Election Day, Part 1

In July, 1776, delegates from the thirteen break away colonies gathered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to sign their names to a declaration.  From that moment forward the uprising that had begun a year earlier could lead to only one conclusion:  it would be independence or death.

The author of the Manifesto, Thomas Jefferson, borrowed heavily from Scottish political philosopher John Locke when he penned that people “are endowed with certain unalienable rights…”  Jefferson listed three:  life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  The men gathered in Philadelphia, this nation’s founding fathers, understood the importance of the words they were placing their signatures to.  God, not government, gives human beings certain rights.  Freedom, liberty, are God’s dictate, not some privilege that can be handed down by a ruler.

It was a daring statement of faith in the absolute rights of humankind derived from the sovereign Lord.  And, it formed the basis of the most successful experiment in republican democracy the world has ever known.  “We the people…in order to form a more perfect union…”

I write this fifteen days from the presidential election.  Supporters of both candidates will tell you this is the most important election in the nation’s history.  I’m not so sure.   Somehow the crises affecting this country in 1860 when Lincoln was elected, and again in 1864 at his re-election, make this era pale by comparison.

This piece isn’t about Romney or Obama.  This is about voting.  Virginia is one of only four states that do not automatically reinstate voting rights to felons upon their release from prison.  This election day some 350,000 Virginians will be unable to vote solely because they carry a scarlet “F” on their record.  Voting is not a privilege.  It is an unalienable right of a people to have a say in their governance. 

The current Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, has touted his administration’s efforts to restore voting rights to felons.  He should be applauded.  In less than three years in office, McDonnell has streamlined the process (it is now just filing a simple downloadable form with his office versus the former cumbersome process of petitioning), and restored voting rights to nearly 2,000.  That’s more than any previous modern age Virginia Governor.

The problem is McDonnell, like his predecessors and for too many politicians, believes voting is a privilege and that government can decide the terms and conditions of exercising that privilege.  Disenfranchisement, even after over 225 years, still shows itself each election cycle.

It is an irony not lost on me that this nation, “the shining city on the hill” as former President Ronald Reagan described her, is the only western nation that restricts felons from voting.  Even in this country, all but seventeen states automatically restore voting rights to felons as they exit prison.

Ohio State University law professor Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, a critical assessment of the nation’s mass incarceration push, argues that voting is a fundamental right of citizenship which cannot be usurped by a felony conviction.

And the arguments used to deny felons the right to vote are the same arguments used earlier in this nation’s history to deny women, the poor, and ethnic and racial minorities a say in the future direction of this land.

A few years ago, during George W. Bush’s presidency, this nation became transfixed as we watched millions of Iraqis brave bombings and threats of murder to cast ballots in their first democratic election after the overthrow of the dictator Saddam Hussein.

And we watched as these citizens dipped their fingers in purple ink and displayed them to the world saying “our vote matters”.  I remember one man in particular, carried his child in his arms.  He’d been imprisoned during the Hussein years.  And he proudly walked forward and voted.  “I want my child to know it’s not your past that matters.  It’s your future.”

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…”

Amazing words.  It’s a shame this nation, this state doesn’t believe them at election time.

 

Tattoos, and Pies, and Bunks, Oh My!

The new warden has gotten off to a lousy start. In only three weeks time, he’s managed to throw the compound in turmoil. Inmates and officers alike are “out of their square” (prison slang for “stressed”). Who would have thought a short, skinny, older white guy could cause such unease in so little time? He is, I concluded, like the Wizard in Dorothy’s travel to Oz. He is our Wizard of DOC.



“What has he done?” Two significant changes that are reverberating around the compound are being implemented on his watch. First, he has relocked the rec yards. For the past year inmates have enjoyed relatively easy movement from building ball courts to the large yards. On the eastside, guys moved freely between the ball courts on buildings 4, 5 and 6. You could come out on rec call, stretch on the ball court, head to the track or weight pile, get your workout in and then head back to your building. Or, if you lived in building 4 you could go to building 6 for a pick-up game of hoops.


