Fiscal Reality

I’ve spent a fair amount of time this past week explaining the “fiscal cliff” to guys here in the college dorm.  I’ve given overviews of the President’s proposal and the counter-proposal from the GOP House leadership.  And, invariably after concluding my remarks someone will ask me “Why don’t they just realize you can’t spend what you don’t have?”  And me, the inmate with the huge restitution judgment, has to smile because they get it more than the politicians in DC or most voters.

Also, this past week the Governor of Virginia announced that he was asking all state departments to submit budgets for the next fiscal term at 4% less than the current funding allotment.  He went further, specifically calling on departments to find savings in their current budgets [Public Safety, which includes DOC, needs to find $165 million].

The fact that week’s before the election the Governor was touting the economic strength of the Commonwealth should come as no surprise.  After all, it’s tough getting elected to office and keeping the office telling citizens the cold hard truth:  government spending is unsustainable.  Tough decisions have to be made.

Virginia spends roughly $1.2 billion annually to maintain approximately 40,000 inmates in prison.  A majority of these men and women are nonviolent offenders being held in low custody facilities.  And “hold” is the operative word.  The Commonwealth lacks sufficient resources to adequately rehabilitate and retrain inmates.  The state oversees a literal cycle of crime, prison, return to the street, crime, prison; on and on it goes.

If Governor McDonnell is serious about the fiscal reality facing Virginia he can begin by addressing “good time earning” for inmates and consider reintroducing parole.  Community supervision – as many states are now finding – is more cost effective and causes less harm to communities and individuals than incarceration.

As I tell the guys in here, America, Virginia can’t spend its way out of this fiscal crisis.  The Governor can be a leader and make the tough call on the failure that is prison spending.  Or, he can be like all the other politicians punting the issue.

Simon Says (2)

Each morning, Monday through Friday at 7:15, the men of building 3B trudge across the compound to sit in a large circle in the visitation room.  There, under the direction of “specially trained” staff and officers, these 96 men engage in the daily ritual of preparing for release.  They are all within four to eight months of their release date and live together and participate in group programs under the auspices of Governor Bob McDonnell’s “Offender Re-entry Initiative” (he’ll regularly promote his “initiative” in the press).  And what do these men do to prepare for “the real world”?  They play “Simon Says”.

Yes, Virginia, your Governor’s re-entry plan has inmates within months of release playing Simon Says.  Not to be outdone, they also play “red light, green light” and have volunteers stand up and give “testimonials” about how “today I decided not to steal my neighbor’s radio”.  This is Governor McDonnell’s answer to the billion dollar embarrassment that is Virginia DOC. And ironically, the officers and teachers will tell you it’s the same failed program 20 year employees have seen three times before.  Oh, it may have a new name and different bells and whistles, but it’s the same failed concept that every Governor, every “tough on crime” politician has supported to break Virginia’s high incarceration rate, stagnant recidivism level and increasingly cost prohibitive system, while continuing to justify no early release incentives for the vast majority of incarcerated offenders. Bob McDonnell, I have concluded, is just another in a long line of snake oil salesmen who lack either the guts or the intellect to speak the truth and do what needs to be done with Virginia’s bloated, failed prison system.

I’m not the brightest guy in the world (my status as a member of Virginia’s inmate population confirms that) but just one day in prison was enough to convince me society’s approach to corrections was misdirected and doomed to failure.  It doesn’t take a genius to realize the following:

1)    The abolishment of parole has done nothing to either decrease the cost of incarcerating or the rate of recidivism amongst released offenders.  Instead it has created the largest department bureaucracy in Virginia government (13,000 DOC employees) and seen the inmate population swell from 9,600 (in 1995) to almost 40,000 (year-end 2010), a 400% increase in less than 15 years with one of every eight state budget dollars now going to corrections.

2)    The vast majority of inmates currently languishing in Virginia’s prisons are either nonviolent offenders or, due to the number of years held, have had their security levels reduced to low custody.  The majority of Virginia’s prisons are low to medium security facilities with dorm-style housing and a majority of the officer corps being females.

