The Sign

Inside this facility – correctional center, re-entry center, prison; the word changes almost weekly with the program emphasis shifting – every building looks the same.  There are six double-sided rectangular “dormitory” buildings and, with the exception of the number stenciled dead center, you can’t tell one from the other.

That’s the way prison is.  It’s about uniformity.  Everyone dresses alike – “blues”, shirts and jeans – and everyone eventually looks alike.  Whether intended or not, prison dehumanizes you.  Your seven digit “state number” matters more than anything.  It’s ironic, isn’t it?  To stop guys from re-offending, recommitting, you have to understand their individual stories.  Instead, they’re all lumped together.  And the failure rate rolls on.

Everything looks the same.  Everything feels the same until…last Thursday.  Thursday morning a huge sign went up on the front of our building.  In burgundy letters on a pure white background, a sign, the logo of the sponsoring Virginia Community College prominently displayed in the upper left corner.  It read:

Southside Virginia Community College

Campus within Walls

Our college dorm had an identity.

The Virginia Secretary of Education is visiting our college program Monday afternoon.  She wants to see what’s going on at Lunenburg.  That’s the reaction you get from government when something actually works.  See, Virginia has contributed exactly $0 to this program.  The idea for this campus came from Southside’s President who, coincidentally, is married to our principal.  These two people have devoted their lives to educating prisoners.  And Dr. and Mrs. C, they understood a college education destroys recidivism.

Dr. C sold this idea to skeptics at DOC and in the Governor’s office.  The state provided no money, no materials, nothing.  In fact, everyday at least one officer would push back against the college idea.  I still remember the day CO Newbill, sitting in the building, heard me conduct an English review class.  He called me over, “You’re wasting your time”, he said.  “These scumbags will be back.”  Simply put, that pissed me off.

And that’s the way things went until the Community College won a Bellwether Award about two months ago.  The Bellwether is the most prestigious award granted community colleges for excellence and innovation in their programs.  Southside won a Bellwether for the “Campus within Walls” initiative.  And then, everyone wanted to jump on board.

Governor McDonnell’s office put out a press release touting the Bellwether and then conveniently tied the program into his re-entry initiative.  The community college has been swamped by community colleges in other states asking “How do we start the same program?”  And Monday, Virginia’s Secretary of Education is coming.  She’s scheduled to participate in the computer class I assist.  

After that, there will be pictures in front of the sign:  The Secretary of Education, Dr. and Mrs. C, and the college aides.  Thursday, we had photos taken of us in front of the sign with the Warden, Assistant Warden and unit manager.  Everyone, it seems, wants in on the sign.

Thursday night as I was falling asleep I was trying to figure out what it all meant.  This week marked another birthday I missed of my older son.  I haven’t heard from either of my sons in almost 3 ½ years.  And my ex?  She’s moved on to a new life.  Friends have fallen by the wayside.  In truth, without the hectic schedule of this college program, I think the loneliness and emptiness would overwhelm me.

“What does it mean, God?”  And then I remember Lunenburg wasn’t even on my list of prisons when I was at the receiving unit.  I wasn’t supposed to come here.  Yet, I did.  And two days after my arrival, I was hired as an academic aide in the school.  Thirty days later, I was given permission to start a creative writing class.  Five months later Mrs. C called me in, told me about the grant and asked me to head up the academic aides.

Was it a sign?  Albert Einstein said, “God uses coincidences to remain anonymous.”  Coincidences are nothing more than signs.  And signs matter, sometimes more than we realize. 

Failure and ...

This was a difficult week for me.  There were a fair number of reasons for that.  Some, I’m exploring in a piece I’m writing.  Some, I’m ignoring.  But, in the midst of my personal circumstances there were some issues affecting guys in the program now and one guy who left that made me question if it all matters.

Ms. C let me know late in the week that one of our released graduates (seven have left; four more go in April; four more in May) was back in custody.  “John” went AWOL from Goodwill his second day out.  Within a week he was picked up by police passed out on the side of the road. He was high on crack.  He’d spent less than a week out of here before he fell back into his drug addiction.

