On My Honor

Honor codes. Just about every college has one now. The community college sponsoring our college program here has one. The crux of the honor code is simple and straightforward. The student acknowledges “on my honor” that he – or she – has neither given, nor received, help; the student has not cheated, nor plagiarized, nor helped anyone else do so.

            In my prior life I laughed at faculty members who would espouse their campus’s adherence to an honor code. I’d laugh because (1) half those faculty members were with second spouses who started as their students – where was their honor? And (2) honor codes don’t work. If you cheat you’ll still sign the honor code or you will be disciplined for “not abiding by its terms.” So, cheat on the test then lie about it by signing “on my honor.”

            That was the “old” Larry. Prison – education in prison – has changed my perception. Honor, more than ever especially in here, matters. Two quick stories –

            First, the worst moment is a series of terrible moments for me early after my arrest was calling my wife and telling her. A few days later she came to see me at the jail. She looked through the smudged Plexiglas and said, “You’re a liar.” I tried to downplay it with the George Clooney retort in “Ocean’s Eleven,” “I only lied about stealing.” But, even now, I can’t shake her words. I lied; I deceived the person I was closet to. There was – I knew – no way to repair that breach of trust. And, I understood then why I’d had such a difficult time sleeping for so long: I knew the truth, and the truth was I had sold my honor; I had betrayed all I cared about.

            Second, my first year here I was confronted by an unsavory organization leader shall we say. He needed help on his case and wouldn’t take no for an answer. It got to the point where he “made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” but I did. I told him to watch “Bridge Over the River Kwai” and “The Last Samurai” to understand that “you can beat my ass, but you won’t take my honor.” I never forgot the look on that guy’s face, like I stunned him; but he never asked me for help, nor did anything happen to me.

            Honor matters. Men in prison – for the most part – gave up their honor and self-respect at some point, which led to either their crime or their lack of rehabilitation once behind bars. You want to stop released offenders from re-offending? Help them find their honor.

            “On my honor …” Every college syllabus given to the men in here includes reference to the college honor code. In our recently completed math class the instructor, a wonderful, energetic, attractive, young woman told the men to write and sign “on my honor” on their tests verifying adherence to the college code.

            Last Tuesday morning, one of our students (“Ray”) came to take the chapter test early. We always made special arrangements for him – test anxiety (he freezes up in the classroom when everyone is testing). So, he completed the exam which I then graded (he scored a 100) and returned to him. “Don’t show this to anyone until they take the test tonight,” I told him. “No problem,” he replied.

            I returned to the building later that afternoon. As I was changing clothes, I noticed four students – all “white,” “good,” “middle class” guys huddled around “Ray” – the early test taker. And, I saw “Ray” with papers in his hand. I decided it was not up to me to interfere. Each man has to decide for himself what matters – does his word, does his honor matter? Before we went up to the test, one of the “gang of four” approached me. “Hey Larry,” he matter-of-factly began. “We asked Ray what was on the test, but we never asked to see it.” I paused a moment and told him when I was young trial lawyer I had older, more seasoned lawyers tell me I couldn’t win a particular discrimination suit on the facts. “You need to find an angle, cut a deal,” those lawyers told me. It pissed me off. I would have run into a brick wall before I ever cut corners on that case or before I even conceded I couldn’t win by my own hard work and efforts.

            I wish I’d remembered that tough, conceited, idealistic young lawyer years later, I told him. I never would have landed in prison. I never would have failed my wife. I never would have lost my self-respect and honor. “God help you if you think you would have to cheat to succeed. You’ve already failed.”

            I proctored the exam and watched, watched all four to see what they would do. Did they have the answers I wondered? And what would I do if they did? My buddy DC and I have a simple rule of thumb for the college program and instructors: Nothing will be allowed to happen that hurts or embarrasses them. We came up with that four years ago when this program first began. Over the years we’d confronted guys over behavior issues and a host of other less than honorable things. Before the test I asked DC what we should do. “What we always do. No tolerance for cheating.”

            Not one of the four cheated. I graded their papers and each said to me “I never looked at the test. But I shouldn’t have asked him what was on it.”

            Honor. It is such an antiquated term. We live in a world and a time when it doesn’t seem to matter. And yet, as I sit here in this prison surrounded by men who have done both the horrific and inane I know honor matters above all else.

            “On my honor.” Those words mean something. Your honor matters, matters more than your wealth or social status. It is a lesson I hope stays with four young men. It is a lesson I can never forget.

           

Gary & Thomas

Gary and Thomas moved out of our building – involuntarily. Neither man was in college. Their assignment to 4A was mere happenstance. They both are under eighteen months and were “ready” for the first phases of re-entry. Building 3 is all re-entry, with 4B twelve to eighteen months and introduction to the “pre-cog” community. Overflow from B side is housed in A’s fifteen non-college beds. So Gary and Thomas were moved to 4A. Neither man could read; both men suffer from mental illness and are loaded up with handfuls of skittle colored pills to “regulate” their behavior. And even with the pills, both men went nuts and were “checked in” to the padded suicide cell in 7 building.