You want a meaningful re-entry initiative?  Focus – and resources – should be directed as follows:

1)    Real drug and alcohol treatment. A significant number of the incarcerated suffer from drug and alcohol abuse issues.   DOC treatment plans call for those inmates to attend treatment, however, those programs are group meetings, short duration (ten to fifteen weeks) that use a cookie-cutter “here are the stats” approach.  Meaningful treatment is needed, not boring, earn your certificate classes.

2)    Job/life skills training. I am in the minority in here for a number of reasons but one significant reason is I actually held a real job requiring regular hours.  Prisons have all sorts of vocational programs to teach a person how to be an electrician but there is nothing about paying taxes, running a business, buying a house, signing a lease, keeping a checking account.  The vast majority of inmates committed crimes because they were incapable of successfully navigating day to day life.

3)    Education.  The single most important determining factor in recidivism is a college education, yet funding for prison college programs has been repeatedly cut.  The vast majority of inmates in Virginia’s prisons lack basic skills and don’t even have their high school diplomas.  An un or under-educated offender is the primary driving force behind recidivism.

4)    Meaningful Mental Health treatment.  A significant number of offenders suffer from mental health disorders.  At this compound alone at least 200 of the 1200 incarcerated are on some sort of psychological meds.  Depression, anxiety, guilt, collapse of relationships, all flow freely around the compound like an open sewage ditch.  Yet, psychological counseling is a triage system.  Suicidal?  Drop a note, go to the hole, get antidepressants and a visit with the psychologist.  There is no individual counseling. And the guys on Prozac and all the rest?  Once a quarter they participate in a “video conference” with the department psychiatrist.  He asks three questions:  1. Any problems?  2.  Taking your meds?  3.  Any side effects?  Meds are used to temper behavior, but the underlying causes are left untreated.

Governor McDonnell will tell anyone what a giant step forward his re-entry program is for corrections.  It isn’t.  He is either a bold-faced liar or living in wonderland.  His re-entry program is no different than all the programs run in prison since parole was abolished which have failed miserably.

That much of the prison reform movement is not being driven by conservatives should come as no surprise.  The cost benefit analysis of incarceration proves what one day behind bars teaches.  Prisons fail.

 In a few short weeks the Virginia General Assembly will meet to consider the Commonwealth’s biannual budget.  No matter how much the politicians tell you Virginia has weathered the recession, be skeptical.  Virginia has a tremendous IOU in its state retirement plan.  State employees have again been denied raises.  Governor McDonnell could show leadership, real leadership, and introduce legislation to restore parole or, at the very least, restructure sentences so that offenders could earn significantly more good time.  A real re-entry program could be created.  An offender like me could be released and brought back in to continue the work I do.

The cost to house an inmate in Virginia at even a low level is $25,000 per year.  That’s $68.50 per day.  The cost to monitor that same inmate through “community corrections” (i.e. probation) is $8.00 per day.  Under the current system 60% of the incarcerated will recommit within three years of release.  Prison, simply put, is a sinking hole of quick sand.

I have repeatedly urged the Governor in this blog to put his faith and intellect into action and build a real prison reform agenda.  The time for demagoguery and false promises is over.  Virginia needs real prison reform.  Simon says “now”.

Attica at 40

In September 1971, the worst prison riot in U.S. history concluded with an all-white force of New York State police and Department of Corrections employees retaking the prison at a cost of 39 (28 inmates and 11 prison employees) shot to death.  What was initially reported out of Attica as the causes for the inmate takeover and the inmates’ behavior subsequent to the takeover to justify the rampant excessive use of force by the police was fully discredited. The simple fact is this:  39 men died in Attica as a result of Governor Rockefeller’s decision to retake the prison.  Don’t take my word, read the McKay Commission report issued years later.

This blog isn’t about Attica per se.  It is about the lessons we should have learned from Attica, but didn’t.  What happened at Attica forty years ago could happen again.  As the old adage goes “those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”

When Americans reacted with revulsion to the photographs of conditions inside Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, it is hard to remember that for the men at Attica those same conditions existed.  And in the 40 years since the riot, conditions throughout America’s prison system are not noticeably better.

