Up in Smoke

 

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN JANUARY, 2015.

 

            They locked another college student up the other day – “Leo,” a short guy who’s been down much too long – almost fifteen years (with a one year break in there) with nine more to go. “Dirty Urine” was the reason. He – and another guy named “Lefty” – were packed up New Year’s Eve. And, they’re guilty; they know it; the investigators know it; everyone in the building knows it. They were part of the regular group of ten to twelve guys going out in a pack, every day at the same time, huddled together – or worse, hanging out around the three port-o-johns on the rec yard.

            They get busted – no brainer for the investigators – and rumors fly that there’s a “rat” in the building. It’s always a “snitch,” has to be, they’ll tell you. You think you can get away with it, it’s all well-planned, you know what you’re doing, and just like that it goes up in smoke.

            I have no doubt there are snitches in the building. There are some guys who are too comfortable with the officers and it borders on fraternizing. There are guys who love stealing “private” moments in the building vestibule with a particular female officer; or, they stop the CO at their cut and laugh and joke for ten, fifteen minutes. They forget why the CO is on the floor; worse, the CO who feigns professionalism – and yet DOC may be the most unprofessional uniformed group in state employment – likewise gets too cozy with the inmate. It’s toxic; it’s potentially dangerous; it always causes trouble.

            And these guys talk and they say things about others that they shouldn’t. Almost every one of those guys is slow – by slow I mean not bright. Worse, they lack connection with family or friends outside; they lack connection with the “real” world. They substitute communication with those outside for phony relationships with those in charge.

            Ironically, they aren’t the snitches. Don’t get me wrong, they tell. No, snitching is done more subtlety. It’s done with anonymous “notes.” Scores are settled. Want to get even? Drop a note. There is a constant undercurrent of suspicion and accusation inside the fence. “He’s a snitch,” is almost always followed by a loud, obscene, denial from the targeted. Snitching – or the paranoia generated by the thought of a rat in your midst – creates tension and stress.

            Back to the lock up. So, the guys get busted and talk immediately centers on “who told.” Small groups gather around the dorm trying to figure out who fingered “Leo.” “Someone had to tell,” becomes the mantra. After all, they “piss tested” every user not once, but twice, in a week’s time. I sit back and watch with bemused thought. Like “Pogo” said, “we have met the enemy, but he is us.”

            We are not good at doing wrong. Ten guys who go outside, together, and huddle around each other will always draw the attention of the tower. Smoke in the bathroom and the aroma heads toward the doors. You don’t need a snitch to tell you who’s using. All you need to do is look.

            Before he was locked up “Leo” came to talk to me. “If they get me will I be let back in school?” I saw fear in his face. For most of his life, “Leo” had let his mom down. He was in and out of trouble with the law; there was drug use and a short prison sentence in his teens; released, he gets back on drugs and commits robbery and now is sentenced to real time – years, decades, not months. His mom was always there.

            He started college and appeared – anyway – to be “getting right.” He made A’s in all his classes. In a presentation in class he spoke about “bad thinking” and the resulting damage it caused. Then, drugs became too easy to get in here – weed, coke, heroin, pills – and he started smoking. And, all that work, all that “growth” and “change” went up in smoke.

            He says he’s quitting school. “I don’t want to be living with snitches,” he told a guy while they were taking him out. Other “smokers” parroted his words. “I’m not going to college with a bunch of rats.” I shake my head. Short-sighted thinking, bad self-analysis of what matters, these are the trademarks of most people behind bars: misevaluation of the risks and the consequences, misjudgment of long-term prospects. Is smoking a little weed more important that getting your education? So you quit school and move to another building – just like this one with the same caliber of men whose character is already suspect – and you think you can get high without repercussions and still leave prison with opportunities for decent  work? Yeah, you’re smoking something alright. You’ve let reality go up in smoke.

            What will “Leo” do? My gut tells me he’ll be back. First time dirty urine gets you ten, maybe fifteen days. He won’t want to call home and say “Mom, I screwed up again. I quit school because I got caught getting high.” No, he’ll come back. The other guys? I’m not so sure. Inmates are known to do stupid things, just look at me.

            Up in smoke. Prisons claim they are in the business of rehabbing errant citizens. Most of us will leave this place (over 90% of Virginia’s incarcerated are released), but as I watch men repeat the same short-sighted thinking that put them here, I wonder, will it ever change? Will they ever change?

            Snitches cause tension. But, bad-thinking, impulsive, short-sighted behavior is what keeps places like this full, and dreams and decent lives go on … up in smoke.

 

 

Meals, Mail and More

Do you ever ask yourself “why do six out of ten released offenders land back in prison within three years?”  Sure, some are bad seeds who will continue to do that which landed them in here.  Many, however, should conjure up thoughts in your mind of “there but for the grace of God go I.”  Funny, I used to pooh pooh that expression.  After all, I was “never” one check away from poverty, divorce, prison.  Don’t think God has a sense of humor?  Take one look at me.  I’m a walking comedy routine; I am a platypus.  More about that later.  No, as I wander through this institution I see almost daily how so much of DOC is staffed – in senior positions – by men and women who cause more problems than contribute to solutions.  And, a very real part of the high recidivism rate can be set on their table.  You treat people disrespectfully, you lie to them, you try bizarre social engineering, and you wonder why there isn’t a corrections epiphany.  As “Pogo” said, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”

A week ago our assistant warden announced a change in meal schedules.  For ten years “common fare” participants (i.e. religious diets) have eaten first.  As I’ve documented over the life of this blog, the battle over religious rights – including religious meals – has been fought for years behind the walls.  Numerous Federal court opinions have held that an inmate in prison retains his/her right to practice their faith and if that faith requires certain dietary rules to be observed (i.e. Kosher for Jewish inmates) then those diets must be reasonably accommodated.

