In Response...

           So I’m reading the USA Today Op-ed the other night and I come across a guest op-ed piece by Colorado State Judge Morris Hoffman titled “Emptying Prisons Is No Panacea.” I read his piece with more than just passing intellectual interest. After all, I’m one of the 2.3 million men and women currently behind bars in the United States. I’m a member of the new leper colony – prisoners – who most “decent, law abiding” citizens don’t give much thought too, that is until they come inside for even one day and see the embarrassment, and horror, and waste that America’s love affair with incarceration has created.

            I read Judge Hoffman’s piece, his reliance on “evolutionary” reasons for our love affair with punishment, his reciting of the tired, disrespected, and proven false, theory of deterrence, and thought to myself, how does this guy get a platform to espouse such nonsense? Perhaps, I thought, I could use the honorable jurist’s words to educate people about the reality of prisons and sentencing and America’s criminal justice system in general. College freshman throughout the country learn early on in English composition to distinguish between reasonable and fallacious argument tactics. “Overgeneralizing, false analogies, non sequitor” arguments should be carefully dissected. It seems Judge Hoffman’s piece could be used for a class exercise in false logic 101.

            Hoffman writes:

            “The claim is that incarceration costs much more than its deterrent benefits. Judges should think twice before throwing away the key … it ignores the most important reason we punish wrongdoers … (deterrence) …”

            He then goes into a quick explanation of deterrence: “Specific deterrence” (send a wrong doer to prison deters him from committing another crime), and “general deterrence” (deterring others from committing a crime). He then concludes with this “fairy tale” statement –

            “General deterrence is what makes us a civilized society. It is the glue that holds us together under the rule of law.”

            Judge Hoffman couldn’t be more wrong in his judgments.

            First, specific deterrence does not work. Nationally, almost 40% of those released from prison will recommit an offense leading them back to prison within one year of release. Over two-thirds will recommit within three years. Once, you sentence a person to prison the likelihood is they will return and re-offend over and over. Contrary to what the Judge writes, prison has the exact opposite specific effect on the wrongdoer.

            Think about it for a second. A majority of those behind bars are nonviolent, low custody offenders. A sizeable majority (over 60%) lack even a basic, marketable education level (high school diploma or equivalency degree). They come from lower socio-economic strata; a sizeable number have generational connections to the criminal justice system; they were raised in single-parent homes. The vast majority of those behind bars come from the ranks of America’s untouchable caste – the poor, the undereducated and underemployed, black and brown. For these families, the “American dream” is a cruel hoax.

            You send that man – or woman – to prison and expose them to the violence and degradation that exists behind bars, and then release them to find work, all the while denying them equal access to government programs and benefits or private employment because the scarlet “P” of “prisoner” goes with them; and then you wonder how they can be so stupid to re-offend … No Judge Hoffman, specific deterrence doesn’t exist.

            Then there’s “general deterrence.” People, he argues, don’t break the law because they see what happens to others who get caught. Excuse me while I chuckle. Anticdotally, I never thought I’d get caught or, if I did, that I would face prison time. That is a universal attitude amongst the incarcerated. General deterrence doesn’t exist. No one has ever not killed, not stolen, not driven drunk, because “Hey, that guy got arrested and he’s going to prison.” Crimes occur for a whole host of reasons: impulse, opportunity, psychosis, and the whole gamut of sins of those of us who accept Judeo-Christian tenets understand as the fallen nature of humans.

            If general deterrence really worked, then crime rates would continually decrease to a point of going away completely (but for the psychotic criminal). If general deterrence in the face of harsh sentencing was fact, then the United States would have one of the world’s lowest crime rates. Judge Hoffman throws words around like “civilized” to justify our punitive sentencing system. Meanwhile, look at the “civilized” Scandinavian nations who disavow capital punishment and use community-based probation and short-term sentencing when prison is needed. Their crime rates are drastically lower than here.

            Deterrence is a disrepute theory thrown around by people for whom full prisons mean steady work (like a state judge, for example). Crime, to a large extent, is a reflection of socio-economic problems in the nation. And, those problems aren’t helped by sending tens of thousands to the purgatory that is prison. The billions this country wastes on tired notions like “tough sentencing deters crime” could be better used in education, and infrastructure rebuilding, and job development. But, we don’t do it because we fall for the easy lie, the lie perpetuated by Judge Hoffman and men like him.