In 1971 there were approximately 400,000 men and women behind bars.  Today, there are over 2.3 million with another six million under supervision with parole or probation offices.  America spends roughly $70 billion annually to maintain its prison apparatus.  Another nearly $200 billion is spent sustaining courts, prosecution and policing.  The vast majority of those who go through the “criminal justice” system have committed non-violent offenses.

America, “The land of the free and the home of the brave” has created a massive gulag system that dwarfs any created by Stalin.  America oversees a massive criminal-industrial complex that makes millionaires out of the owners of CCA, GEO, Keefe Foods and Global Tel-link while exploiting the incarcerated and their families.

And what did the men at Attica riot over?  They believed that even while incarcerated the Constitution guaranteed fair and decent treatment, that abuse and brutality at the hands of a prison administration and all-white guard force was illegal.  They believed that inmates deserved basic medical care, an end to prison slave labor and wages, a fair parole process, and a grievance system to address their complaints.  Doesn’t sound so radical does it?

Within the last few months inmates throughout the California prison system engaged in a hunger strike to draw attention to the inhumane practice of long-term isolation of inmates, many of whom are merely under investigation.

As Fyodor Dostoevsky profoundly noted “a society is judged by how it treats it prisoners”.  Nothing, it seems, has improved in America’s attitude about the incarcerated since those fateful, bloody days in September 1971.

With the American economy in free fall, many states are revisiting their failed corrections paradigms that suck up millions of badly needed dollars.  Yet, politicians will still not be honest with the voters.  Candidates continue to be elected exploiting the lie that increased incarceration rates make citizens safer.  Virginia spends $1 billion annually to keep approximately 40,000 men and women behind bars.  On their release they are not better; they are not “corrected”.  Prisons are places of despair, hopelessness, abuse and violence.  And people of faith who allow such a system to flourish should be ashamed.

Has anything changed since Attica?  You be the judge.  As Prison Legal News recently stated:

“Prisons should be reserved for only the truly dangerous, always with the goal of rehabilitation and release, and with adequate resources provided to achieve those objectives in positive ways.”

Forty years and it seems like yesterday.

Dear Mr. Clarke

I want to thank you for your recent visit to Lunenburg.  You won’t remember me, but I was one of the dozens of nameless men that had the opportunity to meet you during your tour of the compound.  I’m one of the college tutors you saw as you passed through the programs/education building.  There were a fair number of things I wanted to say to you, but I instead just said hello and shook your hand.  Perhaps it was concern that the warden and operations officer wouldn’t appreciate my comments or maybe I just wanted to get a feel for the type of man you are, but I didn’t say some things that should have been said.  Here goes.

You have a tough job.  You are point man on a rusting old barge headed in rough seas toward the rocks.  I believe you are a decent man who sees the possibilities that exist for good in most of the men doing time in here.  But, you must know the current system Virginia has in place, denying imprisoned offenders even a rudimentary opportunity for early release, breeds a sense of hopelessness and distrust in the corrections system that is reflected in this state’s stagnant recidivism rate. 

Contrary to what the politicians tell the voters, abolishing parole has been a colossal failure.  You know it, I know it.  Anyone with an ounce of sense knows it.  Virginia is spending $1 billion a year to house almost 40,000 inmates.  The recidivism rate has actually crept up since 2000.  The vast majority of men and women behind bars are nonviolent offenders.

Prison doesn’t make a person better.  Prison – even at this low custody level – is dangerous, and dirty and not an environment conducive to change.  That some do, in fact, grow from this experience is a testament to their character.  Prison breaks a person; prison destroys.

I am a unique inmate.  I came from a life of privilege.  I was well-paid, well-educated with both college and law degrees.  I broke the law and deserved punishment.  But, sending me to prison will not make me a “good citizen”.  People will tell you I was that before.  Prison for me is a huge waste of taxpayer resources. 

