It’s Hamlet for God’s Sake!

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN FEBRUARY, 2015.

 

            Hamlet, one of William Shakespeare’s great tragedies, is being taught in the college British Literature class this semester. Hamlet, for those who don’t know, is the story of a young prince. He’s away at college living it up when he’s visited by a ghost. The ghost tells him, “Your Uncle has murdered your father – the King – and has taken his crown. And, he’s doing your mom. You hear me Hamlet, this guy’s taken your legacy and is screwing your mom. Go home and settle the score.” So Hamlet goes home, only he doesn’t “take care of business.” He dithers and dawdles and people die. At the end, everyone is dead, the crown is empty and a Danish king strolls in and takes the kingdom. The themes, the tragedy that is Hamlet, are as old as man. Perhaps that’s why this – and so many other Shakespearian dramas – still flourish. They speak to the failing that is the human experience.

            The instructor is a wonderful woman who speaks with a Southside Virginia twang. Her knowledge of British literature is astounding! She’s forgotten more than I could possibly learn. Add to that, she’s a Dickens’ groupie. I love Dickens’ novel Bleak House. It is an indictment of the British legal system. I first read it in law school and have reread it another three or four times. The students – all whom have experienced the real workings of our justice system – rip and tear through Dickens’ fictitious Jarndice v. Jarndice Chancery case. Literature - themes about the human condition and life – real life – is presented and discussed and learning takes place.

            But this isn’t about British authors. No, this is about the policies present at facilities like this to stunt – or even stop – learning. I once thought it was out of ignorance that policies were mistakenly in place which effectively interfere with education. As I watch – and daily live in here – taking in the sheer stupidity of procedures that harm the education of inmates, I have concluded it’s deliberate. Ignorant, uneducated released felons come back. That keeps places like this is business.

            Hamlet. To get books, movies, or school supplies in here almost takes an act of Congress. Weeks before classes begin instructors have to send lists of “materials” they wish to bring in. The British Lit books – five separate texts plus six videos/DVDs were dropped off “up front” to be “examined.” Who does the examining? An “operations” director who has never read Shakespeare, or Dickens, or Hardy. Three or four days later the materials make their way to the school with a cursory email sent from the security chief (another “senior” staff member who lacks a college education). “All materials are permitted,” he writes.

            Hamlet is approved, only the books are on order. So the British lit instructor brings them with her (and a copy of the email from security) when she shows up to teach. “Can’t bring them back without operations OK.” Three more days and Hamlet sits up front, Hamlet for God’s sake, one of the great works of literature, while everyone waits on the operations manager to “complete her review.”

            And it isn’t just Hamlet. The biology instructor can’t get non-alcohol based lens wipes in to clean microscope lenses and slides. She wasn’t allowed to bring Gatorade in for use with a DNA experiment even though officers buy Gatorade in the visitation room.

            Worse, try coming in here to teach. Try being a minister or lawyer arranging a “special” visit. Citizens – taxpayers – are subjected to demeaning treatment and disrespect. A college professor regularly has to wait to gain access to the facility – even though they know she’s coming out here at that time – because the “check in” CO is on lunch break.

            “Why does the college need its own building?” That was the “housing manager” overheard recently. This guy takes pay from education aides who are tutoring in the buildings while making sure his re-entry elders get full pay. Chief of Security? He regularly tells staff how much he can’t stand the college program – forget how all the men in college pay their own way (name any other DOC program where men pay “street prices” for a program? There isn’t any.)

            How can this happen? How can the people paid by the taxpayers to rehabilitate and release offenders back to society to live as law-abiding citizens be so openly hostile to the single best deterrent to recidivism – higher education? Perhaps someone should ask DOC Director Harold Clarke.

            Harold Clarke’s hiring to run Virginia DOC came with great public fanfare back in 2010. Mr. Clarke spoke candidly about his Christian faith. Back then, I took Mr. Clarke at his word. I wrote and asked him – as a Christian, what kind of DOC Director would Jesus be? Five years later, I can tell you my understanding of the Savior is He wouldn’t run this place like Mr. Clarke does.

