Christmas ’14 Part 2 Meeting Ximena

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 2014.

 

            I have weird experiences in here with my writing. Almost everyone – it seems – knows I write. I get asked almost daily – “What are you writing this week?” Or “Is this going in a blog?” I’m constantly amazed by people coming across my ramblings. So, I’m sitting around the other day and a guy asks me, “Why do you write about all this stuff?” Good question. I thought about that a little while. Why do I write about all this stuff? Maybe, I think, something I write will make a difference to someone. They’ll pause for a moment and say, “He may have a point,” or “I’ve felt that same way.” That’s my noble rationale for writing. The less noble reason is I want to write a story that will lead me to meet Ximena.

            Writing nobly. I was walking back from chow one night when a young guy, new to the compound, stopped me. He very politely asked, “You’re Larry and you have a blog?” When I said yes, he told me I helped his mom and wife understand what this “really was.” Funny thing is, I get that almost weekly from guys who have family – or friends who stumble across my site and stop for a moment, read, and get what’s going on.

            There’s a song by Sara Bareilles, “Brave” that goes in part,

            “You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug

            Or you can start speaking up …

            Fallin for the fear

            Disappearing, bowing down to the mighty

            Don’t run, stop holding your tongue

            Maybe there’s a way out of the cage you live in

            Maybe one of these days you can let the light in

            Honestly, I want to see you be brave.”

            I write – a lot – because I think I have perspective now. As I told two friends who visited the other day, this past six and a half years have exposed me to a lot I never thought existed. There are a great number of folks who live on the fringe of society. For them, the deck is stacked. They are disrespected, disregarded, and America seems disinterested in their well-being.

            I didn’t want to think color, religion, or you financial status mattered. I smugly held to the notion that all are equal before the law. They aren’t. Ours is a fragile experiment in governance and we as a people fail more often than we care to admit. I found myself thinking about rap artist Macklemore’s song “Same Love,” addressing prejudice aimed at gays.

            “America the brave still fears what we don’t know.

            God loves all his children is somehow forgotten,

            While we paraphrase His book that’s been around 3500 years …

            I learned in church if you preach hate in the service,

            Those words aren’t anointed.”

            I write because I think honesty requires it. For too long I wasn’t honest, about a great number of things. Then I found myself in a foreign environment, lost, confused, broken. Honesty came naturally at that point. There’s a lot wrong with all this in here. There are more than a few who deserve better, who need compassion and help, not punishment. There is also a lot of evil and ignorance and just plain stupid behavior. So I write because in my heart I believe I have a story to tell. The people, the stories are fascinating.

1. Gay Tony. He sits to pee and sashays around the building like he’s in a Lana Turner movie. When he first moved in he said, “I just love the way you talk Larry, so worldly and polite.”
2. There are “Vikings,” guys who think showering and laundry are optional. You watch them use the bathroom and exit without a bar of soap coming near their hands. And, you finally break down and say, “Look, you need to get in the water and wash your ass!” You learn guys live in here like they live outside; there are some filthy men living out there!
3. You see layer upon layer of DOC “counselors” who do no counseling and in fact, cause more harm than good. They put inforce stupid rules to “modify” behavior – they only piss guys off. “Evidence Based programs” – that’s the catch word for re-entry programming and it’s nothing but inane jargon created to keep people employed.
4. Drug use is rampant. God knows how much is spent on “piss” testing. Weed, coke, heroin – it’s all here in abundance. And, somehow guys have figured out how to beat the test. The investigators rely on “rats” dropping “notes” on “enemies.” Want to hear something funny? Most of the “informants” the investigators rely on are dirtier than who they rat out.
5. So, four guys in our building – all who are walking in and out the port-o-johns on the rec yard far too often – get tested. They “conclude” someone dropped a “note” on them. As I said earlier, guys are plain dumb. Anyone can tell they’re up to something. “You know Larry, this should be expected in here. This is prison.” I disagreed. You learn who you really are in your worst moments. You don’t have to be a user/an addict/ a scumbag in here; it’s way too easy to be one out there.
6. The factory guys. Sure, they make fifty-five to eighty-five cents an hour making furniture that is sold at exorbitant prices to state agencies who could buy the same stuff on the open market at lower cost. That’s Virginia’s “correctional enterprises” program: slave wages plus captive buyers paying exorbitant prices.

Yes, that’s life around here. It gets discouraging sometimes, ok, most times. Then, I think about Dr. Ken Brantley. He was in Africa, a doctor serving with the Christian aid group “Samaritan’s Purse.” Brantley contracted Ebola. He returned to America and was treated with experimental drugs. And he survived.

