…And it will save the taxpayers of Virginia

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 2014.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

Holton Hears a Who

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 2014.

            My apologies to Dr. Seuss, but sometimes things just show up in my mail and I read them and realize “this says it all!” Such was my reaction when I read Walter Holton’s op ed on prison reform, “Changing the Priorities of a ‘Prison-Happy Country.’” Who is Walter Holton? He’s the former United States Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina. He was chief federal prosecutor in his district and he handled more than his own share of criminal prosecutions. He understands the “system.” So, his insights, his critiques, should carry weight. Funny thing is, he sees prisons – and this nation’s love affair with incarceration – as in dire need of change.

            “We are a prison-happy country with five percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Our prisons are overrun with non-violent offenders hit with mandatory minimum sentences or longer sentences than were previously imposed for the same crimes.”

            How about this from the former federal prosecutor:

            “Research now shows conclusively that longer prison sentences do not reduce crime …

            Prison punishes – that’s it. Prisons take people out of work. Prisons remove parents from children and from child support obligations. Prisons almost certainly guarantee that the prisoner returns home less educated, less trained, and less employable. As a result, crime goes up, not down. The numbers don’t lie.”

            Harsh critique from one who was on the inside. Holton understands what one day in here proves – prisons fail. They don’t make society safer, they don’t reduce crime, and they don’t deter future criminal wrongdoing. Holton isn’t saying there should be no prisons. But, prisons, historically used for the violent; are now overrun with most non-violent offenders serving abnormally long sentences.

            How did we get to this place?

            “We made mistakes,” Holton writes. “One big one is promising states money to build prisons if they agree to lengthen prison sentences. They did. Prisons sprang forth and have filled. We have incarcerated prisoners at a world-record pace, taking in the violent and the non-violent. Oops. (Don’t you just love it when a federal prosecutor uses the term “oops.”) …

            Federal and state prison budgets now eat one-third of the money available for the public good. The United States Department of Justice … now feeds one-third of its total budget to the prisons.”

            Feeling safer American? Prisons bleed money and lives. Prisons – for all but the most violent and unrepentant – serve no positive societal purpose. Prisons destroy human dignity, hopes, lives.

            The real tragedy behind America’s love affair with incarceration is that people just don’t know. They don’t know:

1. Almost 900,000 behind bars are there for nonviolent offenses;
2. 330,000 + are behind bars for drug offenses
3. 125,000 + are over the age of 55 (studies show that inmates over 30 have a 3% recidivism rate);
4. 40% of the incarcerated suffer from a diagnosed mental disease or disorder. Prisons have taken the place of mental hospitals
5. Over 50% of those incarcerated had a monthly income of less than $2000 in the month prior to their arrest
6. On any given day one in ten African-American males below age 30 will be behind bars.
7. 2.7 million children under the age of 18 have a parent behind bars
8. There are more African-American men behind bars or on probation/parole than were enslaved in 1850 before the Civil War
9. 65 million Americans have passed through the adult or juvenile criminal justice system (that’s almost one out of every five citizens)
10. There are more mental health patients in prisons than in all hospitals combined.

  

Mr. Holton understands all that. “I once was blind but now I see.” I get his conversion. See, its easy being “tough on crime” when you don’t know the truth, when you’re comfortable in your perfect American life. That was me. Then, everything came crashing down. I stood before a judge, remorseful (not just my opinion, but a state-employed forensic psychiatrist). The judge sentenced me to fifteen years of active time, more than most second degree murderers, more than most child pornographers and sex abusers. It was, pure and simple, a sentence built on punishment. There is no “rehabilitative” program available for me; no job retraining or education. It certainly won’t help with the restitution owed to my former employer. It has cost Virginia’s taxpayers over $200,000 to keep me behind bars these past six years. Is the Commonwealth safer? Were there alternatives? Will I leave here a “better” man?

            Holton writes what I see daily. Prisons are refuse centers. They are dumping grounds. For most of the pathetic men I’ve seen in my time in here, their incarceration was a forgone conclusion. The proverbial deck – with poor schools, dysfunctional families, economic inequality – was stacked against them. And their trip – or trips – here makes them even less likely to become productive citizens. And those who work here? They spend their time “minding” – watching over men, performing rote, perfunctory tasks. This isn’t skilled labor; it isn’t meaningful work. It just is … a check.

