DOC Loses, Again and Again

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN FEBRUARY, 2015.

 

            Betting against DOC in court is becoming a no-brainer. The folks in Richmond keep defending – and losing inmate suits. The cost is borne by the taxpayers.

            So, an inmate in Virginia’s maximum security facility, Red Onion, asks to participate in the Muslim fasting period of Ramadan. Officers go into his cell and search, looking for “physical items in his possession to prove his faith.” The inmate has a Koran and a prayer rug, but nothing else. DOC denies the inmate's participation in the fasting period. He filed suit.

            Ruling against the prison, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found that DOC policy was unconstitutional.

            “The First Amendment demands a more reasoned approach, even within the difficult confines of a prison environment.” The court found that indicators of an inmate’s sincere religious beliefs go beyond physical possession of religious items. The court then awarded the inmate $3.795 (his filing and copying costs to bring this prose suit).

            Like the inmate medical care suit (inmates at the Fluvanna Women’s prison), this suit should cause DOC to change policy at every institution. But it doesn’t. Inmates continue to file grievances over bad medical care and denial of their rights to practice their religion. The grievances are filed, suits go forward, and taxpayers pay. No one in the administration is called to answer for it. Sounds crazy doesn’t it?

            Here’s a word you don’t hear too often involving Virginia’s Department of Corrections: Accountability. It’s time DOC is held to the same standard those of us doing time are held to. DOC needs to be accountable.

 

The Good Chase

This blog was written in November, 2014.

            I have a friend named Chase and he’s Muslim. He takes his faith seriously, makes his prayers five times each day, avoids profanity, pornography, and gambling. During Ramadan he was undergoing chemo. The med staff here failed in their diagnosis. His jaw swelled about a year ago. Medical said, “You have an infection.” For nine months they ran Chase around with antibiotics and “suck on tart candies” to “stimulate your salivary glands.” Turns out they were wrong. The swelling got worse, started choking off his airway. A quick trip to MCV and the real diagnosis came in: cancer of the salvia gland, stage “3.” Tough to hear anytime, let alone less than a year before you go home after eighteen years. Chase, he took it all in stride. “It’s in the hands of Allah,” he said and he began the treatments. And Ramadan? In his weakened state, he couldn’t participate in the month long fast. That too was ok. He was alive and survived, he said, by the will of his God.

            Chase is a nice guy, one of the nicest men I’ve met either inside – or outside of prison. He may not have always done the “right” thing and like all of us he made mistakes. He was in here for the last 18 years for crimes he committed. But, he is a kind, decent man who strives to live to the tenets of his faith.

            Religion is a tough topic. My 81-year-old father – a Korean War veteran – tried to tell me at visitation the other day that we need to get those “barbarians” in ISIL. And, he distinguished ISIL by their religion. I asked him what Jesus would do? Jesus, I said, would forgive, and freely allow them to behead Him because it isn’t this body that’s important; it’s your soul. My dad just said Jesus wouldn’t make it in today’s world. I thought to myself, maybe that’s the problem.

            “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” That was Karl Marx, a near penniless writer trying to feed a family in the industrial Darwinism that was London in the 19^th century. Marx was angry at his circumstances, angry at the vast disparity between the haves and have-nots. Religion, he concluded, kept the disadvantaged from rising up and slaughtering those who held them in check. As I said, religion is a tough topic. And, it’s easy to draw anecdotal conclusions and apply them to every circumstance. The world isn’t black and white it is hued in a sorts of grays and religion is right in there.

            There are very good Muslims. There are very bad self-professed Christians. There are agnostics and atheists who better represent Jesus than I could ever hope to. Gandhi understood more about the Sermon on the Mount and our call to action as followers of the Prince of Peace than most Christians I’ve met. There is a self-described “man of faith” in here who claims to love his Catholic Church yet he is one of the meanest, most hateful men I have ever met. He is continually angry. He is a racist and a homophobe. Another man watches Joel Osteen multiple times each week yet runs most of the scams in the building and lies about everything from his “wife” to his upbringing. Christian – by affirmation – say both men.

