Heroin 2014

The news channel devoted hours the other day to analysis (or what rubber-necking at an accident scene is now deemed as analysis) of the overdose death of forty-six year-old, academy award winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. Given that entertainment news dominates our collective psyche (“Did you hear the latest on Justin Bieber?”) it didn’t surprise me that within minutes of his body being discovered, syringe still protruding from an arm vein, hand-wringing, pretty blond newscasters read dozens of tweets from equally distraught celebrities lamenting the loss.

            I don’t mean to sound callous but why does an actor deserve such mournful attention when our prisons, our cemeteries, are full of thousands of junkies: heroin, crystal meth, molly, crack? Why do we only care when it’s a morbidly obese, multiple failure at rehab celeb who happens to be in some movies we watch?

            I knew nothing about heroin use until I watched a young black man detox at the jail. As I’ve described in numerous blogs and short stories, I have never seen anyone sicker. I came away from watching that young man violently retch and lose bowel control realizing every pre-conceived notion I had about drug abuse was absolute bullshit.

            It isn’t about willpower; you can’t just “walk away.” Heroin, crystal meth, and the others invade your mind, poison your psyche, and enslave your body. You develop a junkie mentality. I see it here every day. It’s easy to spot, guys who will hustle for anything, sell anything, lie, cheat, gamble, steal, anything for a nasty “roll up” (a rolled cigarette) or a pill from the med unit. Guys literally sell their souls for spice (synthetic weed), let alone crack or heroin. The junkie life: dirty, disorganized, bad teeth, bad health, bad futures.

            Three bunks down from me is Cal. He’s twenty-two with a baby-face who doesn’t look old enough to shave. He’s a polite kid, comes from a family that raised him “the right way,” with “good old” middle class American values. He’s been in three years with little more than a year to go. And, he was strung out on heroin. That’s right, Cal was a junkie. See, drugs don’t know race, economic status, or your kid’s GPA. We make all these assumptions about drug use and they are almost always wrong.

            I live around guys in their twenties whose teeth are rotted out from crystal meth use. Most of them are redneck white kids looking “to get high.” Their arms are covered in tats to hide the scars where they used to pick apart their skin while strung out. I live around crack heads, black guys in their forties, fifties, and older who can’t remember their kids’ names but can still name the guys who’ll sell them dime rocks. Their brains are fried; they are incapable of retaining anything new. And, I live around needle junkies who have Hep C and worse, all a result of shooting up poison.

            That’s prison. Philip Seymour Hoffman had a name, and money, and fame. He didn’t go to prison. He sat in his apartment on the East Side and shot up and died. And people mourn him. No one mourns the millions living on the edge doing the same thing. They go to prison, not rehab. They get out and die and no one at CNN gives a shit.

            Heroin doesn’t care if you win an academy award. Neither should we. I’ve seen enough of the results of our nation’s drug war in here to know we don’t have a clue about any of this stuff. And the only time we seem to care is when some celebrity dies.

Two Reentry Tales

This is the story of two different reentry experiences.  These are real men who did their sentence, “completed their bids”, and returned to society.  The conclusion, “how should we handle reentry?” will be apparent.  It’s a shame the politicians don’t see it.

Ten months ago “Wolf” left Lunenburg.  Barely thirty, Wolf was completing his third prison sentence, all centered around his drug use and his quest to find money to support his habit.  And it wasn’t one drug with Wolfe.  Though he used crack regularly, he also had a taste for ecstasy, crystal meth and just about anything else he could get his hands on.

Wolf lived with his mom.  He couldn’t hold down work.  How could you when you spend your daylight hours passed out and your nights chasing a high?  He was barely literate having never completed his GED.  He’d be forced into a class for a month or two, quit, lose “good time” for a year and then repeat the cycle.  But what does good time matter when you’re only doing 36 months and you’re going home to the same life?

I met Wolf through Big S.  Big S had gotten him enrolled in a vocational program.  “You need job skills Wolf, a trade”, Big S would tell him.  Wolf, just a big, goofy looking white man-child would just shrug his shoulders.

He had artistic talent and was considered one of the best tattoo men on the compound.  But, could you trust him to do your tattoo?  He let a guy tat him up and didn’t even notice that his name was on backward (“Flow” instead of “Wolf”).