            And the politicians who continue to rubber stamp DOC budget requests – how do they continue to do the same thing over and over without even leaving Richmond for a day and seeing what they are paying for?

            “The Buck Stops Here.” Virginia needs you, Harry Truman. It’s time to hold those in charge of this broken, incompetent, bias system accountable.

            One last thing: it’s Hamlet, for God’s sake. I have been told – off the record – on more than one occasion to “be careful. They read what you write.” And, I think back to a day in August 2009 in a sweltering, roach infested receiving cell. My cellie – 24 years old and with a 70 IQ, doing 76 years for murder. He had threatened to kill me that day because in his eyes, I’d done the unthinkable: I stood for count.

            He said to me that day, “You think you is better than me.” I said no, “I think, no I know, I’m better than this place.” And I stood there and thought if I’m going to die, it’s better to go out as a decent man. I remember Atticus Finch’s words in “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

            “Before I can live with other folks, I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rules is a person’s conscience.”

            It’s Hamlet, for God’s sake! And, it’s time for DOC to give a damn about education and truth.

Hey Mr. DOC Director

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN JANUARY, 2015.

 

            Dear Sir:

            You spend a good deal of time telling the public how important re-entry is. DOC spends millions on “cognitive community” buildings run by “Evidence-Based” management techniques. Such great terminology that – in reality – means absolutely nothing to real success after prison. How much do you really know about what goes on in your prisons?

            Evidence-based failure, that’s it in a nutshell. Mr. Director, you spend millions on multiple layers of staff who spend their time trying to persuade others that their jobs really matter. Have you seen the flow-chart posted in the buildings that detail who offenders need to address questions to?

            Counselors report to “unit managers.” Unit managers’ report to the “Evidence-based manager,” who puts childish rules in place (“no sitting in your chairs during quiet time”) that have nothing to do with preparing men for life in the real world. That’s what your “E-B” program is giving you: silly, inane rules that just piss the men off and do nothing to promote leaving and never re-offending.

            As if that wasn’t bad enough, you put people in positions of responsibility who are anti-education, anti-college especially. This facility has a nationally recognized college program which has been written about by an eminent Harvard researcher. All the students pay their own way (no other DOC program is self-funded). The students reside together, study together, and rec and eat together creating a community. This seems like a good thing, right?

            Why then does your security chief scoff openly about the program? Why are new arrivals constantly dumped in the open bunks while other buildings have empty space? Why does your Evidenced-Based manager get away with saying there should be no college building?

            You’re in charge; do something. You know the Harvard researcher and you know what the research proves: earning a college degree while incarcerated is the most successful tool to reducing recidivism. Tell your staff, “Get on board or get a different line of work.” Become an advocate, not an adversary.

            Inmates don’t need “words” of the day and silly rules; they need real job skills, real educational opportunities, real interview practice. That’s what the “evidence” proves, not the crap that’s being pedaled out here.

 

In the Red

This blog was written in October, 2014            

So the Governor announces last week that the budget is a mess (quote: “We can’t continue to rely on the Federal Government …” Beautiful!) and DOC – the state’s most bloated, inefficient, and largest department – will bear the brunt of the cuts. Less than three days later, the DOC’s Director, Harold Clarke, announces that the budget for inmate medical care is $43 million in the red. Big surprise? It shouldn’t be. See, one of the effects of tougher, longer sentences is that you’re locking up a whole lot of people for a whole lot of years; people who had poor health care before conviction; people who were on the fringe of the American dream. And Virginia’s prosecutors and Judges, with arrogance and smug self-righteousness, pile dozens of years on these schmoos – most of whom lack proper education, proper health care, proper housing and employment opportunities – and puff their chests and say “we’re making our communities safer.” Yeah right.

            $43 million in the red. DOC knows that almost half those behind bars have legitimately diagnosed mental disorders. DOC’s answer? Load these men and women with high doses of psychotropic drugs with side effects such as liver damage and suicidal thoughts. Let them check in with an overworked psychiatrist via “video” conference for five minutes each three or four months.

            “Hello. How are you? Any problems? See you in May.”

