All These Questions

I have all these questions that keep popping up every time I hear some politician comment on the need for "get tough" policies that keep folks incarcerated for long stretches.

Here I go:

1. What’s the real cost for locking someone up? Yeah, I know you claim it costs $27,000+ a year to keep someone behind bars; but that person also isn't working and paying taxes; and, if that person has kids, chances are that child is living under the poverty level and getting government aid; even worse, that child's likelihood of ending up in here dramatically increases. So, what is the real cost to society?
   
   
2. You talk a lot about Virginia's low recidivism rate, yet every independent study conducted on state recidivism rates always notes that Virginia's approach to collection is different from the rest of the countries. And, as low as it is, it hasn't changed a bit since parole was abolished back in 1994. It's still a little below 30%. The difference is, back in '94 there were 9500 inmates; today there are about 40,000. And today, Virginia spends over $1.1 billion on corrections even though there isn't a whole lot of correcting going on. Programs for drug and alcohol treatment are a joke. Mental health treatment largely consists of high doses of antipsychotic meds. Safety? Go to a higher level and see the number of stabbings, rapes, assaults. Drugs are everywhere in the system; officers and staff are walked off every day for fraternizing with offenders. No one is held accountable--wardens and security chiefs keep their jobs; money gets flushed every day. There is no one who is held responsible. Rules--such as daily schedules and policies--are routinely ignored by the officers while offenders are nitpicked over silly housing policies which breeds further contempt and distrust. We always hear how low the recidivism rate is; yet most adult offenders started out in the Virginia juvenile system-- how effective is the Department of Corrections really?
   

3. Why is it that DOC signed a consent order and settled a class action law suit brought by 5 women at Fluvanna over the poor medical care in the system, yet the same problems that existed there exist at every facility and still DOC fails to take control over the medical care? Hepatitis C positive inmates are daily denied access to treatment; injuries requiring surgery are put off; specialist’s orders are ignored by contract doctors who know that their private company's profit margin will only exist if treatment is denied. And still, DOC does not comply with the order of the Federal Court.
   
   
4. How much does GTL, Keefe, and the other corrections- industrial corporations spend on lobbying Virginia politicians to keep their contracts in place and how much does Virginia receive as "commissions" under those contracts? How much does Virginia spend each year in legal fees and expenses when DOC loses cases for violations of inmate rights?
   
   
5. Why do states--mostly under the control of Republicans--that have implemented prison reform with early release show better results in their DOC's than Virginia?
   

Yeah, I have a lot of questions I'd love to ask those in charge. Problem is, they don't want to discuss the issues, nor do they want to come out here and see what takes place behind bars. But hey, all I've got is time. So every fight, every OD, every wasted dollar, I write down. And one of these days, someone will listen. Prisons are needed; but the way things operate in Virginia does nothing to alleviate crime, nor prevent a person from coming back. And the sad fact is, most in here have neither the education, the job skills, or the hope to make it on the outside without changes. 

Education, Not Incarceration

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN FEBRUARY, 2015.

 

            “Every dollar spent on prison education saves five dollars in corrections expenditures.” That was the conclusion drawn in a 2014 released meta-analysis study conducted by the Rand Corporation. Sentencing a person to prison does more to undermine one’s employability than any other factor. Is it any wonder 65% of released offenders re-offend within 3 years. Inmates are twice as likely to lack a high school education as the general population.

            In the words of Vivian D. Nixon, Executive director of College and Community fellowship in New York,

            “Every felony conviction … quite literally results in a life sentence.”

            Education – and only education breaks the cycle of repeat offenses. Earn a bachelor’s degree in prison and the recidivism rate drops to 5.6%. Earn a master’s and the rate is less than 1%. No less a conservative spokesman than former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich said the following:

            “Prisoners should be provided free education in order to reduce crime and recidivism.”

            And yet education – particularly higher-educated – is the red-headed stepchild of the prison system. At this facility every man in our college program pays his own way – tuition – the same rate charged to students on the street. No other inmates in Virginia pay for the “privilege” of improving their chances for success on the street. Not even one state dollar is invested in the college program here, yet millions annually go into “re-entry” programs with no provable record of success. The commonwealth spent millions on a “software” package – “Compass,” a 120 plus question/survey to determine an offenders risk of re-offending. Meanwhile a nationally recognized program for offenders our “Campus within Walls” program is treated with both benign neglect and outright contempt by those in charge here.

