Three Men I Know

There are three men I know and each, I learned this week, are facing a significant crisis.  How they deal with their particular crisis, how they proceed forward, will say much about them.  As I watch and pray over the incidents that unfold around me I see faith lessons.

Woo was one of our first IT students.  I say was because this week he was sent to the hole, locked up after fighting another inmate in the staff kitchen.  Fight is the wrong word.  It was no fight.  Woo, a man I’ve described in the blog before as having a head the size of a Rottweiler’s is a huge man. He has tremendous forearms, almost as thick as thighs, “Popeye” arms.  He is a large, strong, powerful man.

Woo is a staff cook.  Tuesday, during his shift, another staff worker began running his mouth.  Words were exchanged. Woo has been dealing for months with his mother’s passing.  Because her home was in Georgia he was unable to attend (inmates are prohibited from funerals out of state).  So Woo, dealing with the loss of his mother, the despair of incarceration, and the stress of waiting to see if his federal crack sentence is reduced (he has five years to do on a federal conviction which he starts when he leaves VA DOC in June 2012.  In July, President Obama signed into law, applying retroactive sentencing guidelines, that corrects the harsh disparity between crack versus powder cocaine sentences) snapped out. 

He picked the obnoxious inmate up and threw him on the heated stove causing second degree burns.  Woo pled guilty to a simple charge of fighting (could have been much worse), and is doing fifteen days in the hole.  His security level is being raised.  His good time (what little we receive) taken (adding 90 plus additional days to his sentence).  He has been removed from his job and college.

I have become aggressively pacifistic (an oxymoron if ever I heard one) since my arrest.  Violence is never the solution.  Behavior – fighting especially – to settle disputes in prison is commonplace.  I regularly recite the mantra to the guys “you can’t put your hands on someone in the real world”.  Unfortunately, in the “real world” too often “might makes right”.  Violence begets violence.  As Gandhi said “an eye for an eye and we’ll all be blind.”

How will Woo respond?  How will the loss of his job, college and good time affect him for the remainder of his bid?  What has he learned from this that will ensure he won’t repeat the insanity?  This is Woo’s third time in prison.  I pray it’s his last but this past week gave me reasons to think it isn’t.

Monday night the 5:00 pm news put up the photo of a “convicted sex offender” caught in a high school parking lot in Richmond.  “An investigation revealed the offender had failed to register.”  The offender?  Alexander, the “lawyer” I’d written about previously who made thousands of dollars each month off the hopes of inmates seeking a way out, the same guy who became involved with an officer this past summer which led to him being investigated and her being fired.  The same Alexander who was only released 56 days ago.

As I’ve written before, I met Alexander at the Henrico Jail.  To see someone I knew in jail came as a complete shock to me.  I’d seen him around bar events, legal ed seminars, and the like from time to time.  My gut reaction always was “this guy’s full of it”.  My opinion didn’t change when I saw him at the jail or later when I saw him here.  He was too cocky, too crazy with the officers, and to quick to tell guys their cases were beatable.  I avoided him.

Some of the officers had tipped me off that things weren’t as Alexander said.  He’d tell guys he ran a $4 million plus scheme on the street to gain inmate awe (point of information:  million dollar thefts carry reverence in prison.  I am treated as a genius because I was dumb enough to get caught after steeling $2 million).  He, in fact, took $30,000 from a trust account.  He also neglected to tell guys he had a 1999 conviction for indecency with a minor.

Even worse, there were indications Alexander hadn’t learned anything from his stay in the hole his last three months here – or his three plus year bid.  A number of guys had stopped me the past few weeks asking for help putting letters and materials together to mail to Alexander.  “He’s agreed to have his law firm handle my appeal,” they’d tell me.  Problem is, there is no law firm.  Alexander isn’t a lawyer.  He’s still running the same hustle he ran in here.

Now, he’s back in jail.  He’s facing new charges and these are serious:  failure to register is a major problem for a sex offender.  Being in a school zone as an unregistered convicted sex offender makes things even worse.  Alexander will, in all likelihood, be back in prison within the next few months.  He’ll get new time for his new charges and additional time for his violation of the terms of his probation.

For the guys in here still doing time, it’s just another dumb ass who gets out and screws up and makes it that much tougher on the rest of us to get out early.  Will Alexander ever get it together?  The answer appears to be doubtful.

