…And it will save the taxpayers of Virginia

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 2014.

Irony – “an event or result that is the opposite of what is expected.”  That word came into focus the other night as the local Richmond newscast reported that disgraced former Governor Robert McDonnell’s defense team countered the Federal Probation sentencing recommendation with a request for leniency and “community service”.  The defense recommendation noted “”serving in community service will save Virginia’s taxpayers over $300,000 in a decade.”  Hey Governor Bob, no kidding!! Yet, when you had that power, that ability, to commute sentences of non-violent felons doing time in Virginia’s prisons, you said no.  You wouldn’t intercede even when the sentence was harsh, even when the offender was remorseful, even when the taxpayers were paying over $25,000 each year just to keep the prisoner locked up.  You wouldn’t act courageously, justly, mercifully.  And now, with your own life’s house of cards collapsed around you, with no acknowledgement of guilt on your part, you ask for the very thing you denies so many.  Irony.

“Give mercy, and mercy will be given to you.  Forgive as your Father has forgiven you.”  Pretty clear words.  The meaning of those words so often escapes us.  Some call it Gospel Karma.  We continue to be legalistic.  We see fallen behavior, we rush to condemn and demand “justice”.  But our definition of justice, typically extracted in years and “pounds of flesh” is the exact opposite of the “word”.  “Law and order”. “tough on crime”, “truth in sentencing”, all make great campaign slogans until the man handcuffed before the court is your son, your friend, or you.  Those simple words, the Biblical admonitions are a reminder – and a warning – that the standards you set for others will one day be applied to you.  “But I’m not like him”, you say.  You may be – in God’s eyes where “all sin and fall short”.

Governor McDonnell had the power – and the opportunity – to make a huge difference in the lives of thousands of Virginia’s incarcerated, me included.  He could have said there are too many first-time felons doing too many years in Virginia’s prison system for nonviolent felonies.  He could have personally read the letters sent to him by the friends and families of hundreds of these inmates; he could have examined their incarceration records and seen evidence of genuine remorse and change.  Instead, he allowed those sentences to stand.  Worse, he ignored these men and women’s pleas while he was engaged in his own wrongdoing.  And now he prepares for his own day in court, his own sentencing. And, I’m sure he wonders, will the judge listen to him, to his family and friends, as a plea for sentencing mercy is made.  Ironic, isn’t it?

I believe there is no purpose served by sending Robert McDonnell to prison.  If U.S. District Judge James Spencer were to ask me, I would simply tell him, “Do not send this man to serve time”.  There is not purpose to it.  McDonnell has already been punished.  He has been convicted by a jury of Virginians.  His reputation, damaged; his family problems bared; his marriage is in shambles; his law career ruined.  Nothing is penologically served by now sending this broken man to a low-custody Federal prison.  No, Robert McDonnell does not deserve incarceration, any more than hundreds of men I’ve met these past six and a half years who are watching calendars turn, day upon day, month to month, year after year; in a warped dance called justice.  Perhaps showing Governor McDonnell justice with mercy will be the beginning of real corrections, real prison reform, real justice.  Perhaps another Governor is watching and thinking, “There but for the grace of God – and a rabid prosecutor – go I.”

February 3, 2009.  I was sentenced that day in a courtroom packed with friends who took the stand and asked the court to show me mercy.  My two assistants sat with coworkers.  Across from them, my parents and my retired minister sat.  They heard a community leader tell the court how I had turned the local Meals on Wheels around from a state of financial collapse.  Letters from church and community members were presented.  Each letter, each person who spoke, asked the court to show me mercy.

And then I stood before the court.  I have never felt so alone, so broken, so ashamed.  I had written a brief statement.  In it, I minced no words.  I wasn’t nuanced.  I admitted I broke the law – the same words I spoke the day I was arrested.  I apologized to my employer, my family, my friends, the court.  I bluntly told the court I failed my wife, my sons, my parents, my moral code.  I told the court I deserved prison.  I asked the judge to instead show me mercy.  Give me an opportunity to make right my wrongs. 

