Another Closing?

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 2014.

 

            The COs have been on edge the past few days. Rumors are circulating that another prison closing will be announced before Christmas. Given the age of the current facilities still in operation betting is on Buckingham or Nottoway, both level 3/4 prisons. I say “good.” The waste and mismanagement that permeates DOC is appalling. That so few know about it – or even care to understand it – is worse. Like regular German civilians who didn’t “want to know” what was going on behind the concentration camp fences, so too it seems are the vast majority of Virginians who choose to ignore the $1.2 billion annually spent to house 40,000 behind bars.

            As I’ve written repeatedly in these pages, Virginia’s prisons are run like self-contained fiefdoms. Department Operating Procedures put in place to provide uniform standards are arbitrarily enforced from facility to facility and inmate to inmate. Discipline and grievance procedures – created to provide constitutionally guaranteed due process rights, are ignored. It is virtually impossible for an inmate to prevail in a hearing where an officer has written a charge or where the facility has violated its own DOPs.

            It clearly is a tough time for DOC. A billion dollars is “real” money and probing eyes are beginning to look at how it’s spent by the prisons. And the easy answer for the director, his regional managers, and even the wardens themselves, is to cut back on the inmates: poorer food, less access to medical and programs, less rec, cutting back work hours and pay. But, those items are just small line items compared to the tens of millions spent on too many officers, counselors, and administrators who draw a check just for “watching.”

            It was reported in last week’s Washington Post that Texas’s prison reform efforts have yielded a “$3 billion savings.” Those efforts included sentence reductions, early release for nonviolent offenders, and more emphasis on community corrections. Great ideas all and yet Virginia DOC continues to ignore them and instead does the old “sweep in and close.”

            Virginia’s prison operation since the early ‘90s – when parole was abolished – has been built on a series of lies involving “tough on crime” slogans, the real cost of incarceration, and the effects these policies would have on crime rates and recidivism. Those lies are coming due and doors are being closed … and I say it’s about time.

           

 

Trial Date

This blog was written in November, 2014. 

            Less than 30 days from now a Federal Court will hear a suit brought by 5 female offenders at Virginia’s Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women. The class action lawsuit, filed in 2012, seeks injunctory relief from VDOC for its mismanagement of medical care for those behind bars. Be ready Virginia; VDOC will lose this case and the budget woes already affecting the Commonwealth will only worsen. Look no further than the bloated, arrogant, mismanaged bureaucracy that is VDOC when you ask “why.”

            At a time when the voters of the Commonwealth were quick to elect any politician who said they were “tough on crime,” DOC realized it had a problem. Everything has a cost and that’s especially true in prison. You want to lock up virtually anyone for anything (after all, a majority of those behind bars are there for non-violent crimes) there is a cost. And a major cost associated with longer sentences, with mass incarceration policies, is the cost to provide medical care. The Commonwealth knew they had a burgeoning problem years ago.

            What was their solution? Outsourcing. VDOC concluded that it was cheaper to contract out offender medical care than provide staff doctors. So the state entered into a sweetheart (for the for-profit corporations anyway!) contract first with Armor, later with Corizon, both “players” in the booming prison-industrial complex that has seen U.S. corrections expenditures go from $6 billion in 1980 to $80 billion today. The state agreed to pay these companies $76 million per contract year to provide medical care and case management for the incarcerated. That sounds like a lot of money (and it is) except those companies had their own staffing costs. They also had a population they were servicing that was less healthy than the general population, with diabetes and mental disorders rampant. Keeping costs down became the benchmark. Forget Hippocrates; their mantra was, “every buck saved is a buck for our bottom line.”

            Then, VDOC gave almost no thought or care to the “work” these private contractors did as long as the department was not responsible. Trouble is, VDOC – and the Commonwealth – can’t shirk their obligation to provide medical care to those in its custody. That’s the law. Funny, isn’t it? All those “law and order” types suddenly became very “shades of grey” when it comes to government doing what they are legally obligated to do.

            That provides background to the suit – government ineptitude followed by sweetheart contracts with no oversight. But, to the women involved, it is more personal. To the patients – and their families – who were ignored and mistreated, their poor care, the 3 or 4 deaths each year resulting from negligent health care at Fluvanna, it was personal. You break the law, you go to prison. You shouldn’t end up dying because of bad medical care, which the state is required to provide when they take away your freedom.