            Incarcerated persons have drug addiction issues, which leads to higher rates of Hep C inside the fences versus society at large. Drug addicts willing to smoke or shoot up anything for the high have bad dental hygiene, blood disorders, psychiatric abnormalities. Diabetes is rampant inside prison and yet the diet fed behind bars is high in starches and carbs (hey, it’s cheap!).

            $43 million in the red. By the time an offender reaches 65, he will cost the taxpayers over $75,000 per year to house and maintain him. Statistics show that inmates over 50 have the lowest recidivism rates. Yet, Virginia lets no one go early. The state has both geriatric and medical release available yet Governors from both parties refuse to use it (McDonnell, in his last year in office, granted 3 medical paroles). DOC maintains one facility – Deerfield for the aged and chronically infirmed. 1,000 men housed there with a substantial number biding their time until they die. Think I’m kidding? Look at the number who die each year at Deerfield; look at the number suffering Alzheimer’s and dementia and cardiac disease.

            $43 million in the red. That doesn’t include the number of inmates who need heart transplants, kidney and liver transplants. DOC operates and maintains Marion, a psychiatric prison for the criminally insane. The cost for each person there exceeds $100,000 per year. And I wonder, as I see 75-year-old men using walkers to get around here, how incapacitated must you be to get sent to Deerfield? I see men babbling incoherently. I know max security at Red Onion has over 700 of the state’s worst, including many with psychopathic tendencies, and they don’t qualify for Marion. And I wonder who’s in charge? Where’s the logic, the structure, the organization to any of this because, candidly, DOC may stand for “damnable old cluster-fuck.”

            $43 million in the red. Then Governor McDonnell at his inauguration touted a new approach to corrections. Re-entry – returning men and women back to their communities after they “paid their debt to society” – became a linchpin of his administration with much fanfare and ado he brought in Harold Clarke, the then director of Massachusetts’s DOC. New buzzwords popped up inside prisons: “healing environment,” and “re-entry matrix,” and “thinking for a change.” But, like the old line goes, “if you put lipstick on a pig it’s still a pig.”

            “Healing environment” – yeah right. Prison is prison. Most of the folks in charge don’t give a rat’s ass for the notion of healing. Prisons are still dirty, backward, unhealthy (and at a lot of locations, unsafe) places. And Clarke? He came in touting his Christian upbringing, his “mission” to change prisoner’s lives. Clarke has proven to be a snake-oil salesman. His only mission, it appears, is to self-promote. I wonder Mr. Clarke what Jesus would say about your tenure as DOC chief? I wonder how Jesus would run DOC? Instead of Jesus, perhaps Mr. Clarke should ponder these words from Bob Dylan –

            “All the money you make will never buy back your soul.”

            $43 million in the red. Re-entry is a colossal failure and DOC knows it. The initial recidivism numbers show that offenders going through the program actually reoffend at a higher rate. Why? Because success outside is built on (1) employability and (2) family connections. Education – higher education – reduces recidivism not the inane crap they do with “word of the day” and “thinking reports.”

            $43 million in the red. That number will get worse. Every bill comes due and Virginia’s DOC bill – years of corruption and ineptitude – is in the mail. What it will take is a good ass kicking. The mission for DOC has to be to incarcerate the worst; use community corrections and restorative justice principles for most nonviolent offenses; and, invest in education, job training, and health care.

            $43 million in the red. Hey Virginia, it’s time to ask Harold to pay the bill.

The State of Corrections

Want to know how important re-entry really is to the decision-makers in Richmond? Look at VDOC’s new visitation system. As I wrote before, DOC installed a “centralized” visitation approval system last December. Before that, a person who wanted to visit an inmate came to the facility, picture ID in hand. They’d fill out a one page form, have their ID scanned into the NCIC (National Crime Information Center) database – to verify no felonies or outstanding warrants – and they were admitted. The “new” system requires an electronic application to be submitted with approval “within 30 days” for instate residents and 90 days for out of state. No problem, right?

            Well, for starters the state isn’t meeting the 30 day standard. “That’s a minimum,” the visitation clerk tells folks on the phone – when they actually bother to answer the phone. You say, “That’s not what the policy says, nor is that what your department spokesman – Larry Traylor – told the press.” Well, that’s the way it is. So visitation numbers are down, way down. And frustration is up. Visits, connections to family and friends in the real world matter – or so they tell in re-entry all the while making it more difficult to maintain those relationships.