            Mr. Holton didn’t suddenly come to his epiphany. No, it was his years in the system that told him something just didn’t seem quite right. It took a while, but Mr. Holton finally heard the “who.” Do you hear it?

 

 

Cuccinelli’s Prison Reform Op Ed

            Ken Cuccinelli, former Virginia Attorney General and GOP candidate for Governor has come out in favor of prison reform. In a June 19^th Op Ed in The Washington Post, Cuccinelli – a stalwart conservative – wrote the following:

            “In short, we must reserve our harshest and most expensive sanctions – prison – for violent and career criminals while strengthening cost-effective alternatives for lower-level, nonviolent offenders …

            With today’s sophisticated assessment tools, we can better sort offenders and match them with the levels of treatment and community supervision that offer the best chance for them to stay crime free.”

            Mr. Cuccinelli is right. It’s time for the Republicans and Democrats in Richmond to come together and reform Virginia’s broken, expensive criminal justice and corrections system. Too much money and lives are being wasted.

            Governor McAuliffe, reach across party lines and embrace Mr. Cuccinelli’s stance. Do it for the good of the Commonwealth.

           

Newt Knows

Two weeks ago dozens of conservatives gathered in Washington, DC to assert that they are at the forefront of the prison reform movement. As former House Speaker Newt Gingrich noted, conservatives now realized that their drive in the 1980s and 1990s for long prison terms had the “unexpected consequences” of imprisoning too many non-violent offenders.

            Many in attendance at the conference credited to the late Chuck Colson for inspiring them to push for prison reform. Colson, known as the “hatchet man” for the Nixon Administration during Watergate, served time in a federal prison. He had a “Damascus Epiphany” while awaiting sentencing. His conversion allowed him to see the waste – in both money and lives – that prison is for all but the sociopaths who need to be segregated from society. Colson used his experiences as the basis for starting the group “Prison Fellowship,” a faith-based non-profit organization which has shown remarkable success in changing inmate’s lives.

            Colson wrote and spoke extensively about the evil lurking within America’s prisons (he did so before the advent of blogs!). What he witnessed convinced him that Christians must speak out about excessive punishment, waste, and despair evident “behind the walls.” This wasn’t limited to high-security prisons. Even low-custody, “soft” facilities, operate in a repressive manner. Prisons destroy. And, for so many behind bars who have known nothing but failure and disappointment, it leads only to anger, and bitterness and more failure.

            Newt and his conservative brethren know America can do better. Mr. Colson knew God expected more from us. Irony is defined as an event or result that is the opposite of what is expected. My life these past six years, meets that definition. Like Mr. Colson, I had an epiphany about my entire outlook while sitting alone in a jail cell. And like Mr. Colson, I realized all the assumption I spouted, all the things that motivated me, were false. Something else mattered.

            I don’t know if I would have come to that realization years earlier if it would have saved my marriage. I only know that I wasn’t willing to see it until, until that day in that cell.

            I think that helps explain the likes of Newt and Jeb, Edwin and Richard, and the hundreds of other “conservatives” who know now what they didn’t know then. Mr. Colson, thank you.

Swampland – PT 3: The Cost

So the Richmond Times Dispatch reported the other day that the Justice Policy Institute presented its study on the Virginia prison system to Governor McAuliffe.  In one glaring item, the JPI noted that “community corrections” in Virginia costs less than $2 per day per offender versus almost $14 per day to keep a person behind bars.

Governor McAuliffe may be ready to lead Virginia to real prison reform, the kind of reform that will lead to the release of sizeable numbers of incarcerated men and women doing excessive sentences for non-violent felonies in facilities where meaningful rehabilitation is non-existent. 

As I have written numerous times, prison will not rehabilitate a person.  It is a mind numbing, soul crushing, dehumanizing experience.  There are so many more cost effective ways to address the majority of criminal behaviors. 

Prisons drain resources that could go for better schools, better mental health services, more effective drug and alcohol treatments. 

The swamp that is Virginia’s prison system only survives because it is fed with taxpayer money and politician’s lies and distortions.  It’s time to drain the swamp.