And then there is Gary.  Gary is an Episcopal minister, a rector at a well-established church in Richmond.  Shortly after my arrest a dear friend who came almost daily to see me telephoned my minister.  The minister’s response when my friend asked him to visit me at the jail?  “I’m not getting in the middle of his legal problems and his marital problems.”  He wasn’t the only one from my church who rejected me after my arrest.  But the sting of being rejected by my clergy was deep.

My friend turned to his own pastor – Gary – to visit me.  Gary didn’t know me.  He’d never met me.  I wasn’t a member of his flock.  Yet, this man, this stranger, called on me at the jail.  He continued to do so monthly.

When I transferred to the hell that was receiving, Gary showed up.  He listened to me.  When I cried out asking “why” he didn’t offer simple, easy explanations for the mystery that is God.  Shortly after my arrival at receiving he sent me a card with the archangel Michael portrayed.  “Michael is the angel who guards and protects the Lord’s people” he wrote.  I put that card on the bunk so that every night as I lay there hearing the screams throughout the building I saw Michael.  That card, that angel, greets me every time I open my locker.

Throughout my stay here at Lunenburg Gary has written me – and visited.  He sent two amazing books about Christian meditation that helped me “silence the noise” in my head during prayers and bask in the quiet presence of God. There are two men that have led me to a deeper understanding of the mystery and magnificence of the Lord.  Gary and my friend Harley, who asked Gary to visit, are those men.

When I seek to model my Christian life after someone, it’s Gary I think of.  He had no reason to reach out to me.  Yet, his faith led him to me.  I am surviving this because of people like Gary.

Last night I received a copy of a letter Gary mailed to his parishioners.  My friend sent it with a short note that said “keep Gary in your prayers”.   Gary advised his congregation that he’d been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.  “The doctors are optimistic” he wrote about his prognosis.

I have taken to heart conversations and letters I’ve shared with this wonderful pastor.  Life does indeed not appear to make sense sometimes.  And trials and suffering make their way into our lives and they test us to the point of breaking.  But, God is good.  He is in the midst of all storms and He does see us through.

Every night since that first visit he made to the jail, Gary has been included in my prayers.  I don’t understand why or how cancer strikes.  I don’t understand why good people suffer.  But I do know Gary will be fine.  He is a good man and has the love, respect, and prayers of many.

Three men I know this week confronted trials.  Like all of us, some of the trials faced were the result of anger and impulse, or pride and arrogance, and others just visited upon us for no reason.  I pray for all three men that their trials awaken in them the true purpose God calls them to.

And these three remind me of a story:  “A Rottweiler, an attorney and a priest walk into a bar…”

The RH Factor

When I was at the Henrico jail I became friends with a young black man named Corey.  Corey was 24, a former gang leader, and back in jail for a simple drug possession charge.  He was waiting for admittance to Henrico’s drug court program, an alternative to incarceration.

Corey was an interesting kid.  He was bright, well-read, and extremely polite.  He and I would talk each day, for hours some days, about politics, history, religion.  Corey was a loner with the exception of dealing with me, and feared by a good number of the young Richmond inmates.

Every day, Corey would do 500 pushups in his cell, then sit lotus position for an hour meditating.  He left the gang life before his last arrest and had visions of completing drug court and going back to school to finish his degree.

On the day I was served with divorce papers I lay on my bunk and covered my face so no one could see me cry.  I was as distraught and full of despair as I’d ever been in my life. I was alone and felt completely hopeless.  I don’t know why, but later that afternoon I walked down to Corey’s cell.  He was on his bunk reading.  “Mr. Larry.  What’s up?”  I entered his cell, leaned on the sink and in a choking voice using all my willpower to not breakdown, told him my wife had filed for divorce and I had decided to not contest it.  I felt like a fool, I told him.  I’d voluntarily signed everything over to her 30 days earlier against the advice of my lawyer, my therapist, and numerous friends; all of whom said “she’ll drop you as soon as you give her the assets”.

Corey looked at me and simply asked “do you love her?”  When I said yes, he told me I did the right thing.  He then reached under his mattress and pulled out a book.  “Read this”, he said to me, “and remember you’re too smart ant too decent to give up.  You can come back.”

The book he handed me was by Dr. Charles Stanley, senior pastor of the First Baptist Church in Atlanta and it contained his message that God had a plan for each of us.  He never gave up on us.  The beginning of the book detailed Dr. Stanley’s own experience with divorce.  That night I read the book cover to cover.  I began listening to Dr. Stanley’s radio broadcasts Sunday evenings at the jail.  When I arrived at this facility and purchased a TV I began watching his church service every Sunday morning at 6:00.  Corey’s conversation with me that day and the book he gave me may have, quite literally, saved my life.  I’ve aged in this place and known deep despair, but I return often to what Corey and I talked about that day and Dr. Stanley’s book.

