Too Much Material/Too Little Time

The past few weeks I’ve been inundated with work – getting adult ed students ready for the GED; prepping and reviewing 30 guys’ college essays – and personal projects.  I set a goal for myself to get an e-book out on Amazon by September.  Stories and essays are written, cover art in process (thanks to a guy in here named “Troll”) and I’m trying to understand the whole process of e-publishing.  Still, life goes on in here.  And it’s not life like outside. In so many ways we are sheltered from the day to day stresses of the “real” world.

But, things happen each day that I jot down and think “I want to remember that”.  These little snippets form most of my daily journal entries as I continue trying to understand why we do what we do.  In reality, it’s more material than I can ever use.  Still, things stand out...

We never had a spring lockdown.  I know that sounds weird.  We usually have two per year.  They lock us down (restrict us from leaving the building) and building by building search everything, including us (you get used to strip searches after your first thirty days, that is if you every really get used to standing fully exposed before two or three officers).  They very seldom find anything of significance.  And why would they?  They can’t swoop in and hit every building, every inmate at once, so stuff gets tossed and hidden.

Instead of a general lockdown they now spot check us.  Two or three guys every day, make sure you really own the electronics listed.  And, they find stuff.  In my building four guys lost TVs (bought from other inmates).  There were knives, a little tobacco, and of course, fresh vegetables and fruit from the kitchen.  I’ve been through it and, living like a monk (my only “living on the edge item”, and extra set of sheets), five minutes flat I was cleared.

Prison is a constant battle between what you can have versus what they want you to have versus what you can get.  The simple truth is you can get anything inside.  Another truth is if you get caught, you lose good time.  And, a final truth, you’re better off without all the extras.

Some day they’ll lock us down for a full sweep.  But right now, it’s business as usual.

I got a new mattress the other day and it’s extraordinary.  For close to three years I’ve slept on a standard prison issued mattress.  Barely three inches thick and lumpy until the stuffing begins to breakdown.  But the other day, Mouse went home.  After ten straight years, Mouse walked out a free man.  He has already been admitted to school down at the beach, with financial aid, and Goodwill lined him up a job cooking at a beach restaurant.

Mouse had a Cadillac mattress, triple-stuffed and re-sewn (that’s the key; if it’s sewn its legit).  I spent a lot of time the past two years working with Mouse on his college classes.  He left as an honors grad.  The night before he left he gave me his mattress, close to seven inches thick!  I don’t feel the metal frame anymore.  What a way to sleep!

Randy – our fitness guru – wrote the other day.  He’s been home since January.  As I’ve written before, Randy earned his Associates Degree while locked up and became a certified personal trainer.  His last year here he put a business plan together to start a personal training business.

Randy joined a gym in the west end of Richmond and began signing up clients to train.  His goal was to gradually build his client base over eighteen months, then open a studio.

I’m pleased to report that on July 1^st, Randy will have his own gym.  His business is booming with more clients than he ever imagined.

Randy is one of the success stories from prison.  They’re few and far between it seems at times, but it is possible.  Prison can be transformational if you are willing to struggle and dedicate yourself to learning in spite of the circumstances.

I want to tell you about Dom, a/k/a “Fat Boy”.  He’s from Petersburg and has experienced the difficulties of life beyond his thirty-four years.  Given up at only eighteen months old by an alcoholic mother (his father was in and out of prison his whole life), he went from foster home to foster home.  Finally, at age six his grandmother was given custody.

His mom fought in court to get him back (“She wanted the state check”).  The courts returned him to his mom where he was routinely beaten by her (“I looked like my Dad; she just did to me what he did to her”).  He’s a large man – 250, 260 maybe, and 6’2” tall.  He was known by everyone in the projects of Petersburg.  He was the muscle for all the dope dealers.  You needed someone hurt, you called Dom (“It was the only time my Dad told me he was proud of me.  ‘They fear you son,’ he’d say.”).

That is not the Dom I know.  I see a gentle man who spends a great deal of his time counseling young “brothers” to give up violence.  The other night we were talking and he told me about an incident that still weighed on his mind.

“It was with a dope fiend.  He owed a guy money.  I saw him go through an alley and I followed him.  I had a baseball bat.  I caught him and beat him.  You never heard a bat hit bone did you Larry?  It’s a sound different from a ball.  It’s hollow.  Anyway, I did that when I was 19.  The guy was in the hospital for months; fractured skull, broken bones.  I didn’t even know his name.  I still see him at night.”

I’ve learned to take stories like this in stride as best I can.  I’ve learned not to react with revulsion – or judgment.  And, as Dom looked at me I saw the pain he felt for the things he’s done.

I realized at that moment how fragile our lives are.  We hurt people in so many ways.  We break their bones, their hearts, their dreams.  Somehow, God still loves us.

And I knew I’d done a lot of lousy, hurtful things in my own life.  I’d let down the people closest to me.  But, I knew in my heart that God forgave me and was giving me another chance.  And if God could forgive me, He could certainly forgive Dom.

It was reported this week that a number of inmates at Virginia’s Red Onion super max prison were on a hunger strike to protest the conditions at that facility.  Red Onion has been the subject of much negative press the last few months.  Approximately 400 inmates are kept in isolation at Red Onion; there are 1700 in solitary statewide in the Virginia system.

As I’ve quoted on a number of occasions in this blog, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky said you can judge a society by the way it treats its prisoners.

America has lost its moral imperative.  This nation operates both at the Federal and individual state levels a barbaric prison system that lacks safety, rehabilitation and simple humane treatment.