            “I still have the same flaws I did before, but whenever we go through a devastating experience like what I’ve been through, it is an incredible opportunity for redemption or something. We can say, ‘How can I be better now because of what I’ve been through?’ To not do that is kind of a shame.”

            Dr. Brantley understands redemption. Perhaps, just perhaps, that explains why I keep writing. You screw up, you throw it all away and you try and get beyond the regret that gnaws at your very being. You realize you can’t change the past, but maybe you can affect the present and improve the future. So noble. But, there’s “Ximena.”

            My buddy, O, has been trying to teach me Spanish for more than a year and I must confess, I’m miserable at it. I recognize a fair number of words, can read it and create grammatically correct sentences. But translating it and speaking? Let’s just say you wouldn’t want me asking anyone in Honduras for directions!

            He did get me watching Univision which is where I found “Ximena.” Ximena – a former “Miss Columbia” in the “Miss Universe” pageant is a mid-thirties “weather girl” on Univision’s morning show. Univision is to beautiful women what Omaha is to steaks. Every show is cast full of gorgeous women. No matter how bad the news is in the world, you smile watching Univision.

            So I decided – I told the guys – that I’ll write the great American novel so that I can get invited to Univision’s morning show and meet Ximena. Hey, it’s a goal, maybe not a noble goal but a goal nonetheless.

            Christmas 2014; seventh one inside. And it’s Ok. There are days I still wonder when all this will end; there are days when I feel like I am more alone than I thought possible. But then, then there are those days when I know I matter, and this matters; days when I laugh more than I ever believed possible in these circumstances.

            I’ve thought about the “human” condition a lot recently. We have such an almost natural ability to do horrible things: killing kids in schools in the “warped” name of your God. We seem to kill more than we heal; we are self-centered, vindictive, and fearful. And then, in the hopelessness and darkness there is … hope. That’s Christmas, a reminder that no matter how dark things appear, there is a light, “and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Are there any more hopeful words?

            What does all this have to do with prison? A long time ago a prophet said the following, that a day was coming when “He” would,

            “Open blind eyes,

            To bring out prisoners from the prison.”

            Everything I write, everything I experience in here is seen through that lens. It’s all about prison, though not just the ones with walls.

Merry Christmas

Jobs (Pt 2 Is This any way to Run Things?)

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 2014.

            As inmates go, I’m one of the fortunate few. I have family and friends who help me. They visit regularly, they write often, they send money. Data on the population here (as of June 2013) showed that roughly 70% of the 1050 men were “returning” inmates. In other words, this wasn’t their first trip to the circus. Almost 40% were below a high school education level (15% were below 3^rd grade). At that time, there were 5 men with four year college degrees – that includes me and a school teacher who, coincidentally was also a sex offender. No sex offenders can work at the school. Less than 24 hours after my arrival here I got a job – at the school – as a teacher’s aide. It’s unheard of: a job within a day and at the lightest non-factory pay rate: 45 cents per hour. Pay. Jobs (non-factory, that is) come on part-time and full-time levels with hourly rate set at 27 cents, 35 cents, and for the lucky few, 45 cents.

            If you are a part-time building cleaner you get 15 hours a week at 27 cents. In a four week pay cycle you earn $16.20 before state-ordered mandatory ten percent forced-savings (in a non-interest bearing account) and five percent court fines/fees account. So, the guy keeping the building clean gets approximately $14.00. He then must buy detergent (offenders get 1 state wash a week in laundry; all other wash is at your own cost; we are only provided 3 sets of t-shirts, boxers, socks, pants and shirts), deodorant, toothpaste, and all other hygiene products. Heard the expression, “three hots and a cot?” Don’t believe it. Fact is, prison is a Spartan existence and without support from outside it is difficult to survive with just what’s provided.

            Work and school keeps men occupied. Any idiot in here sees that. So what does the chief housing/program guy decide to do during lock? He cuts all jobs in buildings from 20 workers to 4. Why? Who knows.

            Here is what happens when guys have no jobs, and no money. People will do what they have to do to survive. Stealing, robbery, extortion increase. Fights go up. Hustles – those without will hustle food from the chow hall, drugs, sex, anything to make a buck.

            The program manager has even tried to gut education aide pay: “Spending too much on income salaries.” Meanwhile, his staff is held to no professional baseline standards on recidivism results, or problems in the re-entry buildings or backlog on annual reviews.