            The pill life. In here close to 50% of the men are on something. Don’t get me wrong; medications have their place in modern society. We live in an age where pharmaceuticals cure or limit the effects of diseases and conditions that one hundred years ago would have meant death at an early age. But we have become addicted to drugs without adequately evaluating the consequences of our over-dependence. And that addiction comes with a heavy price.

            Nowhere is the evidence clearer of our over-reliance on prescription meds than inside prison. Pills – meds – are a means of control. It’s far easier for the state to dole out prescription meds than address the underlying causes of many of these men’s problems. And prison – while an isolated lifestyle – is not an island unto itself. The reason the Department of Corrections allows medications to be the primary method of inmate health care is because the same is true in the “real” world. Pills are the answer.

            I have a friend in here, fifty-one, retired Navy. He made a horrible mistake one night and driving drunk crossed into a controlled intersection and killed two people. That was in 2006. To this day, he can’t even mention the accident without tearing up. While he sat in jail, pondering his responsibility for the loss of two innocent lives he heard from his wife that she was divorcing him. “I’m not going to put my life on hold for ten years while you go to prison,” she wrote. He fell into a deep depression. Unable to cope with the guilt over his reckless deed and now reeling from the loss of his wife, my friend actively contemplated suicide. The jail “routed” him to the facility psychiatrist. After a visit lasting less than ten minutes the doctor called in an 80 mg prescription (twice daily) of Prozac. Three weeks ago he came to the realization that the meds (now one 30 mg dose a day) weren’t doing what he needed.

            What he needed was to come to grips with what he did. What he needed was to own up, admit his responsibility and move forward. The meds kept him from that. About a year ago, this decent man, a wayward Catholic by his own admission, returned to the church. Monthly he would go to confession when the priest would come. The confessions, the readings, the self-examination allowed my friend to begin to heal. It was this healing that led to him stopping the Prozac and sleeping for fourteen hours every day. Now, he exercises, and prays, and takes college classes, and lives.

            A personal confession. I find myself in jail. The first night they put me on suicide watch – standard procedure anytime someone from “my side of the tracks” gets locked up. The next morning, a counselor asked me, “you’re aren’t going to hurt yourself, are you? When I said “no,” I was moved to a low custody pod and forty other men. I walked in the pod dayroom and felt like I stepped into the psych ward of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” I was witness to a range and array of characters and behaviors I didn’t know existed. I was a mess – on the inside – yet no one knew. I carried myself with head high, joking, out-going; all the while I planned to end my embarrassment, pain, and self-loathing. I didn’t. Why I didn’t is between God and me, but my “Damascus” moment didn’t make me brave or responsible or giving. I was still a mess, just a mess who decided to see life through.

            A week after my arrival, I met the jail psychiatrist, an out-going, funny Filipino man who took an instant liking to me. “Are you depressed?” Of course I was – who wouldn’t be? My whole life was destroyed – marriage, wealth, prestige – all was gone. He then read the articles about me from the paper and in less than fifteen minutes came up with a “proposed” diagnosis. “You’re brilliant, personable, successful. You must suffer from mania. We’ll call it a slight disorder and see where that leads.” Mania – that explains my reckless behavior I thought. I’m not responsible; I’m ill. He then prescribed me 10 mg of trazadone (an anti-depressant) nightly to “help” me sleep.

            I clutched onto his diagnosis and treatment. I exaggerated in letters my conversations with the good doctor – anything to get sympathy. And, after only two days of pills, I started flushing the trazadone. I didn’t need it. What I needed to get sleep was to admit to myself and my God what a wreck I’d made of my life. And, I needed to “man up” and do the right thing regardless of the outcome. It was during those very dark, very difficult days that I agreed to plead guilty to all charges without a plea agreement on my sentence and to ensure my family was provided for, I soon discovered self-respect helps you sleep better than a bottle or a pill ever will. Like Tom Cruise’s character in “The Last Samurai,” honor and self-respect may be the best medicine for a broken soul.

            Pills; everywhere pills. The other night there were 38 men getting meds from our side, out of 66. Many of the men getting Zoloft, and Xanax, and Prozac, are in here on drug charges. Their treatment plans require alcohol and drug programs; their mental health plan requires high doses of meds. Even the “real” mentally ill – the schizophrenics – they are over-medicated to the point of being non-functioning. Gary and Thomas would sleep upwards of twenty hours per day. Personal hygiene – cleanliness – is forgotten; all there is is a vacant stare.

            It isn’t healthy and it isn’t right. There is no actual psychiatric treatment, just monthly videoconference “how are yous.” Side effects from most of the anti-depression and anti-psychotics require blood work quarterly to verify the pills aren’t destroying the user’s liver. Men go home with new addictions, new crutches.

            What’s the answer? Let’s face it, as USA Today pointed out in a cover story this week; mental health is the expendable item in most state budgets. It’s the dirty little secret no one wants to discuss until there’s a Newtown, or a Columbine, or PTSD Marine who goes off and kills women and children in an Afghan village. We ignore the problem and then “lock ‘em up.” Worse, we think a pill can solve the problem.

            Pills aren’t the answer. Somebody needs to do better for Gary and Thomas. By the way, what’s in your medicine cabinet?