Too Much Material/Too Little Time

The past few weeks I’ve been inundated with work – getting adult ed students ready for the GED; prepping and reviewing 30 guys’ college essays – and personal projects.  I set a goal for myself to get an e-book out on Amazon by September.  Stories and essays are written, cover art in process (thanks to a guy in here named “Troll”) and I’m trying to understand the whole process of e-publishing.  Still, life goes on in here.  And it’s not life like outside. In so many ways we are sheltered from the day to day stresses of the “real” world.

But, things happen each day that I jot down and think “I want to remember that”.  These little snippets form most of my daily journal entries as I continue trying to understand why we do what we do.  In reality, it’s more material than I can ever use.  Still, things stand out...

We never had a spring lockdown.  I know that sounds weird.  We usually have two per year.  They lock us down (restrict us from leaving the building) and building by building search everything, including us (you get used to strip searches after your first thirty days, that is if you every really get used to standing fully exposed before two or three officers).  They very seldom find anything of significance.  And why would they?  They can’t swoop in and hit every building, every inmate at once, so stuff gets tossed and hidden.

Instead of a general lockdown they now spot check us.  Two or three guys every day, make sure you really own the electronics listed.  And, they find stuff.  In my building four guys lost TVs (bought from other inmates).  There were knives, a little tobacco, and of course, fresh vegetables and fruit from the kitchen.  I’ve been through it and, living like a monk (my only “living on the edge item”, and extra set of sheets), five minutes flat I was cleared.

Prison is a constant battle between what you can have versus what they want you to have versus what you can get.  The simple truth is you can get anything inside.  Another truth is if you get caught, you lose good time.  And, a final truth, you’re better off without all the extras.

Some day they’ll lock us down for a full sweep.  But right now, it’s business as usual.

I got a new mattress the other day and it’s extraordinary.  For close to three years I’ve slept on a standard prison issued mattress.  Barely three inches thick and lumpy until the stuffing begins to breakdown.  But the other day, Mouse went home.  After ten straight years, Mouse walked out a free man.  He has already been admitted to school down at the beach, with financial aid, and Goodwill lined him up a job cooking at a beach restaurant.

Mouse had a Cadillac mattress, triple-stuffed and re-sewn (that’s the key; if it’s sewn its legit).  I spent a lot of time the past two years working with Mouse on his college classes.  He left as an honors grad.  The night before he left he gave me his mattress, close to seven inches thick!  I don’t feel the metal frame anymore.  What a way to sleep!

Randy – our fitness guru – wrote the other day.  He’s been home since January.  As I’ve written before, Randy earned his Associates Degree while locked up and became a certified personal trainer.  His last year here he put a business plan together to start a personal training business.

Randy joined a gym in the west end of Richmond and began signing up clients to train.  His goal was to gradually build his client base over eighteen months, then open a studio.

I’m pleased to report that on July 1^st, Randy will have his own gym.  His business is booming with more clients than he ever imagined.

Randy is one of the success stories from prison.  They’re few and far between it seems at times, but it is possible.  Prison can be transformational if you are willing to struggle and dedicate yourself to learning in spite of the circumstances.

I want to tell you about Dom, a/k/a “Fat Boy”.  He’s from Petersburg and has experienced the difficulties of life beyond his thirty-four years.  Given up at only eighteen months old by an alcoholic mother (his father was in and out of prison his whole life), he went from foster home to foster home.  Finally, at age six his grandmother was given custody.

His mom fought in court to get him back (“She wanted the state check”).  The courts returned him to his mom where he was routinely beaten by her (“I looked like my Dad; she just did to me what he did to her”).  He’s a large man – 250, 260 maybe, and 6’2” tall.  He was known by everyone in the projects of Petersburg.  He was the muscle for all the dope dealers.  You needed someone hurt, you called Dom (“It was the only time my Dad told me he was proud of me.  ‘They fear you son,’ he’d say.”).

That is not the Dom I know.  I see a gentle man who spends a great deal of his time counseling young “brothers” to give up violence.  The other night we were talking and he told me about an incident that still weighed on his mind.

“It was with a dope fiend.  He owed a guy money.  I saw him go through an alley and I followed him.  I had a baseball bat.  I caught him and beat him.  You never heard a bat hit bone did you Larry?  It’s a sound different from a ball.  It’s hollow.  Anyway, I did that when I was 19.  The guy was in the hospital for months; fractured skull, broken bones.  I didn’t even know his name.  I still see him at night.”

I’ve learned to take stories like this in stride as best I can.  I’ve learned not to react with revulsion – or judgment.  And, as Dom looked at me I saw the pain he felt for the things he’s done.

I realized at that moment how fragile our lives are.  We hurt people in so many ways.  We break their bones, their hearts, their dreams.  Somehow, God still loves us.

And I knew I’d done a lot of lousy, hurtful things in my own life.  I’d let down the people closest to me.  But, I knew in my heart that God forgave me and was giving me another chance.  And if God could forgive me, He could certainly forgive Dom.

It was reported this week that a number of inmates at Virginia’s Red Onion super max prison were on a hunger strike to protest the conditions at that facility.  Red Onion has been the subject of much negative press the last few months.  Approximately 400 inmates are kept in isolation at Red Onion; there are 1700 in solitary statewide in the Virginia system.

As I’ve quoted on a number of occasions in this blog, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky said you can judge a society by the way it treats its prisoners.

America has lost its moral imperative.  This nation operates both at the Federal and individual state levels a barbaric prison system that lacks safety, rehabilitation and simple humane treatment.

This country spends approximately $70 billion each year to incarcerate and monitor close to 10 million citizens.  Approximately 25,000 prisoners are held in solitary confinement nationwide.  Thousands more work in prison industries for little – if any- pay and in unsafe conditions.  Even the 13^th Amendment to the United States Constitution which disallowed slavery in America still allows the incarcerated to be used as slave labor.