But, I have grown in these three years.  I have met men who did not have the chances in life that I did and have watched them struggle through adult basic education class and earn their GED.  These men, largely forgotten and disparaged by “law abiding” society, well up with tears when they are handed their diplomas.

My friends ask me during visits why I wear my emotions on my sleeve for these men, why I work so hard tutoring in basic ed and the college classes.  It’s simple.  I believe everyone is redeemable, everyone deserves a second chance.

I know your faith is important to you. Mine is as well.  I urge you to meditate on Hebrews 13:3 -“remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them”.  My faith teaches me that no one is beyond redemption, no one who doesn’t deserve forgiveness and mercy.

You can make a difference.  You have the power and the faith to transform Virginia’s correction system.  Be courageous.  Be honest.  Let the Governor know there are better ways to manage corrections.  Push for increased earned good time. Money needs to be directed to education, alcohol and drug treatment and mental health care.  And, let offenders capable of working and contributing to society do so by looking at alternatives to incarceration; and remove the stigma of the “Scarlet F” (felony) from non-violent offender’s records.

You have a unique opportunity.  The men – here at Lunenburg at least – are willing to have faith that you can make a difference, that you’re not like all the other DOC directors and administrators who’ve come down the road selling the false “lockem up” mantra that has led to the dismal results we now see:  40,000 incarcerated, $1 billion spent per year.

You are in my prayers.  Trust your faith.  Make a difference. 

O Governor, Where Art Thou - Again

Once again Governor McDonnell has been busy writing Op-ed pieces touting his “prison re-entry” initiative.  All the while, his administration is imploding with wholesale staff changes.  And, states near and far have recognized and aggressively pursued real prison reform.  Not Virginia; not on Governor Bob’s watch.

In one of my favorite scenes from the classic comedy movie “O Brother Where Art Thou”, George Clooney has finally tracked down his ex-wife and children.  “Kids, your daddy’s home”, he announces to a beautiful little girl in an over the top southern drawl.  “You can’t be our daddy; he got hit by a train.”  Clooney quick looks at his ex and asks “You told our children I was dead?”  Holly Hunter replies, “I certainly couldn’t tell them you were at the prison farm.  That isn’t respectable.”

That scene summarizes Governor McDonnell’s approach to the crisis that exists in corrections today.  Don’t tell the truth about the absolute failure of Virginia DOC.  Instead, write “respectable” Op-eds, long on clichés, yet short on accuracy.

This past week, the Governor published another Op-ed (this one in the Newport News Daily Press) discussing his commitment to re-entry.  As he does every time he reminds the readers “as a former prosecutor and attorney general I strongly support truth-in-sentencing (he apparently didn’t support prosecuting his political friend Steve Forbes back when he was the AG however)…and believe that those who commit a crime must take complete responsibility and fully repay their debt to society.”  I agree Governor.  Problem is, as I’ve pointed out dozens of times in this blog, “truth in sentencing” is an oxymoron.  Sentences for the same crime vary significantly around the Commonwealth and there is no statistical correlation between the length of sentence and either remorse or repayment of debt.  In fact, sentences decrease an inmate’s ability to repay his/her debt (Virginia is spending in excess of $25,000 per year to keep me here instead of me paying taxes and restitution to the victim of my embezzlement).

As Veronique de Rugy so clearly put it in the July 2011 issue of Reason.com:

“Housing nonviolent offenders with violent criminals for years on end can’t possibly help them reintegrate into society, which helps explain why 4 out of 10 prisoners end up back in jail within three years of their release.”

In other words Governor Bob, re-entry ain’t worth diddly if you keep your nonviolent offenders locked up long-term.  Truth in sentencing does not work!  As Sarah Van Gelder noted in a recent Op-ed promoting the summer issue of Yes! Magazine (aptly titled “Beyond Prisons”),

“A smarter and more compassionate criminal justice system could not only save lives and restore communities especially hard hit by imprisonments, it could save us from fiscal meltdown.”

That’s the billion dollar decision this Governor and the people of Virginia have to make.  Are they willing to admit the abolishment of parole and “truth in sentencing” has done nothing to curb recidivism rates and instead has led to an explosion in incarceration costs?

