Closing Time

A major DOC announcement hit the airwaves on the noon news today:  “Virginia DOC has announced the closing of its Mecklenburg Prison and Receiving Unit”.  The closing stung another rural Southside Virginia county already weighed down by an unemployment rate above the state average and prospects of real business and industry moving there hovering between slim and none.

Mecklenburg Prison, a facility opened in the late 1970’s with much political fanfare (the then Governor attended its opening) announcing it to be “the most secure prison in America.”  Less than four years later, the notorious Briley brothers – cold blooded rapist/killers from Richmond – and four others executed a daring escape and ran up and down the east coast causing terror and fear each day of their escape.  That escape, from a prison Virginia’s political class sold as being secure, represents the utter failure of the Commonwealth’s corrections’ philosophy.  The end of its dismal life is not as a secure facility for Virginia’s most incorrigible offenders.  No, it is as a dumping ground – a “receiving center”, is emblematic of all that is wrong with Virginia’s bloated, unsustainable corrections apparatus.

I write this blog with some ambivalence.  After all, three hundred Southside Virginia residents arrived at work today and learned – less than two weeks before Christmas – that they will have no jobs.  I feel for those men and women – and their families, even as I wonder how they morally justify working in a place that treats fellow people – many of whom are not a threat to the community – in such vile, degrading ways.

Almost every politician since George Allen (up to our current Governor and members of the Virginia General Assembly) has lied to and betrayed the voters of the Commonwealth.  They’ve told voters they were safer with extraordinary harsh sentencing and abysmal prison conditions.  They’ve told voters the Commonwealth could afford one out of every eight dollars going to corrections – over $1 billion annually – all the while they lined their own pockets and the pockets of selected crony prison enterprises.

They told rural Virginia communities that a prison in their neighborhood would generate jobs and growth.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Prisons do not generate jobs nor do they create or foster an atmosphere for new businesses.  Study after study has concluded prisons have the opposite effect.  Companies don’t move to towns with prisons.

Still, the lies go on.  Where is the courageous politician who will stand up and say “Virginia needs sentence reform?  We have close to 30,000 nonviolent, low custody offenders in prison and we need to let them out.”  Where is the courageous politician who will propose real work training, education and treatment programs for the incarcerated?

Southside Virginia’s prison communities will continue to suffer high unemployment and high dropout and poverty rates until courageous politicians admit we need less incarcerated persons and more money going to rural areas for education and business development. 

My friend DC was one of the initial 19 “incorrigible inmates” who populated Mecklenburg.  That he wasn’t part of the Briley escape was due to his awareness that they’d all eventually be caught.  He saw stabbings, beatings, rapes, and murders during his time there.  At one point he testified on behalf of the inmates during a 1983 prisoner civil rights case before Senior Federal Judge Robert Merhige, Jr. in Richmond.  His recitation of beatings and abuse at the hands of officers so impressed the Judge that he immediately ordered the U.S. Attorney to investigate.  “If you see a corrections officer lay a hand on any prisoner you get word to me”, the Judge told DC from the bench.

Mecklenburg is closing.  There are almost twenty other prisons holding low custody inmates that can also be closed.  All it takes is some honesty and courage from Virginia’s politicians.

In the 1970’s the late, great Johnny Cash performed inside California’s notorious San Quentin Prison.  Cash himself was a convicted felon and did prison time.  He knew the inhumanity of the prison system.  That night, he sang a song he wrote about San Quentin.  The inmates – black, white, Hispanic – erupted in cheers.  He sang “San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell…”

Everytime the news announces a Virginia prison closing I think of Mr. Cash.  Its closing time for Mecklenburg.  May it rot and burn in hell.

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?

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!