            USA Today gives men like Hoffman a forum; always remember, just because you read it doesn’t make it true. Prisons do more harm – to society and the wrongdoer – than good. As a nation, we are made “civilized” not by our punishment code, but by mercy. It’s not “tough sentencing” that makes us a “shining city on a hill.” No, it’s our attempt, even with the lepers of the land, to do as Jesus outlined in His Beatitudes and His parable of the division of sheep and goats: “for I was hungry and you fed Me, thirsty and you gave Me drink, in prison and you visited Me …”

Gary & Thomas

Gary and Thomas moved out of our building – involuntarily. Neither man was in college. Their assignment to 4A was mere happenstance. They both are under eighteen months and were “ready” for the first phases of re-entry. Building 3 is all re-entry, with 4B twelve to eighteen months and introduction to the “pre-cog” community. Overflow from B side is housed in A’s fifteen non-college beds. So Gary and Thomas were moved to 4A. Neither man could read; both men suffer from mental illness and are loaded up with handfuls of skittle colored pills to “regulate” their behavior. And even with the pills, both men went nuts and were “checked in” to the padded suicide cell in 7 building.

            The pill life. In here close to 50% of the men are on something. Don’t get me wrong; medications have their place in modern society. We live in an age where pharmaceuticals cure or limit the effects of diseases and conditions that one hundred years ago would have meant death at an early age. But we have become addicted to drugs without adequately evaluating the consequences of our over-dependence. And that addiction comes with a heavy price.

            Nowhere is the evidence clearer of our over-reliance on prescription meds than inside prison. Pills – meds – are a means of control. It’s far easier for the state to dole out prescription meds than address the underlying causes of many of these men’s problems. And prison – while an isolated lifestyle – is not an island unto itself. The reason the Department of Corrections allows medications to be the primary method of inmate health care is because the same is true in the “real” world. Pills are the answer.

            I have a friend in here, fifty-one, retired Navy. He made a horrible mistake one night and driving drunk crossed into a controlled intersection and killed two people. That was in 2006. To this day, he can’t even mention the accident without tearing up. While he sat in jail, pondering his responsibility for the loss of two innocent lives he heard from his wife that she was divorcing him. “I’m not going to put my life on hold for ten years while you go to prison,” she wrote. He fell into a deep depression. Unable to cope with the guilt over his reckless deed and now reeling from the loss of his wife, my friend actively contemplated suicide. The jail “routed” him to the facility psychiatrist. After a visit lasting less than ten minutes the doctor called in an 80 mg prescription (twice daily) of Prozac. Three weeks ago he came to the realization that the meds (now one 30 mg dose a day) weren’t doing what he needed.

            What he needed was to come to grips with what he did. What he needed was to own up, admit his responsibility and move forward. The meds kept him from that. About a year ago, this decent man, a wayward Catholic by his own admission, returned to the church. Monthly he would go to confession when the priest would come. The confessions, the readings, the self-examination allowed my friend to begin to heal. It was this healing that led to him stopping the Prozac and sleeping for fourteen hours every day. Now, he exercises, and prays, and takes college classes, and lives.

            A personal confession. I find myself in jail. The first night they put me on suicide watch – standard procedure anytime someone from “my side of the tracks” gets locked up. The next morning, a counselor asked me, “you’re aren’t going to hurt yourself, are you? When I said “no,” I was moved to a low custody pod and forty other men. I walked in the pod dayroom and felt like I stepped into the psych ward of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” I was witness to a range and array of characters and behaviors I didn’t know existed. I was a mess – on the inside – yet no one knew. I carried myself with head high, joking, out-going; all the while I planned to end my embarrassment, pain, and self-loathing. I didn’t. Why I didn’t is between God and me, but my “Damascus” moment didn’t make me brave or responsible or giving. I was still a mess, just a mess who decided to see life through.

            A week after my arrival, I met the jail psychiatrist, an out-going, funny Filipino man who took an instant liking to me. “Are you depressed?” Of course I was – who wouldn’t be? My whole life was destroyed – marriage, wealth, prestige – all was gone. He then read the articles about me from the paper and in less than fifteen minutes came up with a “proposed” diagnosis. “You’re brilliant, personable, successful. You must suffer from mania. We’ll call it a slight disorder and see where that leads.” Mania – that explains my reckless behavior I thought. I’m not responsible; I’m ill. He then prescribed me 10 mg of trazadone (an anti-depressant) nightly to “help” me sleep.

            I clutched onto his diagnosis and treatment. I exaggerated in letters my conversations with the good doctor – anything to get sympathy. And, after only two days of pills, I started flushing the trazadone. I didn’t need it. What I needed to get sleep was to admit to myself and my God what a wreck I’d made of my life. And, I needed to “man up” and do the right thing regardless of the outcome. It was during those very dark, very difficult days that I agreed to plead guilty to all charges without a plea agreement on my sentence and to ensure my family was provided for, I soon discovered self-respect helps you sleep better than a bottle or a pill ever will. Like Tom Cruise’s character in “The Last Samurai,” honor and self-respect may be the best medicine for a broken soul.