Violence, mental illness, disease and hopelessness are rampant in America’s prisons.  A prison – industrial complex has sprung up with corporations being granted sweetheart deals to provide products and services to predominantly poor, uneducated inmates at exorbitant pricing.  Fraud and price gouging is rampant.

Perhaps things are changing.  No less than conservative Christian leader Pat Robertson has now joined the chorus demanding a massive overhaul of “Incarceration Nation”. 

Can America do better?  What are followers of Christ called to do regarding law breakers and their confinement?  Is the answer punishment or justice?

As Medal of Freedom recipient Bob Dylan once sang, “The answer is blowin in the wind.”

And a final thought.  A friend recently sent me a quote from a well-known minister. 

“The blessings of God always override the curses generated in our lives.”

As I’ve pondered those words I realized that isn’t a bad way to get through this sentence.

Peace.

Job Fair

Something new happened at Lunenburg yesterday.  That in itself is surprising.  The thing about prison that is most difficult to bear is the time, the monotonous rolling forward of time.  Day in and day out there are the same announcements at the same time.  Days repeat days; weeks repeat weeks.  And years?  You watch the calendar click.  It’s maddening.  You live your life almost like Bill Murray did in “Groundhog Day”.  If you’re smart, you avoid the temptation to get comfortable with the monotony.  You design your day according to your needs.  You exercise your mind – and your body – and you resist the urge to be institutionalized.  And, in spite of the drudgery, you remain – at least in your mind – free.

Every so often, however, a day comes along which reminds you the monotony can be broken.  College graduation was one such day and the joy, the freedom I felt that Friday in January has sustained me.  Yesterday was another such day.  Yesterday, the LUCC Transition teacher and his aides sponsored a job fair for approximately 100 inmates who leave in the next 90 days.

This was not your typical job fair.  For one thing the majority of employers were contractors.  Second, there was an emphasis on mini-workshops with the Virginia Employment Commission and various non-profit organizations who assist released felons with a myriad of re-entry issues.

I was asked to attend to assist our Goodwill rep who was meeting with twelve of our IT grads who leave within the next 60 days.  It was remarkable seeing these men, resumes and portfolios (of programs completed) in hand looking a potential employer in the face and answering truthfully about their crime, their incarceration and their skills.

And I learned a few things.  First, there is a national fidelity bond that is free to an employer – providing $5000 (more is available for a small premium) of coverage for employee dishonesty – who hires a convicted felon.  “Even applies to a disbarred attorney convicted of embezzlement.”

Second, a significant number of released felons may be eligible for disability payments.  Extensive periods of incarceration may cause post-traumatic stress disorder.  It seems ironic but the “system” designed to encourage responsible behavior is, in fact, one of the main causes of PTSD and anti-social behavior.  Prisons are viscous, filthy, Darwinian environments.  It should come as no surprise that they do not encourage rehabilitation but promote the opposite.

Third, there are employers willing to give ex-cons a second chance.  One recruiter with a national construction firm told me “God gave me a second chance.  How could I not do the same thing?”  A few guys with significant construction training (and licenses earned while here) were made offers.  A few more were told to “stay in touch”.  The results weren’t great, but there was hope.  And in a place like this hope sometimes is all it takes to get you through.

The job fair wasn’t like anything experienced “out there”.  Recruiters had to clear security.  Guys had to be screened to get in.  There was a two and a half hour window to get the entire program in before 11:30 count.  And, it wasn’t some DOC initiative, some project spurred on by Governor McDonnell’s “re-entry initiative”.  It was the brainchild of this institution’s transition instructor, “Mr. Nick”, a twenty-five year veteran of the DOC prison re-entry process.  Mr. Nick believes in the power of hope.  His four aides – two of whom are college students I tutor – carry out his instructions.  Their goal:  to give every exiting inmate a chance at work after release.

Prison is a terrible experience.  It goes against every human emotion and is counterproductive for changing most lawbreakers into “good citizens”.  And against that backdrop Don Quixote – like men and women still launch themselves against the windmills of hopelessness and recidivism.  They believe a man with a job, a man with an education, can succeed.

We need more job fair days, more college graduation days, more days of hope and less groundhog days.

Failure and ...

This was a difficult week for me.  There were a fair number of reasons for that.  Some, I’m exploring in a piece I’m writing.  Some, I’m ignoring.  But, in the midst of my personal circumstances there were some issues affecting guys in the program now and one guy who left that made me question if it all matters.

Ms. C let me know late in the week that one of our released graduates (seven have left; four more go in April; four more in May) was back in custody.  “John” went AWOL from Goodwill his second day out.  Within a week he was picked up by police passed out on the side of the road. He was high on crack.  He’d spent less than a week out of here before he fell back into his drug addiction.

When I met John as a student in our program he was almost five years into his fourth trip to prison; thirty-eight years old and four bids.  He’d spent a total of eighteen years locked up, all in three to five year trips.  And it all was because of drugs.  Well, drugs were what he turned to help him deal with the pain of a failed, fractured life.

Four times during his year in school John quit.  “I can’t do this shit”, he’d announce.  Four times I cajoled him, berated him, uplifted him to keep going.  “You can do this”, I’d tell him.  “Show these bastards you can do this.”  And he made it.  At graduation he had no one there.  His family had moved on long before.  He asked to take a picture with me.  In it, he’s grinning.  He told me graduating was his first real accomplishment in life.

Two weeks ago I saw him leaving breakfast.  He was headed for the front gate.  He called out to me.  “I’m getting out.”  But, he didn’t look happy.  No, he looked scared, very scared.  I walked over to him and quietly said, “You can do this, John.  Be strong.  You can do this.”

But, he couldn’t.  And every night I’ve prayed for him just like I do about dozens of other guys in here and people on the outside who have walked away from me.  Drugs, I’ve learned, are terrible, terrible things.  And so is self-loathing.  I turned to my modern language Bible, to the Beatitudes.  It began simply “you’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope….”  I couldn’t help but think of John.

