Incarceration Nation

CNN’s Fareed Zakaria recently revealed in a Time magazine column what those of us inside already know – America is now “Incarceration Nation”.  America, “land of the free” and “home of the brave” has over 6 million people under “correctional supervision”.  That’s more people than Stalin held in the Soviet Union’s infamous gulag system.

There are many reasons for this, some benign, some well-intentioned, too many the result of political myopia.  But, as Zakaria noted, the worst of the American political system can be seen in the growth of the prison-industrial complex.  “Tough on crime” politicians – in Virginia it’s been “abolish parole”/longer sentencing politicians – helped fuel the money trail.  “Many state prisons are now run by private companies that have powerful lobbyists in state capitals . . . Partly as a result; the money states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education in the last 20 years.”

Governor McDonnell touted relief for Virginia families facing ever increasing tuition demands from the Commonwealth’s university system.  He gave higher education lip service while turning a blind eye to the bloated, badly mismanaged bureaucracy that is Virginia’s Department of Corrections.  Thirteen thousand employees, almost 40,000 inmates, over $1 billion a year to maintain a system that houses a majority of those inmates in level 1 or 2 facilities, all the while the recidivism rate remains flat and not one dollar of state money goes to the very program that reduces recidivism:  college education. 

Like his predecessors, Governor McDonnell talks a good game; most snake oil salesmen do.  But, Virginia needs leadership.  And, leadership means it’s time to change the way things are done.

In a May 2011 release, the Institute for Higher Education Policy advised that the single most effective determiner to recidivism was an inmate earning a college degree.  No prison program has a more lasting effect in breaking the cycle of recidivism than college.  Ironically, forty-three states participated in the study.  Virginia chose not to.

As I read the Institute’s findings and reflected on my own experience in here working with the college students, I understood how right, how easy, it is.  Give an inmate an education and you give them hope and skills to make it on the outside. 

So why does Governor McDonnell refuse to spend even one dollar on the college program here, a program internationally recognized twice in the last month?  Why is the Governor willing to spend millions on a software program that is easily manipulated (questions seek to determine remorse and empathy levels) to identify “recidivism risk” rather than any money on the one identifiable method of eliminating recidivism?

Perhaps things will change.  The founder of Governor McDonnell’s law school, Regents University, recently came out in favor of prison reform and dramatic reductions in America’s incarceration levels.  Rev. Pat Robertson joins a growing list of Republicans and Conservatives who are calling for drastic changes in America’s love affair with corrections.  The leaders in that movement, RightOnCrime.org released new polling data from the Pew Center which showed 84 percent of respondents agreed that tax dollars could be shifted from prisons to community corrections alternatives for non-violent, low risk inmates.  Significantly, 77% of responding Republicans and 85% of independents agreed.

Perhaps change is coming to America’s, to Virginia’s, love affair with prison.  Each day I pray that today is that day.

Pardon Me

This past week the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported on the number of felons who have had their civil rights restored by Governor McDonnell.  This Governor, it appears, is on pace to exceed rights restoration for felons by his predecessors.  The Governor should be applauded for his efforts.  But, 300,000 Virginians still wear the scarlet letter “F” for felon and are denied their basic right to vote.

This isn’t about civil rights, perhaps it should be.  Suffice it to say, this Nation was founded on a principle that rights derive from God, not man. While society has an absolute right to legislate certain behavior and enforce a code with criminal penalties, Virginia is in the minority of states who do not automatically restore a felon’s civil rights at the conclusion of his (or her) sentence.   That Virginia stands out with such a hostile position on rights restoration is ironic given the Commonwealth’s history as the focal point of this Nation’s democracy and the home to revered figures such as Jefferson and Madison.

But that isn’t the point of this piece.  This is about the lack of political will by Governors to use their power to pardon.  Exercising that power is not without risk.  Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour pardoned 200 present and former inmates on his last day in office and was publicly skewered, mostly by CNN talking head Anderson Cooper.  As an aside, I wonder if Cooper’s continuing interest in Barbour’s pardons is the result of Barbour being a Republican (Anderson said nothing when New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo (Democrat) released thousands to reduce his state’s huge budget deficit).

Barbour acted, as he said, out of a deep sense of “Christian faith” that everyone deserves a second chance.  That sentiment is shared by men such as former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) who coincidentally is also an ordained Baptist Minister.

And the exercise of that power has historically been routinely used by Governors to manage prison populations, correct miscarriages of justice and to make far-reaching statements about our criminal justice system.  Somehow though, as the call for more religion in our society has grown, we have become a Nation using the criminal justice system solely for retribution.  The demand for longer, harsher sentencing, and the public’s indifference to the horrendous conditions in our Nation’s prisons, are completely devoid of the fundamental premises of Christianity which so many politicians and pundits espouse.