            Pills; everywhere pills. The other night there were 38 men getting meds from our side, out of 66. Many of the men getting Zoloft, and Xanax, and Prozac, are in here on drug charges. Their treatment plans require alcohol and drug programs; their mental health plan requires high doses of meds. Even the “real” mentally ill – the schizophrenics – they are over-medicated to the point of being non-functioning. Gary and Thomas would sleep upwards of twenty hours per day. Personal hygiene – cleanliness – is forgotten; all there is is a vacant stare.

            It isn’t healthy and it isn’t right. There is no actual psychiatric treatment, just monthly videoconference “how are yous.” Side effects from most of the anti-depression and anti-psychotics require blood work quarterly to verify the pills aren’t destroying the user’s liver. Men go home with new addictions, new crutches.

            What’s the answer? Let’s face it, as USA Today pointed out in a cover story this week; mental health is the expendable item in most state budgets. It’s the dirty little secret no one wants to discuss until there’s a Newtown, or a Columbine, or PTSD Marine who goes off and kills women and children in an Afghan village. We ignore the problem and then “lock ‘em up.” Worse, we think a pill can solve the problem.

            Pills aren’t the answer. Somebody needs to do better for Gary and Thomas. By the way, what’s in your medicine cabinet?

Moral Disconnect

There was a heated outburst between me and two students in here over another inmate.  It all began when a recently released inmate – who these two guys regularly telephone – announced he’d looked the other student up on the internet and found out the man was in on a sex charge (specifically, he’d engaged in sex with a fifteen year-old girl).

I try to take guys as they are in here.  It’s too easy for me to make instant assessments of a man’s makeup without getting to know the man.  And, quite frankly, I am in no position to judge someone else’s criminal failures.  I had a seemingly perfect life which I recklessly risked.

The problem came about when the two “purveyors of virtue” decided everyone needed to know and everyone needed to ostracize the other man.  My friend DC came to me with it.  DC, never one to beat around the bush, told me “this is f---ing me up Larry.  He’s a good guy.  We can’t sign on to this.”  My thoughts exactly.

So I was sitting in my cut, USA Today crossword in hand, when the two approached me.  “We hate snitches, homos, and molesters”, they told me.  “That’s the way you’re supposed to roll in prison.”

Funny, I told them.  I knew at least three of the guys they run with are in on rape charges, and at least one puts the moves on young inmates in the bathroom.  Can you guess how the tension level rose?

The truth is this:  when drug dealers, or murderers, or even embezzlers think they’re better than someone else’s criminal failures they can’t see the biblical lag in their own eyes.  It’s like declaring half the country doesn’t like you because they like government handouts (sorry Mitt but that was butt dumb!).

I’m not an apologist for sex offenders.  They – like all of us – have to atone for their sins and bear consequences for their actions.  But, my faith tells me to be more Godly.  And that means seeing others as He sees me.

Living in here is tough.  It’s demeaning and lonely and at times dangerous.  Still, right is right and sometimes forgiveness matters more than anything.

Guggenheim

Guggenheim.  What does that mean?  I have no idea.  I know it’s the name of an art museum in New York.  I also know it’s a person’s name.  But what does it mean and if I call myself “Guggenheim” does is suddenly change who I am?

There is a very troubling effort underway, primarily in the mass of young, black inmates, to recruit these men into “the knowledge”.  As I’ve written in past blogs, both the five percenters and NOI (Nation of Islam) are growing sects in prison.  Coming on the heels of the Trayvon Martin shooting you can feel the palpable rise in racial tensions in this environment.  It’s driven by ignorance, self-loathing and envy. 

Shortly after the Trayvon Martin shooting, Fox News contributor and author Juan Williams – a black man – wrote an Op Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal.  In it, he decried the race-baiters (Spike Lee, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson) who flocked to Sanford, Florida to decry the “racially-motivated” murder of the 17 year old Martin.  Black celebrities and athletes – even a U.S. Congressman – donned “hoodies” and denounced the “open-warfare on young, black males.”  Williams asked a simple question.  If 90% of the murders of young, black males are at the hands of other young, black males, where is the outrage in the black community?

I found Williams’ argument very moving and insightful.  But Williams was not alone.  USA Today Contributor Dewayne Wickham penned virtually the same column.  Bill Cosby announced the Martin shooting was about guns, not race.  As I customarily do, I engaged a few of the guys in here in that “observation”.  What, I asked, did they think of the Williams and Wickham and Cosby theory?

“Sankofa” answered for the group of perhaps fifteen guys.  “They’re all house negroes, sucking up to the white man”.  Who is “Sankofa”, the forty-year old man making this statement?  He’s a friend of mine, Jay, a rather bright forty year old from Baltimore in the middle of a second degree murder sentence.  Six months ago Jay legally changed his “white name” to Sankofa an African-dialect word meaning “freedom”.  He has become a leader of the post-African movement.  Everything about Africa is wonderful; everything Western is vile.  Ironically, the books, the “history”, the “knowledge”, trace its roots to Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam.  It is built on revisionist history and completely devoid of fact or logic.  Simply put, I know more accurate African history and current events than any peddled by Farrakhan or the revisionists who peddle their distortions in prison.  Much like the white supremacists in here with their toxic views on Judaism and their holocaust denials, it is lie and misconception . . . and ignorance to the “nth” degree.