I thought about that this week – about enduring and fighting back – as a number of the young guys came up to check on me after learning of my brother’s death.  These guys reached out to me because; as one young kid told me “you cared about us when no one else did”.  It reminded me of one of my favorite movies, “The Natural”.  Robert Redford portrays Roy Hobbs, an aging baseball player who suddenly appears on the scene and leads a perennial loser to the pennant.  Hobbs, however, has a secret.  Years earlier, as the rising young hitter in baseball, he’d had an encounter with a woman.  She shot him, leaving him for dead in a hotel.

I think a good deal about Roy Hobbs.  You come to prison and you’re written off.  People let their real feelings show.  Love isn’t really love.  Friendship, loyalty don’t matter.  It’s as though you are shot and left for dead.

But then, you try to be yourself, give a damn about guys who others have written off, and occasionally it crosses your mind good can come of all this.  I felt that the other day talking to the guys after my brother’s death.  And I thought back to my conversations with Corey.

And Roy Hobbs?  He hits the game winning homerun and then left for home, back to the woman who really loved him and the son he never knew he had.  Of course that’s a movie.  They’re always happy endings in movies.

Conspiracies Everywhere

I was an unwilling participant to a conspiracy conversation the other day which got me thinking about failures in the nations corrections philosophy that are so prevalent today.  A couple of the young black college guys were debating the “real causes” of 9/11.  All three of these guys had read a revisionist “historians” (the guys not really a historian) take that the CIA and White House led the attack.  When I challenged their “research” they claimed I was too gullible.  “America’s the shit Larry.  Don’t you know that after what you’ve been through?”

Ignorance is alive and well in the inmate population.  Guys will buy any conspiracy theory – join bizarre prison created “religions” with off the wall theories.  I used to find it mildly entertaining.  But, like the rapid rise of another group of conspiracy believers – the Tea Party crew – I’m feeling a great deal of unease.  Prison spurs kooky views.  It’s up to the corrections professionals to address it.

When I was still held at the Henrico Jail I met an early twenties white kid who was an amazing artist.  He could draw anything – portraits, scenery, cars, you name it.  He was also covered in Nazi tattoos.  One morning around 5:00 as was my custom, I was drinking coffee, writing in my journal.  The kid sat down with me with a pained expression on his face.

“Mr. Larry, you’re a nice man.  I’m afraid the darks are gonna hurt you when you get to prison.  You need to join the Aryans.”

I thanked him for worrying about me but politely told him I didn’t need a white supremist group to keep me safe in prison.

Then I get to prison and I run up on Aryans, Hispanic gangs, a half dozen black gangs, Nation of Islam, Five Percenters, and a host of other fringe groups who each espouse a philosophy built on a corrupt power elite beating down on them.

Ask the average inmate to consider the real cost (in dollars) to taxpayers to keep them locked up and they will tell you prisons make money.  Why do they believe that when the evidence overwhelmingly shows the financial drain corrections has become? “If you were right Larry it’d make no sense to keep us locked up without early release.  Only a fool would run a system like that?” (Are you listening Governor McDonnell?).

Black inmates are suspicious of white inmates.  Two groups:  NOI and Five Percenters (anti-white) are recruiting members in droves.  Why?  Because they offer simplistic explanations for the despair that permeates the lives of inmates.  It is easier to accept your station in life believing “white America is a racist country bent on destroying blacks through prisons and drugs” (and one need only look at the extraordinarily high percentage of blacks incarcerated to see why this gains traction) than to engage in an in-depth study of this country’s racial schizophrenia.

As I tutor guys in History, English, Philosophy and the Social Sciences I am constantly surprised how little these guys know.  They have very little knowledge of history and are unable to synthesize events as they develop across historical/sociological lines.  Every event can be boiled down to some knee-jerk neo-Marxian theory of power and suppression of people.

So, what I do is, when asked, I state the truth.  I let the facts speak.  Does it change some things?  Sometimes.  Guys hunger to know why.  Prison should be a place of honest reflection.  Instead, it is a jungle of lies, anger and ignorance.  And the system feeds those three.  Courts aren’t “blind” arbiters of justice; sentences are disparate, even when crimes are similar; race and money matter in too many convictions and sentences.  Prisons become dumping grounds with too few programs, too little educational opportunities and sadistic guards and inmates vying for supremacy.

