20th Anniversary: And This We Celebrate?

It was the Beatles who gave us the line, "it was 20 years ago today, Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play...." That was an anniversary worth remembering. Here at LCC, next Friday will mark 20 years since this facility was opened and the administration is going all out to celebrate. How odd, they want to celebrate a place where 1 out of 3 offenders ends up cycling back in to the system within the first 12 months of release; they want to celebrate a facility that costs Virginia taxpayers over $27 million each year to house, clothe, feed, and not much else; approximately 1000 offenders, most of which have been through the system at least once before. They want to celebrate their successes, except there are no matrix to measure success.

You know how things run around here--the worst building on the compound is the "re-entry" building. The guys are off the chain and the staff will tell you they have little control over how things run. The state spends over $100k on an "evidence Based" manager of reentry who is regularly cussed out by the residents of his re-entry pod because he isn't a straight shooter. The re-entry programs--which the state spent millions on to a private contractor--are long on touchy-feely “clap for the word of the day" and short on actual drug and alcohol programs and work skills necessary to succeed.

Participants in re-entry can miss school; their re-entry programs are "that important" to the offender's overall "success." Really? Every study done suggests offenders (at least 50% of whom lack even a high school diploma) need more education, more training in real skills for living outside of ere.

But that doesn't matter. See DOC operates as an independent body; there is little government oversight over control. No one, it seems, is looking at the massive expenditures in money and manpower wasted throughout the system. And before you say, "these guys deserve it," LCC is not a high security facility. Most of Virginia's prisons are level 1 and level 2 which means the vast majority of the men (and women at other spots) are within 5 years of release.
Where is the oversight? Where is the independent audit and control? Where is the real effort at "corrections"? It certainly isn't here.

Know why all these prisons are around? Because Bill Clinton, facing public embarrassment and scorn sold his soul to the Gingrich controlled congress and signed the Prison Litigation Reform Act. In it, the Feds gave billions in block grants to the states to build more prisons. And the states did just that. Only it backfired because the fed money dried up, incarceration rates went through the roof and the system became even more bloated and corrupt. Both Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich admit today they erred; both now are advocates of criminal justice overhaul.

Anniversary celebration? Celebrate this--entire generations of low income, low educated citizens are cycling through the system and nothing being done in here is either making you safer or correcting the problem. You want punishment, that's fine. But the ramifications of a corrupt system that overwhelmingly punishes
and fails to rehabilitate is anger, bitterness and the likelihood that once released you'll be back.

"Happy" anniversary--hardly. Those folks who live out here know the real score--no other businesses want to locate near the prison. And the staff? They've been busy taking employee surveys to understand why morale is so bad and attrition is so high. Instead of an anniversary celebration perhaps there should be a wake.

Grievance Process – or lack thereof

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN FEBRUARY, 2015.

            During the mid 1990’s President Bill Clinton, embroiled in his own sordid sexcapades that become known as the “Lewinsky scandal” signed into law the Prison Litigation Reform Act. The PLRA was an attempt by the majority House Republicans to reign in what they perceived as activist judges from coddling inmates and their complaints. Before enactment of the PLRA an aggrieved inmate could file for habeas relief (habeas corpus protection goes all the way back to the English common law and ensures that “the state” cannot arbitrarily hold a person in confinement without “due process of law” which in effect means an accused is entitled to be treated “fairly”).

            If an inmate’s rights were being violated, the inmate could hand write a petition to the Federal court and spell out the constitutional abridgement. Cases involving beatings by officers, torture, lengthy terms “in the hole” all routinely found their way to Federal Court. Each year tens of thousands of these petitions were filed in U.S. District Courts. And, there were frivolous cases filed. Inmates, with nothing but time on their hands, would file suit because bread wasn’t soft enough, or conjugal visits were not permitted.

            The PLRA was enacted to curb those alleged excesses (more significantly, the act also attempted to deprive death row inmates of appellate rights to review their capitol convictions). Under the PLRA, state were permitted to set up “administrative processes.” Inmates were required to comply with those processes before being able to file suit. Every state and the Federal Bureau of Prisons did such. And, an inmate’s ability to challenge unfair prison treatment immediately began to wither.

            Due process in prison is just a couple of words. The grievance process in effect at this facility is neither fair, nor objective. It fails the “smell” test.

            The facility has a grievance “ombudsman,” a person responsible for handling and investigating inmate complaints. The term “ombudsman” has a specific meaning. It means “a public official appointed to investigate citizen complaints.” By its very definition it implies objectivity and fairness. Nothing can be further from the truth with this facility’s grievance ombudsman.

            Most egregious of the defects is the fact that the staff person in charge of grievances isn’t objective. Her comments about grievances filed by inmates reflects her belief that inmates “don’t know as much” as she does. Case in point – I recently filed a grievance detailing an improper withholding of pay. I specifically “grieved” the housing/program director who attempted to (1) issue a backdated memo about “pay during lockdowns and holidays” and (2) prohibited the education unit from paying for tutoring work in the buildings during those periods while he continued to give full pay to his own workers.

            The grievance ombudsman sent my grievances go to my work supervisor (who wanted to pay me) because “inmates don’t dictate where grievances go, I do.” Here’s the funny thing. Without sounding too arrogant, I have more education, more legal knowledge, and more administrative experience than the facility Ombudsman. Contrary to her view, I know exactly who is responsible for my pay shortage and who created the policy. If the ombudsman was interested in the merits of the complaint, she would have read it and forwarded it to the housing/programs manager and asked (1) why did you “backdate” your policy and (2) why are education workers arbitrarily being denied pay when your workers aren’t? But she didn’t do that because what matters is that the facility wins.

            Daily I am confronted by fellow inmates who just don’t give a damn. The system is rigged, they will tell you. There is no such thing as justice in here. Officers write petty, bullshit charges, rules are arbitrarily enforced, legitimate grievances ignored. “You can’t fight them Larry; you can’t win. They’re in charge.” And I shake my head and try not to agree even though all I see every day is the sham process of discipline and grievances.

            I think of Atticus Finch and his impassioned defense of black share cropper Tom Robinson before an all-white Alabama jury in “To Kill A Mockingbird,”

            “We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe. Some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they’re born with it … But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal – there is one human institution that makes a pauper equal to a Rockefeller, the stupid man equal to an Einstein … that institution, gentlemen, is the law…”

            Perhaps it’s time for those in charge to remember those profound words. Even the incarcerated deserve fairness.