I recently read a book by Stanford University professor Richard Ford titled “Rights Gone Wrong”.  Ford, a black scholar, offered a detailed explanation of what he called, “The Balkanization” of the Black community.  He argued that much of the civil law created to stop discrimination and the criminal law created to end drug dealing and gun violence in the inner-cities was racially neutral and well-intended.  However, its application and abuse by parties on both ends of the political spectrum brought us to our current climate of racial toxicity.

The Black community, he argues, is not a monolith.  It is deeply split by those blacks who have reached educational and economic parity with the white middle and upper middle class versus uneducated, poor blacks.  Get an education, get a good paying job, and a middle class black family looks – and behaves – like a similarly situated white family.

As I’ve detailed numerous times in this blog, I struggle to understand what it means to be black in America.  For many of the young men whom I’ve met and befriended I realize their life experiences were so vastly different from the ones I tried to provide my own sons.  And there is no doubt that we are a nation with deep racial wounds and lingering prejudices.  The condition of poor black families in America is deplorable.  That a young black man has a better chance of being incarcerated than being a college graduate is disgusting and should shame every decent American, but the growth of “African” revisionist thought in prison is not the solution.

How dangerous is this ignorance?  Sankofa told me the other day that poor uneducated whites have it better in America than millionaire blacks.  I asked him if he knew who Charles Murray was.  Naturally, he said no.  I explained how Murray is a social scientist who has written throughout his career on the split in America along intellectual and cultural lines.  What Murray found, I argued, was that it’s the poor and ignorant vs. the wealthy and cultured.  It’s the haves versus the have-nots.

Ignorance.  Ignorance leads uneducated men in here to grasp at quick, easy to understand apologist theories for their incarceration.  Ignorance drives men to refuse to accept responsibility for their actions and to believe their criminal conduct is really a political reaction to a racist society.

Ignorance is a cancer.  It is destroying young black men in prison.  No program the government has prepared challenges this ignorance.  Only one thing can fight ignorance:  EDUCATION.

America is a divided nation.  The simple explanation is race.  But simple isn’t always right.  When a white person clutches their bag when seeing a young black man, or utters some asinine comment like “Obama hates white people” – they are as wrong – and as ignorant – as my young black friends in here.

America is a Balkanized country but it’s not Balkanized by race, but by lack of education.  Ignorance is rampant in prison.  Then again, it’s pretty prevalent in the “free world” as well. 

So I told Sankofa, and the Dominator, and Sincere and I God and Divine, to call me “Guggenheim”.   “Why?” they asked.  “Felt like I needed a new name to represent the new me”, I said.  “That’s stupid”, they told me.  Precisely my point. 

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.

Headphone Epiphany

This was a weird week leading up to Christmas.  It was a week I learned a major lesson in growth and grace.  It all started typically enough.  Tuesday evening “Big S” had to work for 5^th period school (he’s a vocational aide and recently named computer aide to work with me and the new IT students).  Big S has been working out five days a week with “Jah”.  No big deal, so far.

He gets to work Tuesday night and his left arm – forearm, bicep and elbow – are swelled to three times their normal size.  His arm is blotchy and discolored.  A workout injury?  Possibly, except he and Jah hadn’t lifted since Sunday.  His instructor calls medical for him and at 7:00 pm he’s down with the nurses.

I’m sitting on my bunk doing, well, what I do almost every evening:  watching a “Seinfeld” re-run while reading “USA Today”.  Three officers move into the cut and open “S’s” locker and start packing him up.   I know the officers and one says “they’ve got him at medical.  Keeping him overnight.”

As I’ve described before in this blog – and in an accompanying piece this week – medical care in prison is abysmal.  All of us were worried – what’s up with Big S?

Side theme:  they have him completely packed up and “LA” comes by to see me.  LA because he’s from Los Angeles.  A bright young guy, LA nonetheless has way too much con in him, especially for a 24 year old who’s lost five years of his life to prison.  “Heh, Larry, did they take the other set of headphones?”  “What headphones?” I replied.  “I left a set on his bed.  Guy in 6 building needs repaired.”  Now Big S knew nothing about the repair or the headphones on his bunk.