The Wizard ended all that. Only building 4 guys can be on building 4’s court. Want to run? Head to the track and be locked out of the ball court until the next rec call when an officer has to come out and unlock the gate.


Why did he do this (and make movement more restricted than even at a higher level facility)? He’s short-staffed and the staff he has makes Saddam Hussein’s Revolutionary Guard look like Green Berets. The prison lacks sufficient staff to adequately patrol the rec yards. The yards (east and west side) are observed by one officer each sitting in a tower.


As I’ve written before, they don’t have sufficient staff to run the facility. Many days rec is called late because there aren’t enough officers to spare any for the towers. And the officers that do work here? They could film a season of “The Biggest Loser” with the present staff.


The vast (no pun intended) majority of officers on duty here are morbidly obese. We have one Sergeant (“Cheeseburger”) who is so large he can’t use the officers’ commodes. The staff is overweight, sloppy and dominated by African-American females who talk trash and have trash talked to them.


DOC sells the notion to the public that their prisons are highly secure. It is because the inmates themselves lack the motivation to react that keeps the lid on this place. This staff of officers are out of shape, unprofessional, poorly-trained, predominately female; they would lose control of this facility in a few moments if the inmates ever got angry enough.


Rec is the one bit of time guys feel some, albeit small, freedom of movement. The Wizard, in the words of one guy, “f’d” that up.


The Wizard also decided there’s way too much food leaving the chow hall and too many tattoos being done. Inmates are known to sneak fruit and vegetables out of chow. Technically, all food must be consumed in the chow hall. For a long time officers looked the other way when an inmate would grab an apple or an onion and put them in their pocket. The Wizard had other ideas. Officers are now patting down almost everyone leaving chow. Caught with food and you are written a series 100 charge. Series 100? Taking an apple is treated the same as murder or sexual assault (in the past, if a charge was issued, it was a series 200 charge).


Dozens of charges have been written, yet every night the smell of onions, peppers and apples goes through the day room.


Then there are the new middle row bunks. As I’ve written before, the buildings are overcrowded. Some bunks are actually in the fire escape route. And, there are insufficient numbers of officers to patrol the buildings. The Wizard’s solution – replace the middle rows of bunks with bunks from the recently closed James River Correction Center (the Wizard’s former prison).


The James River bunks are lower (the guy on the bottom bunk can’t sit up in bed and can barely roll over) and have no bookshelves. They are closer together meaning guys lose even more floor space (our facility already fails to comply with both federal law and American Corrections Association guidelines on minimum square feet for inmates). The bunks also have the lockers in the cut meaning inmates no longer have access through any bunk cut but must now proceed up and down the aisles.


Why’d he do this? He claims to cut down on the tattoo business prevalent in the buildings. Now, he claims the booth officer will be able to see the entire floor. No need to actually put an officer on the floor.


What the Wizard doesn’t want you to know is that under his watch at JRCC; drugs, tobacco, and cell phones were everywhere. That compound was off the chain. Heh Wiz, it’s not the bunks, it’s the staff!


What’s the result of the bunk switch? The tattoo artists are working like crazy and making a ton of money. Four guys in our building had full back tats done this week. Money ($300 to $500 for backs and arms) is pouring out of here and to the “artists” families. And, on a compound already riddled with Hepatitis C, the likelihood of new infected inmates grows each day.


So, in only three short weeks the Wiz has made his presence known. Which leads me to “Johnny Appleseed” a/k/a “Lil D”. Lil D is a great baker. Using crushed pineapple cream cookies and either apples or sweet potatoes from the kitchen he makes delicious home-made pies four nights a week. With about $10.00 of ingredients, he sells pies for $1.50. Most nights he makes $30.00.


The pies are amazing! The entire dayroom smells of apples and cinnamon. How does he get the apples or sweet potatoes? Right from the kitchen under the eyes of the staff (a number of whom have been known to eat one of his pies). Guys love Lil D’s pies because for the few moments you’re enjoying it, you’re not in this environment. You’re in a kitchen surrounded by family eating dessert.


In the “Wizard of Oz”, when Dorothy met the Wizard, she soon realizes he was just a little man. His entire rep was built with smoke and mirrors. It’s kind of the same thing with the people in charge at DOC.