            I’ve learned DOC does a good job talking about breaking the cycle of recidivism but in reality, recidivism keeps them getting $1 billion + every year. Visitors are treated poorly when they come here. There is no recognition by a sizable percentage of the staff that “these folks are the public. They pay taxes to keep this place open and me in a job.” Instead, visitors are subjected to disrespectable comments about their clothing: “inappropriate” (meanwhile, most of the officers need to “size up” their uniforms – obesity is a major problem in the officer ranks). There is no correlation between working in corrections and dealing with the public.

            Prisons hide behind the veil of “keeping the public safe.” With over fifty percent of the inmates “nonviolent” the talk of public safety and public protection, are handy myths perpetuated to generate funding. The fact is, most corrections officers at this level – medium security re-entry – are female or men over fifty. And, most lack physical fitness or aptitude to confront and restrain any serious problem (it’s not that way in higher levels where beefy, corn-fed young officers patrol the corridors under the watchful eyes of gun-toting officers on catwalks).

            Visitors – tax paying citizens – will tell you it is embarrassing and humiliating to visit someone who’s incarcerated here. It shouldn’t be. VADOC must be accountable and responsive to the public. VADOC employees should be held to a level of trust and respect for the public. And, programs (such as the new visitation policy) should be evaluated for their effectiveness in breaking patterns of recidivism. Employees of DOC need to be accountable for the $1.2 billion in state money they spend and professionalism should matter.

            Then there’s the medical care. I have repeatedly noted in this blog how Virginia outsources inmate medical care and how poorly that care is provided. It’s about to get worse. VADOC recently signed a contract with Corizon (a for-profit health care firm specializing in prison health) to provide inmate health care.

            Who is Corizon? It is a company accused of abuse in many of the states it operates in. 660 suits for malpractice have been filed against it in the last 5 years. Maryland DOC terminated its Corizon prison contract over abuse allegations. Just last month, Idaho DOC did the same. Maine legislators investigated Corizon and issued a stinging report over inmate medical care neglect.

            Why then would Virginia contract with such a disreputable company? Someone needs to ask Harold Clarke, Virginia’s DOC Director about the contract’s financing including rebates back to the state. It’s ironic, Harold Clarke, after being named Director of DOC, gave a flowery speech talking about his faith playing a pivotal role in how he will direct VADOC. I posed the question to him then – and reiterate now – what kind of director would Jesus be? Does the Corizon contract pass your “faith” test, Mr. Clarke?

            And then there’s good-ole JPay. JPay is the company responsible for money order receipts and credit to an inmate’s account. If you have a banking relationship on the “outside” and have access to certified checks or cashier’s checks, you mail the check to the institution and within twenty-four hours it’s posted to your inmate trust account. But, if you are one of the thousands of poor families in the state who lack access to a bank, you use money orders. DOC doesn’t process money order deposits for inmates anymore – too labor intensive and time-consuming (isn’t that everything associated with incarceration). So DOC outsourced it to JPay. All money orders now go to Florida where JPay processes them – at a fee of course.

            What used to take forty-eight hours onsite, now takes 22 days. And, it’s still labor-intensive. JPay was supposed to be given electronic access to CORIS – the inmate record system (our “7” digit inmate numbers). VADOC hasn’t done that – lack of IT resources” – so JPay processes the money order, then sends it to the institution to be hand-keyed into an inmate’s account.

            That’s right, VADOC is now paying a third party fee for money orders that it still has to process. And I’m the one locked up for stealing other people’s money!

            Virginia’s Corrections Department is a bloated, poorly managed, antiquated bureaucracy that only gives lip service to its mission – the safety of the public and the successful restoration of rehabilitated offenders back to society. It’s time for Virginia to take a serious look at this failed system misnamed corrections.