Wednesday morning and Big S pushes his cart back in.  The diagnosis:  a bug bite (spider?) caused a massive infection in his arm.  High doses of antibiotics (and ten days of “pill call”) and he’ll be fine.  He’s going through his stuff and sees the extra set of headphones.  I explain the entire LA conversation.  That afternoon, Big S takes the phones to work and an electrical aide rewires and builds a new headclip (the phones we are allowed to buy have thin, cheap brittle plastic on the top.  They always crack within days of purchase. A guy in the shop makes a heavier, more pliable headpiece).  Big S gives the phones to LA for return to building 6.  Thursday afternoon two guys come running into the building looking for Big S.

“Gomez” (the guy in building 6) says someone switched out the speakers.  The name and number are scratched out and the earcovers (foam) are worn out.  Big S is perplexed.  The electrical aide had repaired a new set. The set Gomez sent back over for Big S to examine was old and worn.

So Big S goes to confront LA.  And, LA denies, and denies and then finally admits the truth.  He’d switched the speakers (earphone part) to sell before he leaves.  How do I say this other than Big S was pissed!

A couple of things to remember:  prisons are notorious places for cons to be run.  Guys try and get things over unsuspecting inmates all the time.  Conversely, you expect the guys you befriend; you help, to shoot straight with you.  Numerous times I’ve been, shall we say, let down by guys in here who have asked for help and then done slimy things.  You get used to it and you don’t let it change how you behave and who you are. 

The second thing to remember is Big S is a pretty big guy and “pp” (pre-prison) he was a fighter.  He worked nights as a bouncer at a few Richmond area bars and participated in a half-dozen UFC fights.  He also had a quick temper.

I watched LA stammer and stutter his way through before finally, with head down, going back to his bunk area and retrieving the good phones.  And, I watched Big S, jaw clenched, angry, trying to control his visceral reaction which was to break LA into a dozen pieces. 

Big S came back to the cut, obviously upset.  I climbed off my bunk and listened as he explained everything that had taken place.

“So what are you gonna do?”  I asked Big S.  “Forgive him.  Isn’t that what you’re always tellin me God expects us to do?  It’s not worth fighting over.  LA hasn’t figured it out yet.  He’s doomed to come back unless he does.”  “Forgive him.”  Can you imagine?  We throw terms like “forgiveness” around so easily and yet our initial reaction is to, well react.  Big S somehow decided the reaction wasn’t worth it.  Something else was required.  How much baggage, how much anger do we bottle up inside seeking “satisfaction” for wrongs perpetuated against us when the right thing to do is say “OK, I forgive you.”

Does that mean people will stop conning you, hurting you, trying to take advantage of you?  Probably not.  LA, he’s six weeks from going home and he’s still running cons.  He was willing to sell out his relationship with Big S for a few bucks.  LA was/is one of the high-risk recidivism offenders.  He’s done five years this bid on drug distribution and gun charges.  He’d been in and out of juvenile detention and twice did short jail terms.  He claims “I’m never coming back”.  But, how you behave in this environment largely dictates how you’ll be on the street.  In LA’s case, the prognosis isn’t good.

Will Big S’s handling of the situation suddenly cause a light bulb to go off over LA’s head and he’ll begin “doing the right thing”?  I don’t know.  But I know this:  the old way of doing things doesn’t work.

That all this took place on the eve of celebrating the birth of Emmanuel – “God with us” – came as no great surprise.  Big S just did what that birth was all about. He looked at the world through God’s eyes and said “that’s alright.  I forgive you.”  How odd that I saw that play out in prison.  Then again, “He came to set the prisoner’s free and open the eyes of the blind.”  And it all started with some headphones.  

A Day in the Life

A friend I hadn’t seen in over three years came out for a visit the other weekend.  I think he was a little embarrassed at first that it took so long to get the courage to come out here.  But, he sees my ex every week at church and, I think, there is a difficulty for folks dealing with me while she is in their midst.  So, I end up being placed in exile.  I’ve come to accept that.

He asked how I was “doing it.  How do you pass the day, not lose your mind?”  I had to laugh.  If I think too much about what I’ve lost, think too much about my memories of my ex, our kids, holidays, travel, I would go crazy.  Instead, I told him, I focus my attention on what I do in here.  Days roll over to new days, but I keep the same schedule.

What’s a day like in here?  For every guy, it’s different.  There are the disciplined guys, the guys who work, set schedules, seek books and hobbies to keep their minds fresh.  They seek meaning in their confinement, redemption for their lives.

Then, there are the sleepers.  They waste away, sleeping twelve, fourteen, even sixteen hours a day.  To them, prison is an exercise in passing through with the least exertion of energy, the least amount of thought.  Nothing is different.  They sleep, eat, watch TV and perhaps lift weights.   They plan on going back out, picking up exactly where their lives stopped on their arrest.  There is no redemption; there is no growth for these men.  They feed the system.  They go out and come back.  Prison, by its very organization, leads to a majority of its prisoners fitting into the second group.  These are the hustlers, the predators, the prey, the refuse that makes up so much of the prison class.