When I met John as a student in our program he was almost five years into his fourth trip to prison; thirty-eight years old and four bids.  He’d spent a total of eighteen years locked up, all in three to five year trips.  And it all was because of drugs.  Well, drugs were what he turned to help him deal with the pain of a failed, fractured life.

Four times during his year in school John quit.  “I can’t do this shit”, he’d announce.  Four times I cajoled him, berated him, uplifted him to keep going.  “You can do this”, I’d tell him.  “Show these bastards you can do this.”  And he made it.  At graduation he had no one there.  His family had moved on long before.  He asked to take a picture with me.  In it, he’s grinning.  He told me graduating was his first real accomplishment in life.

Two weeks ago I saw him leaving breakfast.  He was headed for the front gate.  He called out to me.  “I’m getting out.”  But, he didn’t look happy.  No, he looked scared, very scared.  I walked over to him and quietly said, “You can do this, John.  Be strong.  You can do this.”

But, he couldn’t.  And every night I’ve prayed for him just like I do about dozens of other guys in here and people on the outside who have walked away from me.  Drugs, I’ve learned, are terrible, terrible things.  And so is self-loathing.  I turned to my modern language Bible, to the Beatitudes.  It began simply “you’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope….”  I couldn’t help but think of John.

That evening, a young student named “Fifty” came back from English early.  I cornered him as soon as he came in.  “I’m quitting Larry”, he told me.  “I can’t do it.  I got too much on me.”  He then proceeded to tell me that he’d been called to medical that afternoon.  He’d tested positive for TB (the entire compound is tested annually).  When he explained he’d had false positives before, he was told “go on meds for nine months or go to isolation”.

“Fifty, you can’t quit.  Do you know what happens to young, black men who go to prison?  This is your life, Fifty.  College is all that will keep you out of here.”  I was in his face and I was pleading with him.  He put his head down.  “I’m not gonna quit, Larry.  I know I need this.”

DC and Jay heard my conversation.  They both have told me in the past I wear my emotions on my sleeve for these guys.  DC even told me he felt for me being in here.  “Guys like you Larry.  You do things out of love, fear, whatever.  You do them and you know their wrong ad you think you deserve what you get.  You don’t deserve this.”  I hate this place and I hate what it does to so many of these guys.  It’s a vicious cycle and you have to be strong to break out.  John couldn’t.

We had a failure.  Statistically, it’s going to happen.  The men in this program all register high for recidivism.  Many have baggage – drug and alcohol abuse, screwed up family situations, they lack education and job skills.  They’ve been told they don’t matter.  They’re expected to fail.

And in the middle of it is me.  I feel lousy, but they don’t know it.  They see me joking around, laughing, and they think “he’s got it all together”.  They don’t know how I ask God every night to tell me what it means.  They don’t see the failure I see in myself.

So, I pray about John and all the other struggling souls in here.  And I check on Fifty and make sure he’s alright.  And, I remember that no man is a total failure.  Dr. King said, “Every man is somebody because he is a child of God”.  What does it all mean?  I wish I knew.

Goin' to the Dogs

Lunenburg has a unique training program involving homeless dogs and inmates.  Sixteen men and eight dogs reside together in two-man/one dog cells.  An additional 20 men are engaged in classroom studies learning about dog training, grooming, health and the business of dog care.

Lunenburg’s “dog program” produces a rare prison result.  It successfully trains abandoned and discarded dogs for adoption.  The dogs are adopted by families up and down the East Coast.  Almost every month one of the dogs “graduate” and goes home with a family.  I’ve been in the program building when the two men turn their dog over.  I’ve seen the joy in the children’s faces as they pet and admire their new dog.  And, I’ve seen the bittersweet realization on the men’s faces that “their dog” is moving on.

These men live with their dogs.  Every walk – at 5:00 am or 11:00 pm – is their responsibility.  Every day for the six to nine months the animal is with them is devoted to training their dog.  And the dogs?  They are recognized and petted, and played with, and talked to by everyone on the compound.

