Aeschylus, the great Greek
Philosopher, wrote, “Truth is the first casualty of war.” (words to think about
as our nation begins yet another military action). In truth, “truth” is the
first casualty of all our follies: broken/failed relationships; dishonesty in
business and government; failure in corrections. So often, it is easier to lie
and distort and to imprison the truth from the light of day than to admit our
failures – and the active role we play in them.
The Virginia Department of
Corrections, a behemoth of money and manpower, is broken. That’s the truth. It
is as clear as the blue sky on a crisp fall day. Yet, the politicians in
Richmond won’t say it because to do so would be to admit that a few have gotten
rich off contracts and sweetheart deals; that corruption permeates the
departments core; and that prison neither makes society safer nor rehabilitates
the offenders it holds. DOC is a failure of monumental proportions. And, when
cast into the light of truth, when exposed for what it really is, you can see
the waste in money and lives.
1.
There
is no statistical correlation between harsh sentencing and crime rates, between
abolishment of parole and recidivism. Crime rates have nothing to do with,
“tough on crime” sentencing. In fact, in states where there is more liberal use
of alternative sentencing (i.e. not prison) and community-based corrections
(i.e. parole and probation) crime rates have dropped significantly more than in
Virginia.
2.
All
harsh sentencing does is sends more people to prison, for longer sentences, at
greatly increasing cost. It doesn’t make Virginia any safer. Worse, in “people
issues” it actually harms communities. Harsh sentencing creates an attitude of
victimization among many offenders. You send a small-time drug user or
nonviolent larceny convict to prison and he (or she) is subjected to violence,
humiliation, and arbitrary behavior on the part of some guards, and you create
an angry inmate, a person who believes he is being treated unfairly.
There are over 100,000
children in Virginia who have a parent in prison. Statistically, those children
are less well off economically and have lower education levels. They also are
more likely to find themselves on the wrong side of the law. There is a
generational component to prison. You send a father to prison and there is a
statistically significant likelihood that one of his children will end up there
as well.
3.
Corrections
uses sweetheart contracts to prison/industrial corporations which, in turn, pay
huge dollars to Virginia lobbyists and candidates’ campaigns in even sweeter
deals. The state outsources major portions of its corrections apparatus at ever
increasing cost to the taxpayers with worse oversight and results.
For
example, DOC no longer provides medical care for the incarcerated. That process
has been contracted out to medical companies who are paid millions of dollars
for “primary” care of inmates. If specialists are needed, those costs are still
paid by taxpayers. Forget the moral argument, namely should government be able
to take a person’s liberty away by incarceration, then outsource that function;
instead, look at the pure dollars and cents. It costs the state more to have
private contractors provide medical care than to do it itself.
These contracts are all big dollar
and add to the huge, billion dollar plus expenditures DOC makes every year.
They also lead to multitudes of lawsuits, which the state must defend.
Medical care in prison is poor at
best. There is no “Hippocratic Oath” (“do no harm”) at play in here. No, it’s
“churn and burn” to make a buck. Then, when the lawsuits begin to mount, the
contractor bails out. Think I’m kidding? Ask the women inmates at Fluvanna who
successfully sued in a class action suit over the lack of adequate medical
care.
4.
Prisons
– individually and as a totality – are corrupt. They say it’s all about public
safety; they lie. The public isn’t safer with nearly 40,000 people jammed into
Virginia’s prisons. Every day in here lives are wasted. The state spends
millions to just sit and watch; there’s no rehabilitation or re-entry (real,
meaningful programs that actually matter). Over half of all offenders lack high
school diplomas and basic job skills yet those programs – talked about all day
long in here – aren’t stressed or adequately funded.
Some
may argue, “Prison is about punishment not rehabilitation.” Fair enough. Then
make the punishment fit the crime. Don’t run violent, drug and gang-filled
facilities where corrupt officers bring in the drugs or look the other way at
cases of sexual assault or stabbings and say that is the result of those locked
up. No, you take a man’s – or woman’s – freedom, you bear responsibility for
them. DOC has not been required to be responsible for those in its custody.
5.
Economic
realities: Most of Virginia’s prisons are in rural counties. The prisons become
the only significant employer in those areas. Do you ever see a private
employer decide to build in Lunenburg, or Mecklenburg, or Buckingham, or
Brunswick because the state puts a prison there? No. And what happens in those
communities when the prison closes? Nothing but economic despair.
Prisons in those rural
counties are a con job run on the locals. They think the state is “investing”
in their economic future. They aren’t. Those counties, like the men and women
housed in their prisons, have lousy schools and poor job opportunities. Those
counties are economically as shackled and imprisoned as those behind the wire.
Truth is a casualty. It is
time for an honest discussion about Virginia’s prison system. Lives – both
inside and outside the walls – are being lost; money is being wasted. The truth
is, one day inside here tells you things are not as those in Richmond want you
to believe. The politicians, and the senior people at DOC won’t tell you the
truth because it will cost them money. But, as another “philosopher” once said,
“the love of money is the root of all evil.” Money drives prison policy; it’s
corrupt money that destroys lives. That is the truth.