My words fell on deaf ears.  Within moments of my remarks ending, the court handed down my sentence.  There were gasps and weeping from friends, from my “girls”, my two assistants who’d each been with me over ten years.  Me?  I stood there, said “thank you” to the judge and walked out of the court.  You know what else?  My head was up.  I had spoken from the heart, told the truth.

Within a month I was served with divorce papers.  Would a shorter sentence have saved our marriage?  I don’t know.  I don’t know if she could have ever forgiven me for the betrayal.  Still, how do you ask someone to stay for fifteen years?  Within a month, I was assigned my DOC number.  I was now “in the system”.  Less than four months later, I was in a cell with a gangleader doing 76 years for murder, in the oxymoron known as DOC receiving at Powhatan. 

No, Bob McDonnell doesn’t deserve all that.  He deserves mercy…just like a lot of us in here.

 

 

Potpourri for the Week

Anyone familiar with “Jeopardy” knows about the catch-all category “Potpourri.” “I’ll take potpourri for a thousand, Alex.” With that in mind, here’s a potpourri of D.O.C. happenings this week.

An inmate was found dead in his cell at Powhatan. Cause of death: “apparent” heart attack. I say “apparent” because a week after his death his family still wasn’t given any details. “Privacy Issues,” DOC’s spokesman said when the local TV news reporter approached. The family and the press are demanding answers. What they’ve gotten is a copy of the department procedure for dealing with a dead convict.

Hey, people die behind bars. “If you didn’t want the worry of keeling over in prison, you shouldn’t have broken the law.” I know all that. Still, what does it tell you about the system put in place to carry out justice acting corrupt and callous?

Speaking of corruption, Lunenburg is awash in tobacco. Guys are chain smoking in every building bathroom. A library aide went to the hole when he was caught with forty – that’s right forty – cigarettes. There’s only one way that much tobacco can come on the compound and that’s through the staff. And that’s half the problem inside prison – the people paid to run the place are as dirty as the inmates.

The Justice Policy Institute has issued a scathing indictment of Virginia’s justice system. Dated this November and titled: “Virginia’s Justice System: Expensive, Ineffective, and Unfair,” the researcher notes, “Despite some recent small progress in the areas of post-incarceration re-entry … the state continues to suffer under misguided policies and practices of the past.” Here are a few notable highlights –

·       At minimum, Virginia spends nearly $3 billion on its Public Safety Office and Judiciary. $1.5 billion of that goes to operate its crowded jails and prisons.

·       Virginia has the 13^th highest incarceration rate in the county. It costs in excess of $25,000 a year to keep a person in prison. For inmates over age 50 (approximately 15% of all inmates) the costs grow four-fold because of health care costs.

·       It costs over $100,000 per year to confine a juvenile in a juvenile facility. Almost 63% of confined juveniles are on psychotropic meds. Those sent to juvenile detention have a recidivism rate (re-offending within the first twelve months of release) in excess of 75%.

·       Contrary to what politicians say, “Truth in sentencing laws” (Virginia abolished parole in 1996 and requires an offender to serve 85% of their sentence) “have no significant impact on standardized recidivism rates”.  In fact there is no correlation between increased sentence length and recidivism rates.

·       While Virginia’s crime rate has decreased significantly over the last two decades (and across the country) the number of arrests (as opposed to the rate of arrest) has only fallen 1% in the same period.

·       Virginia law contains hundreds of restrictions on convicted felons searching for work making re-entry success more difficult.

·       Over 75% of Virginia’s incarcerated have an education of high school or less (40% have no high school diploma).

The study makes specific recommendations to avoid “an escalating crisis if the state does not take steps to reassess and change its approach to crime and imprisonment.”

1.     Repeal “Truth in Sentencing” and reinstate parole.

2.     Reduce focus on drug offenses.

3.     Work to address racial disparity throughout the criminal justice system.

4.     Demand better educational resources and opportunities especially for low-income communities of color.

5.     Re-allocate juvenile justice resources and restore authority of judges to treat juveniles as juveniles (not adults).

Is anyone in Richmond listening? Virginia’s justice system is broken.