Men lose hope and without hope there is nothing.  In one of the most moving scenes in “The Shawshank Redemption”, Andy, sorting records in the warden’s office, barricades himself inside and takes over the prison speakers.  He puts on an operatic aria and the prison suddenly stills as the men listen to two women sing in Italian.  He is caught and goes to the hole.

The next scene, he is in chow – thirty days later with his friends.  They sit and stare in amazement at Andy looking fresh after such a long period in the hole.  “How’d you do it?” they asked.

“I listened to Mozart the whole time.” 

“You had music back there?”

Andy pauses, “In my mind.  They can physically keep me here, but in my mind I’m free.  I still have hope.”

There’s a reason hope lives even in a place as dehumanizing as prison.  Hope is about truth, and beauty, and love.  Too many men in prison have given up on hope.  They look for simple explanations; they see nothing but time.  Until prisons become places of hope, conspiracy theories will thrive; anger, despair and hatred will have homes; and fringe groups will flourish.

Hopefully, it will change.

Moral Dilemma

An incident occurred in DC’s class that caused him and me a great deal of concern and stress.  I share this incident with some misgivings.  This is not typical in classes.  A large number of women work behind the fences serving as nurses, counselors, teachers.  Few incidents occur in prison at this level involving inappropriate sexual conduct by inmates toward female employees. The reality is there is a greater likelihood of a fraternization incident than an unwanted sexual encounter.  Still, what happened this week reminded me we are living, at times, on the edge of anarchy in here.  Then again, the same thing happens in offices and factories around the country on a daily basis.

The two college IT groups are currently enrolled in Health.  The instructor, a very pleasant and attractive mid-thirties woman, is a first time teacher “behind the walls”.  Like everyone else who first goes through security and comes in here as a visitor, it is a little intimidating.  First-time instructors go through a brief (one hour) “orientation” conducted by DOC staff to explain the do’s and don’ts of the institution. As Dr. Y told me one day, when you leave the orientation you’re even afraid to make eye contact with any inmates.  Gradually, what most instructors come to realize is that men in these college classes, while not possessing the full complement of academic skills their counterparts on the street have, nonetheless have more curiosity and hunger to learn than the “free” students they encounter.

Ms. T, after four weeks of classes, was starting to recognize that.  She was changing from a guarded, worried instructor to an outgoing and engaging one.

DC has a member of his cohort (the term used to designate a group of twenty guys who take their classes together) who is known to excuse himself from class and head into the private bathroom for some “personal” time.  Anyway, class ended Monday and, as is our responsibility as aides, DC was resetting the classroom with Ms. T busy collecting her things.  This clown stayed back and called DC aside.

“I need you to take off DC.  The lady digs me.  I’m gonna make my play and set up getting my freak on.” [Exact quote.  I’ve learned an entirely new form of English in here].

DC told the guy “Man, you are nuts.  She’s not into you.  Get your head right.”  He then refused to leave the room which utterly infuriated “Mr. Suave”.  “Man, you f—d up my play.  I was gettin’ in and you ruined it.”

DC came back and talked to me about it.  The dilemma:  do we “rat” the guy out to the school?  I’m sure most readers will say “no brainer”.  But, it’s not that easy, as I’ll lay out in a few minutes.

The guy is looking for female companionship; I understand that.  I’ve been locked up for almost three years, three years of not having physical contact with a female.  The guys laugh at me because – being a “storyteller” – they know I spent almost thirty years with my wife and was never unfaithful.  Relations with some other woman didn’t really tempt me.  I wore my love on my sleeve for my wife.  It is a struggle in here.  One of the cruel elements of incarceration is the fact that intimacy – with your spouse or girlfriend, is disallowed.  But normal, healthy people have urges.  I am convinced one of the reasons there is so much violence in prison is because the system disrupts the normal, intimate contact between these men and the women who love them.

Guys deal with this lack of physical intimacy with females in different ways.  I know I avoid pornography and any sexually suggestive material on TV.  I try and focus on other things.  Sometimes, it’s hard (“that’s what she said!”  Sorry, a continuing joke from “The Office”).

What happens in here is occasionally, a guy will, well, snap.  He’ll believe a female employee/officer really is into him.  The guy may not always be crazy.  As I’ve written before, there are dozens of cases of fraternization every year involving female staff and male inmates.  There are, however, ten times as many cases of guys misreading a pleasant smile and demeanor.  Nothing usually comes of these guys warped thought processes.  But you can’t be 100% sure which leads back to DC and me.

