A Letter to the Director

Dear Readers: 
Effective January 1, new dorm rules were instituted at Lunenburg.  Many of these rules are quite trivial.  They concern issues drilled down to the minutiae, such as how many books are allowed on your shelf, where laundry bags must be stowed, and the like.  Most are a mere annoyance and inconvenience.  But, in many aspects, that describes prison.  The rules make little sense and bear even less relationship to the security of the institution or the mission of the institution which is namely to serve as a re-entry facility for offenders preparing to return to society , housed in a humane environment, with emphasis placed on programs which foster rehabilitation. 

Prison is a difficult environment made even more difficult when those in charge act in an arbitrary and capricious manner, flouting not only the law but basic human decency.  Such is the case currently at this facility.  If the Governor and his DOC Director are serious about breaking the cycle of recidivism amongst the incarcerated then it begins here, at the institution level.

Week after week I seek to give people a snapshot of the insanity, the silliness that passes for prison.  But, you can never forget no matter how much I gloss it over, prison is a dangerous place.  You deprive someone of basic rights in the name of security and then you add to that by being disrespectful and disingenuous, and the results will not be pretty.

Malcolm Young, founding executive director of the Sentencing Project, recently wrote the following: 

“Except among highly committed corrections staff, advocates and a handful of political leaders, it is difficult to discern direct evidence of a genuine consensus favoring reductions in prison populations.  So far, neither the dollar nor human costs of a massive system of incarceration and its racial and class impacts, have ignited a widespread, energized, political or social movement opposite of that which resulted in mass incarceration.  This has to be a concern if there is any chance of reversing four decades of prison expansion.”

The simple truth is there is no reason for many of us currently incarcerated to remain so.  It is a waste of precious resources and exists because of the illogical conclusion that long, harsh sentences effectively punish crime.  Nothing can be further from the truth.  I remain hopeful that with the appointment of Harold Clarke to lead Virginia DOC, real, dramatic and effective change will occur in the Commonwealth’s prison and sentencing philosophy and many of us will be restored to society sooner, rather than later.  But hope, I fear, is fleeting.  The mindset of the administrators of the facilities must change and Mr. Clarke himself must become an advocate for real change including early release credits tied to inmate performance.  It’s a difficult task, but not impossible.  The following letter is being sent to DOC Director Clarke.

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Dear Mr. Clarke –

I hope you are enjoying the New Year.  I am currently incarcerated at Lunenburg Corrections Center in Victoria Virginia which, as you know, is a level two facility and one of ten “re-entry facilities” as designated by Governor McDonnell’s Offender Re-Entry Initiative.  I write you directly to make you aware of recent policy implementations made by your administrative leadership here.  Ultimately, you, as Director, are responsible for the policies and actions of those in charge here.  And, many of the policies implemented run counter to the purpose and goals behind both the Governor’s directive and your publicly stated views on corrections.

As you know, the United States Supreme Court in its last term handed down the decision of Brown vs. Plata specifically finding the California corrections system to be in violation of the 8^th Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.  The Court found California’s system to be plagued by substantial overcrowding and gross mismanagement leading to inadequate medical treatment and rehabilitative services for the offender population.  Those same issues confront Virginia’s prison system. Simply put, with the tireless exception of the dedicated employees of DCE – and their offender aides – there is little “correcting” going on here.

As you know, both Virginia administrative code and A.C.A. (American Correction Association) regulations indicate that Lunenburg is excessively crowded.  I live in a building (side A) dedicated to college programs (I work as both an adult basic education and college tutor).  Ninety-six men – four rows of twenty-four double bunks – are packed into our side.  We have less than ten square feet of personal space – another ACA violation.  We share three urinals, five sinks, and four showers – also a violation.  There are typically only two officers assigned to our side and its mirror image side next door.  That’s two officers for almost two hundred inmates.  At least once a week the water turns dirty brown.