            Chase occasionally will work himself into a frenzy – as do most Muslims and Christians here – when the subject of gay marriage comes up. Life becomes black and white. Homosexuality is a sin, they all agree. I find it ironic that the same ones who profess eternal damnation for that sin overlook their own murders, adultery, or a dozen other “serious” sins. So, I asked Chase if you’re sexual orientation is biologically predetermined (i.e. it’s in your genes) and God is the ultimate constructor of everything, from the simplest single cell to the sun doesn’t that mean God created those genes? “You have a point,” he told me. Islam – like Christianity – professes to judge not the sinner. All are God’s children.

            Free choice. It isn’t God who warps our minds and distorts and alienates. Over and over the New Testament tells Christians “God is love.” We are called to “turn the other cheek,” “forgive as God has forgiven you,” “care for the widow and orphan … visit the sick and those in prison, … clothes to the naked, feed the hungry … give and it will be given to you.” No, religion doesn’t make people hurl insults at Latino children who come here to escape the murderous rage of gang warfare in Columbia, Honduras, or El Salvador. Religion doesn’t cause “church members” to hold signs at a funeral saying “God hates fags,” or shooting doctors sitting in church because they happen to provide abortions. That’s man’s evil side, his – or her “free choice” packaged as God’s will.

            Beheading, torturing a kidnapped journalist in the name of God is evil and sinful. But, so is labeling all Muslims bad; so is calling on your nation to bomb your enemies into oblivion. That isn’t Godly nor is it confined to one nation, one race, one creed.

            A little background on me. In my college days, my mother always told me to consider the ministry. I could talk! Was it because I was so theologically astute that my mom wanted me to pursue a seminary education? No. She just wanted to be the mother of a preacher. But, we were a “churched” family. I was a deacon at 16, read Calvin and a host of other protestant “reformed: theologians. Intellectually, I got “it.” I always wondered, however, when the minister would take a position not in keeping with his congregation’s voting habits how the members would discount the words as not realistic in “the real world.” God and mammon co-existed quite easily in most churches that I’ve attended. Uncle Sam, it seems, sits on the left side of God. My adult life – married, father, ordained elder, Sunday school teacher, I lived quite comfortably with that cognitive dissonance. That all changed in August 2008.

            I understand more now about the infinite power and mystery of God than I ever did. And, everyday I’m reminded how far I must go. Too often guys in here use “religion” as a means of separation, segregation, and self-delusion. They miss the “real” message. Funny but the same is true out there. You ever read Paul’s letter to the Corinthians about love? Every wedding – it seems – uses Paul’s words. I can tell you – 28 years with a woman I still love and pray for everyday in spite of the divorce – we didn’t meet Paul’s test. We failed; almost everyone does.

            Don’t blame God for the evil that’s done in His name. Blame those of us who profess belief and then distort His desires and ways for our own selfish, evil, and petty hopes. And maybe, just maybe, we can all start practicing a little more what we profess.

Election at the Prison

This past week, the prison population held elections for the “IRG” – the “Inmate Representative Group.” Each building elects a representative to discuss policies and procedures with the administration. The IRG then chooses a chair who argues on behalf of the group during discussions with the warden. For almost four years, I had successfully avoided any involvement with IRG. I found it cliquish and its suggestions not well thought out or relevant to life behind the fence. Frankly, I didn’t care that the IRG argued for “Texas Beef” ramen noodles versus “Cajun Chicken.”

            

Then a funny thing happened the other night. A group of the Muslim guys in the building brought up the IRG elections at the evening meal breaking the Ramadan fast. One of the Muslims spoke up and urged his Sunni brothers to “pay attention to the teachings” in the Koran which specifically calls on Muslims to support those who are “just” and have “wisdom.”

            

Unknown to me, this Muslim inmate gave my name to the building counselor as a candidate for our building’s IRG rep. Less than five minutes after ballots were collected I was called in the counselor’s office. “Are you willing to serve?” she asked. I had apparently won in a landslide. Two days later, the newly constituted IRG met and I was elected chair. (I told the reps in attendance I preferred the treasurer position which drew a loud laugh).

            

So what does it mean? Inmates are not allowed to organize.  DOC policy expressly forbids inmates from acting in concert. There can be no organized work stoppages, or protests, or even petitions. Ironically, it happens quite regularly. In California, over 12,000 high custody inmates went on a hunger strike a few months ago to draw attention to the fact that the state had ignored the orders of the United States Supreme Court – to release 30,000 plus inmates by year-end due to the shameful, unconstitutional conditions in the California prison system.