The Governor and The Gospel

The other night, Governor Bob McDonnell gave his final “State of the Commonwealth” address. At noon Saturday, with the swearing in of Terry McAuliffe, McDonnell’s term will end. McDonnell faces a challenging post-office future. The prospect of Federal indictment hangs over his head. His future in politics – what was once thought of as a lock for vice-presidential nomination and a senate seat – seems almost certainly destroyed. He leaves office quietly, wearing the strain and stain of scandal.

            And his remarks took on a sedate tone. He thanked members of the General Assembly – Republicans and Democrats – for working together. He spoke about his administration’s accomplishments without sounding pompous. And then he cited the Gospel of Matthew. The Governor talked about Matthew 25, and the poor, the sick, the homeless, the prisoners. And he said. “Virginians have done for the least of these among us.” I shook my head and smiled. Only in America, I thought, can we create a civil religion and ignore the real political action while citing the most radical, profound call Jesus made. We try and co-opt the Messiah and His message without giving a moment’s thought to the radical, life-altering words it contains.

            Years ago when I first started this blog I wrote an open letter the then newly-appointed Director of the Department of Corrections, Harold Clarke. It was in response to Clarke giving an interview suggesting his Christian faith dictated how he conducted himself as director. In that blog, I bluntly asked Clarke, “What kind of director of corrections would Jesus be?” I may be wrong, but somehow I don’t think Jesus would be involved in corrections, not in the way Virginia operates it. Jesus, you see, is about rebirth, and forgiveness, and sacrifice, and hope. None of those things are evident in Virginia’s prisons except in the hearts of those who believe, believe that there can be a resurrection to a failed life.

            But the Governor said “Virginians have done for the least …” Really? Governor McDonnell, have you seen the conditions in your state’s prisons and jails? How many Virginia children live below the poverty line? What is the status of mental health care in the state? What, Governor, would Jesus say about your administration?

            Here’s the thing – the Gospels of Jesus Christ are not for the faint of heart, nor should they be co-opted into some inane political sound bite. None of us can say we are living His message. His message – of radical love and service and forgiveness – is so consuming, we all fall short. Instead of telling each other how Christian we are, we should be like the tax collector in prayer, with head bowed saying “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Heaven, the Lord said, awaits that man.

            We believers are called to take the words of the Beatitudes to heart, to forgive “seven times seventy,” no matter what, to not worry or fret and know that the Lord is near, to give everything for God. That message is beyond anything the Governor or any of us could ever do. It is a message of hope and perfection, and woe to any politician who tries to claim it as his or her own.

 

Funding Cuts, Falsehood, & the "Stan the Man" Effect

I’ve had a lot on my mind the past week or so.  Sometimes, your worst enemy in here is your mind.  You find yourself thinking way too much about things you can’t control.  I heard a preacher recently say that you can’t control what others do, you can only control your response.  There’s a great deal of truth in those words.

Shortly before our college graduation, DOC informed the school that grant money earmarked for inmate higher education would no longer be available due to “budget constraints”.  Did DOC Director Clarke tell our graduates that when he showed up at the ceremony to tout his – and the Governor’s – support for education and credit the graduate’s successes as part and parcel of the administration’s re-entry program?  Of course not.  It was up to us to break the news to guys who already lack trust in the system.

So, I lie.  I tell them people really do care.  “You matter.  You getting an education, going out there and raising your kids, being a good father, husband and taxpayer, that’s what everyone wants.”  I used to believe that.  Now, I think “they” like sending guys to prison.  After all, 13,000 state jobs rely on having full to capacity prisons.  And companies that sign exorbitant contracts with the states to provide “prison services” make great profits for their shareholders and they pay huge contributions to politicians’ campaign funds.  It’s a vicious cycle of money, ignorance, and crime and I’m beginning to realize it’s more powerful than mercy, common sense and real justice.

Falsehood.  I heard a former NFL coach make the following statement as the news about Lance Armstrong, or Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o, or some other athlete broke.  He uttered the old adage, “The truth will set you free.”  “We all mess up; some worse than others; but the lie, the lie does you in.”  He’s right, so very right.

I know in my own situation I lived a lie rather than face the fears – the truths really I knew deep down about myself and my relationships.  And, the lies caught up to me.  So I came clean, landed in a place I abhor, but now sleep soundly at night.