            The “dedicated housing unit,” a dorm specifically mandated for use by college participants, is the fullest building on the compound. While bed space sits empty in every other building here, those in charge continue to use beds in this building as a dumping zone. Recent surveys of our students indicated the noise and distractions from the non-college residents are the single greatest impediment to success in class.

            Makes you wonder, or maybe it doesn’t. Education, a college education, is the ticket out. What does that tell you about the goals of those in charge?

            It is time for the Department of Corrections to get behind the one program that will reduce recidivism and that will give these men a fighting chance of success after release.

 

It’s Hamlet for God’s Sake!

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN FEBRUARY, 2015.

 

            Hamlet, one of William Shakespeare’s great tragedies, is being taught in the college British Literature class this semester. Hamlet, for those who don’t know, is the story of a young prince. He’s away at college living it up when he’s visited by a ghost. The ghost tells him, “Your Uncle has murdered your father – the King – and has taken his crown. And, he’s doing your mom. You hear me Hamlet, this guy’s taken your legacy and is screwing your mom. Go home and settle the score.” So Hamlet goes home, only he doesn’t “take care of business.” He dithers and dawdles and people die. At the end, everyone is dead, the crown is empty and a Danish king strolls in and takes the kingdom. The themes, the tragedy that is Hamlet, are as old as man. Perhaps that’s why this – and so many other Shakespearian dramas – still flourish. They speak to the failing that is the human experience.

            The instructor is a wonderful woman who speaks with a Southside Virginia twang. Her knowledge of British literature is astounding! She’s forgotten more than I could possibly learn. Add to that, she’s a Dickens’ groupie. I love Dickens’ novel Bleak House. It is an indictment of the British legal system. I first read it in law school and have reread it another three or four times. The students – all whom have experienced the real workings of our justice system – rip and tear through Dickens’ fictitious Jarndice v. Jarndice Chancery case. Literature - themes about the human condition and life – real life – is presented and discussed and learning takes place.

            But this isn’t about British authors. No, this is about the policies present at facilities like this to stunt – or even stop – learning. I once thought it was out of ignorance that policies were mistakenly in place which effectively interfere with education. As I watch – and daily live in here – taking in the sheer stupidity of procedures that harm the education of inmates, I have concluded it’s deliberate. Ignorant, uneducated released felons come back. That keeps places like this is business.

            Hamlet. To get books, movies, or school supplies in here almost takes an act of Congress. Weeks before classes begin instructors have to send lists of “materials” they wish to bring in. The British Lit books – five separate texts plus six videos/DVDs were dropped off “up front” to be “examined.” Who does the examining? An “operations” director who has never read Shakespeare, or Dickens, or Hardy. Three or four days later the materials make their way to the school with a cursory email sent from the security chief (another “senior” staff member who lacks a college education). “All materials are permitted,” he writes.

            Hamlet is approved, only the books are on order. So the British lit instructor brings them with her (and a copy of the email from security) when she shows up to teach. “Can’t bring them back without operations OK.” Three more days and Hamlet sits up front, Hamlet for God’s sake, one of the great works of literature, while everyone waits on the operations manager to “complete her review.”

            And it isn’t just Hamlet. The biology instructor can’t get non-alcohol based lens wipes in to clean microscope lenses and slides. She wasn’t allowed to bring Gatorade in for use with a DNA experiment even though officers buy Gatorade in the visitation room.

            Worse, try coming in here to teach. Try being a minister or lawyer arranging a “special” visit. Citizens – taxpayers – are subjected to demeaning treatment and disrespect. A college professor regularly has to wait to gain access to the facility – even though they know she’s coming out here at that time – because the “check in” CO is on lunch break.

            “Why does the college need its own building?” That was the “housing manager” overheard recently. This guy takes pay from education aides who are tutoring in the buildings while making sure his re-entry elders get full pay. Chief of Security? He regularly tells staff how much he can’t stand the college program – forget how all the men in college pay their own way (name any other DOC program where men pay “street prices” for a program? There isn’t any.)

