Sentences: Beginning and Ending

 THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 2014.

 

            This week the last two men still here from our original Campus within Walls cohorts (group #2 who began in December of 2011) leave for home. “Mopey Joe” and “Chase” are leaving this place, this life (if you call living like this “life”) after 14 and 19 years respectively. I will miss both these men.

            “Mopey Joe.” I gave Will that name shortly after I met him in 2011. He was a “grumbler,” who reminded me of the “Winnie the Pooh” character, “Eeyore.” But, he was a decent, quiet guy who committed an armed robbery shortly before his 19^th birthday (coincidentally, the “victim” was not a choir boy himself – he too was on the police “radar.” To avoid his own legal problems, he fingered “Mopey Joe.”). “Mopey Joe” did hard time at some not so nice high level facilities.

            Chase is approaching his fiftieth birthday. As a young man in Baltimore, he was not the man he is today. He found himself on the wrong side of the law more often than he may even care to admit, but it was always “2 years here, 2 years there.” Then, in Northern Virginia, he crossed a line – a violent robbery and lock up for the next 19 years. When I first met him he walked up to me and told me, “I’m not sure I can do this college program. I never even turned on a computer.” I watched Chase learn to type; I watched him learn to write well; I watched Chase succeed… and complete our program.

            Both men leave before Christmas. And I watch as they prepare for life after this place, after this experience, and I hope and pray they do well. Prison – contrary to what politicians and judges say when they seek to justify billions in spending and millions of lives wasted – is not transformative. No one ever leaves prison better because of prison. No, you leave here transformed in spite of the filth, and insanity, and violence. Character – real character – comes out in the worst circumstances. Both of these men are decent, caring, and compassionate. That doesn’t ignore the fact that they committed wrongs which led to their incarceration. It should make you ask, did they deserve so much time?

            Both men will see their sentences end next week. Both men will begin lives anew and try to forget the worst and maybe remember those few moments of joy and friendship that somehow even arise in places like this.

            Sentences begin. For Virginia’s ex-Governor, Robert McDonnell, he sits on the cusp of his sentencing. Shortly after the new year begins he will enter the main courtroom in the Federal Court building in downtown Richmond. There, the presiding U.S. District Court Judge will hand down his sentence and McDonnell will, undoubtedly be going to prison. The U.S. Probation Office filed its “pre-sentencing” report the other day and recommended “at least ten years.” McDonnell is in purgatory right now. His old life is over. He may be going through the motions, acting as if all is as it was, but it isn’t. He knows nothing about what is coming. Until you hear that door slam shut, until you are processed in, you don’t know anything about it.

            The ex-Governor will stand there and hear the sentence handed down and he will feel more alone, more lost than ever before. And, he will wonder if he can survive it all. Can he survive prison, and loss of reputation, and loss of wealth and privilege? That is the beginning; it feels so much like the end – the end of dreams, and lifestyle, and relationships – but it is the beginning.

            Then there is “fighting Joe” Morrissey, member of the Virginia House of Delegates, lawyer – once disgraced, then restored – who accepted an “Alford” plea (Alford plea says “I’m not admitting guilt, but I know you have enough to convict me.) On 1 count of misdemeanor “contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” Morrissey was given a 6 month sentence; he’ll serve 90 days at the Henrico Jail, my “home” for a year.

            The Morrissey case points out the problems inherent in the criminal justice system. A family dispute – estranged parents – and the father notifies authorities that Morrissey is engaged in an “improper sexual relationship with his underage daughter (question: can there ever be a “proper” sexual relationship with someone underage?) Allegations of nude pictures on his cellphone (“child pornography”), underage drinking, and more come out in the press. Morrissey denies it all and vows to put up a fight.

            Both the girl (the alleged “victim”) and her mother claim nothing inappropriate occurred. The press eats it all up. After all, love him or hate him, Jim Morrissey brings ratings. Then, at the courthouse, just moments from beginning trial, the parties announced the plea. And Morrissey? He showed up at the Henrico Jail and smiling – genuinely smiling – he began his 90 day sentence.