The Governor could be candid and truthful with the voters and call for sentencing reform and tie re-entry programs in with good time credits (in other words, let inmate performance direct their release date).  Or he can continue the same tired, failed approach that has led to an almost 400% increase in the inmate population in the past 15 years and a bloated DOC bureaucracy spending in excess of $1 billion annually.

And his re-entry program?  Please.  He’s put the people at DOC – the same people who have job security based on the increased inmate population – in charge.  And, it’s the exact same “transition out” nonsense that was in place before he took office.

You want meaningful re-entry programs?  Increase college offerings in prison; offer more educational and vocational programs; create meaningful drug and alcohol treatment and mental health services directed by people who believe a person can be rehabilitated.  Education, job training, treatment and above all hope that a person who commits to changing will be restored to society as soon as possible.  That’s a real re-entry program.  Not just the same political Op-ed mumbo jumbo that keeps getting generated by this administration.

Other states get it.  Ohio Governor John Kasich recently signed legislation to overhaul prison sentences and send nonviolent felons to rehab facilities with significantly earlier release dates.  Kasich isn’t some liberal Governor.  He’s a staunch conservative and a GOP darling.

North Carolina has tripled the number of criminal record expungements granted allowing erasure of many nonviolent felonies.

And, in Kansas, as part of their early release program, Republican Governor Brownback is signing up a volunteer mentor for each released inmate.

Good, creative ideas.  Unfortunately, none of these are included in Governor McDonnell’s prison “re-entry” initiative.

Instead, the Governor travels.  Recently he was in Europe where people there don’t understand why America locks so many people up when other alternatives work better.  And, the Governor returns and finds wholesale resignations from his staff. 

As the Washington Post reported June 25^th, “Less than 18 months into his term, Virginia Governor McDonnell has been forced to revamp the office that develops and drives his policy agenda as he looks toward the most significant legislative session of his tenure….  Virtually the entire policy office has turned over – a rare occurrence for any governor in such a short period of time.”

It takes more than Op-eds to lead a state.  Governor McDonnell is approaching the half-way point in his sentence; er I mean term of office.  It’s time for real transformative policies.  Where are you Governor Bob?

Myths and More

This past Sunday’s Washington Post presented an interesting Op Ed piece by Marc Mauer, Executive Director of the Sentencing Project and David Cole, Professor of Law at Georgetown University detailing five myths about Americans in prison.  From its opening paragraph:  “No country on earth imprisons more people per capita than the United States.  But for America, mass incarceration has proved a losing proposition.”  These two gentleman detail common misunderstandings about America’s incarceration explosion.  Here are the five common myths:

1.    Crime has fallen because incarceration has risen.  In countries with rapidly dwindling inmate rates, the crime has actually dropped significantly more.  There is no correlation between incarceration rates and crime rates.

2.    The prison population is rising because more people are going to prison.  No.  The inmate population is dramatically rising because of harsher, lengthier sentences aimed more at nonviolent crimes.  Worse, there is no correlation between sentencing and deterrence.

3.    Re-entry programs help substantially reduce the prison population.  No.  Prison is not the place to teach criminals to change their behavior.  Prisons are training grounds for more crime.  That is precisely why recidivism rates have increased as we spend more to lock people up.

4.    There’s a link between race and crime.  Yes, there are significantly more black and Latino inmates as white.  But, whites use and deal drugs in the same percentages as other races.  They just don’t go to prison in the same percentage.

5.    Racial disparities in prison rates reflect racial prejudice in the courts.  No.  The laws are racially neutral.  There effect is felt more in certain communities.  Take the disparity between crack cocaine (5 grams gets you 5 years) versus powdered cocaine (90 grams gets you 5 years).  And that’s the new law.  The old law was 100 to 1, not 18 to 1.  Which cocaine is more harmful?  They are the same.  It just happens crack is more prevalent in poor, urban areas populated by African Americans and Latinos.