            My first year here I befriended a bright, young redheaded kid. He had gone drag racing one night with three other cars. These were county roads in Augusta County. And these 18 to 20 year-olds were going way too fast, being reckless. Then it happened. He lost control and his car went airborne. His girlfriend lay dying in his car. The charge was vehicular manslaughter; the sentence was four years. I make no judgment on the leniency – or severity – of his time. Parents lost a daughter. Four years or forty, that will never be made whole.

            They sent him here and late in ’09 he began having severe stomach pains. He ran a fever. He passed blood. Medical refused to see him. “You’re on the sick call list,” he was told. His mother called and complained and Medical gave him an appointment. Stomach virus was the diagnosis “Take Mylanta.” That night his fever spiked. The floor officer rushed him down to medical and he was immediately taken to the hospital with a ruptured appendix.

            That story isn’t an aberration; that story is day-to-day medical care inside. “Care” is not the right word. Every year men and women die behind bars from medical neglect. That is criminal and should not be tolerated. That is the basis of these five women’s lawsuit.

            How has the government reacted to the suit? They have stonewalled. This past summer the court was so incensed by DOC’s refusal to comply with discovery that it awarded the Plaintiffs over $16,000 in attorney fees. Ironic isn’t it, the purveyors of the law, those charged with administering the law, ignore the law. Who pays? The taxpayers.

            The late Ben Bradlee of the Washington Post cited Walter Lippmann in a lecture he gave in 1997 at the University of California. Lippmann, Mr. Bradlee noted, believed that “In a democracy, the truth emerges. Sometimes it takes years … sometimes it seems to take forever, but it does emerge.”

            Mr. Bradlee, the Executive editor of the Post from 1968 to 1991 knew a little something about the truth and the attempts over and over again by government to spin it and shape it and distort it. But, at the end, the truth will emerge.

            For far too many years the Commonwealth of Virginia’s politicians, supported and greased by companies like Corizon and Armor have told voters you are safer with more people behind bars. These politicians have lied about the true costs the people of Virginia incur with these reckless policies built on greed. But the truth will emerge … and it may start on December 1^st in a Federal courthouse when the Department of Correction’s medical contracts are exposed for what they are.

Do You See the Irony?

            Do you the irony all around us? In a Washington Post editorial this Sunday, a Columbia University professor who lost a son fighting in Iraq for this country, points out that since 1980 we have bombed fourteen Middle Eastern, majority Muslim countries. What has been accomplished? Nothing. Yet, here we go again. In our quest to protect “America,” the President has created a grand coalition of willing partners to take on the brutal thugs in ISIS. They behead their victims. Yet, one of our coalition partners – Saudi Arabia – beheads as a punishment. In September, 19 were beheaded (publicly) in Saudi Arabia. We claim such behavior is a danger to the “civilized” world; this country however is one of the few who still allow capital punishment. Irony, yes indeed.

            In Virginia, hundreds of inmates are held in solitary confinement. “Solitary,” “the hole,” is used to excess throughout this country. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and a significant number of America’s religious organizations have called on the nation to end this cruel incarceration practice. And still, as I write this, thousands languish alone in cells, deprived of human contact. Ironic in a nation that cherishes freedom and basic human dignity.

            Hundreds are held at Guantanamo Bay. These men, labeled “enemy combatants,” have never been charged with any crime. The United States, a nation built on the “rule of law” ignores that very concept by holding without charge. Worse, at the military tribunals being held for the few who have actually been charged, the CIA is entitled to interject in legal proceedings and stop them from moving forward if, in the intelligence officer observing the hearing’s opinion, questions of National Security are in issue.

            Irony. Virginia Courts sentence young men like “Cubby” to prison for heroin usage where, with the help of corrupt guards, drugs flow as freely as on the streets. Then, DOC penalizes the inmate for his dirty urine and takes his good time. They ship him to a higher custody level where drugs are even more prevalent and, because of his youthful appearance he becomes easy prey for violent, predatory inmates. Nice “justice” system.

            How about this? You are told every day that DOC “prepares offenders for re-entry” by providing quality programs especially “education.” Then, they promote a security mentality at the lower levels that each week somehow manages to interfere with schooling. The security chief, i.e. “The major,” holds schooling for inmates in contempt. And yet, as guys earn GEDs, as the college program succeeds and gets national recognition in spite of his efforts, he is lauded. Irony.

            Irony. We live with it every day. We “hold these truths” to be self-evident then accept less from those in charge. “Allies” are as barbaric as our enemies; our enemies – while cruel, hold no exclusivity on cruelty or ignoring basic human dignity and rights. And, corruption overflowing in our “justice” system is met with yawns. The most ironic thing is we continue to tolerate it.