            I like Joe Morrissey, always have. He thumbs his nose at the “civil,” the elite who rely on their status to maintain their comfortable lives. Morrissey regularly spoke out for the disenfranchised, the poor, the poorly educated, those behind bars. But, I can’t help and think that by accepting this plea he is admitting he crossed a line, a line no reasonable adult can justify.

            Morrissey will do his 90 days. His sentence is short but the repercussions to his career, his reputation, may last the remainder of his life. That is the thing with most sentences: they have beginning dates and end dates but the results may go with you.

            Two sentences end, two sentences begin and for each man their lives go forward.

 

 

In the Red

This blog was written in October, 2014            

So the Governor announces last week that the budget is a mess (quote: “We can’t continue to rely on the Federal Government …” Beautiful!) and DOC – the state’s most bloated, inefficient, and largest department – will bear the brunt of the cuts. Less than three days later, the DOC’s Director, Harold Clarke, announces that the budget for inmate medical care is $43 million in the red. Big surprise? It shouldn’t be. See, one of the effects of tougher, longer sentences is that you’re locking up a whole lot of people for a whole lot of years; people who had poor health care before conviction; people who were on the fringe of the American dream. And Virginia’s prosecutors and Judges, with arrogance and smug self-righteousness, pile dozens of years on these schmoos – most of whom lack proper education, proper health care, proper housing and employment opportunities – and puff their chests and say “we’re making our communities safer.” Yeah right.

            $43 million in the red. DOC knows that almost half those behind bars have legitimately diagnosed mental disorders. DOC’s answer? Load these men and women with high doses of psychotropic drugs with side effects such as liver damage and suicidal thoughts. Let them check in with an overworked psychiatrist via “video” conference for five minutes each three or four months.

            “Hello. How are you? Any problems? See you in May.”

            Incarcerated persons have drug addiction issues, which leads to higher rates of Hep C inside the fences versus society at large. Drug addicts willing to smoke or shoot up anything for the high have bad dental hygiene, blood disorders, psychiatric abnormalities. Diabetes is rampant inside prison and yet the diet fed behind bars is high in starches and carbs (hey, it’s cheap!).

            $43 million in the red. By the time an offender reaches 65, he will cost the taxpayers over $75,000 per year to house and maintain him. Statistics show that inmates over 50 have the lowest recidivism rates. Yet, Virginia lets no one go early. The state has both geriatric and medical release available yet Governors from both parties refuse to use it (McDonnell, in his last year in office, granted 3 medical paroles). DOC maintains one facility – Deerfield for the aged and chronically infirmed. 1,000 men housed there with a substantial number biding their time until they die. Think I’m kidding? Look at the number who die each year at Deerfield; look at the number suffering Alzheimer’s and dementia and cardiac disease.

            $43 million in the red. That doesn’t include the number of inmates who need heart transplants, kidney and liver transplants. DOC operates and maintains Marion, a psychiatric prison for the criminally insane. The cost for each person there exceeds $100,000 per year. And I wonder, as I see 75-year-old men using walkers to get around here, how incapacitated must you be to get sent to Deerfield? I see men babbling incoherently. I know max security at Red Onion has over 700 of the state’s worst, including many with psychopathic tendencies, and they don’t qualify for Marion. And I wonder who’s in charge? Where’s the logic, the structure, the organization to any of this because, candidly, DOC may stand for “damnable old cluster-fuck.”

            $43 million in the red. Then Governor McDonnell at his inauguration touted a new approach to corrections. Re-entry – returning men and women back to their communities after they “paid their debt to society” – became a linchpin of his administration with much fanfare and ado he brought in Harold Clarke, the then director of Massachusetts’s DOC. New buzzwords popped up inside prisons: “healing environment,” and “re-entry matrix,” and “thinking for a change.” But, like the old line goes, “if you put lipstick on a pig it’s still a pig.”

            “Healing environment” – yeah right. Prison is prison. Most of the folks in charge don’t give a rat’s ass for the notion of healing. Prisons are still dirty, backward, unhealthy (and at a lot of locations, unsafe) places. And Clarke? He came in touting his Christian upbringing, his “mission” to change prisoner’s lives. Clarke has proven to be a snake-oil salesman. His only mission, it appears, is to self-promote. I wonder Mr. Clarke what Jesus would say about your tenure as DOC chief? I wonder how Jesus would run DOC? Instead of Jesus, perhaps Mr. Clarke should ponder these words from Bob Dylan –

            “All the money you make will never buy back your soul.”