I’m in the first group.  From the day I decided that I wouldn’t quit, that I would fight and hope and believe, I created a schedule.  I live each day on the same schedule.  Disciplined living, I’ve found, can overcome the despair of this experience.

So I told my friend I get up each morning at 3:55.  No alarm clock, I just wake up.  A quick trip to the bathroom to shave, teeth brushed and then yoga.  I then read the Bible and pray and meditate for 45 minutes.  5:15 shower and writing until breakfast at 6:45.  I get another hour to write before 8:15 work call.  Three hours every Monday through Friday I teach adult basic ed.  Every afternoon, after lunch, I workout for an hour.  Then, its college tutoring or college classes.  Dinner, reading and at least two nights a week of college classes until 8:30.

I always go to sleep after 10:00 pm count, ending my day with prayers.  It’s a regimented lifestyle.  Other than an hour or so at night – and the morning sports and news – I avoid TV.  A couple of books and magazines read each week.  Each night, the “USA Today” and a crossword puzzle.  There’s music.  Guys are constantly exchanging CDs.  I have the “old stuff” – Marley, Dylan, The Eagles and Allman Brothers.  I’m the go to guy for classical music and jazz.

There was a time when I couldn’t bring myself to even listen to music in here.  So many songs, so many lyrics, reminded me of, well of her and us and our life together and our kids.  The upside of having a strong memory is you remember.  The downside is the same.  Now, I hear “The Band Perry”, or “Lady Antebellum” sing about love and whispers of what was cross my mind. But I can handle it now.  I jot down the lyrics, I write what’s on my heart and I maintain the regimen.

Dr. Victor Frankl, in his remarkable book “Man’s Search for Meaning” chronicles his survival in the Nazi concentration camps.  Finding meaning, in your circumstances, he argued, gives you freedom.

My schedule, how I do my time, get through each day, in spite of my circumstances, helps me find meaning in here.   Victor Hugo, in his masterpiece “Les Miserables” wrote:

            “Liberation is not deliverance.  A convict may leave prison behind, but not his sentence.”

Hugo understood more about prison than he realized.  The path to liberation rests not in the opening of the gate but the disciplining of the mind.

Thinking About an eBook

The other night, I read an interesting piece in USA Today about a recent Barnes & Noble eBook “daily special” of Eric Metaxas amazing biography of martyred German Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Selling as an eBook for $1.99, Bonhoeffer’s amazing life story sold tens of thousands of copies in a short time and thrust the book to number 19 on the paper’s weekly bestsellers list.

I read (and wrote about) the Bonhoeffer book months ago.  I found it a difficult read, very cerebral, theologically driven, and yet one of the most powerful books I’d ever read.  Bonhoeffer was a brilliant, serious Christian who, I believe, would offer scathing criticism of 21^st century American faith trends.  I wondered, as I read the article, if all those readers knew what they were getting into.

Inside my wall locker I display two small items.  The first is a color drawing of the Archangel Michael.  A friend, and Episcopal Rector, sent it to me shortly after my arrival at the receiving unit.  “Michael is the archangel who protects us,” his letter stated.  I kept “Michael” under my pillow, looking at him daily as I dealt with the filth and inhumanity of DOC’s Powhatan Receiving Center.

The second item is a poem penned by Bonhoeffer while imprisoned by the Nazi’s and awaiting his execution.  Simply titled “On Waking in Prison”, it is a powerful testament to this man’s undying faith in his Lord even as the hangman’s noose drew closer.

Bonhoeffer felt compelled by his faith to challenge the Nazi regime, the status quo.  He became a leader of the Covenant Church movement, separating a number of Lutheran parishes away from the mainline German Lutheran churches which, at best, quietly acquiesced to the Nazi’s rule of terror and, at worst, actively participated in Hitler’s dreams of ethnic cleansing and world domination.

Lest we too quickly applaud Bonhoeffer for his deeds; let’s remember the Nazis were a legitimately recognized political organization.  Hitler’s rise to power came about by the force of political calculation and legitimacy.  There was no government overthrow.  The Nazis entered politics, Hitler was asked to form a government and the German people – a majority at least – willingly followed along as law after law was passed.  There was no coup, there was simple acquiesce by the German people to fear and economic despair and the deep-seated desire to have simple answers to complex societal issues.

And what of Bonhoeffer?  He willingly broke the legitimate laws of his nation because he believed God called humankind to a higher order than the laws on the books.  Bonhoeffer was willing to fight the legitimate government of his nation, challenge the conventional wisdom of his people and be imprisoned and executed to remain true to his God.  An amazing man.  A true Christian.  I wonder how many of us would be willing to do the same; give up job, family, freedom, our lives for our faith.