No education, no job skills, Wolf resided in 3B, the “transition” dorm.  When he was in there they hadn’t completely instituted Governor Bob’s reentry regimen, the touchy feely “therapeutic community” program where guys are paid to be “cheer managers” and “word of the day managers”.  What, you may ask does that have to do with returning to society as a productive, rehabilitated citizen?  Only Governor Bob knows.  But, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he built the program knowing it would fail, just so he could say “I tried, but nothing will change these guys.”

Some people did care about Wolf.  The vocational instructor gave him the name of a man who owned a lumber yard in a rural county not far from Richmond.  “He’ll hire felons.  Just go see him and promise me you’ll work hard.”  And of course, Big S tried to keep him on the right path in here.  “You only get so many chances Wolf,” he’d tell him.

Wolf completed “transition”, was released and went home to live with mom.  He even got a job at the lumberyard.  So far, so good.  But drug addiction is an insidious devil.  And a ten week, feel good “drugs are bad” program put on by DOC and administered by one of their “treatment counselors” is doomed to fail.  Want a new oxymoron to toss around besides “jumbo shrimp”?  Try “prison counselor”. 

For nine months, Wolf kept his job and functioned.  He wasn’t drug free, just on the days he was urine tested by his probation officer.  Urine tests, drug treatment, costs money.  But prison costs more.  So why does Governor Bob – and all his predecessors – spend over $25,000 per year to keep a man locked up, but only $2,000 per year to ensure he succeeds?

Around Christmas the lumberyard told Wolf they were letting him go.  The economy was tough.  Wolf’s source of funds for his habit dried up.  Within a month the Richmond morning news had Wolf’s mug shot on air.  He broke into an elderly woman’s home, beat her, forced her to drive to an ATM and give him money.  He then pulled off to the side of the road and put her out, returned to her house and set it on fire.  A short while later, he was arrested, still driving her car.

Wolf is facing six felony counts.  Every guy in here knows Wolf will probably never see the streets again.  He’ll pull thirty, forty years maybe even life.  And, every reasonable thinking guy in here knows every time a released inmate reoffends it makes it that much tougher on the rest of us still doing time.  Recidivism, you see, plays to society’s base fears and prejudices.  “Inmates are vicious beasts, incapable of rehabilitation.  They aren’t like law abiding folks.”

As I have noted numerous times in this blog, the Governor’s reentry program, the very mission the Department of Corrections espouses, is doomed to failure because it addresses the wrong core issues.  Drug and alcohol abuse issues are not treated in prison.  Mental illness is even worse off.  And Mitt Romney and all the other political pundits are wrong when they tell you there’s “a safety net”.  Folks, the safety net has a huge hole in it.  You take people from broken homes, with parents having limited schooling, limited resources, you have them live in poor neighborhoods with inadequate housing, schools and access to medical care; and they pour through the huge holes in the safety net.  We have a society where there is a caste system with millions and millions of folks who don’t have a shot at “the American Dream”.  Instead, they cycle in and out of prison, feeding a corrupt system that lines the pockets of a select few while sapping $60 billion annually from the nation’s coffers.  And the politicians return to the same tired programs (Governor Bob’s reentry program is the same “therapeutic plan” used and discarded by DOC in the ‘80’s and the ‘90’s because it proved ineffective).

A nation that accepts 2 ½ million people behind bars, a nation that accepts 15% of its citizens living below the poverty line, is a nation on the cusp of collapse.  There has to be a better way, a saner way.  There has to be a way to break the cycle. 

Is it hopeless?  No.  Because as badly conceived as Governor McDonnell’s reentry program is, some good, some success is happening here.

Five men who’ve been educated under the IT grant program have been released over the last five months.  All five, with the daily help and encouragement of staff at Goodwill Industries, have found stable employment.  All five have residences that they are paying rent on.

Sure it’s so soon after they left.  But the key is they worked for a goal in here.  They believed education and community support would give them a second chance.  And isn’t that what “corrections” is supposed to be about?  Over 90% of the incarcerated are going to go home.  Society could shorten sentences and prison by prison set up programs like the “campus behind walls” community we’ve built here.  Let us earn our way out.  Inmates don’t need fancy brochures touting “reentry”.  Sorry Governor Bob.  What inmates need is education and a chance to succeed.  Do that and they’ll be less stories like Wolf’s. 

