The First Casualty

            Aeschylus, the great Greek Philosopher, wrote, “Truth is the first casualty of war.” (words to think about as our nation begins yet another military action). In truth, “truth” is the first casualty of all our follies: broken/failed relationships; dishonesty in business and government; failure in corrections. So often, it is easier to lie and distort and to imprison the truth from the light of day than to admit our failures – and the active role we play in them.

            The Virginia Department of Corrections, a behemoth of money and manpower, is broken. That’s the truth. It is as clear as the blue sky on a crisp fall day. Yet, the politicians in Richmond won’t say it because to do so would be to admit that a few have gotten rich off contracts and sweetheart deals; that corruption permeates the departments core; and that prison neither makes society safer nor rehabilitates the offenders it holds. DOC is a failure of monumental proportions. And, when cast into the light of truth, when exposed for what it really is, you can see the waste in money and lives.

1.     There is no statistical correlation between harsh sentencing and crime rates, between abolishment of parole and recidivism. Crime rates have nothing to do with, “tough on crime” sentencing. In fact, in states where there is more liberal use of alternative sentencing (i.e. not prison) and community-based corrections (i.e. parole and probation) crime rates have dropped significantly more than in Virginia.    

       

2.     All harsh sentencing does is sends more people to prison, for longer sentences, at greatly increasing cost. It doesn’t make Virginia any safer. Worse, in “people issues” it actually harms communities. Harsh sentencing creates an attitude of victimization among many offenders. You send a small-time drug user or nonviolent larceny convict to prison and he (or she) is subjected to violence, humiliation, and arbitrary behavior on the part of some guards, and you create an angry inmate, a person who believes he is being treated unfairly.

There are over 100,000 children in Virginia who have a parent in prison. Statistically, those children are less well off economically and have lower education levels. They also are more likely to find themselves on the wrong side of the law. There is a generational component to prison. You send a father to prison and there is a statistically significant likelihood that one of his children will end up there as well.

3.     Corrections uses sweetheart contracts to prison/industrial corporations which, in turn, pay huge dollars to Virginia lobbyists and candidates’ campaigns in even sweeter deals. The state outsources major portions of its corrections apparatus at ever increasing cost to the taxpayers with worse oversight and results.

For example, DOC no longer provides medical care for the incarcerated. That process has been contracted out to medical companies who are paid millions of dollars for “primary” care of inmates. If specialists are needed, those costs are still paid by taxpayers. Forget the moral argument, namely should government be able to take a person’s liberty away by incarceration, then outsource that function; instead, look at the pure dollars and cents. It costs the state more to have private contractors provide medical care than to do it itself.

            These contracts are all big dollar and add to the huge, billion dollar plus expenditures DOC makes every year. They also lead to multitudes of lawsuits, which the state must defend.

            Medical care in prison is poor at best. There is no “Hippocratic Oath” (“do no harm”) at play in here. No, it’s “churn and burn” to make a buck. Then, when the lawsuits begin to mount, the contractor bails out. Think I’m kidding? Ask the women inmates at Fluvanna who successfully sued in a class action suit over the lack of adequate medical care.

4.     Prisons – individually and as a totality – are corrupt. They say it’s all about public safety; they lie. The public isn’t safer with nearly 40,000 people jammed into Virginia’s prisons. Every day in here lives are wasted. The state spends millions to just sit and watch; there’s no rehabilitation or re-entry (real, meaningful programs that actually matter). Over half of all offenders lack high school diplomas and basic job skills yet those programs – talked about all day long in here – aren’t stressed or adequately funded.

Some may argue, “Prison is about punishment not rehabilitation.” Fair enough. Then make the punishment fit the crime. Don’t run violent, drug and gang-filled facilities where corrupt officers bring in the drugs or look the other way at cases of sexual assault or stabbings and say that is the result of those locked up. No, you take a man’s – or woman’s – freedom, you bear responsibility for them. DOC has not been required to be responsible for those in its custody.

5.     Economic realities: Most of Virginia’s prisons are in rural counties. The prisons become the only significant employer in those areas. Do you ever see a private employer decide to build in Lunenburg, or Mecklenburg, or Buckingham, or Brunswick because the state puts a prison there? No. And what happens in those communities when the prison closes? Nothing but economic despair.

Prisons in those rural counties are a con job run on the locals. They think the state is “investing” in their economic future. They aren’t. Those counties, like the men and women housed in their prisons, have lousy schools and poor job opportunities. Those counties are economically as shackled and imprisoned as those behind the wire.

Truth is a casualty. It is time for an honest discussion about Virginia’s prison system. Lives – both inside and outside the walls – are being lost; money is being wasted. The truth is, one day inside here tells you things are not as those in Richmond want you to believe. The politicians, and the senior people at DOC won’t tell you the truth because it will cost them money. But, as another “philosopher” once said, “the love of money is the root of all evil.” Money drives prison policy; it’s corrupt money that destroys lives. That is the truth.