            How can this happen? How can the people paid by the taxpayers to rehabilitate and release offenders back to society to live as law-abiding citizens be so openly hostile to the single best deterrent to recidivism – higher education? Perhaps someone should ask DOC Director Harold Clarke.

            Harold Clarke’s hiring to run Virginia DOC came with great public fanfare back in 2010. Mr. Clarke spoke candidly about his Christian faith. Back then, I took Mr. Clarke at his word. I wrote and asked him – as a Christian, what kind of DOC Director would Jesus be? Five years later, I can tell you my understanding of the Savior is He wouldn’t run this place like Mr. Clarke does.

            And the politicians who continue to rubber stamp DOC budget requests – how do they continue to do the same thing over and over without even leaving Richmond for a day and seeing what they are paying for?

            “The Buck Stops Here.” Virginia needs you, Harry Truman. It’s time to hold those in charge of this broken, incompetent, bias system accountable.

            One last thing: it’s Hamlet, for God’s sake. I have been told – off the record – on more than one occasion to “be careful. They read what you write.” And, I think back to a day in August 2009 in a sweltering, roach infested receiving cell. My cellie – 24 years old and with a 70 IQ, doing 76 years for murder. He had threatened to kill me that day because in his eyes, I’d done the unthinkable: I stood for count.

            He said to me that day, “You think you is better than me.” I said no, “I think, no I know, I’m better than this place.” And I stood there and thought if I’m going to die, it’s better to go out as a decent man. I remember Atticus Finch’s words in “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

            “Before I can live with other folks, I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rules is a person’s conscience.”

            It’s Hamlet, for God’s sake! And, it’s time for DOC to give a damn about education and truth.

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.

           

 

Another “Lost” Week” (PT 1 Is this any way to Run Things?)

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 2014.

 

            As I write this we are still on “modified” lock. Starting Monday morning we went on “lock” for our twice annual compound search. As I’ve written before, these sweeps accomplish little. Sure the COs find extra sneakers and t-shirts. They grab CDs still in the possession of men who traded in CD players for the newly available MP3 players. Shirts, sneakers, and CDs; yet, the drugs remain. Lockdowns are a waste of money and time here. They wear officers out, they piss off the population, and they stop all education programs. They are an exercise in futility and driven by the ego of the security chief. But why would he care about the effectiveness of the lock? Responsibility (“the buck stops here,”) doesn’t apply in DOC for managing a facility. Who cares about another lost week? You should.

            It costs approximately $27 million per year to operate this level “2” facility. And, like everything else in the Department of Corrections, there are operating procedures that govern how a prison is run. “Inmate.com,” the rumor mill that is inmate life, will tell you every prison has lockdown twice each year. And, long-term guys, those who’ve spent time at the higher levels, will remind newbies of “real” lockdowns where you’re confined to your cell with one five minute shower every fourth day. The officers sweep in, enter your cell, then handcuff you. All your personal belongings are dumped on the cell floor. Your bunk is stripped, sheets and blankets thrown in a corner. The COs paw all your stuff then uncuff you and slam your cell door shut. That’s a real lock down.

            Here it’s lay around and wait, wait until the ten to twenty regular shift COs come to our building with counselors in tow. A short walk to the gym then back to the building, twenty or so guys at a time, and “voila” in an hour and a half we’re done. That’s it – an hour and a half. The officers are tired. See, budgets being what they are, they can’t bring in reinforcements to move through in a precise manner. No, they go to “6” – kitchen workers, then “1” –  factory guys (funny how they never miss work, even on lock), then the drag begins.

            What do they take out of the buildings? Nothing but trash and extra clothes. They finish all the other buildings by Wednesday afternoon. We’re done, right? Wrong. For the rest of the week we sit in the buildings. There is no school, no “re-entry” programs (maybe that’s a good thing!). No AA or NA or sex offender treatment. “Ball courts” open on Thursday for three hours; same thing Friday.

            Collage program. We have the academic counselor scheduled to be here and meet with guys for their January semester. Memo goes to “the Major” a month ago reminding him of the college schedule. But, shake downs take priority – even when (1) they aren’t required by policy/procedure (they are routinely waived at other level 2 facilities) and (2) they interfere with education (the number “1” program that breaks the cycle of recidivism). Education doesn’t matter, follow phony procedure even when you don’t have to.