            Worse, the slave-labor like “Virginia Corrections Enterprise” factory where products are made by inmates paid 55 cents to 85 cents an hour then sold to state agencies at significant markups (30% to 50% above what they could spend buying from private companies) keeps running with no one daring to slow that spending down.

            It is almost as if the people in charge do things that deliberately create chaos and trouble in the facility and add to men’s misery and likelihood of failure at release to keep this place “necessary and relevant.”

            Is this any way to run a prison? Shame on the Commonwealth of Virginia. It’s time to shed light on this corrupt, inept, inefficient system. Too many lives are being lost in the grinder that is corrections.

Another Investigation

They raided the shop Thursday morning. Both investigators, the Major (in street clothes) and a half dozen COs walked into the furniture shop and took all six office workers into custody. All six have – change that, “had” – access to computers. Wednesday night on a “tip” (i.e. an inmate dropped a note) a factory worker in 1A was shook down. In his possession were notebooks full of parley slips. And, the slips were all typeset. There were hundreds of tickets for NBA and NHL play-offs, NASCAR, and Major League Baseball. The guy had an OTB operation running out of his locker.

            They took him into custody and he did what an inmate is never supposed to do: he told on his business associates. Those associates were all the computer guys at the factory. Now they’re all together in the hole.

            The hole. There’s a lot going on in DOC right now about solitary confinement. Virginia has been under the watchful gaze of church groups, Amnesty International, and the ACLU for its liberal use of solitary confinement. These groups, supported by scientific and medical research have argued that solitary confinement for long stretches causes long-term psychological harm. For some sociopathic, violent inmates, solitary confinement is the only option. For most, however, the hole is pure punishment.

            Most guys in here will puff their chests and tell you that you haven’t done “real time” until you’ve (1) been to a “major” (a high custody facility) and (2) been to the “hole.” I did my 4 ½ months in receiving with the psychotic murderers, and rapists, and child predators; I witnessed firsthand the packs of gang bangers robbing, rolling, and beating other inmates; I saw the after-effects of stabbings and rapes; I did enough “time” to meet test #1. I have no desire to notch, as a completed goal, item #2.

            The same day the VCE shop guys got locked up I had to walk over to 7 building. No, I wasn’t “in trouble.” I was delivering worksheets and a test to one of our college guys sitting in the hole for dirty urine. The warden allows guys doing their hole time to stay up on their classwork – provided it’s on paper; no hardback books allowed in solitary.

            My buddy DC, once one of the most notorious convicts in the Virginia prison system, pulled over a dozen straight years in solitary. There were times, he told me, when he thought he was losing his mind. Being alone in a small confined space begins to play tricks with your mental state. Doing hole time back then was serious. There weren’t cameras anywhere. Officers would come along at different times and pop your cell door and beat on you. DC was a boxer; he got his shots in, but six on one and he usually came up short.

            The hole today is different. You get outside once a day (weather permitting) for rec. You’re put in a “dog kennel,” a twelve by twelve fended-in enclosure, just enough room to walk around, do some calisthenics, and get some fresh air. Every three days you get walked down the hall to the shower.

            Where the hole gets you now is the idleness. You aren’t allowed any electronics – no TV, no radio or CDs. Books are limited; stamps, envelopes, and paper and pen if you already possess them. You give up all your commissary – food and hygiene products – and live on the 3 trays they give you plus small tubes of toothpaste, a state toothbrush, and bar soap. You sit in a cell, with no view of the world and no sounds, and you sleep, you sleep the days away.

            One of our other college students, “Wes” was back there for fifteen days at the beginning of April. He came out ten pounds thinner (he only weighed 160 to begin with). What did he do? He typed a sexually charged letter to his girlfriend on a work computer. They found it, fired him, threw him out of the college building, and left him sitting in the hole for over two weeks.

            Every week you see guys with officers in tow pushing carts with all their belongings toward “7.” It’s a long walk with 900 pairs of eyes fixed on you. No matter what guys tell you about toughness and “manning” up, it isn’t fun.

            There’s no honor in prison on either side. The officers – many of them anyway – are as dirty and corrupt as those they’re paid to police. We have a new investigator who is busy locking guys up; all the while, we know about the tobacco he used to sneak in and the furniture he had built – for free.

            And then there are the inmates. Most end up getting caught due to their own stupidity and arrogance. “Cubby” – he was using heroin two to three times a week. Wes – he forgot to put a stamp on his envelope. The letter came back, was opened, read, and Wes was walking to “7.” The shop workers – they used their work computers to run book even knowing that they watch every keystroke.