Cuccinelli’s Prison Reform Op Ed

            Ken Cuccinelli, former Virginia Attorney General and GOP candidate for Governor has come out in favor of prison reform. In a June 19^th Op Ed in The Washington Post, Cuccinelli – a stalwart conservative – wrote the following:

            “In short, we must reserve our harshest and most expensive sanctions – prison – for violent and career criminals while strengthening cost-effective alternatives for lower-level, nonviolent offenders …

            With today’s sophisticated assessment tools, we can better sort offenders and match them with the levels of treatment and community supervision that offer the best chance for them to stay crime free.”

            Mr. Cuccinelli is right. It’s time for the Republicans and Democrats in Richmond to come together and reform Virginia’s broken, expensive criminal justice and corrections system. Too much money and lives are being wasted.

            Governor McAuliffe, reach across party lines and embrace Mr. Cuccinelli’s stance. Do it for the good of the Commonwealth.

           

"Post" it Letter

A letter appeared in the Washington Post this week that should be required reading for all Virginians concerned about the Commonwealth’s runaway spending on prisons. Written by Marc Schindler, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute, the letter summarizes his group’s findings on the state of Virginia’s prison apparatus. The results are not good.

Virginia spends over $1 billion annually (and this year, $1 billion will come from the Commonwealth’s “general fund”) to sustain its prison system. The facts are just as I’ve outlined them from in here”

• ·      Virginia’s prison population, contrary to a trend across the country, is growing.
• ·      Because of longer sentences served due to “Truth in Sentencing” laws, the prison population is aging. It costs five times as much to care for and house a 50 year-old inmate than an inmate in their twenties.
• ·      There has been no provable correlation between longer sentences and reduced crime rates. In fact, states that have implemented prison reform have seen their crime rates drop more dramatically than Virginia’s.
• ·      Prison creates additional “costs” with those bearing the scarlet “F” (for felon) having greater difficulty finding work.

In a strange twist of irony, Mr. Schindler notes that Virginia lags behind other Southern states – such as Georgia and Mississippi – in enacting prison reform. Virginia – simply put – is behind the times.

      Were Mr. Schindler pointing out something unusual about Virginia’s abject failure in prison reform I would tout every word he wrote. Unfortunately, he just has a wider audience to the waste in money and lives I’ve seen these past six years. It’s time for change.

Road to Triumph

I read a devotion the other morning that began with a story about French General Ferdinand Foch at the First Battle of the Marne during World War I. the Germans had attacked in overwhelming numbers and the French lines were disintegrating. Foch sent the following communiqué to headquarters.

            “My center is giving away, my right is retreating. Situation excellent. I am attacking.”

            The author of the devotion wrote that “sometimes in life’s battles we can feel as if we are losing on every front.” He then noted that trials can be God’s road to triumph. I thought about those words this week as I tried to steel myself for another year in here. I spend every morning before sunrise in prayer and Bible reading. And, I think this experience has made me a better man, a better Christian, a wiser, more merciful believer. But faith and hope are tested repeatedly and I’ve come to accept that having faith, believing when everything tells you otherwise, is the key.

            For the past six months a group of supporters have been lobbying to get my sentence reduced – modified in a way that would allow me to leave prison and get to work paying off my restitution and doing what I’ve been called to do. That sounds funny from in here, saying you have a calling, but one of the many things I’ve learned during my time in here is that I can teach and motivate men in very difficult circumstances.

            Many people wrote letters to the Governor on my behalf. My cousin, who – along with her husband – has cared for me and supported me in more ways than I can count since those very dark days at the jail, sent me copies of those letters. “Read them when you’re feeling down so you see what people think of you,” she told me when she mailed them. I haven’t read any yet. I haven’t been in a position where I “needed” to read them and, quite candidly, the fact that someone would take the time and effort to write on my behalf is very humbling and touching. So, I start each day reminding myself I can’t do anything that would discourage and disappoint the people who have backed me, and prayed for me, and hung in there with me when logic and common sense should have told them otherwise.

            Hope is a mysterious thing. It’s a feeling that what is wanted will happen. It’s expectation. Combined with faith – an unquestioning trust and confidence – hope is what keeps us going when everything tells us all is lost. As I’ve written before, I love how Stephen King’s protagonist Andy Dufresne in “The Shawshank Redemption” explains hope:

            “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing. And hope never dies.”

