A Shout out to Adam

I was recently sent Internet postings by Adam Serwer, a writer with the American Prospect (http://prospect.org/csnc/blogs/adam_serwer). Serwer focuses his pieces on civil rights, human rights and criminal justice. I normally shy away from columnists who report on prisons without actually experiencing life in here. As I’ve come to discover, what we think we know about prison is usually the complete opposite of the reality of life behind bars. Simply put, until you live it, you can’t comprehend what a colossal failure the American prison system is.



To see the day to day waste of money and lives in feeding this horribly broken model is eye opening. And only in corrections can a Governor get away with touting a 30 percent recidivism rate as proof his plan is working. Imagine a school principal telling you only thirty of one hundred second graders can’t read. Imagine a doctor saying only thirty of a hundred children died of measles. Yet, that is precisely what the public accepted from Governor McDonnell following the recent release of the Pew study on recidivism trends.


But this blog isn’t about Governor McDonnell and his failure to show courage, faith and leadership with prison reform. No, this blog is about a young looking policy wonk at the “American Prospect” who gets the insanity that is corrections. Adam Serwer, you’re alright.


Serwer recently wrote two pieces that are must reads for anyone interested in prison operations. The first, “Books Behind Bars”, took a critical look at Virginia DOC’s continuing efforts to censor books and publications available to inmates. As I’ve noted in this blog in past postings, DOC continues to unfairly limit access to a wide array of reading material – from literary classics, to legal periodicals, to soft porn – to the inmate population even in the face of repeated embarrassing court defeats.


Serwer understands the issue, he gets the idiocy of the DOC policy and the arbitrary and draconian enforcement of the policy based on the whims of individual operations officers at particular facilities. But Adam needs to press the issue further. It’s not just reading material, but access to music and spoken language CD’s as well. DOC has a sweetheart contract with JEM (Jones Express Music) – a company owned by a former corrections officer in Big Stone Gap, Virginia – to be the exclusive seller of music CD’s to the inmate population.


And while he’s at it, Adam should also look into the way DOC allows their facility wardens to run their prisons like fiefdoms with little or no central control and supervision from Richmond. I’m on my fourth warden in less than eighteen months. The first ran the prison in a way Joseph Stalin would have admired, through lies, heavy use of a snitch network, and arbitrary enforcement of rules.


The second warden, Ms. Runion, was a saint. She believed in the power of redemption. She demanded both officers and inmates treat each other with respect. She was an advocate for change. What did it get her? The ire of the security apparatus here. They ran her off. She’s now in charge of a sex offender facility. The third warden was a no-nonsense, but fair, African American woman who was killed in a tragic auto accident.


That led to warden number four; a skinny, arrogant man who barely is seen in the compound and then will only walk around escorted by an officer. Funny, Ms. Runion and the late Ms. Avent didn’t need an escort and went all over the facility every day. This warden wants no contact with the population. This warden is an aloof, self-absorbed little man who wants to throw his weight around. He cares nothing about redemption, rehabilitation or re-entry. Adam, you need to look into the wardens at these dumps.


Adam Serwer’s other eye-opening column dealt with the recent Pew report. Perhaps someone could direct Governor McDonnell to the rather startling information contained in Adam’s posting. While McDonnell is busy touting Virginia’s 28.3 percent recidivism rate and attributing it to the “abolishment of parole”, Serwer’s column points out that Oregon has reduced its recidivism rate to 22.8 percent, an almost 32 percent drop, by focusing on parole and probation.


Try this for powerful prose:


“…the Pew study makes it clear that we’re now beyond the point of diminishing returns. Even as the prison population has ballooned, the study states that only about a third of the drop in crime is attributable to incarceration, and notably, 19 of the states that cut their prison populations also experienced a drop in crime…”


Give that man a Pulitzer!


Here’s what I like about Mr. Serwer. He gets it. He understands. He is looking from the outside in and sees the same screwed up mess I see from bunk 96.


For a long time I held the same draconian views most voters had. I frankly didn’t care one bit what happened inside prison. I figured the system worked just fine. The guilty went to prison. I didn’t want to hear excuses like poverty, drug and alcohol addition, illiteracy. No, I thought, everybody had the same chance and excuses were for fools. I ignored my own indiscretions. After all, I wasn’t really a criminal. The pain I was feeling in my damaged relationships was nothing like the losers addicted to crack, or heroin, or crystal meth.


Then I was run through the system and like the blind beggar who meets Jesus, I was blind, but now I see. I see the inhumanity in this system and the waste of precious resources to feed it, and the arrogance of those who sustain it.


Perhaps before any politicians can vote to abolish parole, before any judge sentences a convicted person to prison, before any Governor touts their state’s tough on crime statistics, they should have to spend ninety days in a prison.


Good work Adam. Keep writing. The message has to get out.

Future Prospects

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



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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


And she concluded with this telling pronouncement:


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


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


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


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


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


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


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