Then there’s Jasper. Jasper is 38 years old. This is his second time in prison; he has a dozen or so trips to the jail. He’s a rural, Southside white guy with a rented trailer and five kids. And, he can’t read or write. He makes crystal meth – at least until he gets caught – because it’s more economically advantageous. His lack of education excludes him from most work.

Every third period at school I work with Jasper and four other men just like him. Five men, all of whom are between 30 and 50; all of whom have children; all of whom read and write below the second grade level.

 That I work with them is in itself a surprise. I’ve never been known as a patient man. Yet, all five guys love the class. For them, it’s the first education success they’ve ever known. And, it’s been good for me. It’s too easy to miss the “other” America, the America without education, good jobs and benefits, and hope in the future.

You want to solve the “prison” problem? Figure out a way to give Jasper’s kids a better chance at the American dream.

Just a random week in DOC.

Election Day, Part 2

This may surprise you, but our college dorm is abuzz about the upcoming election.  Debates are watched, ads analyzed, and the candidates’ positions on various issues studied.  Even without the right to vote, men in this building are following the election.

I’ve paid particular attention to the Virginia race for U.S. Senate putting two former Virginia Governors – George Allen and Tim Kaine – in a bruising battle with repercussions for party control of the senate.  The campaign has been expensive, bare knuckles brawling with little regard by either man for the truth.  Both men are mere caricatures of their parties.  And, as with most political campaigns these days, truth and decency are casualties of polling success.

Both men have stretched the truth in their efforts to seek election.  But one whopper stands out.  In a series of ads George Allen continually reminds Virginians as Governor “he ended parole”.  We all expect politicians to play mental gymnastics with the truth.  Allen, however, is an Olympic gold medal winner.  The truth is, by Allen going along with and pushing the legislature toward truth in sentencing with the abolishment of parole, he did significant financial damage to Virginia that is and will continue to affect this state without massive prison and sentencing reform.

In the early 1990s the Federal government approached the states with a too good to be true deal.  Enact “truth in sentencing” laws which require convicted felons to serve 85% of the sentence imposed and Federal grants will cover the cost of prison expansion.  “Free Federal money” most states thought and across the nation legislatures fell in lock step.  In Virginia, George Allen seized on the opportunity.  “Tough on crime, No parole” became rallying cries for his campaign.  His slogans carried the day and soon Virginia’s General Assembly voted to abolish parole.

And soon after his term was underway, Governor Allen engaged his Department of Corrections chief to begin ramping up prison construction.  Like drunken revelers on a pub crawl, the legislators lined up, all eager to prove they too were tough on crime.  In less than ten years new prisons opened in a dozen communities around the Commonwealth, many of them in rural pockets where employment opportunities lagged.

Virginia went from a state with around 9,000 inmates to over four times that many, reaching almost 40,000 in 2009.  DOC became the state’s largest department employing over 13,000.  And the cost?  Soon Virginia was spending over $1 billion dollars annually to operate its prison system.  One out of every 8 general fund dollars was going to prisons.

The Federal grant money stopped, but Virginia’s costs didn’t.  Politicians were afraid to admit they’d made a mistake.  George Allen?  He kept smiling and distorting his record.  Fact is, locking more people up for longer sentences has nothing to do with the crime rate.  Fact also is, Virginia’s released inmates reoffended at the same rate at before.

But change did come.  For one thing, the economy began to tank.  Virginia couldn’t afford everything the politicians promised.  While millions were being directed to DOC, real spending on Virginia’s colleges actually decreased.  Transportation projects were put on hold.  “Creative accounting” on the state retirement system let people believe the Commonwealth had a balanced budget.

First Tim Kaine, then Bob McDonnell, realized Virginia couldn’t sustain its gulag prison system. They began to shut them down devastating rural Virginia counties who had come to rely on the prison gravy train for economic sustenance.

And the inmates?  There were crowded into fewer prisons with fewer officers making the facilities less safe and less rehabilitative.  Inmates began suing and Virginia’s costs continued to climb (over $1.2 billion this year alone).  And George Allen continued to tout his record as Governor. 

Prison reform – sentencing reform – will occur.  The states realize it. You can’t keep locking people up.  There are cheaper, more effective alternatives.