The funny thing is, I see guys all around me pretending to be something they aren’t  Every small drug dealer wants me to think they’re Tony Montana (a/k/a “Scarface”) or Pablo Escobar; every two-bit thief wants me to believe they stole the Hope Diamond. They can’t admit they can’t read, can’t admit they had nothing.  They lie, and they keep on lying, and they stay imprisoned forever. 

I’m not a schadenfreude guy anymore.  I don’t relish another’s short comings.  I felt for Lance Armstrong.  And, I see and understand a lot more about the folks “outside”.  They really aren’t that different from the guys in here.  We all keep secrets, things that would embarrass us if they got out.  The truth is, they have nothing to do with who we really are.

It struck me in an ironic way, all these celebrities and athletes with their mea culpas, and the lies the government peddles about prisons, and crime and punishment, and then I hear Stan “the Man” Musial died. Stan is a Baseball Hall of Famer.  Twenty-two seasons with the Cardinals.  One of the greatest players ever and yet, because he played in St. Louis instead of New York, he never got the notoriety he deserved.

But that was OK with Stan.  He loved his wife of seventy-one years; he loved his family, St. Louis, and baseball.  By all accounts, he was one of the most decent men you could ever meet.

He passed away at age ninety-two, a year after his wife.  A few years ago, a baseball writer asked him to tell his secret for baseball longevity and success.  He said he jogged one mile every day.  He occasionally smoked cigars so he didn’t have to inhale.  And with a twinkle in his eye added, “And it didn’t hurt to hit above 300 all those years.”

I love that.  Two out of three times he came up, he never reached base.  But, he stayed the same – consistent, decent, hardworking.  There’d be less need for prisons, less public embarrassments, if more of us emulated Stan Musial.  And, I think Mr. Musial would tell you not to be like him.  Be yourself.  Be honest, and kind, and try even when you make an out.

I started this blog bemoaning Virginia’s short-sighted approach to educating the incarcerated.  I was ticked off and discouraged.  But, thinking about Stan Musial’s advice, I know these guys will get another time at bat.  And, they’re due for a hit.

 

The Graduation Speech

This coming Friday, January 11^th, we will celebrate our second college graduation.  Thirty-seven men in caps and gowns will march into the prison gymnasium.  They will follow approximately twenty faculty members and administrators from the local community college.  This is a real graduation with real degrees and certificates conferred.  Nowhere is there any mention of “earned while in prison”. 

There will be three to four hundred guests present, mostly family and friends of the graduates.  There will also be the usual collection of “dignitaries”, a fancy term for politicians.  Members of the McDonnell administration including the Director of DOC, Harold Clarke, will listen politely as families applaud the men receiving their degrees.  And, members of the Virginia legislature will be here.  They will tell themselves and their constituents that the Commonwealth’s “tough on crime” policies combined with the Governor’s re-entry initiative made all this possible. But they know that is a lie.  These graduates received not one dollar in state aid.  And, the results recognized by this program are more significant than any state mandated re-entry program.  This program has succeeded in spite of the state.

It’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon and I just finished working out.  Yesterday, one of our graduates was asked to deliver a brief speech at the ceremony.  As I have for every graduation – GED and college – the past three years, I agreed to write the speech.  I did what I usually do when I’m asked something like this.  I prayed.  And somewhere in that prayer it hit me.  I started thinking about Victor Hugo’s novel, Les Miserables.  It’s the story of a man sentenced to prison for stealing a loaf of bread.  It is his battle with the evil of prison set against the despair of early 19^th century France.  Ultimately, it is a story of redemption and hope.

“Whether true or false, what is said about men often has as much influence on their lives, and particularly on their destinies, as what they do.”  Victor Hugo understood prison and the human condition.

Before my arrest I knew no one who had ever been convicted of a crime.  Sure there were the guys in college picked up for public drunkenness who’d spend one night in the drunk tank at jail.  And, in my prior life as a trial attorney in Tennessee, I handled cases for folks who had “a little too much to drink” and crossed the center line hitting another car.  But that was different.  There was “us” and “them”. 