            So Thursday at lunch they give us fried chicken – “chicken on the bone.” Why not? Feed them – and the COs – a little something better and it – hopefully – makes you forget what a waste all this is; a waste in time, money, and lives. Hey, at least the Major got to run his lockdown!

J'accuse

In 1894 after the disastrous defeat of their army in the Franco Prussian War, the French looked for a scapegoat. They found one in the guise of a Jewish military officer named Alfred Dreyfus. After a trial of seemingly vague evidence and anti-Semitic references concluded, Dreyfus was found guilty of treason and sent to Devils Island.

That was not the end of the story, however, because the truth always wills out. French writer Emile Zola risked his own financial success, his reputation, and his very freedom to publish an essay, "J’accuse" in which he took the French military to task for lying to the citizens about Dreyfus. Demand grew in the public and Dreyfus, on retrial, was released.

Today, the same thing goes on in Virginia's corrections gulag and it's high time the public knows the truth. While the director of the department signs letters urging the Federal Dept. of Justice to fund college programs to teach technology to inmates in prison, his security chiefs have investigators tell students they can't participate in the very activities the programs being funded require.

Case in point: we have ten hand-picked students taking an IT certification class requiring 96 hours of prep time before the exam. If these men are successful, more opportunities will arise. Part of the program is to get inside a computer box and see how it works, where all the parts fit, what goes with what. What has been security's reaction here? They swoop in and tell the men "no." Ironic isn't it. At the notorious San Quentin prison, men are training as code writers and are even being hired by outside companies at real wage levels while still behind bars; here, the only job security that men are working toward is bathroom cleaning.

The chief of security here is a political hack. I hate to be blunt, but he is not qualified for the post. He doesn't believe in the "mission" of DOC (at least the published mission); he disrespects the men--dehumanizes them at every chance; he lacks both the intellectual background and "people skills" to successfully manage his staff and the offender population. His officers suffer from low morale; the inmates despise him; and, things get worse. How is he in this job? Good question. The answer, I believe is that no one is paying attention.  DOC wastes money.

"J'accuse." Zola understood that it is too easy for those in power to make up excuses to explain their failure. DOC spends over $1.2 billion each year of Virginia taxpayer money yet the Commonwealth isn't made any safe. Worse, what goes on inside actually leads to more crime--men and women released are likely to return--RECIDIVISM-- after a stay in a prison. Why? Because prison robs an individual of his or her dignity; it makes you institutionalized; it breaks down your empathy, your humanity.

There is no relationship between what they tell you goes on with "corrections" and what actually occurs. DOC talks big about "re-entry" but in reality the reentry program is a joke. They spend millions on programs that don't prepare anyone for return to society with layer upon layer of administration. The re-entry coordinator here is inept and not to be trusted. The really good counselors and staff are leaving, pursuing other opportunities because this place is a swamp of ignorance, despair, and failure.

What works? Education... a college education. You want to make a difference, Governor McAuliffe--start letting low custody offenders out and push education, spend money on college and post-secondary technical training, and for the love of God, make the people you put in charge responsible for ensuring that those programs are carried out. Don't let inept, politically appointed 'Majors" hide behind "security" to avoid getting men and women educated and trained.

"J'accuse." I'm sure a number of folks thought the blog was over. I hadn't posted anything new in almost 2 months. During that time, folks in charge here--folks like investigators who monitor what I write--spoke to me about my writings. I'm sure people thought I'd given up. No, the manager of the blog was moving. She's now settled and I'm back! My goal has always been to write the truth ad let things fall where they may.

I recently read Bernard Kerik's memoir of his fall from NYC police commissioner on 9/11 to federal inmate. The most eye opening part of Kerik's story was he saw the same things I see and write about daily. Our prison system is corrupt, it is morally and financially bankrupt and it is time for courageous politicians to step up. "J'accuse." If Emile Zola could do it, then so can I. The truth matters; the truth will be known.

Each week I will give you insight into this life and the issues that affect the lives of the men in here and their families. You may not always like what I write, but you'll know it's the truth.

The First Casualty

            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.

