Transform Your Mind

            I read a good bit in here. Frankly, one of the things about doing “time” is how much time you actually have. Outside, “in the real world,” you make a dozen excuses for not reading, not just talking – and listening – to your kids, your spouse, yourself. Every day you run at a frenetic pace. You rush out the door before the sun rises, cup of coffee in your hand. You rush through work – all morning there are meetings and conferences, and calls, and emails – dozens of emails. You are so “busy” doing exactly what you aren’t really sure.

            Morning turns into afternoon and you fit in a four mile run. The time it takes – 30 to 35 minutes – you try and listen to your heartbeat, try and remember why it is you fell in love with running, with the law, with her … but you can’t because you’ve got too much to do, too many irons in the fire, time to run becomes just another exercise, just another item to check off your to do list.

            You’re dying, only you don’t know it. You’ve succumbed to all those things you hated when you were young and thought you knew everything, back when everything came easy. Life has a way, as a law professor of mine would remind us each class of “disabusing your mind from your vision of self-importance.” Yeah, time was killing me outside. There wasn’t enough time. So, you cut corners, you rationalize, you break your word and you think you’re finally living. You aren’t though.

            Back to reading. So now I have time to read a couple of books each week. And, I start each morning in the dark reading, and thinking, and talking to God about where I am at that precise moment because time isn’t an enemy, nor is it a friend, it just is; and how we use it matters. All this week I kept coming back to a letter written long ago. The writer had been a success: Good upbringing, well respected in the community, future career plans in a “profession.” That was then. As he writes he’s under arrest. I know how his story ends already; he’ll die under arrest. In our way of thinking, this guy, this letter writer is a criminologist’s case study of recidivism. I’ve lost count of his arrests, his jailings, his repeated run-ins with the law.

            But the guy, for some odd reason, he writes from behind bars. And over and over he talks about the joy he feels in the worst of times because he’s found the answer. I never even thought to confront the question. He writes, “Do not be conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

            Transforming your mind, what a crazy concept. And yet, almost every day I find myself sitting here thinking about those three words. The brilliant scholar/author C.S. Lewis, in his book, “God in the Dock,” described a group of people. Half think they’re in a hotel; half think they’re in prison. Here’s the twist: The half in the hotel, they find it quite intolerable. But the other half, those in prison, they conclude things are fairly tolerable. It is all, CS Lewis concludes, based on our expectations.

            Couple of quick stories before I get to life in here. I’m in Vegas with a few buddies and our wives and we decide, while eating a huge meal at an overpriced steakhouse with a tower of seafood three feet tall staring us in the face, that we – the guys – need Johnny Walker Blue. Those who know “JW” know you get Red rather cheaply and Black for a nice blended scotch. But Blue? It’s $70 a glass. “F – it, it’s only money.” So the four of us have a round, then a second, and a third. We drop close to $1,000 on Blue. We’re stuffing our faces looking the part of some mob movie – four middle aged white guys in pressed slacks and blazers talking way too much about sports and women.

            So the next day, we get together for cigars and drinks, our mid-afternoon ritual, while our better halves go about shopping and spa treatments and all the other things we couples would do “together” while “apart.” “Let’s get some Johnny Walker,” one of the guys says. “Just get Black; the Blue wasn’t that good.” We all looked and nodded in agreement. The “best” wasn’t that good.

            Fast forward to my life in complete collapse. I’m at the jail and I’m a mess. I don’t want to go on. I still hear Neil Young in my mind’s eye singing “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” and I’m thinking I never felt so totally alone and broken and hopeless. My friend – what a word “friend” it can’t begin to describe someone who stays when all is lost – he’s a lawyer who visits every day. I see it in his eyes as he looks at me: “Larry’s on the verge. He’s going to crack.” So one day he reaches through the attorney pass-through slot and hands me a piece of gum, wintergreen. And it is delicious! Just that taste of mint snaps my synapses and I feel refreshed, and alive, and I hate to say it, but I’m happy.

            Seventy dollar scotch, beautiful, vibrant, young women fawning over me in Vegas, limos and first class plane trips, none of those things gave me a sense of joy, of pure happiness. And here I was, with nothing to live for, and I’m almost giddy over a piece of chewing gum. Transforming your mind, all comes down to expectations just like Mr. Lewis said.

            Prison life. This week one of the cable channels comes back with another season of a show revolving around zombies, “Walking Dead,” dragging their feet as they scour the earth looking for live flesh to devour. And that walk, that vacant stare, I see it every day in here. Prison is dead time. Many of these guys, with the prescription meds to address their DSM-rated mental disorders kicking in each day and keeping them dopey, or the plain dumb-ass guys who want to act like they fit in and know something when in reality they are just ignorant and have failed at everything (yeah, I mean the idiots on the weight pile who yell out “Larry, man my people found your blog” and don’t even get what it is I’m saying), these guys are dying day by day in here. They have no purpose, they see no future, they are beaten down by time.