40 - An Introduction

One of the eye-opening moments of my jail stay occurred when a young man was brought into the pod late one Thursday evening.  He was going through heroin withdrawal.  I had never been around someone addicted to drugs.  Oh, I’d seen my fair share of middle-aged women – wives of friends – who would be given prescriptions for anti-depressants by the town GP.  But a drug addict?  Never.

I’d always assumed drug addiction was a product of lack of willpower.  Drugs, I believed, were merely emotionally addictive.  Then, I was arrested.  I saw young men strung out from powder and crack cocaine, crystal meth and heroin.  I saw guys who’d willingly sniffed formaldehyde (undertaker chemicals are popular these days).  I realized I knew so little about so much.

The young man addicted to heroin stuck with me.  I frankly had never seen anyone as physically ill as he was as his body reacted to the loss of heroin in his blood stream.  He was, quite simply, a mess.  He would lose bowel control and vomit anytime he ate even the slightest amount.  He shivered nonstop and was soaked in sweat.  The jail placed him on a cot in the middle of the pod day room with a bucket.  No one would tolerate him in a cell.  There was no special soft diet available.  He at the same slop we did:  rotten potatoes, brown gravy, ground low grade chicken, white bread.  The food was difficult to digest and only served to worsen this young man’s illness.

I watched this kid suffer and I would go and sit with him and talk to him.  No one, I knew, deserved what he was going through.  That young man altered my views on drug addiction and a host of other issues.

I write a fair amount.  “40” is one of a handful of short stories I’ve written. It’s loosely based on my meeting that young heroin addict.  Like all my stores, the germ of the story comes from something I’ve experienced or been told, but its still fiction.  Like most fiction, there more truth in this story than any nonfiction I could write.

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.

Opening Day and More

Thursday was Opening Day for this year’s baseball season. It was also my older son’s 23rd birthday. Opening Day was always a big deal to my sons and me. I love baseball and turned them into fans. Every year on Opening Day, I’d pick my sons up early from school. We’d grill bratwurst, make burgers, popcorn, nachos, you name it and watch games on ESPN. At some point in the afternoon we’d head outside for a game of catch. During the late afternoon seventh inning stretch, we’d get up and stretch. My kids looked forward to Opening Day almost as much as I did.



I love baseball. I think on the seventh day when God rested, He actually planned the game out. It is a perfect game, mathematically precise, statistically in-depth, artistically beautiful. It is a game played by men who remember when they were boys. Opening Day symbolizes hope. It’s a new season and anyone can win.


Thursday, as the first pitch was being thrown out, Opie was called to medical. Two weeks ago he had been hospitalized for three days with a severe respiratory infection. He came back to the building about ten pounds lighter and weaker, but after a few days of rec and weights, he looked back to normal. Opie’s a big, muscular, healthy kid - 6’1” about 205 lbs. As I’ve written before, he was raised in prison. He’s been in and out of prison (including juvenile detention) since he was ten.


Anyway, he went down to medical not knowing why he’d been called (normally you get a pass the night before). Fifteen minutes later he was back. He had tears in his eyes. Opie is a product of prison. He knows you don’t show emotion in here. This was serious. This was something you don’t hold tears back.


Opie found out he has a serious illness. I’m not putting the disease out there, but it was enough for me to stop and pray for him. The doctor in this dump just told him. No counselor was available. Just, inmate ________, you have ________.


As I sat and prayed about Opie, I thought about my older son. He and Opie are the same age. My son lived a privileged life. He had everything handed to him. He had parents who loved him. He took part in every school opportunity. He saw the world and went to an exclusive four year college that cost close to $200,000.


Opie grew up with a crack addict father in housing projects in Milwaukee. He was the only white kid in his class and was regularly picked on and beaten up. He started committing crimes when he was seven. He’s had more fights than everyone I know on the outside combined.


But, Opie is a sweet kid. What little he has I’ve seen him share it all. I’ve seen this “incorrigible” felon give the last of his food away to a guy he barely knew who was hungry. I don’t know if I would do that. I’m not sure my sons would do that.


I’ve learned through knowing Opie that you can’t be too quick to judge someone else. When you least expect it, humanity is present.


I don’t understand God. Opie has had a lousy life. He doesn’t deserve this. As I said, I don’t understand God. But, I trust Him. Those of us close to him rallied around him. He called his grandmother. He went out in the sun.


I was worried when he first got the news how he’d handle it. I should have known better. As I said earlier, you can’t be too quick to judge.


This morning E decided to get his back tattoo done. A few days ago he went into the other building to get the outline done. Two nights ago another guy was busted in the wrong building getting his back tattoo.