Lunenburg, as a re-entry facility, is supposed to be preparing men to return to “the real world”.  Instead of providing offenders more freedom, more responsibility, this administration does just the opposite.  For example, new dorm rules were recently implemented allowing only one inmate at a time access to the bathroom during “quiet hours” (midnight until 5:00 am).  Imagine as an adult man having to ask permission to urinate in the early morning.  As you know, the 8^th Amendment to the Constitution (as interpreted by Federal Courts) considers denial of access to bathroom facilities cruel and unusual punishment.  The “new rule” bears no reasonable basis to security (rules are already in place to prohibit homosexual activity and tobacco and drug use).  Officers can enforce these rules instead of this new rule which your own officers acknowledge does nothing other than raise the stress level in the buildings.

The recent emphasis on enforcing DOC’s grooming policy (clean shaven with the exception of a neat moustache) has generated considerable pushback most notably because many of your own officers arrive at work unshaven and in dirty uniforms.  There is a noticeable lack of physical fitness and professionalism in your officer corps including numerous Sergeants who cuss and holler at inmates.

Finally, the current administration has used the disciplinary hearing process as a Kangaroo court.  Officers routinely write inaccurate, unsustainable charges that fail to comply with the procedures set out in DOP 861.1 and which are required as part of the due process guarantees an inmate is afforded.  As a former attorney, I can assure you, given your officers lack of knowledge on proper charge writing, almost every charge could and should be dismissed.  I do not object to enforcement of the rules.  But enforcement must be proper and favoritism not shown.  Too often, inmates who provide useful information to the officers have officers “look the other way”.

More disturbing, the warden and assistant warden use convictions of minor infractions (series 200 charges) to arbitrarily reduce an inmate’s good time earning level.  At a time when good time earning should be increased, for those actively seeking to rehabilitate and improve themselves, the administration here is trying to take what little number of days we earn already.  This, in fact, violates DOC’s own DOP (830.3) regarding earned credit level adjustments.

And finally, with education – primarily a college education – being the primary determiner in breaking the cycle of recidivism, why are you not advocating DOC funds for continuing the regular associate degree college program?  As you know, federal grant money for associate degree college education is expiring.  Without state funding – or a private foundation intervening – forty young men, who I can personally attest are diligently studying and attending classes in less than ideal circumstances, will see their college educations stop.  With the loss of an opportunity to earn a degree in here comes bitterness and hopelessness.

Mr. Clarke, I have noted your excellent progressive record in prison reform in your prior positions.  I also believe you are a man of deep personal faith.  I humbly ask you to prayerfully consider what I’ve written.  Come see for yourself what truly is going on here.  Come to Lunenburg and talk to those of us who are doing our best to help others and restore ourselves to our communities.

I believe you know full well Virginia’s corrections paradigm is at a crossroads.  Many of us presently held, can – and should – be given the opportunity for early release.  Resources could then be earmarked to 1) provide secure and humane incarceration to the community, and 2) provide adequate program and treatment services to ensure soon to be released offenders no longer re-offend.

I thank you for taking the time to read this letter.  You are in my prayers.

Very truly yours,

Lawrence H. Bidwell

The Cost of Doing Nothing

I watched with mixed emotions as the country went through the seizures of defaulting on the national debt.  Part of me was deeply amused.  Every cable news outlet had their “breaking news” and a countdown clock to debt Armageddon.  Both parties – and the president as well – played simple, false sound bites.  The “Tea Party” pushed demagoguery to a new limit.  Ah America, “God shed His grace on thee.”  And Virginia’s Governor?  He did more creative bookkeeping than I did to land myself in prison.

Governor McDonnell touted a $500 million surplus, except, he forgot to tell people he failed to meet the payment requirements to the Virginia Retirement System.  There is no surplus.  VRS is almost $17 billion underfunded and the Commonwealth still has an IOU outstanding to VRS for the prior year’s budget debacle.  And McDonnell has the brass set to go on CNN as a “possible VP” nominee and tout Virginia’s economic well-being.