And “them” included all sorts of people.  Adulterers, no good.  Depressed?  Shake it off.  Criminals?  Lock ‘em away.  There’s a reason the adage goes “a liberal is a conservative who’s been arrested.”  Until you walk in someone else’s shoes, you can’t fully appreciate their journey.

I had labels for everybody.  A funny thing about labels is you forget how little you really know.  I’ve discovered how little my labels mattered.  Good people make mistakes.  And, those mistakes can most often be redeemed.  That it took me to come to prison to understand that basic truth has taught me why God is so much smarter than I will ever be.

“Change your thinking and you can change your life.”  That was Dr. Norman Vincent Peale at his simplest and most profound.  No one’s destiny is defined by their past. Unfortunately for too many of us, what is said about us can influence our future.   That’s why graduation in here is so important.  These men can look beyond the scarlet letter “F” of felon.  They can look at their diploma and see something else, something that may be the difference to them returning here or leading wonderful, productive lives.

Does it matter?  I have to believe it does.  Until you come in here and actually experience the hopelessness of prison you can’t appreciate what a waste this “corrections” system is.  Broken, dysfunctional lives are not made whole by places such as this.  Prisons do not rehabilitate.  They tear at your soul, they waste your time, they destroy families.  And for the vast majority of inmates, from poor families with little education and even less opportunity for a better life, they do nothing but serve as revolving door.

I reached a conclusion about my own life sometime back.  I had gone off track for a lot of reasons – and forgotten who I was and what I believed.  And when the worst happened and everything was being lost, when I needed a break more than ever, I ended up in here.  I spent a long time trying to figure out why I deserved all this.  It hit me.  Sometimes what appears to be the worst is actually God starting you on the way to something better.

Graduation Day, thirty-seven men who have done something most people wouldn’t believe they could accomplish – or deserved.  Perhaps, just perhaps, this will redefine their destinies.  I pray it does.

And here is the speech the graduates and dignitaries and guests will hear.

The Speech

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Cavan, members of the faculty of SVCC, distinguished guests, family and friends.  It is an honor to be given a few moments to share some thoughts with you about this program in this place.  College graduation in a prison, who would have thought it possible.

On Christmas Day a new movie opened in theaters around the country.  Les Miserables, the musical adaptation of Victor Hugo’s great novel has received rave reviews and huge box office numbers.  The movie, however, cannot do justice to Hugo’s book.  Let’s not forget, his is a story of a man sentenced to prison for the theft of a loaf of bread and his quest to regain his life and his character.  I think if Victor Hugo were still alive he would applaud this program and the students who have regained their lives academic class by academic class.

“Whether true or false, what is said about men often has as much influence on their lives, and particularly on their destinies, as what they do.”  Mr. Hugo knew something about the stigma of incarceration.

Yet, the men sitting here in caps and gowns and our academic aides who live and work with us in our “Campus Behind Walls” building, are proof positive that a conviction is not a destiny.  There can be something more.  Prison can be a defining moment in a man’s life, but not the definition of the man.

Dr. John Cavan believes that.  We have no greater friend, no greater advocate for giving us an opportunity at higher education than Dr. Cavan.  And Mrs. Cavan and her staff go above and beyond to make the dream of earning a college diploma in here a reality.

Then there are the faculty members – Ms. Tuck, Dr. Yarbrough, Mr. Walker, Dr. Watson and Mr. Lassahn, to name a few who came through metal detectors and pat downs to teach here.  And to a teacher they treat us with respect and encourage us and make us believe we are no different than any other students they have.

How do we say thank you?  By using this experience, this success, to leave this place behind.

It costs the Commonwealth of Virginia $25,000 per year to keep a man in prison.  It costs $5000 to put that same man through this college program.  The economics shouldn’t escape anyone’s attention.  Earning a college degree in prison does more to defeat recidivism than any re-entry program yet devised.  Put it another way, college graduates usually don’t return.

College graduation.  I have spent a great number of years behind bars.  As my release date approached, I wondered what was out there for me.  Would I be alright?  Could I find work?  What job skills did I have that would offset the stigma of my felony record?  These are the same questions every man in this room asks himself because no one wants to return here.