That evening, a young student named “Fifty” came back from English early.  I cornered him as soon as he came in.  “I’m quitting Larry”, he told me.  “I can’t do it.  I got too much on me.”  He then proceeded to tell me that he’d been called to medical that afternoon.  He’d tested positive for TB (the entire compound is tested annually).  When he explained he’d had false positives before, he was told “go on meds for nine months or go to isolation”.

“Fifty, you can’t quit.  Do you know what happens to young, black men who go to prison?  This is your life, Fifty.  College is all that will keep you out of here.”  I was in his face and I was pleading with him.  He put his head down.  “I’m not gonna quit, Larry.  I know I need this.”

DC and Jay heard my conversation.  They both have told me in the past I wear my emotions on my sleeve for these guys.  DC even told me he felt for me being in here.  “Guys like you Larry.  You do things out of love, fear, whatever.  You do them and you know their wrong ad you think you deserve what you get.  You don’t deserve this.”  I hate this place and I hate what it does to so many of these guys.  It’s a vicious cycle and you have to be strong to break out.  John couldn’t.

We had a failure.  Statistically, it’s going to happen.  The men in this program all register high for recidivism.  Many have baggage – drug and alcohol abuse, screwed up family situations, they lack education and job skills.  They’ve been told they don’t matter.  They’re expected to fail.

And in the middle of it is me.  I feel lousy, but they don’t know it.  They see me joking around, laughing, and they think “he’s got it all together”.  They don’t know how I ask God every night to tell me what it means.  They don’t see the failure I see in myself.

So, I pray about John and all the other struggling souls in here.  And I check on Fifty and make sure he’s alright.  And, I remember that no man is a total failure.  Dr. King said, “Every man is somebody because he is a child of God”.  What does it all mean?  I wish I knew.

Two Reentry Tales

This is the story of two different reentry experiences.  These are real men who did their sentence, “completed their bids”, and returned to society.  The conclusion, “how should we handle reentry?” will be apparent.  It’s a shame the politicians don’t see it.

Ten months ago “Wolf” left Lunenburg.  Barely thirty, Wolf was completing his third prison sentence, all centered around his drug use and his quest to find money to support his habit.  And it wasn’t one drug with Wolfe.  Though he used crack regularly, he also had a taste for ecstasy, crystal meth and just about anything else he could get his hands on.

Wolf lived with his mom.  He couldn’t hold down work.  How could you when you spend your daylight hours passed out and your nights chasing a high?  He was barely literate having never completed his GED.  He’d be forced into a class for a month or two, quit, lose “good time” for a year and then repeat the cycle.  But what does good time matter when you’re only doing 36 months and you’re going home to the same life?

I met Wolf through Big S.  Big S had gotten him enrolled in a vocational program.  “You need job skills Wolf, a trade”, Big S would tell him.  Wolf, just a big, goofy looking white man-child would just shrug his shoulders.

He had artistic talent and was considered one of the best tattoo men on the compound.  But, could you trust him to do your tattoo?  He let a guy tat him up and didn’t even notice that his name was on backward (“Flow” instead of “Wolf”).

No education, no job skills, Wolf resided in 3B, the “transition” dorm.  When he was in there they hadn’t completely instituted Governor Bob’s reentry regimen, the touchy feely “therapeutic community” program where guys are paid to be “cheer managers” and “word of the day managers”.  What, you may ask does that have to do with returning to society as a productive, rehabilitated citizen?  Only Governor Bob knows.  But, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he built the program knowing it would fail, just so he could say “I tried, but nothing will change these guys.”

Some people did care about Wolf.  The vocational instructor gave him the name of a man who owned a lumber yard in a rural county not far from Richmond.  “He’ll hire felons.  Just go see him and promise me you’ll work hard.”  And of course, Big S tried to keep him on the right path in here.  “You only get so many chances Wolf,” he’d tell him.

Wolf completed “transition”, was released and went home to live with mom.  He even got a job at the lumberyard.  So far, so good.  But drug addiction is an insidious devil.  And a ten week, feel good “drugs are bad” program put on by DOC and administered by one of their “treatment counselors” is doomed to fail.  Want a new oxymoron to toss around besides “jumbo shrimp”?  Try “prison counselor”. 

For nine months, Wolf kept his job and functioned.  He wasn’t drug free, just on the days he was urine tested by his probation officer.  Urine tests, drug treatment, costs money.  But prison costs more.  So why does Governor Bob – and all his predecessors – spend over $25,000 per year to keep a man locked up, but only $2,000 per year to ensure he succeeds?

Around Christmas the lumberyard told Wolf they were letting him go.  The economy was tough.  Wolf’s source of funds for his habit dried up.  Within a month the Richmond morning news had Wolf’s mug shot on air.  He broke into an elderly woman’s home, beat her, forced her to drive to an ATM and give him money.  He then pulled off to the side of the road and put her out, returned to her house and set it on fire.  A short while later, he was arrested, still driving her car.

Wolf is facing six felony counts.  Every guy in here knows Wolf will probably never see the streets again.  He’ll pull thirty, forty years maybe even life.  And, every reasonable thinking guy in here knows every time a released inmate reoffends it makes it that much tougher on the rest of us still doing time.  Recidivism, you see, plays to society’s base fears and prejudices.  “Inmates are vicious beasts, incapable of rehabilitation.  They aren’t like law abiding folks.”

As I have noted numerous times in this blog, the Governor’s reentry program, the very mission the Department of Corrections espouses, is doomed to failure because it addresses the wrong core issues.  Drug and alcohol abuse issues are not treated in prison.  Mental illness is even worse off.  And Mitt Romney and all the other political pundits are wrong when they tell you there’s “a safety net”.  Folks, the safety net has a huge hole in it.  You take people from broken homes, with parents having limited schooling, limited resources, you have them live in poor neighborhoods with inadequate housing, schools and access to medical care; and they pour through the huge holes in the safety net.  We have a society where there is a caste system with millions and millions of folks who don’t have a shot at “the American Dream”.  Instead, they cycle in and out of prison, feeding a corrupt system that lines the pockets of a select few while sapping $60 billion annually from the nation’s coffers.  And the politicians return to the same tired programs (Governor Bob’s reentry program is the same “therapeutic plan” used and discarded by DOC in the ‘80’s and the ‘90’s because it proved ineffective).