A pox on both their houses!  As “The Economist” noted in an OpEd piece on March 19, 2011: 

“…despite all the rhetoric from the tea partiers, big government is not just the fault of the self-interested bureaucrats and leftist politicians.  Conservative voters…have kept on demanding the state do more…the right has built prisons, announced wars on drugs and terror, and indulged generals, farmers, and policemen…”

What we have seen in the recent economic unraveling is that everything costs.  And the bill for America’s love affair with “tough on crime” mass incarceration policy has come due.  Governor McDonnell can lead or he can step aside.  But, the time for change is now.

As states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Kentucky have realized, there are more effective and less expensive ways to handle most non-violent offenders.  These states are employing alternatives to sending someone convicted of a crime to prison.  They utilize home incarceration and day center reporting versus prison.

This isn’t a “bleeding heart liberal” approach.  Conservatives such as former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, drug czar William Bennett, Newt Gingrich and anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist are pushing for prison reform.

Where is Virginia in this discussion?  Not even involved.  Virginia will spend $25,000 to keep me housed in a low level facility this year and the costs continue to climb.  I am unable to pay restitution for my embezzlement while in here; I do not pay taxes; I do not help raise my youngest son.  Three years I’ve spent behind bars.  If Bob McDonnell was really the politician he claims to be, he’d look at my situation and the thousands like it.  He’d let us “do our time” outside the walls; working, making restitution, being productive citizens.

As the "Sentencing Project" reported recently, lawmakers in Kansas, Michigan, New Jersey and New York adopted significant policy changes to reduce prison populations.

“In each of these state a range of policy changes were adopted, including sentencing reforms, alternatives for ‘prison-bound’ people, reducing time served in prison, addressing parole release rates and reducing revocations”

23 states have made significant changes in the way sentences are handed out and the length of time an inmate serves – Virginia is not one of those 23.

Bob McDonnell and the Virginia General Assembly can make a difference.  $1 billion a year to house 40,000 inmates is enough reason to try.  They need to enact a real “earned good time credit” system that aggressively rewards inmates who seek to change and improve.  Early release should not just be a goal, but the mission of corrections.

Virginia can no longer afford to do nothing.  Virginia needs real solutions, not “creative” accounting.  The economic realities that showed their true colors this summer prove that government must make smart choices.  No longer can the U.S. with 5 percent of the world’s population, keep 25 percent of the world’s inmates behind bars.

Perhaps Governor McDonnell will finally get it.

Myths and More

This past Sunday’s Washington Post presented an interesting Op Ed piece by Marc Mauer, Executive Director of the Sentencing Project and David Cole, Professor of Law at Georgetown University detailing five myths about Americans in prison.  From its opening paragraph:  “No country on earth imprisons more people per capita than the United States.  But for America, mass incarceration has proved a losing proposition.”  These two gentleman detail common misunderstandings about America’s incarceration explosion.  Here are the five common myths:

1.    Crime has fallen because incarceration has risen.  In countries with rapidly dwindling inmate rates, the crime has actually dropped significantly more.  There is no correlation between incarceration rates and crime rates.

2.    The prison population is rising because more people are going to prison.  No.  The inmate population is dramatically rising because of harsher, lengthier sentences aimed more at nonviolent crimes.  Worse, there is no correlation between sentencing and deterrence.

3.    Re-entry programs help substantially reduce the prison population.  No.  Prison is not the place to teach criminals to change their behavior.  Prisons are training grounds for more crime.  That is precisely why recidivism rates have increased as we spend more to lock people up.

4.    There’s a link between race and crime.  Yes, there are significantly more black and Latino inmates as white.  But, whites use and deal drugs in the same percentages as other races.  They just don’t go to prison in the same percentage.

5.    Racial disparities in prison rates reflect racial prejudice in the courts.  No.  The laws are racially neutral.  There effect is felt more in certain communities.  Take the disparity between crack cocaine (5 grams gets you 5 years) versus powdered cocaine (90 grams gets you 5 years).  And that’s the new law.  The old law was 100 to 1, not 18 to 1.  Which cocaine is more harmful?  They are the same.  It just happens crack is more prevalent in poor, urban areas populated by African Americans and Latinos.