            I talked to a couple of the younger college guys. They pick my brain over financial issues and the law. We discuss philosophy, and politics, and ethics (funny how important discussions about ethics are in here). They just don’t get that money couldn’t make me happy. I keep telling them, money, a big house, prestige, it all goes away. I tell one of the guys, P McDiddy, to listen to “Heart of Gold” –

            “I want to live

            I want to give

            I’ve been a miner for a heart of gold

            It’s these expressions I never get

            That keep me searchin for a heart of gold”

            I tell him about the guy writing letters in prison and how, I imagine, if he had a CD player back then he’d have listened to Neil Young and smiled and thought “Neil gets what I mean by transforming.” And my young friend, he smiles at me with one of those “Larry’s losing it” smiles.

            “Transform your mind.” What really is important? Do you honestly think anyone, when you die, is going to say, “that man drank seventy dollar scotch?” No. Here’s what matters. There’s a guy in here paying for college. Fourteen years locked up; GED earned inside. He has a chest tattoo that says “addiction.” And he bitches and whines daily about his English assignments (just like he did this summer with his other class papers!). And I probably enable him; I let him moan and carp, and then I read his drafts and correct his words.

            So, “John” – he pulls “A’s” in class. I call him “4.0.” He writes a piece last week about self-image and he is profound and insightful and compact with his words. I tell him “best piece you ever wrote.” He smiles and quietly says, “When I get my degree it’ll be because of you. You really believe I can be a college graduate.” Perspective. Real value for me, even in prison.

            Three months ago, the last thing I dreaded happened. It was stupid and it was fleeting, but still deep down I couldn’t let go. And she moved on, she remarried. Funny, but the dread I feared wasn’t that bad. The heart, well that’s another matter. But, I was listening to some music the other day, and heard “It’ll All Work Out.”

            “There were times apart

            There were times together

            I was pledged to her

            Through worse or better

            When it mattered most

            I let her down

            That’s the way it goes

            It’ll all work out

            She’s better off with him

            Than here with me

            It’ll all work out … eventually.”

            Transform your mind. Get perspective. Tom Petty knew it would all work out. Prison is tolerable with the right mindset. Time is what you really make of it. Even a drug addict can be transformed into a scholar. Almost two thousand years ago a repeat offender wrote a warning, “don’t be conformed to the world.” “Transform” your mind. He was right.

             

Ziggy & Sparks

            Guys inside are so often, so alike. They fall into pre-defined categories, caricatures of “typical” inmates. There’s the dirty, hillbilly crack head. He’s with four other guys who look – and sound – the same. Four dumb white guys “talkin bout the time I hit the pipe and the rock. Oohh doggie it melted good,” and they laugh and say “shit man” and nod. They are a portrait, a snapshot of what I think of when I think of rural, blue collar, poorly educated white guys from Southside Virginia who are hooked on a crack, crystal meth, and pills. They’ve stepped right out of Daniel Woodrell's “Winter Bones.”

            There are the young black guys – more teen than men – who preen and walk with “authority” because, well simply because “they from the streets.” Many are “bangers” – bloods and crips mostly, a few offshoot groups pop up. They talk big about guns and armed robberies and turf battles. Yet, to a man, they exude fear. No, in a pack they are dangerous because fear of your peers is a driving force to act tough. Most know that there’s a whole world out there they’ll never see. So they talk about “Henny” and clubs and “makin it rain” with twenties and hundreds except, except most have never seen a paycheck, or a home with a yard.

            The molesters – those middle aged, middle class white guys with their contempt for the system and the “dumb” drug users. Not to be outdone by the rapists – mostly young black men who “took it” they’ll say, but not too loudly because up the road, at higher levels, rapists – like their molester counterparts – are hunted and extorted.

            Yeah, it’s like that inside. Guys fall into categories so easily. Uniqueness means aloneness, and alone you can fall victim.

            Which is why I watch for the “other” guys, the ones who aren’t character sketches. Like my buddy ‘DC.’ No one is like him. He was one of the worst, a rogue; murderous, quick to settle scores, feared throughout the system. And today? I feel like he’s an older brother; I trust him, I respect him, I like him. He’s genuine. He’s like our own “Forrest Gump” – he knew, he knows everyone from the District. Take this little “drop” story:

            “Main man. You know (CBS Sportscaster/NFL host with initials “JB”). He’s from the district. I used to put a ladder up against his house go in and (have conjugal relations) with his sister. So one day he pulls up on me and says, “Bird” (DC’s name in the district), you gotta stop sleepin with my sister or …” Or what, I say, and nothing. He goes to Harvard, I go to robbing banks …”

            Unique. That describes two guys I’ve recently met: Ziggy and Sparks. Two different men: one black, one white; one from rural North Carolina, the other from the Bronx. So Ziggy, he’s a big, burly “country” fellow with a Carolina accent that drips of butter biscuits and pulled pork. To look at him, you wouldn’t think he’d spent over half his life behind bars. And Sparks, with his shaved head and daily quips about the Yankees, it’s hard to imagine he’s down to two years on a straight seventeen (fourteen with the Feds and three with the Commonwealth) after a prior five in New York.