            Michael Morton spent twenty-five years in a Texas prison for the murder of his wife. The evidence, the prosecutor said, was overwhelming. Morton described his nights in the prison, the screams, the smells, the despair. At one point in his time behind bars, his son (who was required to visit once each quarter) wrote and said “I don’t want to visit anymore.” What could Morton do? Within two years, the son wrote again. This time to ask that he be allowed to be adopted by his aunt and uncle and change his last name. Morton just said, “Those days were the worst.”

            Twenty years after he entered Texas DOC the parole board (yes Virginia, Texas still has parole) offered to release Morton. “Admit you killed your wife and you will make parole.” Morton couldn’t do it. No matter how much he hated prison, how much he missed freedom and fresh air and privacy and the thousand other things we take for granted each day, he couldn’t say he killed his wife.

            Morton had a lawyer who for nine years had tried without success to get his case reopened. “I told him to take the parole board’s offer,” the lawyer said. “And when he told me he couldn’t, when he told me he knew all he had left was his honor, I promised then and there I’d never give up trying to get him free.” Honor matters. Even when you face the worst you do so with dignity and honor. And you hope. You never give up hope.

            I wish I could say that the whole time I’ve been in here I was honorable, but I can’t. When I first got locked up, I was a mess. I’d spent so much time living with what I was doing, so much time anxious, depressed, and hating myself that my arrest should have been a relief. It wasn’t. I lost everything I loved and held dear and it didn’t depart quietly. I was full of fear and self-pity. I said things. I wrote things. I thought things that I deeply regret. I was weak, and cowardly, and dishonest. It’s hard to imagine being worse than you are at your lowest, yet I was. Jail was not character building. Jail was destroying what little was left.

            So Michael Morton stayed in prison and he hoped, and he prayed, and he believed. One evening, years earlier, when the prison was awash in the cacophony of piercing screams and shouts, Morton put his headphones on and turned his small radio dial to nothing but static. He wanted the white noise to block out every sound around him.

            He lay there with his eyes closed and the sounds of the prison drowned out amid the constant crack and whir of static until he heard it, the clear beautiful sound of a classical music piece on a station that never came in on his radio. And the music soothed him; he felt peace and security; the bitterness and the loss left him. Even though he was behind bars, Michael Morton was free.  And I knew what he meant.  I understood.  I’d been there and had the same epiphany, that moment I knew it would all be alright.

            Freedom. On the eve of his twenty-fifth year behind bars a Texas court ordered DNA testing on evidence – a blood soaked bandana – found at the scene. The test showed Michael Morton’s wife’s blood and the blood of an itinerant construction worker already doing a life sentence for the rape and murder of a woman that occurred less than a year after the death of Morton’s wife. A review of the evidence used to convict Morton showed that the prosecutors withheld evidence that would have exonerated Morton. The prosecutors needed a conviction, so why not the husband?

            And just like that, the doors of the prison swung open. Morton was exonerated with apology – and money – from the state. But the twenty-five years? The bitterness over the loss? How do you go on? “I never gave up hope,” he said. Hope is a good thing. Andy Dufresne sure knew what he was talking about.

            On a sweltering July day in 1863, Joshua Chamberlain looked over all that remained of his bloodied Maine regiment. Only one of six men remained standing. They were out of ammunition. All day they had fought, barely holding their line against a succession of enemy attacks. They could not stop another onslaught. Nothing stood between his line and his army’s rear. His battered regiment was the right flank of the union line. There was no reason to go on. No hope of success. But hope is a funny thing. Sometimes it just takes a step forward. Chamberlain ordered his men to fix bayonets; and they followed; on the order they charged down the hill into the advancing army; and the tide turned and the men from Maine prevailed; and the union was saved.

            I don’t know what the Governor will do. In less than a week his term ends. The new Governor will take his oath of office on Saturday ending the McDonnell administration. And Governor McDonnell? He faces his own legal problems. The Washington Post recently reported that the Governor’s private attorneys met with Justice Department prosecutors to delay his indictment on influence peddling and improper receipt of gifts until after his term expires. And I’ve wandered the past few weeks if in his time alone the Governor ever said to himself “I wish I’d handled things differently.” Or “I’m a good man who made a mess of things. I just need a fresh start.” I wonder if he has had his epiphany yet, his revelation that there are consequences to our actions and we have to face those consequences – “man up” – and then move forward with integrity and honor.

            I don’t know if I’m getting out early. I do know I have hope and hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing. Hope a lot of times is all we have left when we lose everything else. But, hope never dies. As long as you hope, you are on the road to triumph. It doesn’t matter if you’re in prison, or poverty, or just in pain. Hope keeps you going.

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.