Here’s the bottom line:  America is currently spending $50 to $70 billion on prisons.  Behind Medicaid it is the fasting rising cost in state budgets.  Incarceration does not turn peoples’ lives around.  Prison is more likely to embitter the inmate and damage family relations.  What is the divorce rate for the incarcerated?  What percentage of children being raised in single parent homes with one parent serving a prison sentence live below the poverty line?

Each day, some talking head tells you how important families are to this nation.  Yet, the corrections system currently in place destroys families.  Each day, some politician tells you how important Judeo-Christian tenets are to this nation’s fabric.  Well, Jesus

certainly wasn’t pro-prison.  “Forgive”; “Show Mercy”; “He that is free of sin cast the first stone.”

America’s love affair with incarceration is built on myths that are unsustainable.  As the Gospel of John records, “but the people loved the darkness.”  Yet we know the truth – not myths – will make us free.

Reality Wins 5 to 4

This past Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court, in a far reaching decision speaking directly to the rights of those incarcerated, held five to four that living conditions in California’s prisons constituted a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.  It upheld a lower court’s injunction requiring the release of over 30,000 California inmates within two years.

Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy noted that California’s prisons were built to accommodate 80,000 inmates; however the inmate population had swelled at one point to over 156,000.  For ten years, California’s inmates have successfully argued in court that the conditions in existence in the state’s prisons were barbaric.  The state knew this and ignored the ramification of policies that locked more and more people away for non-violent crimes.  Many of these people suffered from mental health disorders, alcohol and drug addictions.

The USA Today’s Wednesday rational editorial correctly stated the case:

“Tuesday’s 5-4 decision was humane and correct.  American prisons aren’t supposed to be some 16^th century version of hell where outrageous overcrowding and short-staffing mean that mentally ill inmates are confided in telephone booth size cages or left catatonic in pools of their own urine.  Prisoners shouldn’t be coddled, but they shouldn’t be treated like abused animals either.  California’s officials should be humiliated that it took the nation’s highest court to remind them of the meaning of ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’”

Then this:

“The state’s legislators allowed the prison system to fester for years as they wrangled inconclusively about how and whether to fix it …”

As Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project (www.sentencingproject.org ) noted following the decision, the court has now provided “state policymakers with the opportunity to correct misguided sentencing policies and, in the process, produce more effective public safety outcomes.”

While the decision only specifically applies to California’s “correction” system, commentators have noted the standard set out applies to all states – Virginia had better be listening.

People may not like inmates.  They may think – like my reader from Alaska – that we “get what we deserve”.  But, a state cannot, in the name of punishing a man for breaking the law, break the law itself.  Virginia DOC on a daily basis violates the law in the conditions they maintain in their prisons.  But, as I told a number of inmates who gathered around my bunk when the decision was handed down.  Bob Dylan was correct.  “For the times, they are a changing.”

I have been very reticent to discuss in great detail my experiences in DOC’s Powhatan Receiving Unit, a filthy dangerous, poorly operated unit where men new to DOC sit for months as they are “processed” and ultimately moved to an actual prison.  Men are housed in cells built for one with leaky toilets and sinks, heavily infested with roaches, ants and spiders.  Air circulation is virtually non-existent.  In the summer, the stifling heat and humidity climbs the temperature to over one hundred degrees.  In winter, a water pipe at the rear of the cell provides the only heat.  It is so hot that you can burn yourself making contact with it.

There are eighty cells to a tier with three tiers.  Four hundred and eighty men locked in small cells twenty-two hours per day.  The smell of blood, feces, urine, sweat and semen permeates the air.  Men scream and cry.  They fight, they bleed, they breakdown.  They abuse and are abused.  This is the system of justice, of corrections that is allowed to exist in Virginia.  It is barbaric.  It is criminal.  It is immoral.

Justice Kennedy, in his opinion, specifically detailed the dismal conditions in California’s prisons.  At one point he noted that two hundred inmates were housed in a gym with forty inmates sharing a toilet.  As I looked at the photo of the inmates lying in their bunks I had to smile.  An entire gym, I thought.  I live in the same bunks with 191 other inmates sharing roughly the square footage of half a gym.  Though, only twenty of us share a toilet.