No less an authority than United States Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy along with the American Bar Association wisely recommended in 2004 that both the President and Governors “revitalize the clemency process”.  This plea has, it appears, fallen on deaf ears.

Virginia currently has as its Governor, Robert McDonnell, a graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regents University Law School, a school dedicated to the practice of law in keeping with the tenets of Christian faith.  McDonnell, during his election run, routinely spoke about his faith as he courted Evangelical voters.  Throughout his first two years in office he has spoken eloquently about his faith. 

And yet, McDonnell has done virtually nothing to alleviate overcrowding in Virginia’s prisons.  He has done virtually nothing to institute meaningful sentence and prison reform.  Last year he released two terminally ill inmates on conditional release so they could die at home with their families, just two.  Meanwhile, the number of inmates over the age of 50 has grown dramatically.

McDonnell’s parole board releases less than three percent of the inmates who appear before them, an abysmal number.  Inmates are all treated the same regardless of the efforts they show to be remorseful and rehabilitated.

I wonder how differently the growth of Christianity would have been if Jesus, when confronted by the lawyers holding the adulterous woman had said, “Give me the rock.  She broke the law.  She deserves to die.  No mercy.”

But, thankfully for all of us, that isn’t what He said, or did.  He set a high bar – for all of us.  We are called to show mercy.

Governors have that power.  It’s high time they use it.  Prison is supposed to create an atmosphere of rehabilitation and remorse, not a breeding ground for revenge and retribution.  Governor McDonnell can be a leader in the effort to bring real faith into the system.  Pardon me, Governor.  Isn’t that what our faith is all about?

Back to Basics

Most of our building was tuned in the other day as the jury returned their verdict in the Casey Anthony murder trial.  Guys in prison watch trials.  We read about the crimes and form opinions.  As the Anthony verdict was handed down, to a man the consensus was she at least knew something about what happened to her daughter but the prosecution overreached on the capital murder charge.

I watched the verdict with mixed emotions.  I was disgusted by the allegations that a mom could actually kill her own child.  But, I was more disgusted with the circus atmosphere that took over cable news as various “talking head” lawyers belittled the process and told us what the evidence meant.  This created a feeding frenzy in the public.  Obviously, the girl was a slut who killed her daughter in cold blood.  Or so, the public was led to believe as more and more “details” emerged about her behavior and her family dynamics.  And charlatans like Nancy Grace drew paychecks from CNN by calling the accused “Top Mom”. Where, I wondered, was the rush to remind people in America you are “innocent until proven guilty”?  Yeah, we say that and a whole lot of other cute clichés like “justice for all” and “one nation, under God”, then we go out and ignore the very definition of those terms.

As the verdict was preparing to be read here’s what I saw:  a scared young woman who was totally and completely alone, who had absolutely no control over her life.  I know that feeling; I’ve been there; and, I don’t wish that on anyone.  Ironically, the morning the verdict was to be rendered I read a portion of Chapter 23 in the Gospel of Matthew.  In the passage, Jesus is skewering the hypocrisy of the “law abiding” citizens of the day (the Pharisees and Sadducees) for being frauds.  In the Modern Language Bible it says:

“You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God’s law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment – the absolute basics! – you carelessly take it or leave it…the basics are required.”

We have so distorted the meaning of justice in this country that we somehow feel justified protesting in front of a courthouse because a jury decided to find a young mother not guilty of capital murder rather than executing her.  And the people who are protesting don’t know unequivocally that she did it.  None of us do.  Ultimately, only the perpetrator and God know.

How, I ask, is “justice served” by killing this woman?  Perhaps the most profound thing I heard throughout this entire sordid episode was when her attorney, after the verdict said:

“We have to stop thinking killing is a legitimate punishment for killing.”
 
Justice, dear readers, requires wholeness and restoration and forgiveness.  Our prisons are full, our court dockets clogged with millions of people who are being subjected to a justice system that is quick to emphasize guilt and punishment and dismally poor when it comes to dispensing Godly justice.

The sad fact is, as much as we hate to admit it; we are all similar to Casey Anthony.  I don’t mean we all ignore a missing child for 31 days or we become pathologic with our lies.  But all of us do wrong things from time to time.  Even Mother Teresa took contributions from notorious drug lords rationalizing that while the money may be dirty; God’s use for it was clean.