Major Misinformation

I expect to hear stupid things everyday around here. It goes with the territory. Part of dealing with prison life is learning that the majority of men – and women – behind bars are not the most well versed. Simply put, much of what I consider common, ordinary knowledge – facts and figures and basics of geography, history, language, that I assume everyone knows – isn’t known by most of the men inside. And not knowing breeds problems. Prisons run on misinformation, whether it be rumors, conspiracy theories or worse, falsehoods. And, you learn to live with it; with some difficulty, you ignore it.

            Yeah, you ignore it. At first, I didn’t. I couldn’t. When I would hear an inmate spout as “fact” some ridiculous statement about the power of the Virginia Governor to change, en masse, sentences, I’d explain how the Virginia constitution delineates powers. Usually the response, mumbled of course, would be “fuckin guy thinks he knows everything.”

            Even worse are the race conversations. Black or white, these guys splintered off into prison-built “religions” – spout segregation-themed words. “Blacks are ______.” Or “Whites are _____.” The only commonality is their misogynistic rants and their utter lack of any factual support for their views. And, I use to argue with those knuckleheads. Not anymore. It just isn’t worth the effort.

            But stupid people in prison isn’t what this is about. As bad as that is, I understand it. After all with over 50% of those behind bars lacking a high school diploma, you expect men not to know. What really bothers me is when those responsible for the system perpetuate falsehoods. That is a major problem. And, that is what is going on in here.

            There is a disconnect between what DOC says it’s trying to accomplish inside and what those in charge actually do. For example, DOC says, “90% of those behind bars will return to their communities.” True. And they say, the goal of prison should be not merely to punish those offenders but to prepare them to “successfully reintegrate into the community.” Fancy terms like “healing environment” are tossed around at places like this. Posters are up in chow halls and buildings promoting this facility as a “healing environment.”

            Then there are the re-entry programs: the “cognitive communities,” the classes called “breaking barriers,” “Thinking for a change,” and “Productive citizenship;” beautiful titles and goals. It is all a façade.

            This compound has a chief of Security – a Major, who is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the facility. Forget the fact that there is more drug use, more fights, more gang activity, than before his arrival (perhaps that is because so many in the population are young, short sentence offenders sent here solely to go through “re-entry,” this hot-shot, relatively young Major said the other day – when shown the summer college schedule – “Great more free education for these guys.”

            An educator then told him 1. Most of the men don’t go for “free” (veterans earned education benefits through service; other students are now paying a percentage of the cost); and 2. Higher education is the single best reducer of recidivism. Do you know what our security chief then said? He said, “No, it’s not.” Hey Major Einstein, yes it is.

            Fact, Major – education, primarily college education is the only factor that significantly effects recidivism rates. So, he’s flat out wrong. More troubling – if the ignorance exhibited by the guy in charge can be more troubling – is that his incorrect assumption is shared by a large portion of those who work here. In some ways, that’s understandable. Their livelihood depends on a steady supply of inmates. Less returning inmates means less prisons. Fewer prisons mean fewer jobs for Unit Managers, counselors and Majors.

            But there’s a more insidious problem. Folks like the major miss what Senator Elizabeth Warren calls “the notion that we are all in this together.” See, the Major – and a whole lot of other people working here – see offenders as “thems.” “Those guys” break the law and expect a free education while “we” pay for all of it. The problem with that logic is, there isn’t a “we” and a “they.” There’s an “us.”

            Some of the “thems” the major refers to – they’re young guys, vets of the Afghan and Iraq wars. They have diagnosed PTSD; they were given too many prescriptions and not enough help. They’re young guys who fought for this country while “we” sat on our asses post 9-11 and hung out flags.

            Here’s the thing, the shortsighted mistake guys like the Major make. Treat people like “thems” and they’ll stay “thems.” And “thems” get bitter, and don’t care; “thems” don’t feel connected to what binds “we’s” in society. That’s what education does – it makes you feel connected; it gives you a purpose. And, if you have a purpose, if you feel connected, chances are pretty certain you won’t reoffend.

            Mexican novelist Juan Villoro said it best, “Criminal acts can be redeemed, but nothing can save us from mediocrity.”

            Mediocrity; that’s what’s taught and expected most times in prison. And it all begins with major misinformation.