The Big Picture

It’s easy in here to think the whole world is contained inside these fences. Then, there are weeks where the news from the outside overwhelms the normal rhythm – if what goes on in here can ever be described as “normal” or rhythmic - of things. This past week was one of those times.  You realize how little guys in here actually know about life and history and – unfortunately – moral frameworks to operate through. Life in here tends to be a series of reactions, most not carefully thought out – to news and events beyond our control. But, it’s those visceral reactions that give me pause. How can a man expect to leave here and do well if he holds the same ideas that landed him in here?

            

A few weeks ago, much was made of the 150^th anniversary of the greatest battle to take place on North American soil. For three days in the heat of July 1863, the army of the United States faced off against their counterpart in the confederacy. It was a horrendous, bloody three days with deaths and wounded numbering in the tens of thousands. And, it was the pivotal battle of the Civil War. The future survival of this country was decided on the bloody grounds surrounding the small Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg.

            

Most Americans know about the battle of Gettysburg. But, there is a little known post-script to the conclusion of the battle. It was a topic touched on briefly by Director Martin Scorsese in his epic “Gangs of New York.” On July 4, 1863, weary and bloodied Union troops were pulled from Gettysburg and sent by train to quell massive anti-draft riots that had turned New York City into a fiery hell. “Four score and seven years” (87 years, that is) after this country’s founding as a democracy crowds were rioting through New York City. Hundreds were killed and injured. Free black men were lynched at will or burned alive. Homes and businesses were looted and destroyed. It was, simply put, utter chaos.

            

President Lincoln rushed thousands of battle-worn troops to New York. Martial law was declared and troops fired at will on crowds. Arrests and detention without benefit of due process or use of the constitutionally guaranteed right of Habeas Corpus (suspended by Lincoln in a clear execution of dictatorial power) occurred. All of this was done in the name of liberty, in an effort by a president and a government to preserve a still fragile and new democracy in the midst of war.

           

I write this as more images of burning and chaos and soldiers in the street in Cairo, Egypt, or Damascus, Syria, or a dozen other Arab nations bombarded our airwaves. Because of the significant number of Muslim inmates in here, discussions – loud at times – usually degenerate into “what’s wrong with those Arabs?” or people will try and tell you the violence is just a by-product of a religion (Islam) that shows little regard for  democracy or peace. And, we tend to scoff at the notion of an “Arab Spring” where freedom and liberty take over. The Middle East, struggling to join the 21^st century with a ballooning population under the age of thirty, is in the throes of upheaval. But before we’re quick to draw conclusions from what we see, let’s remember our own past. The reason people like Bishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela are so highly regarded by us is because they act contrary to what most of us would do. It’s an unfortunate fact but a fact none the less, that most of us would be with the rioters, and seeking revenge.

           

I told some of the young Muslim guys in here there is nothing anti-democratic about the Arab world. Just like this country in 1863, democracy is a fragile thing. Ultimately, good will triumph.

            

Then there was the Federal jury in Boston who convicted noted mobster Whitey Bulger of numerous crimes including murder. There’s no denying Bulger is a cold-blooded killer. He ran most of the organized crime in South Boston and was ruthless. His story, fictionalized somewhat in the academy-award winning movie “Departed” glossed over and glamorized some of the worst that was Whitey Bulger.

            

The most notable disclosures at his trial didn’t relate to his crimes. No, the most notable disclosures concerned the government’s willingness to get in bed with brutal criminals in their quest to catch other criminals. The government it seems is not above breaking the law in the pursuit of enforcing the law. If that idea doesn’t concern you, I’m not sure what does.

            

In the past few months we have learned the government can – and does – collect virtually every electronic form of communication we utilize. In one breath, we are lied to and told, “No, we don’t collect all that data,” and a day later that same senior administration official admits he lied but it was merely to keep the “terrorists guessing.” And that’s all it takes now. “We’re pursuing terror threats” or trying to break an organized crime syndicate. The ends – the government tells us – justify the means.

            

What does that mean? In Bulger’s case, that meant FBI agents tipped him off about other crime family activity. They shielded and protected Bulger from prosecutions for murder, extortion, and a host of other crimes. They were a party to much of Bulger’s wrong doing.

            

But it’s not just big criminals like Bulger. Daily, police use lies and deceit to “break a crime.” In my own case, the detective in charge couldn’t accept my conviction. There had to be others involved, he thought. There had to be an offshore account (this even as I provided full financial disclosure). So what did he do? He told my wife I “admitted if I made bond I was going to drive home, kill her and our kids, and dig up the money.” He used this lie about a guy who had never even spanked his children.

