DC

My friend DC was recognized at graduation the other day. I want people to know about this remarkable man and what he's been through. Candidly, he is like an older brother to me. At my worst in here, when I was losing it over the divorce, or the time facing me, or a hundred other issues that pop up behind these forsaken fences, I could always count on DC to listen and offer sage advice.

He and I are as opposite as two men can be; we come from opposite circumstances; different races; and yet, we found a commonality in this experience that has convinced me that good can come from the worst situation. He has done almost 44 years in the system--44--he came in as a 19 year old and leaves shortly after he turns 63; he was one of DOC's most notorious inmates--one of the original 15 to go to Virginia's Supemax Mecklenburg back in the 1970s. He was there when the Briley Brothers and associates escaped; twice they tried to bring capital murder charges against him for prison violence. He knows everyone and everything about the system--he was deemed incorrigible; and yet, I see in him as the reason I believe in redemption. DC isn't the violent man from the 1970s. He has earned his education step by step; he has earned the respect of the men and staff at this place. He has been as loyal and caring to me as any man in my life.

At graduation, the retired president of the community college announced that DC can do so much good when he goes home--the president is putting his reputation on the line, calling in chips, and getting my friend admitted and working at a prestigious university in the District of Columbia--why? Because he knows both sides of the struggle in the city--the struggle young black men face to avoid violence and drugs and prison; the struggle to earn a degree and lead a noble life.

I can't express to you how it felt the day he stood there in our dayroom with his parole papers in hand. "Main man, they granted me parole." I couldn't have been happier if I was let loose. He and I are the building runners-it never ceases to amaze me that a 56 year old and 63 year old can outrun guys half our age whether its five, ten or even 13 miles.

DC was the first guy I met here. His story--so matter of fact about the violence in these prisons--gives me so much fodder for my writing. His father--a Korean War vet just like my dad passed a few years ago. I was the first person on the compound he told; he shared many stories about his dad that day and that night, as I prayed for his family I thanked God that I was given the chance, the opportunity to find a friend like him.

He'll leave here in a few weeks and he will lead a wonderful life with a wife who has been there raising three daughters all these years; and his grandkids will see their "pop pop" and he will run and he will work and he will make a difference for the rest of his days.

I said earlier I learned that redemption exists from my time with DC. God never gives up on anyone--perhaps we shouldn't either.

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.