I asked him “is this guy crazy enough to act on this?  Would he put his hands on her?”

DC – “I don’t think so.  He’s just a knucklehead.”

But what if he does act on it?  This compound would be locked down, the college program in jeopardy.

DC assured me he’d never leave any guy alone in the room with Ms. T.  I believe him.  DC may be a pacifist, but even at 58 he still has the hand speed of the great boxer he was forty years ago.  And me, at least four times I’ve been ready and willing to get my butt pummeled.  I learned my first week in the Henrico Jail you can’t let fear and intimidation stop you from doing what’s right.

So we discussed the pros and cons of letting our boss, the principal, know what took place.  Being a snitch in prison is the unpardonable sin.  You may not understand that, but one day incarcerated would change your view.  And, before you quickly say “of course you need to tell”, how many times have you told a friend “your spouse is unfaithful”.  How many times have you said to someone you care about “you shouldn’t divorce your spouse”.  We all have opinions about proper courses of conduct, yet day in and day out we keep them to ourselves.

DC and I met with our boss after a college meeting Wednesday.  DC assured her we saw no imminent danger for Ms. T.  We told her we let two other aides know and none of the guys would be alone in the room with Ms. T or any instructor.

Is that the proper solution?  Did we handle it correctly?  I can’t answer that.  I know I’m comfortable with what we did and I believe we did the right thing.  The thing about doing the “right thing” in here, or out there for that matter, is you have to take a risk sometimes.  If people know where you stand they’ll respect you.  They may not like you sticking your nose in their business, but they’ll respect that you’re willing to take a stand.
DC did the right thing in the class and I’ll back him up and defend him on this one.

Fraternizing 101

We had a troubling incident hit on B side Thursday.  “A”, a mid-forties, married, black lawyer from Richmond, was taken out of the building in handcuffs and led to the hole.  Right now, he’s “under investigation”.  People are pretty tight lipped, but it’s obvious this isn’t your run of the mill visit to the hole.  They don’t take guys out in handcuffs or “cease all movement” on the boulevard when leading an inmate from the building to the hole.  “A” broke a major DOC taboo.  He was fooling around with an officer.

I’ve had an interesting three year experience with “A”.  The day I was arrested and hauled to the Henrico Jail, he was already there.  That was his second visit to jail.  Both times, wheeling and dealing with client trust funds.  He knew all the “big hitters”, the top criminal lawyers in Richmond and had heard me speak at a continuing ed seminar a few years earlier.  A likeable guy, he was none the less, a first class bullshitter.  I knew that when I saw him at the jail so I had no illusions what dealing with him entailed.

June, 2009 rolls around and he tells me “I’m going home; getting my law license reinstated”.  I’m there; mired in deep depression and despair just into my first year of imprisonment and this guy – with his second conviction under his belt – is heading home to rejoin the world.  Sure enough, the next day he’s called out.

Two months later, I get introduced to receiving hell.  For the next four plus months after my transfer I suffer, genuinely suffer, in the worst conditions imaginable battling each day to maintain my dignity, humanity and sanity.  Then, on November 20^th in ’09 I’m transferred to this Shangri La and who is the first person I see as I’m pushing my cart up the boulevard?  “A”.  The bullshitter leaves this July 15^th.

He and I view the world – this world – differently.  He carries himself around the compound like a political candidate telling fellow inmates how he’s going to say this and that to the warden.  Me, I avoid discussions with the administration.  They have a job to do, but so do I.  There job is to hold men here and enforce sentences according to their interpretation of the law and DOC procedures.  My job is to get out of here as early as I can and point out the insanity of the system that keeps them employed.

“A” thinks he can work with them.  He plays up his legal contacts all the time.  Yet, his knowledge level is low.  That’s the thing I’ve learned about bullshitters.  They talk a good game, but they don’t back it up with facts.  “A” comes to me when he’s asked about the law.

“Pride goes before the fall.”  I’ve lived that.  There’s a reason Micah told the people of Israel that the Lord wants His people to seek justice and “walk humbly before your God”.  Hubris kills.

“A’s” been bullshitting a female CO.  She’s attractive enough.  Of course I define attractive through the eyes of someone still reeling over heartbreak from love lost.  But, she’s OK.  She treats the guys well, very pleasant and fair.  But, she’s an officer.  There is a weird psychological occurrence in prison in which guys believe females on the compound dig them.  I don’t get it and the vast majority of times it’s just guys fooling themselves.  But it does happen.  Female officers, female counselors, female psychologists and teachers, fall for inmates and engage in inappropriate relationships.

