Flat Time

A few years ago my friend DC explained how he came to do forty straight years behind bars.  Let me write that number again:  forty.  He was locked up in 1972 for an armed robbery.  Back then, with parole in place, a twenty year sentence meant eighteen months and you could get out.  Of course, if you’re a “difficult” inmate, if you break rules, you wait awhile longer.

DC was one of the worst.  From the moment he arrived at Virginia’s state penitentiary, a/k/a “the Walls”, he was a violent, brutal con; in a sea of Darwinian excess where survival of the worst played out every day, he was at the top of the pecking order.  Instead of eighteen months, he did four years.  Then, in 1976, DC made parole.  He found out on a Friday afternoon.  “You’ll be released Tuesday morning” he was told.

You would think being that close to the front door and freedom would cause you to re-assess all you’ve done while inside.  After all, who would want to be locked up again?  That wasn’t how DC thought.  It was time to settle scores.  He grabbed his shiv (back then every con carried at least one blade) and headed across the compound.  There, in the stairwell of another cell block he settled a score, killing an inmate before that inmate had the chance to kill him.

DC didn’t leave the following Tuesday.  He’s never left.  Twice the state tried him for capital murder; twice they sought the electric chair; twice the case ended in mistrials.  They finally settled with DC.  “Take a murder two plea”, they said, “and we’ll give you thirty-five years.”  DC took the plea.  Problem was, the murder sentence ran first, and ran as “flat time”.  There was no parole, no good time earned during a flat time sentence.  You got thirty-five, you did thirty-five.  Then, you pick up your other sentence and start doing that.

Fair?  Just?  Hard to say.  DC took a life.  Thirty-five years may or may not be enough to make up for the murder of a fellow inmate.  But, it’s the idea of “flat time” that confuses me.  In reality, all prison time is “flat time”.  If you really want to address the problem of recidivism you have to change that.

Last week the re-entry building erupted.  Fights are pretty common here.  Pack almost eleven hundred men into space built for half that many , deprive them of basic living comforts, and the noise, filth, and despair cause you to blow.  But, what happened in “3” Building was different.  It wasn’t a one on one fight, it was more:  six to ten guys.  This on the heels of a beat down the week before that sent a half dozen from “3” to the hole.

So, the fight erupted, blood was spilled and then the ratting out began.  Inmates started telling on each other.  Soon “3” was locked down.  Drug dogs were brought in and the building searched while its residents were held in the gym.  Then, the shakedown of each guy.  By the time it was over, “7” building, a/k/a “the hole”, had sixteen “3” building offenders held in segregation.  Here’s the crazy part:  all the residents of “3” building are within six months of going home.  “3” building, you see, is the Governor’s re-entry initiative in action.  And, it is an abject failure.  Why?  Because prison – for all the self-aggrandizing speeches by politicians – isn’t about re-entry and rehabilitation.  It’s about flat time.  Flat time runs futures.  It doesn’t make any errant man – or woman – a better, productive citizen.  It just sets you up for failure.

There is a disconnect between what politicians say goes on inside prison and what actually takes place.  Here’s what I mean.  Politicians will tell you 90% of those locked up will find their way out to society.  They’ll tell the public “we have to be tough on crime” while at the same time “preparing felons to be productive citizens”, with re-entry programs focusing on education, job training and drug and alcohol treatment.  That all sounds good, but the programs don’t match the lofty goals.

The vast majority of those locked up lack basic skills.  It was easier to hustle drugs, break into homes or rob folks at gun point, than to find meaningful employment.  Few of us in here have college or advanced degrees.  Most were failures at school and were labeled “learning disabled”, ADHD, or a host of other problems.  They come from communities where poor schools and poor job opportunities are prevalent.  They come from communities where their friends and relatives have been arrested and imprisoned.  Many are the product of low income, single parent homes.  Relationships mean little; family is a distorted amalgam.

They come in and out of prison expecting the system to screw them.  So they grow callous.  They lack empathy.  They lack drive.  They lack hope.  How does the state, through their Department of Corrections, break this cycle?  They don’t. The “re-entry” initiative puts poorly trained, poorly educated, unmotivated “counselors” in charge of “group” meetings, where applause is directed for the “word of the day”.  Real focus on drug and alcohol abuse doesn’t exist, just “ten week” groups. 

And worse, there’s no motivation for change.  Guys inside are so used to the prison mentality of survival of the fittest or slickest that they thing everything is a scam.

Here’s what happens:  it’s all flat time.  Guys sit in groups telling themselves it’s a waste of time.  Arms folded, cussing, yawning, they think it’s just another stupid program cooked up by the then Governor in office.  He’ll leave and some new program will start.  They may be right:  “Breaking Barriers” (the program du jour was used in the ‘90’s). 

So guys lay around, gamble, smoke, steal, fight and waste days as the world goes on without them.  And, they’ll get out, and two out of three will come back.  The only sound you hear is the “cha-ching” of the cash register:  $25,000 per man (or woman) per year.  Just flat time – wasted time, wasted money, wasted lives.

One billion dollars a year wasted.  Forty thousand lives – not including children, spouses, family and communities suffering.  There are better ways.  Time isn’t flat; time matters.