More than anything, this program helped me realize I can succeed on my release.  I am not just a DOC number; I am a man with an education and certification in a nationally recognized IT program.  I am a man with a future.  I have hope.

“Dum, spiro, spero.”  “While I breathe, I hope.”  That is a great Latin maxim.  I would change that if I could.  I would say, “Even in here, education gives me hope.”

In conclusion, let me thank Dr. and Mrs. Cavan and our wonderful faculty again.  Let me make a final plea for funding.  We need more money for higher education behind bars.  More money for college means less money the Commonwealth has to spend on corrections in the future.  And that should be the ultimate goal of corrections, to return as many as possible to society as productive, law abiding citizens.

Thank you.

EBC

No, those aren’t the initials of some new condition that a pharmaceutical giant developed a “cure” for; EBC stands for the new philosophy being implemented in Virginia’s lower level prison facilities.  “Evidence Based Corrections” has become the mantra for administrators and staff.  It’s a “kinder, gentler” management style.

“We’re just trying to hold the lid on things.  Look the other way at small infractions, not get in guys’ faces, keep fights and disruptions to a minimum.”  That’s what a day sergeant told us the other morning as he was heading out to interview for a lieutenant’s job at another facility.

The corrections philosophy change has been implemented by DOC’s Director, Harold Clarke, two years into his job and trying to put his stamp on the system.  And, some things have improved.  While still notorious for their denial of publications (VA DOC routinely wins a “muzzle” award for their censorship of books, music and magazines) access to books, magazines and CDs has improved.  The grooming policy has been updated allowing for some facial hair.  But, every change came as a result of DOC losing a lawsuit brought by an inmate to address a violation of constitutional rights.  Yes, inmates still possess basic rights, not as a proactive policy idea. 

Is DOC finally realizing they can find better ways to operate?  I like to think so, but my years in here tell me otherwise.  First, DOC is straining.  There are too many inmates and too few officers to adequately run a facility.  The expression “shit happens” was written with prisons in mind.  Every day fights breakout that go unnoticed by the staff (see my next blog); every day, guys are getting high on the ball court; the gambling operation in here would make Vegas proud.

The honest officers will tell you they can’t keep up.  “Just keep a lid on things”, is the slogan.  “Do your shift, avoid paperwork, collect your check.”  Is it working?  It would if along with that there were incentives for early release.  Instead, you have an overcrowded facility with half those in prison not a threat; you lack sufficient manpower to adequately staff; money is so tight you can’t provide programs to meet the treatment needs of those incarcerated, treatment needs that you-in-fact have identified as necessary for success upon release.

And the policies you implement?  They are poorly worded (English teachers would react in horror at the failure of DOC staff to issue lucid, coherent memos), poorly thought out (there is no detailed analysis of the ramifications of policy changes) and poorly enforced (favoritism, racial issues, and a general lack of educated staff mean most policies are either selectively enforced or ignored altogether).  It creates a toxic environment of rumor, open hostility, and further contempt for authority.

Mix hundreds of young inmates with officers poorly paid, poorly trained, poorly educated and from the same neighborhoods and you have a recipe for disaster.  Many of the young men coming here are fresh from jail (Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville).  They spend three to five days in Lunenburg’s “hole” for receiving then come out on the compound.  They’re pulling sentences of ten months to two years.  This is camp to them.  Momma – or their “Boo” (girlfriend) send them $200 or $300 each month.  They’re too short for vocational programs to learn any trade.  There’s no money for college so the ones with a high school diploma have no educational opportunity and those without a diploma, well the waiting list is too long and there aren’t enough classrooms, or teachers, or hours in a week.

So they do what they do.  They sleep, play basketball, lift weights and gamble.  They grow more contemptuous of society and regale each other with their next street hustle.  And that’s at a re-entry facility.  Imagine what it’s like at a higher security level with guys looking at 20, 30, even more years “under the gun”. 

“EBC”, nice concept.  Unfortunately a concept not fully thought out, fully implemented with adequate staff, programs, money and incentives for participation, is doomed for failure.

I don’t have all the answers, but I could suggest that Director Clarke – for all his good intentions – would be better served coming out here and talking to a few of us.  Without that, EBC is just the start of another failed corrections philosophy.