Virginia DOC for years fought giving special diet trays.  By fits and starts, DOC relented in the face of dozens of First Amendment suits (how ironic, all the “law and order” types seek to fight application of Constitutional rights to prisoners where the Constitution is the “ultimate” law of the land) and “common fare” was instituted.  Rather than looking at each inmate’s religious practice on a case by case basis (Federal Courts have approved an objective test:  does the inmate present a faith based petition for special diet?), Virginia set up a one size fits all approach.  Attend any approved church/religious service twice a month for six months, then you are eligible for common fare.

Hundreds of guys signed up after joining Messianic Jewish services, Jehovah Witnesses, Rastafarians, Nation of Islam, or traditional Christian or Muslim services.  And that’s where the rub hits.  It costs DOC approximately $1.75 per day to feed the average inmate.  It costs over three time that much to feed common fare.  In an age where state budgets are stretched and still Virginia politicians won’t admit the obvious truth – there are too many people incarcerated for too long – common fare trays cost too much to provide.

Enter the Assistant Warden.  He announces common fare participants will eat last at breakfast and dinner and go at 11:00 am for lunch (before count).  His rationale, told to officers and teachers “I just want to shake things up and see what comes out”.  He wants guys to quit common fare and the effects his “shake up” have on programs are irrelevant if he gets his desired result.

What effects?  Glad you asked.  Factory workers cannot go to the shop to make chairs that are sold at above value prices to state agencies to help pay for DOC (the costs of which are borne by the taxpayers) until after chow call. That’s an hour and a half later than usual, a tremendous loss of productivity (not to mention pay for the guys).

Then there’s school.  Because of the early lunch call, common fare participants in 2^nd period (and aides) leave thirty minutes early.  That’s 2 ½ hours lost each week out of 7 ½ hours of school time per student.  How odd, I thought.  Education is the number one way to break the cycle of recidivism and this administration has taken 1/3 of an inmate’s weekly school time and flushed it.

The same happens at 5^th period school (4:30 to 7:30).  Common fare participants cannot go to school until after chow (5:30).  5^th period classes meet twice a week, so two out of six hours are lost.

Did the Assistant Warden think this out?  I like to think he’s just foolish.  However, my experience in here has taught me guys like the Assistant Warden are dangerous.  Power goes to their heads.  They see the prison as their private fiefdom or lab and they make rash decisions without consulting the people on the front lines, like the teachers.  The fact that their decisions run contrary to the Governor’s re-entry speak apparently doesn’t matter.

Then there’s prison mail.  DOC has a host of rules governing inmate mail.  Letters must weigh less than one ounce; there can be no “contraband” (an ambiguous word, contraband is defined as anything not approved for an inmate).  An especially touchy subject involves photos.  “No nude, semi-nude, lingerie photos allowed.”  So your 80 year old grandparents send you a picture taken of them walking on the beach in bathing suits?  Disallowed.  Yet, inmates can order 5 X 7 photo cards of totally nude women from “pen pal” catalogs.

I don’t disagree with all of DOC’s mail rules.  They’re an inconvenience but heck, we’re in prison.  The problem is the individual decision making is left to the discretion of each prison’s operations officer.  And that is the rub.

The other day Craig was denied a letter (when mail is rejected we receive a form letter notifying us of the “ground” for rejection) based on “lingerie photos”.  Craig’s girlfriend was going to a concert and had a friend snap a photo of her in jeans, cowboy boots, and a red silk top.  Not only was the photo rejected, but a large “X” was written through it and the letter and photo then torn and returned to her.  On the outside of the envelope a DOC ink stamp noted “letter returned…nude photos”.

Craig’s girlfriend was furious.  She called here and spoke to the operations officer who told her the photo was disallowed because “silk blouses are lingerie”.  Want to hear something funny?  The operations officer – a mid-forties African American woman – wears silk blouses almost every day.  The issue hasn’t been dropped.  Craig’s girlfriend contacted an attorney and called the Director’s office.

The problem is each prison interprets this rule.  Subjective decision-making is never good, especially when the subjective basis set out is illogical.  As the same time this battle was playing out the Washington Post was reporting on DOC’s “televisit” set-up in Alexandria allowing Northern Virginia families to visit, via video connection, with their family members in the far Southwest (eight to ten hours from Alexandria).  “A sense of family is critical to an inmate’s successful reintegration into society” a researcher was quoted as saying.

So, why does DOC allow its prison to interfere with communications from family and friends in such arbitrary ways?  Why, if we know that connection to the real world leads to successful reintegration, does DOC tolerate such behavior in their prison administrators?

Again, I fear the answer isn’t ignorance, it’s darker.  Fewer inmates require fewer prisons.  Fewer prisons mean fewer guards, fewer operations directors, fewer wardens.  Prison operations are a $70 billion industry and all that money is from public funds.  I’m not a conspiracy proponent, but when National Review writers such as Jonah Goldberg, in a recent column about California’s corrupt and dysfunctional (and unconstitutional) prison system say the following:  “in a state where more than two-thirds of crime is attributable to recidivism [CA DOC’s officers union) has spent millions of dollars lobbying against rehabilitation programs, favoring instead policies that will grow the inmate population and the ranks of prison guards…”  Kind of makes me think my conspiracy thoughts aren’t too farfetched.

“There but for the grace of God go I.”  I opened this blog using that expression.  Funny thing about grace.  It usually shows up in the most difficult of circumstances.  As I sit here and watch the immovable object – “tough on crime” – come face to face with the economic realities of 9% unemployment, European market melt downs, a political season filled with hollow promises, I realize God has me exactly where I need to be.  Things are becoming clear to me about this states, this nations, failed criminal justice system.  God’s grace, you see, even finds its way into the prisons.