            I first met Ziggy shortly after he arrived here from a higher level. I noticed his CDs – there were a lot of Southern rock discs: Skynard, Marshall Tucker, the Allman Brothers, all bands I remembered from my own days in the ‘70s and ’80s going to school in Tennessee. And his voice, that accent, it reminded me of my parents’ church in Raleigh with the distinct drawl North Carolinians maintain.

            A day or two later, Ziggy pulled me aside. “You used to be a lawyer, right?” Yes, I told him. “You have a blog, don’t ya?” I wondered how he knew (I’m always surprised when someone comes across the blog). “I have a friend, from a church in South Carolina. She reads it.” And after that, Ziggy and I were ok. I noticed his tattoos – many of them relate to his “race.” He’s “tatted” up like a lot of white guys in here who’ve done serious time at higher levels. Just like the young black guys who get into “bangin” so too do white guys. “Stay with your kind.” “There’s safety in numbers.” Ziggy – a man who’d done long stretches in solitary – was part of that side of prison life I’d always avoided.

            A side story. While at the jail in ’09 waiting for transfer to DOC two young “Aryans” tried to recruit me. “No thanks,” I said and then stealing a Groucho Marx line, I told them, “I don’t join any group that wants me as a member.”

            But Ziggy, he isn’t like that. He’s a nice, friendly guy. He isn’t a bigot; he’s not a racist. He’s a guy who came in the system and, out of fear – or a sense of loneliness – lined up with what he was familiar with. Did he have to? Race is a reality “inside” and I can’t help but think that prisons push racial hostility – separate is easier to control than united.

            But Ziggy proves a tattoo is just a tattoo. The heart matters more … which is why Sparks is so like Ziggy.

            Sparks is a big “OG” in a particular street gang. But what was once of utmost importance to him – that street life – isn’t that important anymore. Like Ziggy and his “Caucasian” connections in days before, Sparks has grown beyond the street life. He has plans for a janitorial business. During computer class he uses lab assignments to design and hone his business model. And, like the dozens of other long-term incarcerated I’ve met who decide college isn’t just a choice but a necessity, these two men are well read and comfortable about themselves and their futures.

            I see men like Ziggy and Sparks and can’t help but think of Hemingway’s words, “Everyone is broken in life, and some are stronger in the broken places.”

            So often, we go through life trying to fit in, trying to be who we think the crowds expects. Safety, security can only happen that way, we tell ourselves. We’re wrong. We are much better as who we are supposed to be – no matter alone or how difficult the circumstances – than to be a caricature.

Do You See the Irony?

            Do you the irony all around us? In a Washington Post editorial this Sunday, a Columbia University professor who lost a son fighting in Iraq for this country, points out that since 1980 we have bombed fourteen Middle Eastern, majority Muslim countries. What has been accomplished? Nothing. Yet, here we go again. In our quest to protect “America,” the President has created a grand coalition of willing partners to take on the brutal thugs in ISIS. They behead their victims. Yet, one of our coalition partners – Saudi Arabia – beheads as a punishment. In September, 19 were beheaded (publicly) in Saudi Arabia. We claim such behavior is a danger to the “civilized” world; this country however is one of the few who still allow capital punishment. Irony, yes indeed.

            In Virginia, hundreds of inmates are held in solitary confinement. “Solitary,” “the hole,” is used to excess throughout this country. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and a significant number of America’s religious organizations have called on the nation to end this cruel incarceration practice. And still, as I write this, thousands languish alone in cells, deprived of human contact. Ironic in a nation that cherishes freedom and basic human dignity.

            Hundreds are held at Guantanamo Bay. These men, labeled “enemy combatants,” have never been charged with any crime. The United States, a nation built on the “rule of law” ignores that very concept by holding without charge. Worse, at the military tribunals being held for the few who have actually been charged, the CIA is entitled to interject in legal proceedings and stop them from moving forward if, in the intelligence officer observing the hearing’s opinion, questions of National Security are in issue.

            Irony. Virginia Courts sentence young men like “Cubby” to prison for heroin usage where, with the help of corrupt guards, drugs flow as freely as on the streets. Then, DOC penalizes the inmate for his dirty urine and takes his good time. They ship him to a higher custody level where drugs are even more prevalent and, because of his youthful appearance he becomes easy prey for violent, predatory inmates. Nice “justice” system.

            How about this? You are told every day that DOC “prepares offenders for re-entry” by providing quality programs especially “education.” Then, they promote a security mentality at the lower levels that each week somehow manages to interfere with schooling. The security chief, i.e. “The major,” holds schooling for inmates in contempt. And yet, as guys earn GEDs, as the college program succeeds and gets national recognition in spite of his efforts, he is lauded. Irony.

            Irony. We live with it every day. We “hold these truths” to be self-evident then accept less from those in charge. “Allies” are as barbaric as our enemies; our enemies – while cruel, hold no exclusivity on cruelty or ignoring basic human dignity and rights. And, corruption overflowing in our “justice” system is met with yawns. The most ironic thing is we continue to tolerate it.

In Response...

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

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

            Hoffman writes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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