A nation that accepts 2 ½ million people behind bars, a nation that accepts 15% of its citizens living below the poverty line, is a nation on the cusp of collapse.  There has to be a better way, a saner way.  There has to be a way to break the cycle. 

Is it hopeless?  No.  Because as badly conceived as Governor McDonnell’s reentry program is, some good, some success is happening here.

Five men who’ve been educated under the IT grant program have been released over the last five months.  All five, with the daily help and encouragement of staff at Goodwill Industries, have found stable employment.  All five have residences that they are paying rent on.

Sure it’s so soon after they left.  But the key is they worked for a goal in here.  They believed education and community support would give them a second chance.  And isn’t that what “corrections” is supposed to be about?  Over 90% of the incarcerated are going to go home.  Society could shorten sentences and prison by prison set up programs like the “campus behind walls” community we’ve built here.  Let us earn our way out.  Inmates don’t need fancy brochures touting “reentry”.  Sorry Governor Bob.  What inmates need is education and a chance to succeed.  Do that and they’ll be less stories like Wolf’s. 

Jersey (and others) Goin’ Home – The Message on a New Year

Graduation day is fast approaching.  There’s less than a month until the first class of college/IT certificate recipients are recognized in a “behind the wall” ceremony conducted by Southside Virginia Community College.  Thirty-two have completed the program.  One – “VI” went home in October.  Three more leave before graduation and one, “Tattoo”, leaves the Monday after.

I write about these guys so you see they aren’t much different from folks you see every day.  In Virginia today, a state of slightly more than eight million residents, there are in excess of 350,000 convicted felons still denied the right to vote.  Add to that the number presently incarcerated in DOC (or waiting shipping to DOC facilities) and the number approaches 400,000.  That’s 5% of the state population, an astounding number. 

The men in here - as much as DOC and the courts, and even the general public want to make them mere numbers – aren’t just statistics.  They are living, breathing men with families and friends.  Some have committed horrendous, violent crimes.  Others are, in many ways, victims of the ignorance and poverty and despair that surrounded their lives “out there”.  But, they all breathe, all live; they all age and die little by little in here.  And their stories confound me, and move me, and yes, sometimes disgust me.

I’ve learned some things during my stay here:  I’ve learned I know so little about so much.  At the beginning of the Advent season this past December, just a few days past what would have been my thirtieth wedding anniversary to the only woman who ever took my breath away, I began conducting my daily Bible meditations from the Reverend Eugene Peterson’s “The Message”, a complete Bible translation in contemporary language.  In the preface, Rev. Peterson wrote the following:

“Nothing is glossed over.  God works patiently and deeply, but often in hidden ways, in the middle of our humanity and our history.  Ours is not a neat and tidy world in which we are assured that we get everything under our control.  There is mystery everywhere.  The Bible does not give us a predictable cause-effect world in which we can plan our careers and secure our expectations…There is pain and poverty and abuse at which we cry out in indignation ‘You can’t let this happen’.  For most of us it takes years and years to exchange our dream world for this real world of grace and mercy, sacrifice and love, freedom and joy – the God saved world.”

How, I wondered, did Reverend Peterson know so well what I’ve seen and felt for so many years?  I have learned God is here in prison, and in crack houses and homeless shelters and cancer wards.  He’s with gays, and terrorists and pedophiles and good taxpaying, patriotic citizens.  He’s everywhere and He loves all of us, unconditionally.

So, I wish the best for Jersey.  He lived less than two miles from my home.  Early thirties, bright – enrolled in college at Virginia Union and serving in the National Guard, he and his wife began robbing convenient markets to support a drug addiction.  She did three years, he’s finishing five.

Jersey breezed through his college classes and aced the certification test.  His marriage not only survived his – and her – incarceration, it strengthened.  He’s headed home, already admitted to a four-year state University.  Goodwill has helped him line up part-time employment in the computer field.

Jersey should make it.  He’s smart, he’s sober and clean, and he and his wife are in love.

Then there’s Stoney.  Stoney is 44 and is finishing his third bid.  When he was 19 he committed a sex crime.  He did ten years.  Released, he couldn’t find work.  “No one would hire me”, he told me.  He had two children he’d seldom seen.  They needed support.  He couldn’t find work.  He did what so many of the guys do:  he began selling drugs.  And selling drugs is a losing proposition.  He’s been busted and imprisoned twice.

He leaves next week.  He’s scared, deathly scared.  “I don’t want to come back, but I’m afraid no one will give me a chance.”

Stoney is a guy who always has a smile on his face.  He always walks by my cut saying “hey Big Guy!”  And here he was, tears on his face afraid, afraid he’d fail.

“Stoney”, I said.  “I consider it a blessing that I met you, I believe in you.  I know there’s someone out there who’ll take a chance.  It’ll be tough, but I know you can make it.”

I pray about Stoney.  He’s a guy that can go either way.  He needs a chance, just someone to give him a chance, and he’ll be alright.

Then there’s Tex, a fifty year old crack addict.  He did ten years in the Navy, then was discharged for selling drugs while on an aircraft carrier.  He’s been in and out of prison for the last 15 years.  He moves from state to state with his wife, getting high, living in crack hotels, doing odd jobs on the side.

She’s in Texas, at a half-way house waiting on his release after this two year bid.  He’ll tell you he’s learned from this experience and he’s ready to live right.  Then ten minutes later, he’s on the phone explaining to his wife – in code – how to run scams for the extra rent aid and food vouchers.

The sad part is, Tex is a very smart man.  He’s just not smart enough to learn from his mistakes.

Finally, there is Tattoo, aptly named because he is covered in tats.  He shaves his head and has tattoos around his skull.  Twenty-two years incarcerated for murder.  He is one of the scariest looking people I’ve ever seen and also one of the quietest, calmest and peaceful men I’ve ever met.

