Circumlocution

Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines “circumlocution” as, “the use of an unnecessarily large number of words to express an idea.  An evasion of speech.”  A third definition could be, “how guys in prison talk”.  Never in my life have I seen so many guys sitting around saying so much that amounts to so little (unless, of course, you include Congress!).

“It is what it is.”  Almost from the moment you set foot behind bars some pod Aristotle will utter those five simple words.  They are usually spoken after some dispute, some slight – real or imagined.  One party will call out the other, demand atonement, or an apology.  The second party will look, sneer, and then say, “It is what it is.”  In other words, it means absolutely nothing.

In my job as college tutor I spend a great deal of time cajoling guys into doing the right thing.  I play the role of in loco parentis (Latin pays off again!  I’m not a “loco” parent; I play the role of parent).  “You need to go to school.  This education will keep you from coming back.”  Over and over I’ve been met with, “Larry, it is what it is.”  They might as well say “F--- you.”

Guys talk like that because it’s easier saying that than admitting they’re too irresponsible or too scared, or lack too little self respect to try.  “It is what it is”, is just tired, empty, mindless chatter.

Not to be outdone, guys will also say, “You do you, and I’ll do me.”  That greasy little expression is used when someone does something incredibly stupid, like risking his college education to run a parlay sheet and make five dollars in stamps.

It means, in prison-speak, to live and let live.  “I’ll do me.”  So what if that leads to the building being shook down because some genius wants to smoke weed in the bathroom.  It’s the individual over the group no matter how stupid, harmful, or reckless the individual is.

Years ago, comedian Dennis Miller did a rift on wildebeests pushing the crazy loner out of the herd to be eaten by the lions.  Funny, but prison is made up of a lot of those crazy wildebeests.  Yet, in here all you have to say is “let me do me” and everything’s cool.  You don’t need to be responsible, just be you.

There’s a reason the English writer and poet John Dunne’s immortal words “no man is an island totally unto himself” resonate with the collective conscience.  We are our brother’s keeper.  We are collectively responsible.  We cannot “just do” our own thing.

It’s odd really.  We are a nation of individual rights and liberty yet none of that matters if we don’t collectively love our “neighbors as ourselves”.  It’s a lesson that prison-speak tries to ignore but it matters more to an individual’s – and society’s – ultimate success.

Inmates spend hours pontificating about “ultimate truth” (instead of working, getting an education, and atoning for their wrongs).  The ultimate truth, however, is right before their eyes:  we are in this together, not alone.

John's Opinion

I read an Op/Ed piece by John Grisham in the Sunday, September 12th Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/10/AR2010091002673.htm). Grisham wrote about Teresa Lewis the only female inmate on Virginia’s Death Row, who is scheduled to die on September 23rd (NOTE: Teresa Lewis was executed by lethal injection on September 23).l



She’s to be executed for the brutal murder of her husband and stepson. She clearly was involved. She, her boyfriend and another man decided to kill the husband and stepson (a National Guard member with life insurance) for money.


The two men did the killing. Both men accepted pleas for life sentences. Lewis pled guilty but was sentenced to death. Testimony at her sentencing indicated she had no criminal record, an IQ barely above 70, a dependent personality disorder and an addiction to pain medication.


Grisham notes so many inconsistencies in the meting out of the death sentence in Virginia that it “mocks the idea that ours is a system grounded in equality before the law”. I say “you go John”!


I’ve never been a big Grisham fan. I’ve read a good number of his novels and they’re an easy read, entertaining and light. He’ll never be confused with Dostoevsky. However, when I was in DOC receiving I read his nonfiction account of an innocent man on Oklahoma’s death row whose conviction was overturned. It blew me away.


I’ve come full circle on the death penalty and the criminal justice system. On our first date, I told my soon to be wife that I thought it better that 1000 guilty men go free than one innocent man be executed. I was idealistic, not yet in law school. I believed the law brought about right results, lawyers were hard working, judges fair, juries impartial.


All that changed, gradually, over the years. Safety and security became paramount. And so did the moral high road I trudged, or told people I trudged. Criminals were bad, evil. “Lock them up.” I accepted black/white answers and eschewed gray areas. And, if a few innocent people were imprisoned or executed, that was a small price to pay for safety, for order. I bought comedian Dennis Miller’s idea that “sometime the herd needs to let the sick and crazy wildebeest get eaten by the lion for the good of the herd”.


Then I got arrested and became exhibit “A” in my own production of “Man Was I Ever Wrong About That”. Folks, the criminal justice system is broken. It is unfair, evil and does more to create crime and disrespect for the law than it does to correct and prevent it.


I will go so far as to issue a new moral imperative. You cannot consider yourself a moral, ethical person and support the abomination that is the United States criminal justice and prison system in 2010.


Fyodor Dostoevsky, perhaps Russia’s greatest novelist and moral commentator, spent seven years in a Siberian labor camp in the 1850’s. He wrote the following: “A society’s morality is judged by how it treats its prisoners”.


What Grisham points out about the Lewis case goes beyond capital cases. It applies to every criminal case, every trial, every sentence. The prisons have become a toxic wasteland with mentally ill inmates pressed against evil, predatory ones. Virtually no programs exist to rehabilitate; society shuns those who do their time the right way. Incompetence and dishonesty among the prison staff is rampant.


Yes, criminals need to be punished. And yes, there are some acts that require society to put a person away for life (the recent trial in Connecticut is a prime example), but for the vast majority of cases the system does more harm than good.


As John Grisham notes, Teresa Lewis doesn’t deserve to die. The majority of inmates in Virginia don’t deserve the sentences they are serving or the conditions they’re living in. Society has a moral obligation to do better, to be just.