This country spends approximately $70 billion each year to incarcerate and monitor close to 10 million citizens.  Approximately 25,000 prisoners are held in solitary confinement nationwide.  Thousands more work in prison industries for little – if any- pay and in unsafe conditions.  Even the 13^th Amendment to the United States Constitution which disallowed slavery in America still allows the incarcerated to be used as slave labor.

Violence, mental illness, disease and hopelessness are rampant in America’s prisons.  A prison – industrial complex has sprung up with corporations being granted sweetheart deals to provide products and services to predominantly poor, uneducated inmates at exorbitant pricing.  Fraud and price gouging is rampant.

Perhaps things are changing.  No less than conservative Christian leader Pat Robertson has now joined the chorus demanding a massive overhaul of “Incarceration Nation”. 

Can America do better?  What are followers of Christ called to do regarding law breakers and their confinement?  Is the answer punishment or justice?

As Medal of Freedom recipient Bob Dylan once sang, “The answer is blowin in the wind.”

And a final thought.  A friend recently sent me a quote from a well-known minister. 

“The blessings of God always override the curses generated in our lives.”

As I’ve pondered those words I realized that isn’t a bad way to get through this sentence.

Peace.

The Molester Debate

Amazon.com found themselves in the news a great deal this week, and not for any quarterly profit information. No, they were being called out for posting for sale “how to” e-books encouraging and defending pedophilia. Amazon.com made their biggest mistake trying to justify the sale on first amendment grounds (“we oppose censorship”) instead of admitting they screwed up. Worse yet, their own posting policies were violated (they do, in fact, censor for content).



Under enormous public pressure, they finally pulled all the “author’s” titles. I use the word “author” loosely. The writer, in my opinion, is nothing but a sick, twisted child molester.


I do my “bid” with a number of child molesters. During this past year, I have reached a number of conclusions about their behavior, their personalities, and their grasp of reality. While I try to remain open-minded about all inmates, I can’t about them. Quite candidly, they are not rehabilitated by prison. If left unchecked, they will molest again. They are sick and the sickness only festers in here.


One thing that disturbs me is, for the most part, they look just like me or my friends from my “free” days. They are white, middle-aged, better educated and better read than the vast majority of inmates locked up. They are the kind of guys that know history, literature, art and music. But, they all get sexual gratification thinking about children. Worse yet, they don’t think there is anything wrong with their behavior. They really believe they’re being picked on.


I don’t understand the brain “wiring” that allows a man to get “turned on” seeing little girls and boys. I know how I felt with my wife, the arousal and passion, but I just don’t get how those feelings can be brought out by a child. These guys – if given the chance – will wax poetically about cultural taboos. They’ll cite some pre-industrial culture as evidence that adult-child sexual contact is healthy. Frankly, it’s at that point that the “father in me” comes out and I want to beat these guys to a bloody pulp.


Most inmates, if given the opportunity for a “do over”, will admit to you how much they regret the behavior, the actions, that put them in here. Whether it’s murder, armed robbery, or embezzlement, guys understand this is no way to live.


Not so with child molesters. First, they continue to feed their sickness. They play games (as I’ve written before, Dungeons and Dragons is a big pedophile draw in prison), watch Saturday morning cartoons, and order “young girl” soft core porn (“barely legal,” “look pre-teen”). They see themselves as normal, with healthy libidos. They are arrogant. They believe 1) they’re smarter than “real” criminals; 2) they don’t deserve prison because they haven’t done anything wrong; and 3) they have normal needs.


Take “Will”. A former NCO in the Air Force, working on his master’s degree via correspondence coursework. He’s halfway through a twelve-year sentence for repeatedly sexually abusing his own five year old daughter.


There’s “Tony”. He had “relations” with a number of his daughter’s girlfriends. His daughter’s age during this: thirteen to fifteen.


“Jim” was arrested with a computer full of images of his own kids and relatives’ kids nude and in suggestive positions.


These guys hang out together, work together; belittle the other “less intelligent inmates” together. Ironically, and perhaps this explains part of my bitterness – they all received sentences shorter than me and two of them remain married to women who visit and write regularly and continue to support them during their sentences. (So, I steal $2 million from a company over twelve years that annually takes in $200 million, and my wife of 25+ years divorces me for my “lies and deceit”, even though I remained faithful to her. I get a longer sentence and lose more than a guy that rapes his own little girl. Ain’t justice grand!)


I struggle with my pledge to be “open-minded and non-judgmental” about anyone’s case versus my disgust with these men.


I faced that issue directly a few weeks ago. “R” asked me to handle a pardon request for him. I met with him and discussed his circumstances.


“I was in a bad marriage. I convinced my twelve year old step daughter to perform oral sex on me.”


My reaction: stunned silence. Then, I “rationalize” in my mind, it was only once, he’s been through the ten week “don’t touch children” sex offender program. I agree to handle his pardon provided he agrees that one of the conditions we suggest is intense therapy on release.


A week later we meet again. Now I get “the rest of the story”. “Other than the oral, when she was seven . . .” Seven? “Yeah. Nothing happened until I propositioned her right before her twelfth birthday. Then she told her mom. I never touched her, even when I helped her with her baths and showers.”


I froze. This guy is sick. Unfortunately he’s not the exception, he’s the rule. Prison doesn’t break their mindset; it only fosters their feelings of persecution.


These guys need intense, in-patient treatment. Pedophilia isn’t like “other crimes”. It is a sickness that can’t be cured at a dormitory-style low custody prison and a ten week course on “healthy sex feelings”. For the sake of our children, these guys have to be stopped.