Prison is not good, but sometimes good can come from prison.  Tattoo proves what Hemingway said:  “The world breaks everyone and some are stronger at the broken places.”  Tattoo has lived the worst prison creates:  the rapes, the beatings, the killings.  And, he’s overcome.  He is scholarly, deep, peaceful.  I count Tattoo as a man I trust and as a friend.

He’s going out into a world he knows little of, yet he has a focus, an inner peace.  Tattoo has paid for his crime.  It’s time for him to live.

Four guys going home.  Some will make it, some will fail.  All have left a mark on me.  As Reverend Peterson said, ours is not a neat and tidy world.  There is mystery everywhere.  And yet, His message remains the same.

May your New Year be blessed.

Campus Within Walls Receives Bellwether Award

Governor McDonnell Congratulates Southside Virginia Community College on Receiving Bellwether Award
– SsVCC received the award for its Campus Within Walls prisoner re-entry program –

RICHMOND - Governor Bob McDonnell announced today that an innovative program begun under his prisoner re-entry initiative has been awarded a national Bellwether Award finalist trophy in the category of Planning, Governance and Finance at the Futures Assembly in Orlando, Florida. The program, called Campus Within Walls, is spearheaded by Southside Virginia Community College (SsVCC) and involves partnerships with the Virginia Department of Corrections, the Sunshine Lady Foundation and Goodwill Industries. Because of these collaborations and a Second Chance Grant from the Department of Justice, the program has operated without cost to Virginia taxpayers.

The Bellwether Awards annually recognize outstanding and innovative programs and practices that are successfully leading community colleges into the future. The award selection process involved a critical review by a panel of national judges of hundreds of nominations from all over the country. Only 10 programs were selected and invited to the Bellwether Futures Assembly in the Planning, Governance and Finance category.

Speaking about the Campus Within Walls program at SsVCC, Governor McDonnell commented, "I want to congratulate Southside Virginia Community College, under the leadership of Dr. John Cavan, on receiving such a prestigious award for a very important program which provides offenders in our prison system with hope for a productive future. Campus Within Walls is a component of our comprehensive prisoner re-entry program. As I have long said, those who commit a crime must first repay their debt to society and take responsibility for their actions. However, it is our job to work with these offenders to prepare them for release from prison. The reality is that the vast majority of the people that we send to prison eventually get out. Therefore, in the interest of public safety and good government, prisoner re-entry strategies must be put in place. This is the responsible and cost-effective approach to 21^st century corrections. We do not want individuals released from our institutions to re-offend. In an effort to further reduce recidivism in the Commonwealth, we have implemented a comprehensive re-entry initiative designed to successfully prepare those who have served their time to go back into their communities as productive members of society. Campus Within Walls works with Virginia inmates to help them receive an education credential so that they have the tools and skills they need to support themselves and get a job once they are released. This valuable program has been successfully implemented at SsVCC. Recently, 40 inmates who participated in the program at Lunenburg Correctional Center graduated. These individuals have made a significant step toward preparing to become successful members of their community upon release from prison. The Department of Corrections, with assistance from its many partners, has implemented a number of innovative re-entry programs throughout our correctional system and Campus Within Walls is an excellent example of what can be done to assist offenders prepare for their return to their neighborhoods."

Dr. John Cavan, Southside Virginia Community College President, commented, "This is just another example of Southside Virginia Community College truly living the mission of a democracy's college. The graduation of students from the Campus Within Walls and receiving the Bellwether Award symbolizes the great commitment of Governor McDonnell in creating a winning team of SsVCC, Department of Correctional Education and the Department of Corrections to forward the governor's re-entry initiative."

Campus Within Walls is an intensive inmate education program with unique features such as the housing of inmate participants together in the prison to create a "learning community," the infusion of modern technology, the use of inmate tutors, and a well defined curriculum designed to allow inmates to attain an educational credential while incarcerated. The program increases safety within the prisons by keeping inmates occupied with positive pursuits. The program also is expected to produce long-term public safety benefits. Research conducted nationally and within the Commonwealth demonstrates that certificate and degree attainment reduces recidivism and thereby increases public safety. Participants are more likely to have the skills and discipline to obtain and keep jobs, become law abiding taxpayers and support themselves and their families.

Southside Virginia Community College (SsVCC), in cooperation with the Department of Corrections (DOC), the Department of Correctional Education (DCE), and Goodwill Industries Network (Lunenburg only) has created this unique prison education program within its service region. On Friday, Jan. 27, SsVCC awarded an Associate Degree of Arts and Science, General Education Certificates, IST Certification, Comp TIA A+ Certification, and Masonry Certification to more than 40 other participants.

I See Chuckleheads

I use various terms to describe the behavior of guys in here.  At the most polite end is the term “chucklehead”.  On any given day I will let loose with a “why are you acting like a chucklehead?” at least three or four times a day.  Normally, it’s over stupid stuff:  removing a piece of fruit from the chow hall; getting a second tray (“beating the deuce”); being caught with a gambling ticket – I utter the term.  This week a record was set for chuckleheads.  And, for five guys at least, it was “bid” altering.

The IT grant students are in the final 3½ months of their one year program.  Classes are completed.  There are only two remaining tasks:   1) to sit for the IT certification exam (being given onsite here – no small feat); and 2) attend sixteen weeks of “Goodwill Wednesday” group sessions.  “Goodwill Wednesday” is the term I coined for the re-entry classes held on Wednesdays (6 hours each week) and conducted by Goodwill.  Goodwill is a partner in the grant program.  They are providing re-entry services when guys are released.  Over the next 16 months, 32 of the students will be released.  How they do “out there” in their first six months will largely determine if they stay out or return for their third, fourth and sometimes fifth sentences.

The classes are important and they are mandatory.  With the exception of four “ringers” (guys added to the program who never came to prison before this trip) the guys in the IT grant program are all “at risk” – they are young (less than 30) with multiple trips to prison, jail, juvenile hall and they are more than likely to reoffend.  They are also extremely impulsive:  Act now and the hell with the consequences.