The American Corrections Association sets standards for the proper number of inmates per building and what is considered adequate square footage of personal floor space.  These aren’t some “feel good stats” put together by an association.  They are based on standards enumerated in Federal law.  Virginia’s prisons violate those standards, violate Federal law.

As I write this blog early on a typical morning, there are two officers in this building, both female.  One is in the booth, the other watching TV on the “B” side.  Two nights ago a fight broke out in “1” building.  One inmate, tired of harassment from a younger, stronger inmate, took matters into his own hands.  He placed three padlocks in a sock and snuck up on his tormentor and struck him repeatedly in the head fracturing his jaw and leaving him a bloody mess.  Moments passed before an officer even arrived.

Before anyone reading this take the attitude “they are just a bunch of animals with their behavior”, ask yourself honestly how you would behave in this environment.  For four and a half months I sat in receiving hell praying that “God would lead me safely through”.  I walked over pools of blood left in stairwells after gangs brutally beat an enemy.  I saw and heard mentally ill young men cry out at night for help and have officers tell them to “shut the f--- up”.  I lived in an eight foot by six foot cell with a psychotic murderer who kept three homemade knives for protections and told me one night how he still saw his father lying in front of their home in a pool of blood, dead, the result of a gang stabbing.  He was eight at the time.

Some – perhaps like Alaska – would argue I deserved that and more for violating the law, for embezzling.  I disagree.  No person deserves to be confined like that.  Humanity demands more from us.

Virginia’s prisons, by DOC’s own admissions, are at 137% capacity.  These facilities are not capable of sustaining this population.  Any politician who tells you otherwise is a liar.

The times they are a changin:  Virginia can institute real prison reform, real sentence reform, real rehabilitation or they can continue on the path of California.  Reality came home this week, 5 to 4.  “The Lord sets the prisoners free…” (Psalm 146:7)  Perhaps Virginia will heed the call.

News on the Prison Reform Front

Another week and the papers report more studies concluding incarcerating nonviolent felons is a waste of taxpayer dollars and more states are moving forward with prison reform.  And Virginia?  The Governor decided to go to China for some authentic take out.
Several dozen criminal justice organizations, led by the “Sentencing Project” (and including the National Council of Churches of Christ, the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church) have petitioned Congress to change Federal sentencing policies.  In an open letter to the chairs and ranking members of the Budget, Appropriations and Judiciary committees, they stated the following:

“In this time of economic crisis, our government wastes precious dollars when it incarcerates non-violent offenders whose actions would be better addressed through alternatives that hold them accountable at less cost to taxpayers.  Being sentenced to prison should be the option of last resort.”
Brilliant!  I wish Governor Bob saw that report.  Unfortunately, he was busy choosing between Moo Shoo Pork and Chicken Lo Mein. 

Two criminologists recently released studies concluding spending to incarcerate doesn’t lower crime; depending on police in communities does.  Both Lawrence Sherman of the University of Maryland and Daniel Nagin of Carnegie Melon University reported their findings at a crime prevention symposium in Washington, DC.
Both argued for less incarceration and more contact between the police, the released offenders and the community.

As Daniel Nagin explained “studies have shown that the marginal deterrent effect of increasing already lengthy sentences is modest at best.”
Yes Governor, you can have more rice and tea if you just listen for a minute!

Kentucky’s recently signed prison reform legislation made the news.  According to the Pew Center, Kentucky’s legislation is “at the forefront of research driven criminal justice policies.”  Nonviolent offenders will utilize alternative sentencing rather than take up prison bed space.  The reform package is expected to save Kentucky over $420 million dollars during the next ten years.
$420 million, that will buy a lot of egg rolls Governor!

The Wall Street Journal recently reported on studies suggesting that states need to increase spending on college programs in prison and “expand internet-based delivery” of those educational opportunities.