Here’s the bottom line:  America is currently spending $50 to $70 billion on prisons.  Behind Medicaid it is the fasting rising cost in state budgets.  Incarceration does not turn peoples’ lives around.  Prison is more likely to embitter the inmate and damage family relations.  What is the divorce rate for the incarcerated?  What percentage of children being raised in single parent homes with one parent serving a prison sentence live below the poverty line?

Each day, some talking head tells you how important families are to this nation.  Yet, the corrections system currently in place destroys families.  Each day, some politician tells you how important Judeo-Christian tenets are to this nation’s fabric.  Well, Jesus

certainly wasn’t pro-prison.  “Forgive”; “Show Mercy”; “He that is free of sin cast the first stone.”

America’s love affair with incarceration is built on myths that are unsustainable.  As the Gospel of John records, “but the people loved the darkness.”  Yet we know the truth – not myths – will make us free.

Supreme Fallout

There are waves beginning to roll toward state shores following the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision in Brown v. Plata holding that California’s correction system violates the 8^th Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

The majority decision clearly states that if a state insists on incarcerating a person, they must have adequate bed space for the incarcerated and provide at minimum, adequate medical care.  In other words, if you support locking people up for breaking the law, you have to also expect the state to follow the law when operating its prisons.  California has bed space for 80,000; they choose to imprison upwards of 155,000.  No rational person would today argue for separate “white only” water fountains (the norm, the law, back in the segregated south into the early 1960’s).  No rational person can likewise support a system that allows a state to keep so many people incarcerated with no adequate living space, medical or mental health care under the guise of “public safety”. 

There is a bigger wave coming.  It is a tsunami called the Federal budget deficit.  A bipartisan Congressional Committee is looking at slashing $5 trillion in Federal spending. And, spending on corrections only lags behind Medicaid spending at the state level. 

Bob Dylan had it right:

            “You better start swimming
             Or you’ll sink like a stone
             For the times they are a changin.”

In 2009 and 2010 forty states cut spending on corrections, including Virginia.  As Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin (D) noted when recently signing a bill into law allowing the state to release certain nonviolent offenders, “We underestimate the number of non-violent offenders we have in our systems”.

Alabama is considering a law allowing non-violent offenders to “check in” at centers while living and working from home to alleviate overcrowding in a system currently at 190% of capacity.

Other states, such as North Dakota are placing additional resources into education and training – the two primary determining factors in recidivism rates.

As The Washington Post noted in its recent editorial discussing the Supreme Court’s decision (aptly titled “Cruelty in California”):

“Budget shortfalls and overcrowding have forced states across the country to reconsider their approach to law and order and the enormous costs associated with incarceration.  The Supreme Court’s decision – and its implicit warning…if states fail to take steps to provide the type of decent and humane prison conditions demanded by the Constitution, the courts may now step in to ensure that they do.”

And where is Governor McDonnell during this discussion?  I’ll tell you where he’s not; he’s not visiting his prisons; he’s not questioning his wardens to ensure they are behind his re-entry initiative, an initiative that is long on words and short on action; he’s not coming out with any “faith based” standards that show he believes the Gospel’s call to minister to the prisoners.  No, Virginia is doing nothing and the inmate population (per DOC itself) hovers at 137% capacity, the recidivism rate remains constant and $1 billion in taxpayer money will be wasted this year supporting a system in dire need of repair.
Meanwhile, a $100 million, 1000 bed prison sits empty in Grayson County.  Why?  Because the Commonwealth can’t afford the $25 million per year to operate it.

Virginia likes to think of itself as a leading state.  Its high time Governor McDonnell acts like the leader he promised to be.  As the story of Exodus so beautifully detailed, over and over the Lord said “be courageous”.  Be courageous Governor McDonnell and institute sentence reform with good time/early release available to inmates working to rehabilitate.  Be courageous and let nonviolent offenders go to house arrest or “check in centers”.  Be courageous and change the system.  Your legacy, our future, depends on it!

Future Prospects

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



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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


And she concluded with this telling pronouncement:


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


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


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


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


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


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


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