“A” and this officer had such a relationship.  It was common knowledge.  He’d end up in the office with her and the lights would turn off.  Something happened recently that even went further.  No one knows exactly what – but “A” crossed a line and the fraternization came out and now he’s in the hole and she’s under investigation. 

As I’ve written before, prison life imitates the “real world”.  It’s not called fraternizing out there, but it’s the same thing.  One only has to turn the TV on and see “Aanold” or John Edwards or Congressman Weiner (there are so many jokes I could make here) who followed their groins instead of their brain.  It’s not just a man thing.  Each of those men was involved with a woman.  And those women they were involved with all knew those men were married.

And the really strange thing is, I don’t get it.  We spend our lifetime looking for that one person and then we look for physical intimacy elsewhere.  “A’s” jeopardized his release and his marriage for a couple of carnal connections with an officer.  She’ll probably lose her job.

It all comes back to my alter-ego Dr. Gregory House.  In an episode from five or six years ago, his former lover shows up with her husband who is dying.  House is a broken man – physically, with a damaged leg and Vicodin habit to dull the pain; emotionally, with a broken heart from losing this woman.  He’s fragile and, in a recurring theme season after season, finds it nearly impossible to love another woman.

As with every “House” episode, he finds the correct diagnosis and the husband’s life is saved.  His ex comes to see him and says the following:

“You want the truth?  I still love you.  I always will.  You are the one, the only.  But this life is easier.”

Fast forward.  House is alone in his home.  There’s the background music, Mick Jagger singing:

“You can’t always get what you want

             But if you try some times
             You just might find
            You get what you need.”

House pops a pain pill.   It dulls him.  But, it doesn’t completely take away the ache he feels in his heart for this woman he loves.  Pain, loneliness, heartbreak suck.  Yet, they are preferable to the quick empty feeling of fraternizing.  Ask Arnold if it was worth it; or John Edwards.  Ask “A”.  I think they’d tell you they’re just a bunch of weiners.

Sentencing Inconsistency

Two days ago a story appeared on the news indicating Congress – at the request of the Federal Sentencing Commission – was considering applying the new crack cocaine sentencing guidelines retroactively.  The hope, according to the news report, is that the states will follow suit.

Prior to Congress passing and President Obama signing, the new crack cocaine sentence guidelines, thousands of drug users – mostly African American – were serving excessive prison sentences for possession of five grams (that’s about five sugar packs) of crack.  The penalty for that amount:  a mandatory five year minimum sentence.  To get the same sentence with powdered cocaine, a person would have to be in possession of 500 grams. 

The thought behind the law was crack was significantly worse than powdered cocaine.  This was a fallacy.  Cocaine is cocaine.  In any form:  powder, liquid or as a crack rock, cocaine is a highly addictive, dangerous drug.  The “real” reason for the sentence disparity – crack was cheaper and it was the drug of choice for hundreds of thousands of poor and predominately black Americans.  Powdered cocaine, on the other hand, was preferred by wealthier white Americans.

One of the major reasons the criminal justice system fails in its efforts to rehabilitate inmates in prison is because the system is perceived as biased and unfair.  There is much truth to support that perception.

Study after study conclude that defendants who can afford to hire the counsel of their choice serve shorter sentences than poor defendants who must rely on either overworked public defenders or – in the case of Virginia – court appointed lawyers whose fees are strictly capped.  These court appointed lawyers cannot hire investigators or experts to assist in the defense of their client’s case.  The expression “equal justice under the law” does not exist.

Sentencing inconsistency creates a victimization mentality amongst the convicted.  How does a man who rapes his seven-year old daughter get an eight year sentence and a check forger ten years?  Which presents more long-term harm to the community?

The day I was sentenced, a young man appeared before the judge shortly before my case was called.  He was with me at the Henrico Jail.  His crime:  his third DUI, driving on a suspended license resulted in his causing the death of his passenger.  The judge, noting his participation in alcohol treatment in jail, sentenced him to “twenty-four months” and required him to maintain an “ignition interlock” system on his car (breathalyzer to start his vehicle) upon release.  Sitting in the holding cell awaiting transport back to the jail following the judge giving me a fifteen year prison sentence, the young man told me “I can beat that lock.  Have in the past.”