I can’t vote – I’m an incarcerated felon.  But if I could, I’d vote for the candidate who is honest with me about the real cost of Virginia’s love affair with prisons.  They cost too much financially and in the lives they destroy.  George Allen isn’t that politician.

Sentencing (or “The Turd in the Punchbowl” Part 1)

I’ve written numerous times in this blog about sentencing in Virginia and about the systematic failure of “truth in sentencing” as implemented in the Commonwealth. But, people are slow to notice it and even slower to admit it and do something about it.  Perhaps that’s just human nature.  We want to believe our laws are fair.  We want to have easy, rational explanations for everything.  So, politicians tell us truth in sentencing reform was long overdue and has directly led to lower crime rates and more uniform (albeit substantially longer) sentences.  “Great!” You say.  All is right with the world.  “You go over to the punchbowl to lift a celebratory toast to the power of our way of life, good old representative democracy, and you run face first into reality:  someone spiked the punch with a turd and it’s floating in the bowl for all the world to see.

“Conventional wisdom” – lovely term isn’t it – tries to correlate lower crime rates with tougher sentencing.  However, study after study (both university and Department of Justice) find there is no such correlation.  No one ever avoided committing a crime because of the perceived risk of lengthy incarceration.  In fact, what all this “get tough” approach may have done is make us a nation of convicts.

It was recently reported that over 23% of all young people between the ages of 18 and 24 will have arrest records.  The United States currently has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world (number behind bars per 100,000) and the largest prison population.  We exceed even China and the combined totals of North Korea, Iran, Syria and all the other “terror states”.  Combining federal and state prisons and jails there are approximately 2.5 million people behind bars.  That’s almost one percent of the nation’s population.  Add to that the eight million plus who have felony convictions (a sizeable number of whom are under “community corrections”, i.e. probation or parole).  That’s three percent of America.  Not since England figured out shipping all their convicts to Australia would solve their prison problem, has one nation had such a large percentage of felons.

“Truth in Sentencing” reform was supposed to take away disparity in sentences.  It didn’t matter where in Virginia (or any state for that matter; they all adopted the “truth in sentencing” commission recommendations) you committed your offense, penalties would be the same.  Great concept, only it didn’t work.

This week the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported on a 72 year old Richmond attorney who was sentenced to three years for embezzling in excess of $1 million from individuals during his handling of real estate transactions since 2005.  He made no restitution.  His attorney – coincidentally the same lawyer who handled my case – had asked for a suspended sentence.  The paper reported the defendant “cooperated fully” and “expressed deep regret”.  The Henrico County Circuit Judge presiding over his case (coincidentally, I was held in the Henrico county Jail after being denied bond.  I was deemed a flight risk.  He wasn’t.) gave the three year term as a “fair punishment” for his wrongdoing.

My case was heard less than twenty miles west.  I embezzled slightly over $2 million and made immediate restitution of almost $600,000.  The Commonwealth Attorney noted my “complete cooperation” (his words at my sentencing) and the state’s own forensic psychiatrist, in a report to the court, indicated I was profoundly remorseful and that prison time would serve neither a punitive nor rehabilitative purpose.  So what did the Judge in my case do?  He gave me fifteen years.

I don’t begrudge the Henrico defendant getting three years.  I don’t begrudge the Norfolk bookkeeper being sentenced to four years in a $2.1 million embezzlement case.  I do question the integrity of the system and I do submit that my sentence was excessive and unjust and shows the hypocrisy of “truth in sentencing”.  You will never hear me say I didn’t deserve to be incarcerated.  In fact, I will freely admit sending me to prison was justified – not given other similarly situated embezzlement defendants or the average sentence for child sex abusers.

And then there is GOP Presidential candidate Ron Paul.  Paul reminds me of the old, cranky guy in my neighborhood when I was growing up. He was regimented and serious about everything.  He’d give stern warnings about things and we’d laugh and tell ourselves he was crazy.  As we aged we all realized he was wiser than any of us hoped to be.