Three weeks ago the first Wednesday group session was held.  By the first break, a half dozen guys had bailed.  They had “good” reasons to leave:

“It’s boring.”
“I ain’t talkin’ about my f---in feelins.”
“I need to get out to rec.”

The principal came in and reminded the guys at the beginning of week two that the sessions were mandatory.  That led to the general consensus that “we signed up for school, not sharing”.  During the second week’s class, another half dozen walked out.

Now there’s a problem.  One of the biggest issues guys at risk have in successfully maneuvering through “the real world” is playing by the rules.  Almost every day I have to tell one of my guys you can’t put your hands on someone just because they “pissed you off”.  You can’t cuss someone out just because they tell you you have to do something.

So, the principal sends every student a memo.  It said simply “you are required to attend.  If you leave early you will be dismissed from the program and administratively reassigned.”

This past Wednesday, “Goodwill Wednesday”, five guys left early.  They all had the same “valid” reasons as previously detailed.  Things were different this time.  Wednesday afternoon the principal enforced her memo.  Five students – within weeks of taking their certification exam and months of graduating – were moved out of the college dorm and into other buildings.  They will all be moved to other prisons within the next two weeks.

Shock was the emotion exhibited by most guys throughout the building.  Guys kept coming to me saying “I can’t believe she did that…it’s so unfair.”

“Unfair?”  I replied and pointed out she did exactly what her memo said.

No, these guys were chuckleheads.  They knew the penalty beforehand and still walked out.  They threw almost a year’s worth of hard work away.  And, I feel for them.  I worked with these guys, praising and cajoling, building up and tearing down, to get them through.

Will that be the end of chuckleheadedness in the building?  I doubt it.  But, I’m pretty sure no one will miss next Wednesday’s meeting.

Homecoming for B.I.

This past Tuesday one of the college students, “B.I.”, left prison for freedom.  He was arrested two weeks before his 19^th birthday.  He left 3 months before his 39^th.  He came in a teenager; he departs a middle aged man.

B.I. was one of the smartest students in the college program.  He was shorter than most guys in here, maybe 5’7” max, but he was bull strong.  He’d spend two hours each day, six days a week, lifting weights.

He was also very bright and well read and very studious.  He would read pretty intense pieces and ponder their meaning.   Whether it was Kant and Nietzsche or Whitman poetry, B.I. always had a book in hand and a pad and pen nearby.

And, he was friendly and outgoing.  He had an infectious smile.  He was polite and kind.  Did I mention he’d spent twenty years in prison for murder?  That’s one of the strange things about prison.  There are guys like B.I. who’ve spent years at low custody (14 of his 20 years).  To see them you wouldn’t know they committed a violent crime.  DOC doesn’t consider them violent – they’re housed at lower levels.  And yet, the years roll by, like water in a stream.

The last week before he left, B.I. became withdrawn, introspective.  He quit lifting weights choosing instead to spend hours by himself walking the track or just sitting outside.  Last Sunday, I finished running and B.I. came up to me while I cooled down.  We talked for a good while.  B.I., a guys who’d seen the worst prison had to offer coming into the system at a high security level with stabbings, rapes and extortion a daily occurrence, was scared.  He wasn’t sure he could make it “outside the walls”.

It reminded me that I’m one of the few who find themselves in this situation who actually lived “normal” society lives.  B.I. never held a full time job, never lived on his own.  Buying groceries, going to and from work, paying rent, buying a car or a house – it’s all foreign to him; so is the Internet, cell phones, ATMs, debit cards.

B.I. came to prison as a 19 year old, living at home with his mom.  He was a high school dropout, selling drugs and carrying a pistol in case things went wrong.  One night things did.  And twenty years later this no longer young man walked out of prison to a world he’s seen on TV but which is completely alien to him. 

The general “thought” in “cultured society” is way too much is spent on inmate education and programs.  “They’ve got it too easy.”  I’ve heard it; I said it before I came inside.  Nothing could be more incorrect.

Prison is a brutal, dehumanizing environment.  It is also a time warp.  The world moves on each day, yet life in prison stays the same.  And for long-term inmates, men like B.I., the transition from an over-regulated environment fraught with violence and filth, to a relatively fast paced free lifestyle, is perilous.

For B.I. his fear was, in part, driven by the fact that he couldn’t “go home”.  His mother lives in federal subsidized housing which prohibits him from living there.  So Tuesday morning he sat, waiting for his “ride” and wondering, “Can I do this?  Can I survive out there?”

B.I. is one of the lucky ones.  As a member of the college IT grant program.  Goodwill Industries took an interest in him.  Tuesday morning, two representatives from Goodwill’s Northern Virginia office came to Lunenburg.  They picked B.I. up, took him to DMV to get a state issued ID.  They drove him back to Fredericksburg and got him lunch, his first meal outside.

And they did more.  They found him housing and lined up job interviews.  They were there so B.I. had a chance to succeed.  Will he make it?  Maybe I’m too much of an optimist, but I believe B.I. will be alright.  He survived hell; he survived a twenty year time warp.  He has support from the good people at Goodwill Industries.  It won’t be easy, but he’ll do it.  He’ll do it because, in spite of his crime, he is a decent human being who will overcome the challenges facing him.  Hopefully folks “out there” will see that in B.I.   He’s paid his debt.  He is entitled to live again.

The Goodwill Meeting

This week, Goodwill Industries came behind the fence to meet the IT certificate grant students.  A significant portion of the grant is devoted to place these forty men in jobs and assist them with re-entry into their community.  Goodwill Industries partnered with the community college to participate as the re-entry coordinator.  But, they did more than that.  Goodwill put $100,000 of their own money into this program.  Starting in September, Goodwill will direct seminar programs for these forty men preparing them for life outside the structured confines of prison.  And, they will find work for each man.  They will meet with them, monitor their progress and make sure prison is a thing of the past.