            $43 million in the red. Re-entry is a colossal failure and DOC knows it. The initial recidivism numbers show that offenders going through the program actually reoffend at a higher rate. Why? Because success outside is built on (1) employability and (2) family connections. Education – higher education – reduces recidivism not the inane crap they do with “word of the day” and “thinking reports.”

            $43 million in the red. That number will get worse. Every bill comes due and Virginia’s DOC bill – years of corruption and ineptitude – is in the mail. What it will take is a good ass kicking. The mission for DOC has to be to incarcerate the worst; use community corrections and restorative justice principles for most nonviolent offenses; and, invest in education, job training, and health care.

            $43 million in the red. Hey Virginia, it’s time to ask Harold to pay the bill.

Guilty

            I had a bet with my friend DC. Twenty-five push-ups per count. “Main Man, there’s no way a jury is gonna convict that man,” he said. “Just watch,” I told him. And the verdict came down: “guilty!” Eleven times the word was read. DC – and half the commonwealth – was shocked. I wasn’t. I take no glee in watching former Governor McDonnell’s life come crashing down. I’ve been there. But, having been there, I knew the result beforehand. Allow me some brief observations since I’ve gone through it.

            First, Mr. McDonnell has not honestly come to terms with his actions. Had he, he wouldn’t have put on that ridiculous defense blaming everything on Lady Macbeth, excuse me, Mrs. McDonnell. For years I rationalized and compartmentalized my wrong doing. Help in the community, work my butt off for my employer and my church, tithe to charities – all that I used to balance against my criminal conduct. Then a funny thing happened in late 2007. The rationalizations stopped working.

            I quit sleeping; I started drinking more. And, every quiet moment in my car became a conversation with God. “I’m out of control,” I’d say. “I don’t want to lose my wife and kids; I don’t want to go to prison.” For almost a year I prayed for a divine miracle all the while thinking I’d be better off dead. Then the day came and the call to the company’s president’s office and the five page letter where I was told I was being placed on “paid suspension” while an investigation was conducted over financial “irregularities.” I never read the letter. I knew what I’d done and I knew it was wrong. Then and there I admitted it.

            Gov Bob hasn’t gotten there, even now. Photos of him driving a Ferrari or smirking with Rolex blinging on his wrist and he says, “Hey, it’s ok.” No, it’s not … and he knows it. His own staff begged him not to wear the watch; his security detail tried to get him to avoid the Ferrari. And, Bob McDonnell is a smart man; he’s a decent man. But let me let you in on a little “truth” – good, smart, decent men are capable of doing wrong things.

            His defense, blaming his wife, stupid! You man-up and you take it; you stand there alone and you take the punishment. You don’t throw the woman who gave you five children under the bus to save yourself. A side story: Detective Clouseau (the investigator on my case) couldn’t believe I’d just admit everything. So, he decides there had to be millions stashed away. He teams up with a forensic accountant and schedules a “big meeting” with me. The detective tries to play “good cop” while the accountant is “bad cop.” They tell me they want “the truth” or they’ll prosecute my wife, throw her and my kids on the street. They’ll go on a hunt at work and “anyone” who received anything from me will be fired and perhaps worse. I listen to this bullshit for a few minutes and then I snap. “Leave … my wife and kids out of this! Leave everyone else alone or I swear I will fight and drag this out for years!”

            I’m red in the face; my shackled hands have slammed the table; and, I don’t give a damn what happens to me. There’s a pause, silence, and then the company President whispers to the accountant. A ten minute break and “Alright Larry. We won’t bother anyone …” I make no plea deal; I save the house and assets for my family and ironically I find my equilibrium. No one was responsible for the mess I found myself in other than me. Governor McDonnell needs to find that same honesty inside.

