must be proper and favoritism not shown.  Too often, inmates who provide useful information to the officers have officers “look the other way”.

More disturbing, the warden and assistant warden use convictions of minor infractions (series 200 charges) to arbitrarily reduce an inmate’s good time earning level.  At a time when good time earning should be increased, for those actively seeking to rehabilitate and improve themselves, the administration here is trying to take what little number of days we earn already.  This, in fact, violates DOC’s own DOP (830.3) regarding earned credit level adjustments.

And finally, with education – primarily a college education – being the primary determiner in breaking the cycle of recidivism, why are you not advocating DOC funds for continuing the regular associate degree college program?  As you know, federal grant money for associate degree college education is expiring.  Without state funding – or a private foundation intervening – forty young men, who I can personally attest are diligently studying and attending classes in less than ideal circumstances, will see their college educations stop.  With the loss of an opportunity to earn a degree in here comes bitterness and hopelessness.

Mr. Clarke, I have noted your excellent progressive record in prison reform in your prior positions.  I also believe you are a man of deep personal faith.  I humbly ask you to prayerfully consider what I’ve written.  Come see for yourself what truly is going on here.  Come to Lunenburg and talk to those of us who are doing our best to help others and restore ourselves to our communities.

I believe you know full well Virginia’s corrections paradigm is at a crossroads.  Many of us presently held, can – and should – be given the opportunity for early release.  Resources could then be earmarked to 1) provide secure and humane incarceration to the community, and 2) provide adequate program and treatment services to ensure soon to be released offenders no longer re-offend.

I thank you for taking the time to read this letter.  You are in my prayers.

Very truly yours,

Lawrence H. Bidwell

Reality Wins 5 to 4

This past Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court, in a far reaching decision speaking directly to the rights of those incarcerated, held five to four that living conditions in California’s prisons constituted a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.  It upheld a lower court’s injunction requiring the release of over 30,000 California inmates within two years.

Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy noted that California’s prisons were built to accommodate 80,000 inmates; however the inmate population had swelled at one point to over 156,000.  For ten years, California’s inmates have successfully argued in court that the conditions in existence in the state’s prisons were barbaric.  The state knew this and ignored the ramification of policies that locked more and more people away for non-violent crimes.  Many of these people suffered from mental health disorders, alcohol and drug addictions.

The USA Today’s Wednesday rational editorial correctly stated the case:

“Tuesday’s 5-4 decision was humane and correct.  American prisons aren’t supposed to be some 16^th century version of hell where outrageous overcrowding and short-staffing mean that mentally ill inmates are confided in telephone booth size cages or left catatonic in pools of their own urine.  Prisoners shouldn’t be coddled, but they shouldn’t be treated like abused animals either.  California’s officials should be humiliated that it took the nation’s highest court to remind them of the meaning of ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’”

Then this:

“The state’s legislators allowed the prison system to fester for years as they wrangled inconclusively about how and whether to fix it …”

As Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project (www.sentencingproject.org ) noted following the decision, the court has now provided “state policymakers with the opportunity to correct misguided sentencing policies and, in the process, produce more effective public safety outcomes.”

While the decision only specifically applies to California’s “correction” system, commentators have noted the standard set out applies to all states – Virginia had better be listening.

People may not like inmates.  They may think – like my reader from Alaska – that we “get what we deserve”.  But, a state cannot, in the name of punishing a man for breaking the law, break the law itself.  Virginia DOC on a daily basis violates the law in the conditions they maintain in their prisons.  But, as I told a number of inmates who gathered around my bunk when the decision was handed down.  Bob Dylan was correct.  “For the times, they are a changing.”

I have been very reticent to discuss in great detail my experiences in DOC’s Powhatan Receiving Unit, a filthy dangerous, poorly operated unit where men new to DOC sit for months as they are “processed” and ultimately moved to an actual prison.  Men are housed in cells built for one with leaky toilets and sinks, heavily infested with roaches, ants and spiders.  Air circulation is virtually non-existent.  In the summer, the stifling heat and humidity climbs the temperature to over one hundred degrees.  In winter, a water pipe at the rear of the cell provides the only heat.  It is so hot that you can burn yourself making contact with it.

There are eighty cells to a tier with three tiers.  Four hundred and eighty men locked in small cells twenty-two hours per day.  The smell of blood, feces, urine, sweat and semen permeates the air.  Men scream and cry.  They fight, they bleed, they breakdown.  They abuse and are abused.  This is the system of justice, of corrections that is allowed to exist in Virginia.  It is barbaric.  It is criminal.  It is immoral.

Justice Kennedy, in his opinion, specifically detailed the dismal conditions in California’s prisons.  At one point he noted that two hundred inmates were housed in a gym with forty inmates sharing a toilet.  As I looked at the photo of the inmates lying in their bunks I had to smile.  An entire gym, I thought.  I live in the same bunks with 191 other inmates sharing roughly the square footage of half a gym.  Though, only twenty of us share a toilet.

The American Corrections Association sets standards for the proper number of inmates per building and what is considered adequate square footage of personal floor space.  These aren’t some “feel good stats” put together by an association.  They are based on standards enumerated in Federal law.  Virginia’s prisons violate those standards, violate Federal law.

As I write this blog early on a typical morning, there are two officers in this building, both female.  One is in the booth, the other watching TV on the “B” side.  Two nights ago a fight broke out in “1” building.  One inmate, tired of harassment from a younger, stronger inmate, took matters into his own hands.  He placed three padlocks in a sock and snuck up on his tormentor and struck him repeatedly in the head fracturing his jaw and leaving him a bloody mess.  Moments passed before an officer even arrived.