Three members of the Goodwill team directly responsible for these men and this program came to the prison Wednesday.   Before the meeting, almost to a man, the attitude about Goodwill was “too good to be true”.   Afterwards, without exception, every man in the room “saw the light”.  They believed in Goodwill; believed in themselves.

What changed?  They met the people.  The program director spoke first.  A man about my age with a gray beard, he talked about Goodwill’s commitment to helping anyone in need.  “Twenty years we’ve dedicated ourselves to helping released inmates return to society.”  Then his voice lowered and he told everyone about his closest friend at church.  “I knew him fifteen years before he found the courage to tell me he’d spent five years in prison in the late sixties for a robbery.  He was a decent man who made a mistake, paid his debt and for years was not accepted back in the community.  That wasn’t right.”

As the men quietly listened he added his own son had been to jail twice, both times arising out of alcohol abuse.  “You guys aren’t unique.  Everyone makes mistakes.  Ultimately we’re all the same and we all deserve a second chance.”

Then the employment director spoke.  A forty-something black woman, she sold the guys right out of the chute when she said, “I know exactly what you are thinking.  I sat in the same place when I was ready for my release from the women’s prison in ’03.  I did five years, lost my kids, was addicted to drugs.  Goodwill helped me when I was released.”

The president of the Community College then spoke.  He reminded the men that they were a first.  At a meeting a week earlier in New Orleans, community college presidents from around the country saw the video of the program.  “How can we do the same thing?” over and over, he was asked.

$52 billion.   That’s what the states and Federal government spend annually to hold nearly three million people in prison.  $800,000 and the dedication of a few college instructors and Goodwill Industries may show our country a better way.  America’s current prison system is a colossal failure.  A little goodwill may do more than any prison ever accomplished.  For one day at least, forty men believed.

A Response to Governor McDonnell

Dear Governor:

I intently read your office press release concerning recent legislation you signed to push your prisoner re-entry initiative forward (http://www.alexandrianews.org/2011/06/governor-mcdonnell-signs-prisoner-re-entry-legislation/).  I also read your online op-ed piece (http://www.riponsociety.org/112bm.htm) touting prisoner re-entry which appeared on the pages of “The Ripon Forum”.  Ironically, I had to wait until someone on the street sent copies of these to me.  Even though I serve as an academic aide in one of your re-entry pilot programs – this one training inmates in computers – we aren’t given access to the Internet.

Like the folks in Syria and Libya, I am one of approximately 40,000 incarcerated persons in a Virginia prison yearning for freedom.  Like those people in the heart of “the Arab Spring”, I am cut off electronically from the outside world.  And like those people, I hear politicians speak and write each day in lofty platitudes about “freedom” and “second chances”.  But, as my Grandfather used to say “actions speak louder than words”.  You talk a good game Governor.  But, as you will see below, there’s no action behind your words.  If you really do believe “everyone deserves a second chance”, then cut the bs.  Stop the quick campaign slogan gimmicks about “public safety” which have absolutely nothing to do with the operation of prisons or the failures of “truth in sentencing” laws which instead just lead to a bloated, money down the drain, criminal justice bureaucracy that cannot be sustained. The legislation you recently signed will do nothing to lower recidivism rates in the Commonwealth.  The legislation, simply put, doesn’t address why some men and women commit crimes, nor does it address the attitude most pervasive in here:  the system isn’t fair.

Start with your comments about “truth in sentencing” and Virginia’s abolition of parole.  Statistics can be used to skew the truth.  It’s obvious you know that.  Yes, Virginia – per the recent Pew Center study – has the seventh lowest recidivism rate in the country.  But, the rate was actually lower when parole was in place.  As for “truth in sentencing” you know better than anyone the vast majority of states have adopted the same laws.  Why then are non-violent felons sentenced to substantially shorter sentences in the neighboring states of Maryland and North Carolina?  Why does the state most comparable to Virginia in population – Massachusetts – have about 11,000 inmates while Virginia has 40,000?

The reality of truth in sentencing is there is no truth to it.  Real examples for you to ponder:

·         A woman steals $2.3 million from a Norfolk business and gets 28 months. 

·         A Republican political hack steals $4 million in public funds and has a conviction for public indecency on his record (you know the case Governor.  When you were Virginia’s AG the investigation came across your desk and suddenly got misfiled) gets 10 years.

·         An employee in Fairfax steals almost $2 million, causing the company to lay people off.  He gets 4 years. 

·         I steal $2.1 million over twelve years; pay back over one third prior to sentencing, cooperate fully and accept responsibility for my actions and get 15 years.  

Sadly, the examples I just set out happen every day.  It’s called sentence disparity, Governor.  We sentence petty drug dealers to more time than child pornographers.  My sentence is higher than the dozens of child sex offenders I’m doing time with.

“Truth in sentencing” doesn’t exist.  Your sentence is dependent on the harshness of the judge, the case load of the prosecutor’s office, publicity surrounding your case, and the quality of your defense attorney.  What the abolition of parole and “tough on crime” rhetoric has led to is a prison system at 137% bed capacity, spending for DOC at over $1 billion a year, with no lessening of the recidivism rate, and those beds filled primarily by non-violent felons.  The “truth” Governor:  this isn’t about public safety; it’s about justice and economics.

Your press release and op-ed tout the work your Department of Corrections is doing to turn inmate lives around.  Have you ever been to one of Virginia’s prisons?  Go to C3, Powhatan Receiving Unit.  This time of the year the 10 X 6 cells hit 95°.  Chances are you’ll be put in with a sociopathic gangbanger who’s killed two men already for wearing rival colors.  Maybe, you’ll get to do time with a child molester who’ll be interested in pictures of your kids.  Yes, Governor, that’s your DOC receiving unit.  And that doesn’t include the toilet leaking, the roaches and ants crawling over everything.  That’s the system you’re overseeing Governor and it is broken, unyielding and cruel.  And Sir, as Governor, you are responsible for it.