            

In Georgia, thousands of inmates participated in a work stoppage to call attention to that state’s slave-like treatment of its inmate workforce. In both cases, change occurred. But, not without inmate organizers being placed in solitary.

            

Candidly, there will be no such action at a place like this. With few exceptions – those rare inmates here who carry life sentences with the release date: “12/28/9999” – prisoners here are relatively short on their time. No one is willing to consider the moral imperatives that go along with incarceration.

           

Even more bluntly, the notion of loyalty, of standing together, standing for principle is in even shorter supply. Character is a rare commodity in a place like this. It’s usually, “What can I get?”

            

But there are things that can be done. You won’t ever drive the hustles and scams out of prison. You won’t ever convince the vast majority of those held behind bars that they are being treated fairly. You won’t convince a majority of those here to change and re-enter society as law abiding citizens because they are repeatedly lied to by staff here and programs are long on words and short on effect.

            

I had always thought I would avoid inmate governance because it didn’t amount to anything. Then, my Muslim friend told me just by speaking to the warden, and the chief of security maybe small things could change. Maybe the toxic atmosphere that pervades prison life could lesson just a bit. I told him I’d do my best.

            

I’m not sure if I’m as just or wise as the Muslim community here thinks. But, I know this is no way to run a prison. The current system does nothing but waste lives. It’s not even punishment really. The punishment is in your mind as you contemplate all you’ve lost. Trouble is, when you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing left to lose.

Election at the Prison

This past week, the prison population held elections for the “IRG” – the “Inmate Representative Group.” Each building elects a representative to discuss policies and procedures with the administration. The IRG then chooses a chair who argues on behalf of the group during discussions with the warden. For almost four years, I had successfully avoided any involvement with IRG. I found it cliquish and its suggestions not well thought out or relevant to life behind the fence. Frankly, I didn’t care that the IRG argued for “Texas Beef” ramen noodles versus “Cajun Chicken.”

            

Then a funny thing happened the other night. A group of the Muslim guys in the building brought up the IRG elections at the evening meal breaking the Ramadan fast. One of the Muslims spoke up and urged his Sunni brothers to “pay attention to the teachings” in the Koran which specifically calls on Muslims to support those who are “just” and have “wisdom.”

            

Unknown to me, this Muslim inmate gave my name to the building counselor as a candidate for our building’s IRG rep. Less than five minutes after ballots were collected I was called in the counselor’s office. “Are you willing to serve?” she asked. I had apparently won in a landslide. Two days later, the newly constituted IRG met and I was elected chair. (I told the reps in attendance I preferred the treasurer position which drew a loud laugh).

            

So what does it mean? Inmates are not allowed to organize.  DOC policy expressly forbids inmates from acting in concert. There can be no organized work stoppages, or protests, or even petitions. Ironically, it happens quite regularly. In California, over 12,000 high custody inmates went on a hunger strike a few months ago to draw attention to the fact that the state had ignored the orders of the United States Supreme Court – to release 30,000 plus inmates by year-end due to the shameful, unconstitutional conditions in the California prison system.

            

In Georgia, thousands of inmates participated in a work stoppage to call attention to that state’s slave-like treatment of its inmate workforce. In both cases, change occurred. But, not without inmate organizers being placed in solitary.

            

Candidly, there will be no such action at a place like this. With few exceptions – those rare inmates here who carry life sentences with the release date: “12/28/9999” – prisoners here are relatively short on their time. No one is willing to consider the moral imperatives that go along with incarceration.

           

Even more bluntly, the notion of loyalty, of standing together, standing for principle is in even shorter supply. Character is a rare commodity in a place like this. It’s usually, “What can I get?”

            

But there are things that can be done. You won’t ever drive the hustles and scams out of prison. You won’t ever convince the vast majority of those held behind bars that they are being treated fairly. You won’t convince a majority of those here to change and re-enter society as law abiding citizens because they are repeatedly lied to by staff here and programs are long on words and short on effect.