It is one of the ironies of prison life that they tell inmates “we want to prepare you for your return to society”, then completely isolate us from normal life activities.  Almost every job today requires some basic skill level with technology, yet inmates are prohibited from any access to computers (other than those of us who work on academic programs).  Even our IT students can’t get hands on experience working on boxes.  The instructor wants to let them break units apart.  He has a storage building full of them.  But, DOC security rules prohibit inmate access to the equipment.

The study concludes with a “no brainer” – inmate college education is the single most important determiner in reducing recidivism rates.  An inmate who earns a college diploma in prison will almost never recommit.
Perhaps Governor McDonnell would pay more attention to that message if it was on a fortune cookie.

Another week gone by and more evidence presented that Virginia’s corrections policies need reform.  The billion dollar question is when will the Governor put down the chopsticks and move Virginia in the right direction?

Revolving Door

Albert Einstein reportedly said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” I always thought Einstein was referring to my behavior. Since seeing the prison system up close, I now realize he was referring to Virginia’s corrections mentality.



This past week USA today reported on the results of a recent Pew Center Study that showed the number of inmates returning to state prisons within three years of release has remained steady for more than a decade “a strong indicator that prison systems are failing to deter criminals from re-offending.” The report further noted the lack of change “despite huge increases in prison spending….”


Virginia government officials immediately presented Virginia’s “results”: the Commonwealth’s recidivism rate was 28 percent (that’s slightly below the national average) thanks, in large part, to Virginia abolishing parole in 1995. Oh Albert, where art thou when we need you?


Virginia just proved Dr. Einstein’s quote and once again showed that “numbers don’t lie, but liars use numbers.” Yes, Virginia does have a recidivism rate below the national average. But, that rate has not changed in any statistically significant way since the abolition of parole. What has significantly changed is the rate of incarceration (Virginia now has one of the highest incarceration rates in the country), the overall number of inmates (quadrupled since parole was abolished) in DOC’s control and the cost to operate this unyielding bureaucracy (over $1.1 billion and the largest number of state employees: 13,000).


Abolishing parole, incarcerating at an abnormally high rate, warehousing inmates without adequate rehabilitative programs, has not made the public safer.


As the director of the Pew project noted, the national prisoner recidivism rate will likely remain at the same levels unless “state’s more deeply embrace programs to better prepare offenders for re-entry and reward corrections officials for finding alternatives to prison for many non-violent offenders.”


Are you listening Virginia? As I’ve written before, Governor McDonnell should be commended for placing emphasis on prisoner re-entry. But, without directing the same energy to early release, his program is doomed to fail. Virginia cannot afford the hard dollar costs necessitated by its draconian sentencing and incarceration methods. Those costs don’t even include the millions lost in tax revenues from 40,000 individuals who could be living as working, productive citizens. It doesn’t include the soft costs of children deprived of a parent, being raised in one parent or no-parent homes.


Simply put, there is no way to reduce prison costs without closing prisons and letting people go. As Marc Mauer, Executive Director of the Sentencing Project stated, “the only way you can really reduce spending is close prisons. “


This isn’t some “liberal, soft on crime” fantasy. It is fact. In 2005, Texas began implementing sentencing changes and poured money into drug treatment and probation programs. The results: the state’s incarceration rate dropped, since 2003 – there has been a 12.8 percent drop in violent crime, and the state has saved over $2 billion that was needed to build new prisons. That drastic change was spearheaded by Conservative Republican Governor Rick Perry.


Or, ask Republican Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi what he thinks. In 2008, Mississippi, with the highest incarceration rate in the country, implemented a bold initiative to allow inmates to earn significantly more good time credits toward early release. Included in that was the retroactive provision allowing all nonviolent offenders to be eligible for parole after serving just 25 percent of their sentence. Barbour, coincidentally, has been named as a possible candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.


Want to stop the revolving door of recidivism and gain significant financial savings Virginia? Urge Governor McDonnell to boldly implement early release programs as part of his re-entry initiative.


You don’t have to be an Einstein to know that’s the only solution that can succeed.