            Then there was the report about the Governor’s reaction to the verdict. He sobbed; he fell apart. Sentencing day. I’m alone in a basement holding cell at the Goochland County Courthouse. My wife isn’t there; she’s ready to file for divorce as soon as certain “settlement” papers are signed that day with my employer. I’m hoping for “time-served.” My lawyer says, “Prepare for two and a half to four years.” I go into the courtroom in shackles on my feet, waist, and hands. I see my parents for the first time in eight months.

            The hearing begins. The Prosecutor, who’s already told my attorney he’s being pressured by my former employer for a stiff sentence asks for thirty years. “They’ll suspend almost all of it,” my attorney whispers to me. My turn and three friends, three men who never have wavered in their belief and support for me, testify about who I really am. Other letters are read including one from a few elderly African-American women who served with me on a local food pantry board. “Jesus loves Larry and would show him mercy. Do the same for this decent man.” I fight back tears. I feel like shit about myself. They feel otherwise.

            Then, I speak. I make no excuses. I apologize to my family, my employer, my friends, and the court. I hear two young women – my paralegals – sobbing as I speak. I finish and I wait and then the Judge sentences me: “fifteen years with the Department of Corrections.” I am given more time that most child pornographers, child molesters, and second degree murderers.

            “Anything else from the defense?” The judge looks down at my lawyer and me. “No your Honor,” I say and add, “thank you.” I’m escorted from the courtroom. I won’t cry; I won’t succumb. I am alone in that holding cell and I repeatedly ask God why He just won’t let me die. An elderly sheriff’s deputy drives me back to the Henrico Jail. He is the same deputy who has driven me all four times that I’ve left the jail to go to court.

            There are no words between us on this trip. I look straight ahead and have no thoughts. We arrive at the jail and he escorts me in and signs me back over to Henrico authorities. My life feels over.

            As he is unhooking my shackles he speaks to me.” Mr. B, you are a decent man. Never forget that. You did yourself proud today. You can get through this.” I have never forgotten that deputy or his words. I’ve often wondered why he chose to speak such encouragement to me. Perhaps my behavior that day really did matter; perhaps it was God sending a message.

            The other morning, one of the teachers I work for asked me if the Governor “will be able to carry himself through this as well as I have.” I was stunned for a second. See, I know how tough this has been. And, every day I feel like I let someone down. I remembered that night after sentencing reading Psalm 27:

            “Though an army may encamp against me,

            My heart shall not fear …”

            And I thought about Hemingway – “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

            Governor McDonnell is a convicted felon. And, he’s a disgraced lawyer. He will, in all likelihood, go to prison. He will lose his retirement, his wealth. His marriage is over. His reputation damaged. But if he listens to the quiet voice inside he will overcome this. We are better than these convictions. We are broken, but in those breaks comes rebuilding.

            If he asked me, I would tell him this – don’t fight to save your past; move forward to save your soul.

            Perhaps, just perhaps it is in these failures that God’s true path for us comes through. Good, decent men can overcome their wrongs.

            Grace Potter, what a gorgeous woman with a beautiful voice, sings “Low Road” with this,

            But it’s a low, low road

            You’ve gotta roll down

            Before you find your way, my friend

            And it’s a high, high hill

            You’ve gotta climb up

            Before you get to the top again.

            Someone needs to let Governor McDonnell hear that song.

Re-entry Failure … Again

How important is reintegration of a released felon to the community? Politicians and social science researchers will tell you it’s the single most important issue facing the criminal justice system. Over ninety percent of the men and women who end up behind bars find their way back to their communities. Even as crime rates have decreased over the past twenty years, the number imprisoned have steadily risen. The cost to house an inmate in prison continues to dramatically increase as well. Re-entry, the success or failure of a released felon returning to society, matters.

            

Why then is it such a failure in here? The Governor announced his re-entry initiative with much fanfare at the beginning of his term. Millions were set aside for the program. Ten facilities were labeled as “re-entry centers.” Cognitive counselors were employed; “productive citizenship” curricula designed; computer programs installed to test and measure each offender’s risk of recidivism. And the result? Two thumbs down.

            

Like much about the Governor’s term, his re-entry initiative looked a lot better on paper on day one than in reality with less than six months remaining in his term, a term that is now defined by corruption and scandal and a Governor trying to survive the remainder of his term without being indicted.