A twenty-two year old named Matt was sentenced to twenty-four years in prison for malicious wounding.  His crime:  he and his fiancé broke up but continued to share an apartment.  They agreed to not bring any dates back to their place.  Matt came home from work and walked in on her and another man having sex.  Matt used a ten pound dumbbell and struck and injured the man.  Matt had two prior arrests involving drug and alcohol use.  He was denied bond and then given twenty-four years.  One day, while at the jail, Matt tried to slit his wrists, distraught over his future circumstances.

At the same time, the Henrico County Commonwealth Attorney’s oldest son was arrested.  Age 19, he was at an illegal card house, playing poker.  He was high on marijuana and drinking.  A dispute arose at the table and he struck another player with a beer bottle, injuring the man.  He too had prior drug and alcohol arrests.  He, however, made bond (the court set a $3,000 bond).  His sentence:  three years, suspended with drug and alcohol treatment.

Two similar cases in the same jurisdiction with vastly different results.  The prisons are full of such cases.  In my own case, I cooperated fully, made significant partial restitution and accepted responsibility.  I deserved to be imprisoned, just not in excess of child molesters, pornographers and second degree murderers.

Criminals must be held accountable for their crimes and accept responsibility for their behavior.  But, the criminal justice system must be fair.   Punishment must correlate to the crime and sentences must be transparent with application of restorative justice principles to return a remorseful, rehabilitated person to the community.

1200

I hit a milestone the other morning. I completed twelve hundred pages in my diary. As I’ve written before, shortly after my arrest I began keeping a daily journal of my experiences in here. Each page has approximately three hundred words. So many times during the past thirty-two months I’ve been asked by guys “what are you writing down?” A little bit of everything.



I recently completed Nelson Mandela’s newest bestseller based on his diary and personal correspondence written during his twenty-seven years of imprisonment. I was surprised by a good deal of the book. Perhaps it was my preconceived notion of what thoughts would cross a great man like Mandela’s mind. I just assumed everything would be deep and profound. But it wasn’t.


Mandela wrote about powerful topics such as maintaining your dignity in the face of a system bent on breaking you. He also wrote about his commissary order, and his vegetable garden, his love for his wife and children, his health. He wrote about everything.


In one letter to his young daughter, he wrote the following:


“Spiritual weapons can be dynamic and often have an impact difficult to appreciate except in the light of actual experience in given situations…To put it bluntly, it is only my flesh and blood that are shut up behind these tight walls…”


As I think about all the pages I’ve written, the mundane and profound, the boring and insightful? I understand what Mandela was saying. They can put a man behind bars, but they can’t take his freedom if he still has his mind, his experiences, his faith.


I write a good deal about the day to day happenings in here that are life in prison. A lot of those happenings are things I never knew occurred. I write about men and experiences that were far removed from my apparently sheltered life. I write about my family and friends. My ex and my kids make my entries almost daily. I’ve been told numerous times to “move on” and “close that chapter”. Ironically, shortly after his release from prison Mandela and his wife of thirty years separated. A few years later, they divorced. Mandela knew of his wife’s indiscretions while he was locked up. He also knew he was no saint. The divorce shattered him. As the notes in the book reflect, he could never speak publicly about her. Yet, even after his release, after the divorce, he wrote about her.


There is hope in writing. There is despair. Many mornings and nights I’ve written letters directly to God telling Him I’m not quite sure I can do this. Then, two days later I’m writing about receiving my commissary. The day after that I’ll be running and hurry in to record some self realization.


Twelve hundred pages. Following receipt of the divorce papers the court appointed a lawyer to serve as my “guardian ad litem” – an ironic twist of incarceration: no suit can proceed against an inmate without the court being assured the inmate understands the nature of the action.


I was called to a lawyer visitation room at the Henrico Jail and was met by a stunning, mid-thirties blond who introduced herself as my court appointed lawyer. We spent three hours together and during that time she asked about my life, my circumstances, my marriage. I told her the story, my story. Near the end, she looked at me and said “you need to write that down, for yourself, for your sons, for others.” She was the first person I told I kept a diary.


Everything about this experience is documented. I guess I do it because I don’t want to forget even a day of what this is like. I thought I knew so much before my arrest. I realized these past few years just how little I really knew. It may not matter to anyone else, but these pages represent the struggles and successes, the joys and heartaches I’ve been through. And, Mandela was right. No matter what happens to me, these pages represent my freedom.

Bearly Hanging On

One of the college students came by my cut the other day to talk to me. “Wv” is a guy I’ve grown quite fond of. He looks like a Rottweiler yet has a sweet, unassuming personality. When he first started in the English Comp class he was very insecure about his writing. I spent a great deal of time with him working on his essays, teaching him grammar, getting him to fully express his thoughts. He is earning an “A” in the class.