E spent the morning in 4B getting his work done. After noon count, he went back. He got caught. They packed E up and sent him to the hole. He’ll be there a minimum of five days.


What did the tattoo cost? $325. It will also cost E his job as a maintenance employee. He may be thrown out of college (you can’t stay in college with a conviction).


Big S and I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen. He has half a Chinese dragon on his back. He lost money. He’s probably lost his job and maybe lost his schooling.


I miss Opening Day with my boys. I’ll never forget the start of this baseball season.

All About Race

This is an uncomfortable issue for me to write about. It’s all about race, black and white. In my other life, my “on the street” life I had a good number of opinions about race issues. Growing up, our family only knew one black couple in our church. I still recall my mom commenting on more than one occasion “they are such a credit to their race”. Even at a young age I knew my mom’s comment was ignorant and wrong.



By the time I became the company’s in-house claims attorney, I had the most black employees working for me of any manager: five women. They’d come to my house for outings. I thought I was “color-blind”.


Yet, our family had no black friends. My wife, for all her liberal leanings, had no black professors working with her. Our church was all white, our friends the same.


Our kids were somewhat different. The schools they went to – Prince Edward County Public Schools – were part of the four consolidated cases that made up the historic Brown v Board of Education decision. Virginia’s history of school integration is as clouded as it’s handling of criminal justice and prisons. Rather than integrating the schools, Virginia politicians instituted a policy called “massive resistance”. Public school systems shut down. White children attended newly opened private academies. Black kids were deprived of school. An entire generation of black children failed to be educated.


As a result the Prince Edward schools were majority black. Our sons had black kids in every class, every grade. And, in another unfortunate twist, many of the black families in Southside Virginia, besides being under-educated, are also under-employed and poor.


After I was arrested, I learned rather quickly what it meant to be a minority. At the jail and here at prison, whites account for only about 30% of the inmate population. Blacks make up the vast majority of the men incarcerated here as well as the staff that works here.


I used to think blacks just needed to “get over it” – the whole “I’m a victim of slavery” mentality that seemed to me to permeate the black community. “Work hard; get an education, quit bitchin. You’ve got great opportunities. Get over it.”


I was wrong. I have gotten to know a large number of black men in this prison experience. A fair number I am fairly close to. I count them as friends. Almost my entire creative writing class is black. To a man, when they open themselves up, there is a self-hatred, a feeling of alienation that comes from their perception of being less than equal. It is a feeling that is generational and is a direct result of this nation’s abysmal record of dealing with blacks.


Whites don’t get it. But, for blacks there is no escaping the fact that they were brought here in chains and were deemed chattel, not persons.


White liberals, in their quest to show they “get it”, end up being condescending. Conservatives don’t even attempt to think race has anything to do with class status, crime, employment.


Fact is, America is hung up on race, whites and blacks don’t talk the same, think the same. There’s a funny song in the musical “Avenue Q” called “Everybody’s a little bit racist”. The sad truth is, it’s true.


Blacks are suspicious of whites. Whites suspicious of blacks. On the “street”, whites are in charge. In prison, blacks control and they take a good deal of frustration out on whites. As one of my students told me:


“You’d get a pass at a higher level ‘cause you’re a lawyer, but other white guys get their asses kicked.”


I sit in class and listen as guys describe childhood experiences. “My you are dark.” I’ve come to empathize with their comments about the police and the courts. As one guy in class told me after hearing about my experience with the detective and the judge: “Welcome to our world. You just became an honorary black man.”


I don’t think I’m responsible for slavery. But I know I have to be open to understand exactly what the slave experience has meant to black Americans. And, I have to be willing to call it as I see it. You start a sentence with “I’m not racist, but . . .” you are racist.


Everyone has prejudices, preconceived notions of how people act, how they are. We’ve all got to learn to see people, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.


The sad truth is, blacks are disproportionately ill treated in the criminal justice system. Crack cocaine convictions are predominately a black crime. Until recently sentences for crack cocaine were significantly greater than for powder cocaine (a “white” crime). Child porn sentencing (another white crime) carries lesser sentences than crack.


I’ve been made an “honorary” black both in jail and prison after guys heard and read about my case. It’s taken that experience and hearing the stories these guys tell to know things have to change about race.


We’ve got a long way to go and it starts first with just listening and sympathizing and understanding.