            The “hole” here is in “7” building. The officers refer to it as “Building 3c.” See, the re-entry building, the one with 180 guys within eight months of release, is in 3 building (both A side and side B). Every week there are brawls in 3 building; drug use – not just weed, but crack, and heroin, and pills, - is rampant. There is wine making and cigarettes, extortion, gang attacks, and female officers being “gunned.”

            

They haul them out four and five at a time, throw them in solitary for ten, twenty, even thirty days. Then, it’s back to “3” building. Why? Because every incarcerated offender (except the college students) must go through the “cognitive community.”

            

The problems with re-entry programming are clear. Unfortunately, DOC like most bureaucracies, is slow to admit problems, and even slower to adapt. Unless change comes and comes quickly this Governor’s re-entry initiative will be added to the pile of failed prison initiatives that has plagued the commonwealth since Governor Allen sold the voters a snake oil called parole abolishment.

            

First, there is no incentive for guys in “3” building to pro-actively participate. You get down to eight months and screw up and they yank what little bit of good time they give you and guess what – you spend an extra twenty to thirty days here. Model inmates earn a max of 4.5 days per month (54 days a year). Screw up and you earn none. But, your sentence stills runs and you still get released. You want men and women behind bars to be motivated to participate in re-entry programs? Change Virginia’s good time earning process. Make it possible to substantially shorten your sentence by working, training, and participating in programs from day one. Then when you get to your last eight months you can have a lot to lose: all that accumulated good time.

            

Second, for guys who screw up; ship them off this compound even if they’re in re-entry. Prison sucks, but compared to the violence and filth at higher levels, this is relatively easy time. Guys who aren’t in re-entry and are caught sexually harassing female officers see their security level rise and they soon are moved to a level 3 or level 4 facility. The same rule should apply for re-entry residents. You want to masturbate in front of a female officer; you should get tagged as a “sex offender” and shipped.

            

Third, the folks running the programs have to come from a world outside of DOC. The head of the re-entry program here is an overweight blowhard named “Lewis.” He’ll tell guys anything they want to hear, then he sneaks back to his office and fires off memo after poorly worded memo directly contradicting himself. Prison is an environment where trust is hard to build. It is even worse when the folks tasked with re-integrating offenders to society repeatedly lie.

            

And, why aren’t those staff members held accountable for the nonsense going on under their noses? Lewis and his staff would be let go for the pitiful results resonating out of 3 building if this was a profit or loss operation. Instead, they walk the grounds of this Shangri la without a care in the world.

            

Finally, as I have harped on in a number of blogs, offenders don’t need touchy-feely “cognitive community” programs. They need real treatment programs to address alcohol and drug addiction problems. There has to be real work and life skills training including basic financial literacy training.

            

One billion dollars annually. That’s what the commonwealth spends on corrections. And while the crime rate comes down, the incarceration rate goes up. Worse, the recidivism rate doesn’t change.

            

Governor McDonnell correctly saw the need for change in this broken, life-destroying system. He lacked the political courage needed to radically transform the process. His is just another in a series of failed attempts at breaking the cycle of recidivism.

            

When will it finally be fixed? Only when enough politicians are willing to speak the truth to voters. Things inside the walls must change.

Re-entry or Revolving Door?

I recently received an email posting from “Virginia C.U.R.E.” – an organization dedicated to the successful integration of Virginia’s incarcerated back into society – concerning another Virginia Prison’s re-entry program. Posted by an inmate at Dillwyn Correction Center (a carbon copy of this facility), the writer points out that the re-entry initiative is “alive … but it is not well.” It’s as if he’s seeing the same thing at Dillwyn that I encounter here every day. Worse, as the writer points out, the program is “fully funded” (even while other programs lag due to funding problems) yet still not fully implemented.

            

The premise behind the Governor’s re-entry initiative is laudable. When 1 out of 3 released offenders finds his – or her – way back into prison within a year of release, something is horribly wrong. Prisons must be a place of rehabilitation and preparation for returning offenders to society as productive, law-abiding citizens. The cost to feed, house, and maintain an offender in prison is huge (over $25,000 per year). And, as the inmate population ages (20% of Virginia’s inmates are now over 55) the costs dramatically increase to $75,000 – or more – per year. Ninety percent of those behind bars will walk out. Their success – or failure – has a dramatic economic impact on the Commonwealth.