Empathy 101

The prison’s warden, a 56 year-old African American woman, was killed in a two vehicle accident in a small town, ten miles from here, Thursday evening. At 6:00 am Friday the entire compound knew. First, the details of the accident made the morning news. Initial reports indicated the warden ran a stop sign and was struck broadside by the second vehicle. The warden was dead at the scene. The two people in the second vehicle were seriously injured.



At 6:00 am count, the day shift officers arrived with black tape on their badge. By 8:00, a memo was up in the building from the assistant warden. As with so many “Dear Offender” memos, this one also misjudged the mood of the prison population.


It began: “We regret to inform you. . .” Honestly, there weren’t a great deal of regrets being expressed around the compound.


“Maybe we’ll get chicken and ice cream tonight. . .”
“Karma’s a bitch man. . .”
“F--- her and all the cops. . .”


Harsh? Yes. Shocking to your senses? Absolutely. But, before you get indignant, consider that on the day Ms. Lewis was executed in the Virginia death chamber less than four months ago, pro-death penalty advocates applauded. Consider that it was recently reported that 70,000 Iraqi civilians were “casualties” of our nation’s war effort with little if any public remorse exhibited. I write that in embarrassment knowing I supported both the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq.


I pass no judgment on your view of capital punishment or use of military force. I have come full circle on both issues. My prison experience has taught me faith in God means an avoidance of violence in all forms. But that’s my view.


No, I point these things out because I’ve come to the conclusion we have become woefully lacking in empathy. We refuse to seek understanding of someone else’s feelings. “Screw them. Nobody cares how I feel.”


Guys in here use macabre humor and downright gloating when bad things happen to people they blame for their circumstances. Four cops shot in Detroit, guys cheer. Almost every inmate has a story of how the police took advantage of them. Stories of crooked police appear almost nightly in the paper. USA Today ran a series of stories on prosecutorial misconduct. Yet, guys in here continue to struggle to get their story told.


A young kid in the building showed me a picture the other night. He was at a party. There was a girl in the picture. She was obviously high and she was hanging on him. I recognized her. She has filled in here as a CO.


“I met her at Nottoway (a level 4 prison) on my last bid. She was on duty up there. I got out and started dealin’ coke. Got called to a party. Sold a lot of eight balls (3.5 grams). She saw me. I banged her for three days and kept her in coke.” He then got busted on a probation violation – dirty urine. She’s still working as a CO, eight ball and all.


There’s a senior officer here who’s had four (yes four) DUIs. He pulled no jail time and is still working here. Guys here see that and realize the system’s rigged.


Meanwhile, the people on the street demand politicians “get tough on crime”. After all, criminals aren’t good people; criminals are scum.


We live in a course, degraded world and it’s getting worse. Funny thing is prisons just mirror society. Some of the most popular magazines sell precisely because they expose our human foibles. We love when people fail. We love other’s misery. Pretty sick, yet pretty prevalent.


To guys in here the warden represents the machine that is keeping them in this hell. She represents, she controls, the officers that shake us down, strip search us, watch us urinate. Is it rational? No. But then again, neither was my glee when I heard Saddam Hussein was hung or my sentence.


Later in the day I overheard guys say “you know she wasn’t that bad a warden”. Other guys were contemplating the suddenness of her passing. “Man, when your number’s called, it’s time.” The initial jokes passed, most men thought about the “what if” in here. “What if I get a call about my family? My parents?”


Empathy is an interesting thing. You suddenly gain understanding of a person’s problems. You’re more likely to show mercy and forgive.


Two and a half years ago I thought I knew right from wrong. I was quick to pass judgment on others (quick to ignore my own sins). Then, I started meeting murderers and armed robbers. I talked to drug dealers and drug addicts. I discovered no two men were the same. I found some I grew to care deeply about. They became friends. Others I just couldn’t stand. But, I learned to listen. I learned to hear.


There is evil in the world and we should confront it and defeat it. But, we should never gloat over anyone’s suffering. At least, that’s the lesson I’ve learned in here.