On the eve of last week’s New Hampshire primary, Paul – during a candidates’ debate – was asked by Moderator George Stephanopoulos about questions that had recently surfaced concerning alleged racist comments in a 1980’s newsletter that bore his name.
As USA Today columnist DeWayne Wickham noted in an op-ed piece last Wednesday (1/11/2012), Paul said questions about what he wrote or knew about that long ago diverts attention away from the “true racism” in the nation’s judicial system that “disproportionately imprisons blacks for their involvement in crimes…”  The questioner, the other candidates, the audience itself sat in numbed silence.  Congressman Paul had pointed out the turd in the punch bowl.

In 2010, 69% of all people arrested in the United States were white.  Blacks accounted for 28% of the arrests.  These percentages were relatively constant the entire decade.  During the same ten year period, approximately twice as many whites as blacks were arrested each year for drug crimes.  Despite this, Virginia’s inmate population is disproportionately black and poor.  I learned early on I was in the minority in more ways than one.  I’m white, which means I make up only about 35% of the inmate population.  And of the white men locked up, most are in for sex offenses, primarily child sex crimes and child pornography (and almost all are serving substantially shorter sentences than me).

That disparity in incarceration rates shows a lack of justice in the criminal justice system.  As I’ve written over and over in this blog, America’s criminal justice system, Virginia’s criminal justice system, is badly flawed and in need of dramatic overhaul.

You want real justice; begin with admitting there’s a problem.  Don’t just silently stand by while the turd floats in the punchbowl.  It’s time for change, real systematic change:  colorblind sentences that actually bring about restorative justices, and prisons – when needed – where actual rehabilitation and restoration takes place.

A Response to Governor McDonnell

Dear Governor:

I intently read your office press release concerning recent legislation you signed to push your prisoner re-entry initiative forward (http://www.alexandrianews.org/2011/06/governor-mcdonnell-signs-prisoner-re-entry-legislation/).  I also read your online op-ed piece (http://www.riponsociety.org/112bm.htm) touting prisoner re-entry which appeared on the pages of “The Ripon Forum”.  Ironically, I had to wait until someone on the street sent copies of these to me.  Even though I serve as an academic aide in one of your re-entry pilot programs – this one training inmates in computers – we aren’t given access to the Internet.

Like the folks in Syria and Libya, I am one of approximately 40,000 incarcerated persons in a Virginia prison yearning for freedom.  Like those people in the heart of “the Arab Spring”, I am cut off electronically from the outside world.  And like those people, I hear politicians speak and write each day in lofty platitudes about “freedom” and “second chances”.  But, as my Grandfather used to say “actions speak louder than words”.  You talk a good game Governor.  But, as you will see below, there’s no action behind your words.  If you really do believe “everyone deserves a second chance”, then cut the bs.  Stop the quick campaign slogan gimmicks about “public safety” which have absolutely nothing to do with the operation of prisons or the failures of “truth in sentencing” laws which instead just lead to a bloated, money down the drain, criminal justice bureaucracy that cannot be sustained. The legislation you recently signed will do nothing to lower recidivism rates in the Commonwealth.  The legislation, simply put, doesn’t address why some men and women commit crimes, nor does it address the attitude most pervasive in here:  the system isn’t fair.

Start with your comments about “truth in sentencing” and Virginia’s abolition of parole.  Statistics can be used to skew the truth.  It’s obvious you know that.  Yes, Virginia – per the recent Pew Center study – has the seventh lowest recidivism rate in the country.  But, the rate was actually lower when parole was in place.  As for “truth in sentencing” you know better than anyone the vast majority of states have adopted the same laws.  Why then are non-violent felons sentenced to substantially shorter sentences in the neighboring states of Maryland and North Carolina?  Why does the state most comparable to Virginia in population – Massachusetts – have about 11,000 inmates while Virginia has 40,000?

The reality of truth in sentencing is there is no truth to it.  Real examples for you to ponder:

·         A woman steals $2.3 million from a Norfolk business and gets 28 months. 

·         A Republican political hack steals $4 million in public funds and has a conviction for public indecency on his record (you know the case Governor.  When you were Virginia’s AG the investigation came across your desk and suddenly got misfiled) gets 10 years.