            

Governor McDonnell understood this from the outset of his term. With a combination of economic practicality and Christian grace theory, the Governor created a framework for preparing soon to be released inmates for return to their communities. But, as this blog has repeatedly pointed out, those “re-entry initiative” goals don’t match with the reality of life behind bars.

            

For one thing, nothing changed inside the walls. There is no impetus for an offender to aggressively seek to change. Be a model inmate, take every program available, work, and you still serve 85% of your sentence. Be a clown, you serve 100%. On a three year sentence that equates to about four months.

            

And the way prisons are run, with little regard for the actual rules and policies in place, creates an environment where favoritism and arbitrary enforcement of policies is the norm. Wardens have unreasonable leeway in enforcing DOPs (Department Operating Procedures); grievance and charge procedures are routinely ignored. It is, simply put, a rigged game and the offender population knows it. Anything proposed by “the police” is looked at with skepticism.

            

The second problem is the inmate himself. The vast majority of men and women behind bars lack basic work skills. They write poorly; they are incapable of even basic math calculations; reading comprehension – following written instructions – is beyond the skill level of most of the incarcerated. I am the exception. Most men here have never known educational success. They have never had steady, meaningful employment; many have never had a checking account, used a credit card (legitimately), managed their finances, saved, or bought a house.

            

The Governor’s re-entry initiative pays lip service to the building of marketable skills. The program instead focuses on inane group programs where offenders are given a “word of the day” and then attend group meetings. What is needed is more like a work skills boot camp with education: reading comprehensions, mathematics, oral and written communication skills, and technology training (computer keyboard use is a must!).

           

But, education and skills training take a backseat to re-entry programs. Nothing makes that case more than stating for the hundredth time that Virginia government provides $0 to prison higher education even though earning a degree in prison virtually guarantees that the inmate will not re-offend after release.

            

Finally, there are the “unit managers” and “cognitive counselors,” the fancy titled employees of the Department of Corrections who run the re-entry program. They come with the mindset of a DOC employee, a mindset that says group matters over the individual (even down to the long-term treatment needs of the offender), and security trumps program. Counselor is a misnomer. There is no counseling. There is also no “thinking outside the box.” They run – and manage – the program line by line as it is spelled out in the department re-entry directive.

            

They enforce silly rules which change almost weekly, and operate their groups with almost god-like power. Inmates who curry favor are routinely given plum assignments. They schedule multiple meetings daily and lead men to give up jobs and miss school to attend their programs.

            

They operate off a script. Our building’s cognitive counselor, a flitty forty-something woman, regularly tells the men “I am your role model.” She hands out syrupy psychological advice from her office covered in posters of kittens, balloons, and trite six-word goal statements while knowing nothing of the men’s pasts or their dreams and aspirations.

            

Completing the program is more important than meaningful change. That’s sad because this re-entry program is showing no better recidivism results than prior efforts. And from the inside, the answer is obvious.

            

There must be department buy in. DOC must be willing to adapt. Wardens, treatment managers, unit managers, and counselors must be held accountable. Their charges’ (the inmates they work with) re-entry success should be used to grade them. And re-entry should be squarely focused on work skills; job training, education, life skills, not the soft, ambiguous program pushed now.

            

Rehabilitation is an expensive process … but so is locking someone up. It’s time those dollars are used effectively – and only once. Prison should be a chapter, not entire life story.

A Splinter in the Eye

For the past few weeks I have silently observed the increasing drama that has engulfed Virginia’s Governor. While the guys in bunks all around me feasted on the almost daily disclosures of more alleged improprieties. I held my tongue. There were reasons for my lack of comment on the Governor’s potential legal problems. For one thing, there is too often in this country a rush to judgment. This rush is fed by a media which places ratings over careful, ethical journalism. Getting the story first is more important than getting the story right.