            

I had always thought I would avoid inmate governance because it didn’t amount to anything. Then, my Muslim friend told me just by speaking to the warden, and the chief of security maybe small things could change. Maybe the toxic atmosphere that pervades prison life could lesson just a bit. I told him I’d do my best.

            

I’m not sure if I’m as just or wise as the Muslim community here thinks. But, I know this is no way to run a prison. The current system does nothing but waste lives. It’s not even punishment really. The punishment is in your mind as you contemplate all you’ve lost. Trouble is, when you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing left to lose.

Better Food

The past month, the diet in here has improved.  We’re not getting steak and shrimp, but starting with the feast ending Ramadan, our meals have gotten better.  The Ramadan feast included real chicken on the bone.  In all three years I’ve been locked up, that was only the second time I’ve actually been able to gnaw on a chicken leg and feel the meat grease on my fingers.

We’ve had fresh, tossed salad with oil and vinaigrette dressing.  Huge slabs of sausage pizza were served the other day.  McDonald's McRib style pork patties on sub rolls with barbeque sauce made it on the lunch tray last week.  Asparagus!  White peaches! Strawberries!

And still, guys complain.  “His pizza’s bigger”; “My peach has a bruise”.  Here’s something I learned about food.   I can eat anything.  Good or bad, I eat it.  Every meal I say a short grace.  It reminds me of the Guatemalan kid I was in jail with.  He prayed over every meal because he knew a lot of people have so much less.

The food is better, but it’s still just food.

Discipline

Ramadan began Wednesday. Over the past two years I’ve come to gain a great deal of respect for the large number of men who participate in the month-long Ramadan fast. For those who don’t know, during Ramadan, Muslims fast the entire day - no water, nothing - from sunrise to sunset.



Breakfast is served to the observants at 4:00 am. In our building, a group of 10 to 15 guys quietly wait for the door to open so they can make their way to the chow hall in the early morning for a meal that has to sustain them until 8:45 that evening when they walk back to chow for prayers and dinner.


These same guys still go to work during the day and still work out For almost a full month, day in and day out, they will fast. I’m amazed at friends and family who, when they learn I associate with Muslims quickly state “but do they condemn terrorists”; as though Islam is a monolithic block.


These same people would be deeply offended if a Muslim said “how can you call yourself a Christian and support military action or the overriding rampant materialism in America?” The painful truth is, by and large, we’re all pretty lousy when it comes to following our faith dictates. Fortunately we have a God who loves us in spite of our arrogance, and ignorance and self-centeredness.


I’ve discovered during this process that the guys that learn from this, that grow, and find meaning, are the ones who have self-discipline.


In this environment, it’s easy to lie in bed for hours (a popular prison myth is, sleeping 12 hours a day cuts your bid in half). Guys will give up jobs and school (“I don’t need a GED. I’ve done great without it.”) so they can “get their head right” for their release in 5 more years.


I’ve always been disciplined and regimented. I’m more so now. Every morning at 4:45 I naturally wake up. Every morning the same yoga, reading, and prayer routine. Every afternoon at 3:45 on workdays, I blow off chow and run. Four nights a week, law library for an hour or two; write two hours each day.


Last Friday evening they served “steak um” steak sandwiches for dinner. Guys couldn’t believe I’d rather go run than eat. I can’t understand guys not seeing the “big picture”.


I found a great quote by Winston Churchill. He said:


“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”


Prison – rather than rehabilitating and reforming a person – breaks a man down. You become lazy; you focus your energy on weight lifting, rather than developing the muscle called your brain. Oh, you may cuss at an officer (“I’m a grown ass man!”) but deep down you’ve given up. You worry more about what you’ll mix in your ramen noodles than what’s going on in the world. You become nothing but grease that keeps the correction system lubricated.


There are guys who challenge that, who paraphrasing Dylan Thomas “rage, rage against the light.” They discipline their minds and bodies and in doing so prove the mystery and magnificence of the human spirit.


A Muslim friend ends every conversation with the expression “God willing”. You forge ahead and have faith. God hears our prayers. When the time is right – His time – He answers them.


I read about a spectacular set of falls on the Argentina-Brazil border. At the top of the falls etched into the rock are these words from Psalm 93.


“Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty!”


And at the bottom:


“God is always greater than all of our troubles.”


When you consider that, missing a few meals isn’t such a big deal.