Here’s my hope.  That we lose interest in other people’s misfortunes.  We allow the judicial system to work the way it’s supposed to work.  And, we demand the police and prosecutors act within the law and ethically.  We ignore these loudmouths on the tube who profess to know so much.  Finally, we remember God has the final say.  And how we judge others is how we will be judged.

I stood in a courtroom two and a half years ago and heard a Commonwealth Attorney make false statements about me and a judge ignore my remorse.  I take no joy in anyone’s misfortune.  I learned that day that all of us could find ourselves in a situation that goes horribly awry.  And the last thing we want - or need - are people passing judgment on our behavior when they haven’t walked a day in our shoes.

It’s time, Jesus said, to get back to the basics.  That’s true justice.

Wired

This week CNN reported that the United States government was setting aside millions of dollars to develop “portable Internet connectivity” for people fighting for freedom in repressive societies.

Watching “The Arab Spring” and the power of the Internet to bring images of uprising and repression to the world, the United States government rightly concluded the Internet matters.  What’s the first thing the Libyan and Syrian regimes did when protest broke out?  Shut down access to the web.

So American engineers are now designing briefcase servers capable of being snuck into a country and giving access to the Internet.  As the spokesman for the U.S. agency in charge of the project said, “Freedom is directly tied to the internet”.

Good quote.  Here’s another to consider: 

“Freedom’s just another word for

nothin left to lose
nothin’s worth nothin if it ain’t free.”    ~ Janis Joplin

How ironic that we applaud people protesting in the streets demanding the overthrow of their governments, “breaking the laws” of their societies and we recognize “these people need to be connected to the outside world” yet in almost every prison in this country, inmates are denied access to the “wired” world.  Everyday prisoners in this country are subjected to deplorable conditions, inhumane treatment, poor medical and mental health care.  They are jammed into spaces most people wouldn’t consider adequate for their family pet.  Those are not my words, that’s the word from the United States Supreme Court.

And connection to the outside world?  Forget it.  Inmates are denied basic contact with family and friends, let alone access to the web.  Try teaching a class on computer components when you, as the instructor, are prohibited from bringing components in.  “See that picture of the hard drive fellas?  They look almost like that.”

I love that people are transfixed by ordinary citizens taking to the streets throughout the Arab world demanding basic human rights.  Somehow, that message doesn’t carry through to our own country where one of every four inmates is serving a sentence for drug possession or minor distribution.

“Nothin’s worth nothin if it ain’t free.”  A friend asked me recently if I ever worried about repercussions from this blog.  I told him, “I’d lost the love of my life, my kids have no contact with me, I was sent to hell known as receiving where I saw unspeakable evil being tolerated by incompetent staff.  They took my physical freedom but they can’t take my mind and my faith.”  So no, I don’t worry.  They can’t do anymore to me than has been already done.

Here’s the bottom line.  If we’re going to care about freedom in Damascus and Tripoli, it’s high time we care about freedom in Lewisburg and Attica and Lunenburg.  “Freedom’s just another word for nothin left to lose.”  Sing it Janice.

Born Free

It seems as though every time I turn on the TV, I see Kid Rock singing his new big hit “Born Free”. He sings it at awards shows, football games, you name it. How ironic. The United States of America, our country, where people still recite the Pledge of Allegiance, sing the National Anthem and believe in ideas like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, has more people in prison than any nation on the face of the earth. More inmates than in China – still a Communist country, more inmates than in North Korea, Cuba, Iran, any despot regime on the face of the earth.



Virginia has almost forty thousand inmates in its prisons, the eighth largest inmate prison population “in the land of the free”. That number does not include the thousands of others held in local and regional jails. It does not include the 50,000 individuals under supervised probation or on parole. Nor does it include the 300,000 plus Virginians who, because of felony convictions, have been denied their civil rights. They cannot vote, they are subject to warrantless searches, to just name a few.


Three million incarcerated persons in the United States. Still, Kid Rock sings.


This week the Governor’s budget director announced preliminary budget numbers that call for a six percent across the board decrease in funds. According to news reports, DOC will be especially hard hit with projections of up to eight prisons being closed. Throughout the compound winds of freedom begin to blow:


“They got to bring back 65%. . . .”


“They can’t keep all these guys locked up for their full sentences . . . .”


Anyone with a minimal level of common sense would realize Virginia cannot continue to sentence and house inmates as they have since 1995 when parole was abolished. You cannot spend over $1 billion each year and employ over 13,000 – both items the state’s largest in dollars and workforce number – on corrections and expect to have quality schools and healthcare as well as adequately maintained roads.