          

And the media almost always seeks to sensationalize the story. Everything is “Breaking News.” Every story is told in catchy, rhythmic, two-minute blurbs. Getting the story out is more important than considering the effect the release will have on the people involved. The media tells us how we should view those involved. They almost always label someone a hero. We’ve reduced heroism today to anyone in the vicinity of almost anything.

          

It’s worse if you are an accused. While the Constitution may guarantee a presumption of innocent until proven guilty, no such presumption exists with the press. An accused’s life becomes fodder for the person’s background. Facts aren’t important. Rumor, anonymous sourcing, and speculation routinely take hold.

          

The power of the state to direct a prosecution and bring vast resources to convict an accused is a power that the framers of the Constitution feared. That is why limitations, in the Bill of Rights under the 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, and 8^th amendments, became pivotal to the nation’s founding. All of that means that I take what I see on the news about the Governor with a grain of salt.

          

The second reason is along the same lines. We have become a nation built on schadenfreude; you know, we revel in other’s – especially successful people’s – misfortunes. Nowhere is that more evident than in our politics. During George Bush’s two terms, the Democratic Party regularly labeled him akin to a Nazi. He was called stupid, slow, ignorant (and terms I won’t even use in this blog). Not to be outdone, after Barrack Obama’s election Republicans launched their own smear campaign.

          

We love when the rich, the powerful, the famous fail. We are better than they are, we smugly tell ourselves. I have grown to hate that attitude. One thing prison has taught me is that the writer of Proverbs knew a good deal about human nature. Pride does go before the fall. And, all of us are capable of moments of unjustifiable pride.

          

The third reason is more personal. How can I gain any joy out of watching this man’s difficulties? His current legal problems won’t change my status as a convicted felon serving a prison sentence. And the news of his son’s arrest for disorderly conduct in Charlottesville? As a father, I understand the pain and worry he must feel. I would never want anyone’s son – or daughter – to go through the humiliation of booking and arrest, or face time behind bars.

          

So, I’ve held my thoughts about the Governor’s troubles to myself, until now. Here goes.

         

Bob McDonnell is a smart man. He wouldn’t have gotten where he did if that wasn’t so. But, smart men can (and do) do very stupid things. If Governor McDonnell accepted even a dollar from a political supporter and that was used for a watch, his wife’s dresses, or maintaining rental properties at Wintergreen or Virginia Beach, then that was stupid. Gov, you know better. Don’t obfuscate and play semantics. The Governor needs to say what he did and acknowledge it gives – at the very least – the appearance of unethical conduct.

          

Second, this should be a wakeup call to him that something is terribly wrong with the criminal justice system. He is facing numerous felony charges. This could – and should – be an epiphany for him. What useful purpose is served in seeing him indicted and imprisoned? None. The Governor can use his personal difficulties to spur him to transform Virginia’s current punitive sentencing and incarceration terms for non-violent felons. “Walk a mile in that man’s shoes.” I have.

          

Here’s what I mean. President George Bush, on a recent tour of Africa was asked to comment on two polarizing issues: gay marriage and immigration. He told the interviewer he was “not going to comment on political issues. I’m retired.” But then he added, “You know, I don’t know what it’s like for those folks (meaning gay American and immigrants). Who am I to judge them with the log protruding from my eye.” I really love that. He was referring to the Gospel statement by Jesus about pointing out the splinter in your neighbor’s eye while a log protrudes from your own.

          

That same attitude should apply when we see a bright, successful politician like Governor McDonnell face legal scrutiny over impulsive, dumb decisions he made. “As you judge, so shall you be judged.” That’s another one of those Biblical truths that keeps coming more clearly into focus for me from the inside.

          

So, I tell the guys around me not to be so quick to gloat over Governor Bob’s difficulties. “Empathize,” I tell them. “You know what it’s like.” We all do. Everyone (yes readers, “everyone”) will make a mistake now and again. And when those mistakes, those impulsive, or violent, or reckless decisions are made, there is no lonelier feeling than wading through the mire that is the consequences.

          

I’m not suggesting people get a free pass. There are consequences that arise for our behavior. But, punishment must be tempered and must fit the crime. And, it must not be meted out with revenge or glee.