Before anyone reading this take the attitude “they are just a bunch of animals with their behavior”, ask yourself honestly how you would behave in this environment.  For four and a half months I sat in receiving hell praying that “God would lead me safely through”.  I walked over pools of blood left in stairwells after gangs brutally beat an enemy.  I saw and heard mentally ill young men cry out at night for help and have officers tell them to “shut the f--- up”.  I lived in an eight foot by six foot cell with a psychotic murderer who kept three homemade knives for protections and told me one night how he still saw his father lying in front of their home in a pool of blood, dead, the result of a gang stabbing.  He was eight at the time.

Some – perhaps like Alaska – would argue I deserved that and more for violating the law, for embezzling.  I disagree.  No person deserves to be confined like that.  Humanity demands more from us.

Virginia’s prisons, by DOC’s own admissions, are at 137% capacity.  These facilities are not capable of sustaining this population.  Any politician who tells you otherwise is a liar.

The times they are a changin:  Virginia can institute real prison reform, real sentence reform, real rehabilitation or they can continue on the path of California.  Reality came home this week, 5 to 4.  “The Lord sets the prisoners free…” (Psalm 146:7)  Perhaps Virginia will heed the call.

ACA update

The American Corrections Association was on-site for three days last week as part of Lunenburg’s ACA accreditation process. They went over this place from top to bottom. Here are some preliminary findings”



1) The facility is overcrowded and understaffed;


2) Inmates don’t have the minimum required 25 square feet of individual living space (if you want to understand how large that is, measure 5 feet to the right and 5 feet up. Inmates at Lunenburg have less than 10 square feet);


3) Insufficient space for education and law library.


According to DOC, there are “plenty of beds” at the prisons. Here’s a simple rule: you can tell if DOC is lying by seeing if their spokesperson’s lips are moving!

Trilogy

A good deal of interesting stuff has been happening here this past week. Here are the top three.



I. “Meet the New Boss”


The new warden is kicking ass and taking names and, so far, it’s OK because it’s all directed at the CO’s.


The former warden, Ms. Runion, was all about “therapy”. She had made a big push to make the COs a little kinder and gentler. Respect was her mantra. Officers were to treat inmates (sorry “offenders”, that’s the new word for being locked up) with respect.


Discipline was lax. The COs rebelled. “Screw that. We ain’t talkin’ nice to the inmates.” A number of COs began filing grievances against the warden.


Ms. Runion has been in the “system” since the 70’s. She has frankly spent too many years working in corrections to put up with whiny officers. The Department of Health’s civil commitment sexual predator facility needed a warden and she transferred. CO’s who were being made to “play nice with the inmates” celebrated. “We got rid of that bitch” I heard from a few COs.


Then enter Ms. Avent, a small, middle age African American woman who also has been in the system for years. She’s not “touchy feelie”. No, she’s about following the rules and being professional. And the CO’s are walking around in a daze.


“Officers will look professional.” She’s sent dozens home to shave and clean and press their uniforms. No longer do senior officers – Sergeants, Lieutenants, and Captains – joke around with CO’s. “You are their superior officers. Start acting like it!”


Rules are being enforced about movement on the compound and living standards in the dorms. I heard our building lieutenant (a woman) mutter as she walked by my bunk “I hate that bitch”.


The officers are, simply put, being made to earn their pay. Most old heads will tell you they can live under any set of rules as long as they know what they are. I agree. There’s too much crazy stuff that can happen in here when rules go by the wayside.


She’s tough, but so far, she’s fair.


II. “Rumors”


DOC has a new director. He comes from a state with a low inmate population and aggressive parole and re-entry programs. This week, Virginia’s Governor announced all departments must prepare budgets with a 6% decrease in funding. DOC is bracing for more cuts.


I met with the school principal this week. We are exploring expanding my creative writing program to a school wide writing lab for all GED students and community college enrollees. She told me our prison is being considered for a re-entry facility. Governor McDonnell has made inmate re-entry a priority. There is “talk” out there that a number of prisons will be modified to focus on getting inmates close to release properly prepared for re-entry to society. I’d stay here as an academic aide. A large number of inmates here (those not working as academic or vocational aides) would go to other prisons.


Is it a viable plan? I’m not so sure. If you want to bring DOC costs down and improve re-entry programs, re-introduce parole. Governor McDonnell could save billions over the long haul by returning Virginia corrections to a parole system with inmates being made eligible for early release based on performance in educational and vocational programs.


Think how enthusiastic an inmate would be to earn his GED if he was told “you become parole eligible with your degree”.


Every year around this time rumors run through prisons that “the Governors gonna bring back parole.” Perhaps this year, it won’t just be rumors.


III. “Man Down, Man Down”


The other afternoon our building called a medical emergency. As “Flo Rider” likes to shout out, we had a “man down”.


Briscoe, a gentle giant of a guy, was in the shower. His towel fell off the shelf. As he reached for it, he slipped and fell. Briscoe’s a big guy: 275 lbs. He hit with a “thud”. His head split open and he bled profusely.


Fortunately, within two minutes (a record for medical emergencies here), three COs and our new cute, young, blond nurse showed up with a wheelchair and emergency kit. As they stopped the bleeding and wheeled Briscoe down to medical, the nurse gently held his hand and said “hang on Mr. Briscoe. I’ll take care of you.”


Briscoe turned toward me and gave a big “thumbs up”. I started trying to figure out how I could slip and get the compassionate young nurse to hold my hand.


Briscoe’s back. His head is wrapped in a white bandage. He still has a huge smile on his face.


A final thought – the American Corrections Association will be here this week to evaluate the prison to see if this place operates as a prison within their standards. ACA’s certification matters to DOC. Funny thing is, you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig. You can repaint buildings and press CO uniforms, but it doesn’t change the fact that this is still a prison. And prisons are dark, depressing, inhumane places and no certification can change that.