Bonhoeffer challenged the conventional wisdom of his day – and our day – that found faith to be an easy exercise.  It’s not.  It’s painful and lonely and it involves suffering but you press on anyway because God requires you to do so. You are His child; your eternity is secure.  You are compelled, therefore, to do right even in the face of unwinnable odds.

I wonder what Bonhoeffer would say to modern American Christians; white, upper-income families believing they are blessed because they have two cars, a half million dollar mortgage, a recovering 401k.  What would he say about our reaction to 9/11, to the denial of rights to “enemy combatants”, about our step by step dismantling of personal freedom in the name of security?  What would Bonhoeffer say about the rights call for a wall to “protect” the border?  What would Bonhoeffer say about America’s staggering incarceration number (2.3 million) and supervised probation and parole number (almost 5 million) at a cost of $200 billion per year (criminal justice spending) most of which goes to arrest, try, convict and incarcerate nonviolent offenders?  What would Bonhoeffer say about 46 million Americans using food stamps while our defense budget continues to grow and unemployment exceeds 9%?

I may be mistaken, but I think he would simply ask each believer “What does the Lord require of you?”  As I said earlier, this fast selling eBook will be a difficult read.  But, if we truly believe, we will take heart.  We will get involved.  We will demand justice, seek mercy and forgiveness. 

Ultimately, our power, our future lies not in the military, economic or legal system of this country.   Ultimately, it rests with the Lord who “gives the solitary a home and brings forth the prisoners to freedom”.  What would Bonhoeffer say?  He’d say what I see every morning when I read his poem.  As the psalmist said, “be strong and let your heart take courage.”

Can't You See...Governor

Back in college, a time long ago and far away – the late 1970’s – I’d sit around at night in my dorm room with friends and we’d put different records on (records, for those born after 1985 were large, easily scratchable recordings; four times the size of a CD) the stereo and hang out.  At that point in time the phenomena known as southern rock was going strong.  Bands such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, 38 Special and the Charlie Daniels Band, took over for the granddaddy of the movement:  the Allman Brothers Band.  One of the best bands in the southern genre was the Marshall Tucker Band.

Anyway, we’d sit around, shots of Jack Daniels and cheap beer in hand and we’d listen and memorize lyrics.  After a couple of rounds of drinks, we’d be singing along with MTB’s lead singer, Toy Caldwell (great name for a bearded redneck in a ten gallon hat:  “Toy”).  The Marshall Tucker Band’s biggest hit was “Can’t You See”, a song by a guy who was fed up with the treatment put on him by the woman he loved.

“Gonna take a freight train
Out of the station
Don’t care where it goes
Gonna ride a southbound
All the way to Georgia
Jump off
Nobody gonna know
Can’t you see
Lord can’t you see
What that woman
Been doing to me …”

Many times, writers and poets have referred to their land, their home, using the feminine pronouns “she” or “her”.  Toy Caldwell’s tune suddenly hit me the other night as I read a piece by a conservative Republican and a liberal Democrat bemoaning this country’s broken prison system.  “Hey Governor McDonnell”, I thought.  “Can’t you see what your prison system’s doin to me”… and the eight million residents of Virginia?

This past Thursday, USA Today contributing columnists Cal Thomas (a conservative Republican) and Bob Beckel (a liberal Democrat) took on America’s broken prison system.

Commenting on the current political paralysis that led to the Supreme Court ordering 30,000 California inmates released (“the California system was incompatible with the concept of human dignity”), Conservative Thomas said:

“Democrats and Republicans both tend to hold ideological positions when it comes to prisons, and what we’re left with is being warehoused rather than rehabilitated.  Billions of dollars [$60 billion per year] are being wasted in the process…”

Liberal Beckel added:

“We could begin to assess which inmates are a true threat to society.  If they are in for nonviolent crimes…do they need to be behind bars?  No.”

Added Thomas:

“The United States has roughly 2 million people incarcerated… That’s the equivalent of New Mexico’s entire population and more than any other country.  It’s time to re-examine the philosophy behind incarceration.  We continue to apply a 19^th century solution to a 21^st century problem.”

Why “can’t you see” what’s so obvious Governor McDonnell?  Why do you lack the political cojones to do what is right for the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Your prison system is badly broken and in need of major repair.  Political rhetoric won’t cut it.  Real change is needed.

As Beckel notes, an effort has to be made to actually rehabilitate and restore prisoners to society.  Recidivism, he suggests, has more to do with the fact that people are sent to prison.

“I strongly suspect that when many first timers are sent to overcrowded, violent prisons, they leave there damaged and handicapped by the system.”

As I have repeatedly noted in this blog, Governor McDonnell is quick to tout his “re-entry” initiative, yet it is the same old story.  We need real change.  Job training and addiction programs cost less for six years than a one year prison stay.