·         An employee in Fairfax steals almost $2 million, causing the company to lay people off.  He gets 4 years. 

·         I steal $2.1 million over twelve years; pay back over one third prior to sentencing, cooperate fully and accept responsibility for my actions and get 15 years.  

Sadly, the examples I just set out happen every day.  It’s called sentence disparity, Governor.  We sentence petty drug dealers to more time than child pornographers.  My sentence is higher than the dozens of child sex offenders I’m doing time with.

“Truth in sentencing” doesn’t exist.  Your sentence is dependent on the harshness of the judge, the case load of the prosecutor’s office, publicity surrounding your case, and the quality of your defense attorney.  What the abolition of parole and “tough on crime” rhetoric has led to is a prison system at 137% bed capacity, spending for DOC at over $1 billion a year, with no lessening of the recidivism rate, and those beds filled primarily by non-violent felons.  The “truth” Governor:  this isn’t about public safety; it’s about justice and economics.

Your press release and op-ed tout the work your Department of Corrections is doing to turn inmate lives around.  Have you ever been to one of Virginia’s prisons?  Go to C3, Powhatan Receiving Unit.  This time of the year the 10 X 6 cells hit 95°.  Chances are you’ll be put in with a sociopathic gangbanger who’s killed two men already for wearing rival colors.  Maybe, you’ll get to do time with a child molester who’ll be interested in pictures of your kids.  Yes, Governor, that’s your DOC receiving unit.  And that doesn’t include the toilet leaking, the roaches and ants crawling over everything.  That’s the system you’re overseeing Governor and it is broken, unyielding and cruel.  And Sir, as Governor, you are responsible for it.

I can’t speak for all the incarcerated, but to a man, the ones I have talked to think you’re just another politician feeding the public a cartload of manure.  “He doesn’t care about us” is the most common refrain I hear in this place.  Imagine trying to convince men that you really are sincere.  I’m labeled a hopeless optimistic.  “These guys say this all the time when they’re in office, but nothin’ changes.”  Makes me feel like a young Natalie Wood in “Miracle on 34^th Street”.  See Governor, one thing this experience has taught me is, we’re lost without hope.  So I believe in you.  “I believe.  I know it’s silly, but I believe.”

Instead of travelling all over Europe, drive out to Lunenburg and talk to a few of us.  We’re the guys who are spearheading the pilot IT Certification program for the forty at risk guys.  You may not like what you hear from us, but it’ll be a damn sight more honest and on point than what your own people are telling you.

For example, at this facility we have a college dorm with seven academic aides and almost eighty students.  Ask any teacher who comes “behind the walls” and they’ll tell you the same thing:  these guys have a hunger, a desire, to learn that isn’t seen on the street.  That desire is what motivates me to work my regular thirty hours a week as an adult basic education aide and then put in twice that amount of time – without pay – to tutor these guys in English, History, Philosophy, computer and a creative writing program.

This program, partnered with Goodwill (God bless those people) and Southside Community College can be a model for prison education around the country.  What does DOC do?  They assign a head warden here who said in a meeting to these college students “I don’t know much about this college re-entry program”.  Then, DOC puts an aggressive Assistant Warden in place who is openly opposed to the program.  His own officers have warned men in the college building “he wants us to come down on you.  He hates the building and all it stands for”.

So Governor, you can talk about re-entry all you want, but if your people don’t buy in, it’s doomed from the start.

And then, there’s early release.  You know why inmates don’t believe in you?  Because you keep peddling the false notion that longer sentences work.  They don’t.  Length of sentence bears absolutely no correlation to crime rate or recidivism rate.

What does work?  How about this.  Tie good time/early release into educational, vocational and rehabilitative programs.  An inmate who actively works at change and accepts responsibility for their crime should get out early, say after 25% to 50% of their sentence is served.

The fundamental flaw in your logic is you think making a criminal do a long prison sentence will make them feel more remorse and responsibility.  They’ll come out better citizens.  That Sir is backward.  The longer a person stays in prison, the more bitterness is created.  Every day in here is a day to lose hope.  You want prisons to be places of rehabilitation and restoration?  Turn the system on its head.