He knew I’d been hurting the last two weeks. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. It was apparent to anyone nearby that I was going through a difficult period. He came by, not to cheer me up, but to tell me he appreciated me giving so much time and energy to helping him.


It reminded me why I do what I do in here when there are days I ask God why He just couldn’t let me quit.


Something happened to me a week or so after my arrest back in August, 2008. In many ways, no matter how dark things appear, I can recall that moment and find the strength to go on. I was called to one of the Henrico Jail counselor’s offices. Ms. K was a lovely, petite, early fifties black woman. Her small office was covered in posters that said “Jesus love you”, and “God won’t ever give up on you”. I frankly didn’t feel like anyone loved me. I had given up and was sure God had also. I was three days removed from as close as I had ever come to a suicide attempt. I was a wreck.


Ms. K looked me in the eye. Her dark brown eyes were warm and comforting. She then spoke to me:


“I’m going to put you to work teaching. I’ve watched you these past few days. You look like the world’s ending. It’s not. You were put here for a reason. There are people who need you.”


She then leaned across her desk and said, “God told me to tell you that. There’s a reason for this path.”


I didn’t quite know what to make of her comments, but the next morning I trudged down the jail hallway to a GED classroom. I walked in, introduced myself to Ms. M, another fifty or so year-old black woman. I noticed twenty young black men staring at me. I felt more self conscious than I ever have in my life. The Ms. M spoke up.


“This is Mr. B. He’s going to help you guys get your GED. Now just because he’s older, white and educated, doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from him.”


She then winked at me and told me “Honey, we can use all the help we can get. You’ll do fine”. She then plopped me down next to an angry black block of granite called “Bear”.


“I call him ‘Smiley’ because he’s always in a happy mood”, Ms. M said, her voice oozing sarcasm. I sat down next to Bear and introduced myself. “I’m Larry.” He came back with “whatever cracker”, and put his head back in his math book.


Over the next few weeks, slowly at first, Bear began to open up to me. I learned he had taken and failed the GED test three times. Not yet 25, he had completed a four year bid with DOC and had been returned to the jail for six months on a misdemeanor conviction.


“I’m doin this for my gramma. She wants me to be a high school graduate.”


I actually started to like this young man and all the other young kids I was working with. As I worked with them daily and told them stories about myself they began to open up more and more. I saw how tough, how hard most of their lives had been. I also realized for most of them, no one had ever told them they could succeed. No one had ever told them they were smart.


My entire life was unraveling before my eyes. My marriage disintegrating; my name in the papers every time I’d set foot in court. The classroom, my time with Bear and the others, became my oasis.


Gradually, over the next three months Bear’s skill level improved. He was making tremendous progress. I was still a wreck, except when I was in school. And Bear’s personality changed. He smiled all the time. Guys from the class would see me heading down the jail corridors and yell out “Heh Mr. B!” It became a joke to the officers and a reason for me to smile.


On the eve of the GED test, just three months from when we began working together, I pulled Bear aside. “You know everything you need to know. You’re a smart guy, Bear. I believe in you. Now, believe in yourself.”


It takes a week to get test results in. One Friday morning I was heading down the main corridor toward school. Earlier that day I had received a letter from a dear friend at home. His wife was close to my wife. “You need to prepare for the inevitability of a divorce.” I was as down as I had been during my entire jail stay. I wondered if I had made the right decisions months earlier about even trying to survive the daily onslaught of bad news.


I looked up the hallway and saw Bear. He started quickly toward me. Suddenly, he threw his arms around me and embraced me in a tremendous bear hug.


“I passed, Mr. B! I passed!” He was as happy as I was sad. The officer on duty just smiled.


“My gramma is so happy. She said to tell you she’s prayin for you. You’re a gift from God, she said. When you get out you can come over for dinner.”


“A gift from God.” I looked at “Wv” as I finished the story. So many times during this trial I’ve felt as though my life didn’t matter. I’d hurt and betrayed the three most precious people in my life. I’d lost more than I thought was possible. I was suffering daily and felt my life was, frankly, shit.


But then there was Bear, and Ms. K, and Ms. M, and the dozens of other men I’ve tutored who have given me a reason to go on.


Things are terrible right now, as bad as they have been since I left the jail in August, 2009. But, each day gave me a chance to make a difference in Wv’s life, or someone else’s life. And right now that is enough for me to hang on to, just bearly.