Corrections is an oxymoron. The money spent does not get the Commonwealth inmates who are “corrected”. Instead, $1 billion gets you almost 40,000 housed, angry, frustrated people who will, with very few exceptions, all see “the streets”.


No one disputes that there must be consequences to criminal wrongdoing. But, sentences must be proportionate to the crime committed and those incarcerated must be given an opportunity for early release through hard work and participation in programs to correct their behavior. Emphasis should be placed on restoring inmates to society as responsible, contributing citizens, not punitively housing them for lengthy periods of time only to be let out bearing the stigma of felon.


This nation professes that “all are equal before the law”. Go through the criminal process and see if you still believe it. America professes to believe everyone deserves a second chance. We love stories about underdogs and comebacks. All inmates ask is for that chance, that opportunity.


Thanksgiving evening and CNN is doing a show on “Heroes”. Called to the stage is a middle-aged black woman. On her own she began opening a number of half-way houses in the Los Angeles area for released female inmates. These homes provide a safe, stable place to live for women just out of the penitentiary, women who have no home, no family, no opportunity. She gives these women a chance to succeed, a chance to overcome. She gives these women hope.


Freedom is defined as a political right, the quality of living a life with liberty. Shouldn’t that right apply to everyone, even inmates?

Convict Cable

Prison has cable and prisoners have TV’s. To a good many people, that will come as a surprise. Our prison here is on “Corrections Cable”. We get basic channels, bare minimum, and the inmates pay for it, not individually but with the “slush fund” the prison collects from overcharging on commissary (for a detailed explanation on the commissary and cable contracts read my previous post – “Contracts 101”).



TV watching is a prime past time in here. Inmates can buy a color TV (13 inch) through commissary for over $200. The TV is specially manufactured for prisoners. It’s made out of clear plastic so officers can see inside to make sure there’s no contraband stored in the case. The same TV in a catalog lists for $89.


You order your set, wait two weeks and then you walk across the compound to personal property and pick it up. The property officer puts “security” stickers around the case (stickers removed, you get an alteration charge) and engraves your name on the set to prevent theft. You also need to order a surge protector, coaxial cable (to hook your set up to cable) and a headset. Prison rules prohibit you from watching your set without headphones. After spending your $300 for the full “set up” you’re ready for TV.


Of the 96 bunks in this building, there are 92 individual sets. We get the four major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox). Then there are the specialty channels: CNN, TBS, TNT, CW, A & E, Univision (Spanish), PBS, Health Channel, ESPN & ESPN2, BET, Spike, and Lifetime.


The two “eye opening” prison experiences for me have been watching guys line up for ice cream on Tuesday nights and seeing all the sets tuned to Lifetime. There is something off kilter about guys sitting on their beds, eating butter pecan ice cream, intently watching “Army Wives” on Lifetime. To be fair, most guys watch Lifetime because the women are hot.


The other big channel is Spike. Spike is all bikinis, guns, cars and action movies. Two weeks ago, Stallone’s newest “Rambo” came on Spike. From the corner of the building, P or V or E (pick a letter; it’s someone’s name!) yelled out “Rambo on 10”. Within nanoseconds 50 sets turned to Spike.


You can spot the child molesters. They love cartoons (no joke) and avoid any show with bikinis (Spike had “Ms. Hooters” contest on a month ago, the “game guys” all had “You’ve Got Mail” on).


TV is really mind numbing. There are guys that lie in bed all day (except for meals and bathroom breaks) switching from “Jerry Springer” to “Wife Swap”. They know every channels programming schedule by heart. Their TVs remain on 24/7 except during “standing counts” (there are only 3 of these each day).


If you are shocked that prisons allow inmates to have TVs and cable, think of the alternative. 96 guys living on top of each other, many guys angry at the treatment they received in court, feeling wronged, pissed off at the world. Guys with kids put in bunks next to child molesters; Bloods next to Crips; and you hire two female COs to keep the peace. TV does more to keep the building quiet than 10 Cos could do.


I used to be a big TV guy before I got arrested. Now, I check the scores on ESPN at 5:30 in the morning and then the local news and headlines. With the exception of an hour a night, my TV is off. There are too many books to read, stories to write, crossword puzzles to work, law work to handle; to dull my mind with TV.


Don’t get me wrong, I love a couple of shows. Besides sports and news my “picks” for TV: any Gordon Ramsey cooking show; “The Mentalist”; “The Office” (Tuesday night 3 hours on TBS, just an FYI); “The Closer”, “Rizzoli and Isles”, and “House”. I’m just trying to keep my mind fresh to get through each day. Gotta go, “Big Brother” is coming on.