            

Why’d he lie? “I figured she’d show me where the money was. I guess I was wrong.” The problem with tolerating this sort of police behavior is that the power of government to deprive you of your liberty or property is a power that can be easily corrupted by unscrupulous, power-driven people.

            

The Bulger case should be a clear call to this nation to require government itself to live within the law. The ends do not justify the means. Government law enforcement cannot be allowed to get cozy with criminals – or lie, cheat, and steal – to get a conviction.

            

This past week almost every TV in the building was tuned in as Attorney General Eric Holder announced the Department of Justice was going to push “significant prison reform measures,” immediately. As the A.G. ran through the litany of facts about the United States current mass incarceration problem:

-        25% of the world’s prisoners are locked up in the US though this nation has only 5% of the world’s population

-        $80 billion spent annually on prisons

-        Staggering recidivism rates even as violent crime rates plummet

I couldn’t help but smile when my bunk neighbor leaned over my way and said, “Hey, Holder reads your blog.”

            

The A.G. has just admitted what anyone who really examines the system already knew: prison wastes money, resources, and lives. That politicians on both sides of the aisle now agree with that premise should be enough to tell you it isn’t even a controversial position.

            

Too many people are sentenced to prison for far too long. For many of those inmates, their time in prison determines their future success and that of their children. No one with an ounce of sense will suggest that there shouldn’t be consequences for breaking the law. But, the consequences must be in proportion to the wrong committed and must always have as a goal the successful return of the lawbreaker to society.

            

The A.G. correctly pointed out that America’s reliance on prison fails that simple test. It’s now time for Virginia to follow the A.G.’s lead. Let’s get creative with sentencing. Reward inmates who truly seek to atone for their wrongs and be rehabilitated. Prison – when necessary – should be with brief stints unless the crime is so violent or the defendant so sociopathic that returning him – or her – to society is impossible.

            

The same day the U.S. Attorney General announced the Federal government’s prison reform push, a Federal judge in New York ruled the city’s “stop and frisk” program unconstitutional. The controversial program allowed police to stop and pat down anyone they wanted. Do you know who was stopped? Tens of thousands of black men, most with not even the slightest hint of any wrong doing or any suspicious activity.

            

I know how I feel being patted down every time I enter or exit a building and I’m in prison. To be subjected to that invasion of my personal space in the “free” world based almost exclusively on the color of my skin is abhorrent. American law, we tell our children in school, is color-blind. But, there are reasons expressions such as “driving while black,” resonate in the African-American community. For all its noble purposes, stop and frisk is simply an invitation to police harassment. The Federal Court correctly noted its unconstitutionality. It belongs on the dust heap of other failed police practices.

            

And finally, I reminded a group of students this week that we are approaching the 50^th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech. With the exception of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, no other speech in American history so beautifully and lyrically portrays the ideals of this country.

            The most significant piece of his speech, the part where Dr. King rhythmically recited over and over “I have a dream,” and then spoke about children – black and white – holding hands, was not even in the original text. Dr. King, the Baptist preacher that he was, felt the pull of the Holy Spirit and went off script.

           

As I reread his wonderful words, I wondered what Dr. King, had he lived, would say about America today. At the time of his murder he had gone beyond a call for racial justice. He had denounced America’s war in Indochina. He was pushing the rights of the poor. He was preaching to the outcasts. And white America was made uncomfortable. We don’t like sitting in our fancy homes and churches and being told those material items aren’t God’s blessings. And Black people? They thought he was a sellout. Young Blacks demanded rebellion. Dr. King preached reconciliation.

           

I feel confident if Dr. King was with us today he would denounce drone strikes, NSA surveillance, and America’s obsession with material wealth. And, I think he would remind Christians everywhere of Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25:

            

“I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink; I was a stranger and you did not invite me in; naked, and you did not clothe me; sick, or in prison, and you did not visit me … truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.”

           

Sometimes prison can be completely isolating. You forget there’s a world out there with people going through so much. Weeks like this come along and you’re reminded – for most of us anyway – this is but a stop along the way. And doing right, treating people right, seeing the big picture matters.