And, conditions in prison are, as Bob Beckel notes, deplorable.  Wretched living conditions do not help the rehabilitation process.  Treat people inhumanely, warehouse them, do nothing to address their underlying mental health, addiction and criminal issues, and you create a more bitter, less productive citizen.  It’s common sense.  Can’t you see that, Governor?

Justice should be a two-prong solution.  First, deter future criminal conduct.  Second, restore the victim and offender.  Prison does not deter crime.  Neither does prison restore the victim or the offender.

For the past three years I have lived an inmate life.  Nothing that DOC has done or can do will lead me to not embezzle.  I’m a different man than I was when I was arrested.  That transformation came about in spite of the brutality and faith and lack of compassion and complete mind-numbing waste of time that is DOC.

No, what transformed me was the restorative power of God.

Every week some think tank, some courageous politician steps up and says “enough is enough.  Its time for a change.”

Governor McDonnell is eighteen months into his term as Virginia’s Governor.  The evidence is in front of his eyes.  He can do the right thing or the politically expedient thing.  But, eventually the right thing will be done.  Virginia can’t continue to incarcerate 40,000 inmates.  Virginia can’t continue to spend $1 billion on a prison system that fails to rehabilitate, restore or prevent recidivism.

“Can’t you see” Governor McDonnell what is so obvious?  “Can’t you see” what your prison system is really doing?  “Can’t you see?”

The Boxer

There’s been a Simon & Garfunkel song that has been rolling through my mind the last week.  Two week’s after 9/11, Paul Simon, alone on a stage with just his guitar sang “The Boxer” to a hushed Saturday Night Live audience.  It’s a song about being pummeled and beaten down, yet finding the strength to stand back up.

“In a clearing stands a boxer

A fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every blow that layed him down
Or cut him til he cried out
In his anger and his shame
I am leaving, I am leaving
But the fighter still remained…”

Three nights ago EL, a young college student, was called to the watch commander’s office at 1:00 am.  The Captain on duty informed him his mother had died suddenly and unexpectedly earlier that evening.  He was allowed to make a collect call to his sister and then requested that he be placed in the hole for a few hours – to grieve – because you don’t cry in prison around other inmates.  He returned later in the day to attend class.  He’s not allowed to attend the funeral.

“Li la Li
Li La Li Li Li La Li”

What makes us keep trying, keep hoping, keep believing when the rational part of our mind, when everyone around us tells us it’s hopeless?  I think often about Dr. Viktor Frankl’s thoughts in “Man’s Search for Meaning”.  There he was confided to a concentration camp, being starved, witnessing the worst in humanity because he “broke the law” (we forget, yet Dr. King pointed it out in his letter from the Birmingham Jail, the actions of the Nazis were carried out according to properly passed laws).  He was sustained by the memories of his wife and their life together.  He would not learn until after the war that his wife had been executed early after their arrest and separation.

I live amongst criminals.  With few exceptions, (Big S being the only guy who is factually innocent) the vast majority of men here broke the law.  But, for an equally vast number, the punishment bears no relationship to the crime.  Yet for the vast majority of these men, they remain hopeful.  They believe something better will come to them.

The writer H. Jackson Browne, Jr. wrote:  “Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have.”

When Paul Simon performed his song, New York City and the country were still in a state of shock.  Where once stood the trade centers, there was a ten story pile of smoldering rubble.  The death toll was still not calculated “but the fighter still remained”.

I love that line.  I love the image it creates.  Everyone one of us bears scars of hurt and shame.  We all feel pain.  We all suffer loss.  At times, we all want to give up and quit.  But, like Simon’s boxer, we stand back up battered and bruised and vow to fight on.

This blog isn’t about anything in particular that occurred.  It may have come about over the past few weeks as a group of students I hadn’t worked with before started coming to me for help.  As I worked with these guys invariably one of them would ask “Is it true you haven’t heard from your kids?” or “Your wife divorced you?” or “You really got fifteen years for embezzlement?”  Maybe it was the two officers last weekend reminding me how many lies were printed about me in the paper after my arrest and then officer H saying “you’re a decent guy; you deserved better”.

I asked DC, a great boxer in his teens, if he was ever put on the canvas.

“Yeah”, he said.  “Guy beat me senseless and I hit the deck.”
“What’d you do?” I asked.
“Got up.  Can’t stay down.  No matter how bad it hurt, I couldn’t let ‘em beat me.”

Couldn’t let ‘em beat me.  The fighter still remained…

POSTSCRIPT:  In an ironic twist, USA Today columnist Craig Wilson wrote a piece two days after I penned this on the same topic.  Aptly titled “You can’t turn back now…” it included the following lines from poet Annie Johnson Flint:

“Have you come to the Red Sea place in your life.

Where, in spite of all you can do,
There is no way out, there is no way back.
There is no other way but through?”

Wilson then concludes:  “Getting down that path isn’t always easy.  We stumble.  We fall.  But we get up and march on.”

Amen to that.