            Investigation? This isn’t the Warren Commission at work. We, collectively, are our own worst enemies. So the gambling and the drugs, the store boxes and the Google numbers, the guys who run the hustles change but the hustles keep going and the officers, running their own hustles, keep playing along. Another week, another investigation, and a few more in the hole.

Another Dead Inmate

A week ago another inmate passed away while in DOC’s custody. It was another death that could have been avoided. “Keith,” a maintenance worker at the VCE factory, had been complaining of stomach pains for over a year. Medical repeatedly refused his request for outside medical treatment with a gastroenterologist. Two weeks ago, unable to leave his bunk, his family’s demands for medical treatment were met and he was taken to MCV Hospital in Richmond. Five days ago, he died of liver cancer. His family has retained an attorney.

Medical care in prison is abysmal. The Commonwealth contracts its obligation to provide medical care to those it incarcerates out to private contractors. The contactors lose money when treatment is required by specialist. No specialist equals more profit. It also means inmates die.

Where is the justice in that? Who will bear responsibility for Keith’s death? Maybe it doesn’t matter. After all, he was “just an inmate.”

 

Funny Money

Funny thing about politics.  Voters are told what they want to hear so they feel good about their elected representatives.  Then, reality smacks them in the face.  Things aren’t the way they were told.  Voters get angry.  “Throw the bums out!”  They yell.  Except they keep voting for the same people, the same folks who told you everything is wonderful.

Governor McDonnell’s budget is full of false promises and misstatements.  Just look at DOC spending.  The Governor’s budget proposal indicates that there are plenty of beds available in DOC.  “Numbers are down, bed space is up…”  Yet, in 2013 and 2014 spending for DOC increases…substantially.

Governor McDonnell has pronounced higher education spending a major priority.  In his budget remarks, McDonnell details the dramatic rise in tuition costs for Virginia’s colleges and universities and labels these costs unacceptable.  Middle-class Virginia families are being squeezed out of college opportunities due to the staggering cost of getting a degree.  “Something must be done”, he argues.  Good point.

So why then, does the Governor oversee and encourage a prison-industrial complex that directly leads to increased public university spending?  I refer to VCE and their exclusive sales arrangements with Virginia’s state university system.

VCE – “Virginia Corrections Enterprises” – operates slave-wage factories (fifty-five to eighty cents an hour) where various furniture and clothing are manufactured.  At Lunenburg, VCE manufactures furniture.  Manufacture may overstate it.  Pre-cut wood and plastic arrive here for assembly.  A crew of sewers and upholsterers make cushions for the furniture.  These men work in deplorable conditions.  During the summer temperatures exceed 100°.  There are no air-conditioning or fans allowed.  On job injury?  The worker is suspended, without pay.

Who buys this furniture?  Virginia’s state-supported colleges and universities are required to purchase their dorm furnishings and office furniture from VCE and VCE charges substantially higher than market value.  In other words, the school could buy the same furniture from a private manufacturer/seller at a substantially reduced price.  State Government regulations requires excess money be spent to buy from VCE.  That’s money that comes out of university budgets that could go for faculty, or library needs, or scholarships; instead it props up a slave-like industry system which cannot compete with the private sector.

How bad is the price gouging the universities endure?  There are some furniture pieces this VCE facility does not make.  The local VCE manager goes through private manufacturer catalogs to find what the school needs.  He then buys it, marks the price up, and sells to the university.

Why does Virginia go through this charade?  It’s simple.  Government – your elected representatives – don’t want you to know the true cost of incarceration:  $1.1 billion this year and going up in each of the next two years.  And, that doesn’t include the “hidden costs”, those costs passed on to taxpayers through price-gouged purchase orders between DOC industries and other state divisions.  Or the exorbitant legal fees generated by the Commonwealth to defend arcane and in many cases illegal policies and procedures in place in Virginia DOC facilities.

And it clearly doesn’t include the unreported costs associated with 40,000 parents and children behind bars.  How many children in the Commonwealth are growing up in one-parent homes, living below the poverty line, in danger of dropping out or falling into patterns of drug use and criminal behavior because their fathers – or their mothers – are behind bars?

The real cost of Virginia’s love affair with incarceration is staggering and there is nothing funny about the money spent and wasted or the lives ruined by this state’s continuing lies about is corrections’ apparatus.

The Virginia General Assembly is now in session.  It’s high time for a candid discussion about this state’s failed corrections model.  It’s high time for prison reform.  The era of funny money is over.