I can’t speak for all the incarcerated, but to a man, the ones I have talked to think you’re just another politician feeding the public a cartload of manure.  “He doesn’t care about us” is the most common refrain I hear in this place.  Imagine trying to convince men that you really are sincere.  I’m labeled a hopeless optimistic.  “These guys say this all the time when they’re in office, but nothin’ changes.”  Makes me feel like a young Natalie Wood in “Miracle on 34^th Street”.  See Governor, one thing this experience has taught me is, we’re lost without hope.  So I believe in you.  “I believe.  I know it’s silly, but I believe.”

Instead of travelling all over Europe, drive out to Lunenburg and talk to a few of us.  We’re the guys who are spearheading the pilot IT Certification program for the forty at risk guys.  You may not like what you hear from us, but it’ll be a damn sight more honest and on point than what your own people are telling you.

For example, at this facility we have a college dorm with seven academic aides and almost eighty students.  Ask any teacher who comes “behind the walls” and they’ll tell you the same thing:  these guys have a hunger, a desire, to learn that isn’t seen on the street.  That desire is what motivates me to work my regular thirty hours a week as an adult basic education aide and then put in twice that amount of time – without pay – to tutor these guys in English, History, Philosophy, computer and a creative writing program.

This program, partnered with Goodwill (God bless those people) and Southside Community College can be a model for prison education around the country.  What does DOC do?  They assign a head warden here who said in a meeting to these college students “I don’t know much about this college re-entry program”.  Then, DOC puts an aggressive Assistant Warden in place who is openly opposed to the program.  His own officers have warned men in the college building “he wants us to come down on you.  He hates the building and all it stands for”.

So Governor, you can talk about re-entry all you want, but if your people don’t buy in, it’s doomed from the start.

And then, there’s early release.  You know why inmates don’t believe in you?  Because you keep peddling the false notion that longer sentences work.  They don’t.  Length of sentence bears absolutely no correlation to crime rate or recidivism rate.

What does work?  How about this.  Tie good time/early release into educational, vocational and rehabilitative programs.  An inmate who actively works at change and accepts responsibility for their crime should get out early, say after 25% to 50% of their sentence is served.

The fundamental flaw in your logic is you think making a criminal do a long prison sentence will make them feel more remorse and responsibility.  They’ll come out better citizens.  That Sir is backward.  The longer a person stays in prison, the more bitterness is created.  Every day in here is a day to lose hope.  You want prisons to be places of rehabilitation and restoration?  Turn the system on its head.

Governor, you talk a great deal about your faith.  The Book of James reminds us of two significant points:  faith without action is not faith and God’s judgment will be merciless on those who fail to show mercy.  Jesus dined with the prostitutes and the tax collectors.  If He were here, He’d come out to Lunenburg.  He also told the adulteress – seeing her remorse – “I forgive you.  Go and sin no more.”  He didn’t set an 85% minimum sentence on her.  That should be the model we follow for incarceration.

Future Prospects

The January/February issue of the magazine The American Prospect is devoted to criminal justice reform. Try these facts on for size:



1. Nearly 1% of the American population is imprisoned.


2. Approximately $70 billion is spent annually on the nation’s local, state and federal corrections system ($1.1 billion in Virginia alone).


3. Between 1972 and 2008 the state inmate population grew 708 percent.


4. In 2001 (the last year data was available) the cost to incarcerate an inmate for one year averaged $22,650.


5. Spending on corrections has grown 300 percent in the past 20 years.


6. The United States accounts for 25 percent of the prisoners in the world, but only 5% of the global population.


7. In 33 of 50 states (include Virginia in this) more was spent on corrections-related costs than education spending.


As Michelle Alexander, Associate Professor of Law at Ohio State University wrote:


“Crime rates have fluctuated over the past 30 years and are at historical lows, but incarceration rates have consistently soared . . . crime rates and incarceration rates have moved independently of each other; incarceration rates have skyrocketed regardless of whether crime has gone up or down. . .”


And she concluded with this telling pronouncement:


“As a nation, we have managed to create a massive system of control that locks up a significant percentage of our population . . .into a permanent, second-class status. . .we have all been complicit in the emergence of mass incarceration in the United States.”


Virginia, a state that did away with parole in 1995 and then saw its prison population climb from 9,000 to almost 40,000 in 15 years, elected Robert McDonnell Governor a year ago. McDonnell, a Republican and former Virginia Attorney General, was known as a tough on crime candidate. But, McDonnell is also an evangelical Christian.


Leaders of Prison Fellowship, a Christian outreach organization include former Virginia Republican Lt. Governor Mark Earley as a senior staff member. The group is making inroads in the conservative Christian movement by urging their members to take a serious look at inmate re-entry and alternatives to incarceration. It is, they argue, a moral obligation for Christians to care for the incarcerated. “Jesus would not have turned away from the prisoners and neither should his believers”.


Powerful words. But, it will take more than words to correct the problems associated with mass incarceration. Governor McDonnell has made a start with a re-entry initiative. Beginning January 10th, 40 at risk inmates (at risk means they are within 18 months of release and have a high probability of re-offending within a year of release) will begin an intensive eight month information technology certification program. Over those eight months they will earn 37 credits toward a college degree: 15 hours in general education courses (2 English, 2 Math, 1 Social Science) and 22 hours in information technology. They will have a counselor in here helping with job placement and a counselor “on the street” sponsored by Goodwill Industries to help them tackle work and community issues. Basically, help them adjust to freedom.


Those guys make up half the college guys in the newly created college dorm I’m now living in as an academic tutor.


The Governor appears willing to change Virginia’s prison model. He must do more. Give inmates like me – nonviolent offenders serving our first sentences – the opportunity for early release (say 25% to 50% sentence time); implement restorative justice and community corrections programs and remove the stigma attached to felons.


Do nothing and, in the future, corrections spending will completely overwhelm state and federal budgets. Do the right things, the moral things, and broken lives can be restored. Governor McDonnell has a choice and future prospects for correcting corrections hang in the balance.