Governor, you talk a great deal about your faith.  The Book of James reminds us of two significant points:  faith without action is not faith and God’s judgment will be merciless on those who fail to show mercy.  Jesus dined with the prostitutes and the tax collectors.  If He were here, He’d come out to Lunenburg.  He also told the adulteress – seeing her remorse – “I forgive you.  Go and sin no more.”  He didn’t set an 85% minimum sentence on her.  That should be the model we follow for incarceration.

Prison Stories

A couple of recent newspaper and magazine pieces about the current state of “corrections” around the country jumped out at me. I recently read “Chicken Soup for the Prisoner’s Soul” and was deeply moved by so many of the stories represented there. But, I found the following cautionary quote each of us must consider when we approve of the status quo with incarceration:



“Does society understand what they create in the men they wear down by time? The whole concept of punishment seems to teach offenders how to effectively not be part of society, the unmaking of a man.”


Prisons do more to perpetuate crime than they do to rehabilitate. Money is spent on housing and holding instead of educating and rehabilitating.


Ohio recently began exploring an overhaul of its criminal justice system. As the Columbus Dispatch recently reported, Ohio’s 1996 enactment of “Truth in Sentencing Law” led to an exponential growth in the number of inmates and the cost to hold them. Ohio is now 33% over capacity and unable to sustain current prison funding requirements. In 2008, 10,000 convicted felons went to prison in Ohio on property and drug offenses at a cost of $189 million. “Few received rehabilitative treatment while in prison.” As the chief sponsor of a bill calling for sentence reform, Republican Bill Seitz said:


“You can’t fit 10 pounds in a 5 pound bag. That’s what we’ve been trying to do in Ohio. The time for talk is over. No more sticking our heads in the sand.”


Supporters of the change are as varied as Conservative Republican John Kasich and the ACLU.


Virginia, at 164% capacity according to DOC’s own spokesman (here’s a hint: if DOC finally admits to a capacity problem, it is probably higher than what they’ve admitted), has the same “Truth in Sentencing Law” as Ohio. Where is Virginia’s courageous conservative Republican Governor on this? Governor McDonnell talks a great deal about his faith. Perhaps now is the time for him to put his faith in action.


The San Francisco Chronicle reported that California, in a move to close its $60 billion budget deficit, slashed rehabilitation programs for prisoners. The budget cuts included planned layoffs of 850 academic and vocational instructors in the prison system. At the same time, California continues to violate a court mandated release of inmates from its prisons due to the unconstitutional conditions inmates have been living under.


And, in another case involving California’s Corrections Department, it was reported corrections officers are the primary conduit for up to 10,000 cell phones finding their way into inmates’ hands. Even Charles Manson has had two cell phones in the last four years.


So, the people employed to watch the “criminals” are themselves lawbreakers, being paid up to $1000 by inmates for a phone. One officer made $150,000 in cash in one year transporting phones into the prison. His punishment? He was terminated from employment. California does not prosecute guards who bring phones in for a fee.


It was reported Governor McDonnell and the Virginia General Assembly failed to properly fund regional jails (coincidentally, it is by using the regional jails that DOC keeps 3800 inmates housed rather than further taxing its already overcrowded prisons by moving them to DOC facilities).


McDonnell assured Sheriffs who are facing staff layoffs themselves that the shortfall will be addressed. Governor McDonnell, in the words of the Ohio Representative, “you can’t fit 10 pounds in a 5 pound bag.”


And finally, Mike Vick visited a Florida prison the other day with his mentor, Tony Dungy, to speak with the inmates. While there he said one of the most profound things I’ve ever read:


“If I was standing outside a prison two years ago with what I know now, and you gave me the choice of going in and changing my life or staying out and continuing to live the life I was living, I’d go in…I needed the change. God gave me a timeout.”


I thought about Mike Vick’s words a great deal. Sometimes we don’t realize how blessed we are in our trials. It’s something I have to remind myself of every day. I’m not sure where I’d be right now if God hadn’t given me a timeout. The losses I’ve sustained have, at times, been unbearable. But learning to live righteously in this environment has been worth it. Mike Vick was right.