The dogs bring a sense of normalcy to this place. And ironically, because these dogs are all “throwaways”, animals abandoned, and neglected, and abused who were scooped up by the local Humane Society many times on the verge of death, there is a natural kinship with those in here who also were cast out by society.  The dogs matter to the men in here.  The dogs matter to the families who adopt them.

But the program, no matter how successful, brings controversy.  Victims’ rights groups will frequently ask, “Why are murderers allowed to have pets?”  They fail to realize the rehabilitative benefits from the program, the fact that the men working with the dogs learn responsibility and empathy, that failure to meet the standards set for the program leads to the men’s dismissal from the program and a loss of good time.  And they don’t see that without the dog program these dogs would be euthanized.

So Lunenburg goes to the dogs and as bad as prison is, the “dog days” make it easier to manage.  They may be mutts and throwaways, but so are the dogs.  And if the dogs can be trained and remade into wonderful members of a family, then so can their trainers.

The "F" Word

Words matter.  No doubt about it.  Words paint mental pictures for us.  They can sway our emotions, feeling heartbreak, joy or blinding anger.  Words are important.  And, many times it is the simplest words that carry the most power.  Think of Moses in Exodus, who asked God “who should I say sent me?”  Exodus records God’s simple, yet powerful words, “I am”. 

Hemingway once wrote a six word short story.  You can’t help but be moved by his words, “For sale.  Baby shoes.  Brand new.”  What, we wonder, is the story of the baby?  Why are the shoes for sale?  And our minds suddenly envision a grieving couple looking at an empty crib.  Baby blankets and sleepers and diapers folded neatly on the dresser.  But there is no child.  The baby has died.

Words matter.  Woody Guthrie soulfully singing “This land was made for you and me”.  Bob Dylan hoarsely calling out “The answer is blowin in the wind”.  Dr. King in his soulful, rich baritone calling forth “Free at last.  Free at last.  Thank God Almighty.  Free at last.”  Yes, words matter.

Words can lift up or bring down.  Perhaps that’s why both Solomon and James focused some attention on taming the tongue.  From my own life I know I have a gift for words.  Yet my gift can be a demon.  Too often I have said things in anger, in haste and hurt those near me.  Words are powerful.  Words can create or destroy.

Words.  For the young boy struggling with his sexual identity being called “fag” tears at his soul.  For the young learning disabled girl called “retard” her heart aches.  She feels loneliness and shame.  Words are a sword that cuts and slashes the fabric of our being.

I hear all kinds of words in here.  Each day is a cacophony of expletives.  I’ve heard every imaginable word to describe every race, every ethnicity.  And, I’ve heard words of hope, of longing, of regret, of comfort.

There is one word, the “F” word that matters most to the 2.3 million men and women in America’s prisons.  That word is “Felon” and the stigma and stain it carries does as much as anything to define which released person succeeds or fails.

As Margaret Love, former US Pardon Attorney recently noted,

“Felon is an ugly label that confirms the debased status that accompanies conviction.  It identifies a person as belonging to a class outside many protections of the law, someone who can be freely discriminated against, someone who exists at the margins of society…a legal outlaw and social outcast.  No passage of time,” she says, “or record of good works can erase the mark of Cain.”

Love notes that labeling a person convicted of a crime as a “felon” for life survives even “forgiveness”.  It is, she argues, an unhelpful label for people who have paid their debt to society.  It is also deeply unfair.

Until the late 20^th century prison, criminal justice was seen as a temporary period.  You broke the law, you went to jail.  But, upon your release you returned home.  However, in the last three decades America, under the dual mantras of “war on crime” and “tough on crime” made an industry out of penology.  And the law expanded with literally hundreds and thousands of new crimes created for social behaviors.  Punishment became key and what better way to punish than make a person wear the scarlet “F” for the rest of their life.  As scholar Nora Demleitner has pointed out, using the label “felon” creates a state of internal exile for those wearing the mark.  Today that label applies to more than 20 million Americans.

Labeling those who have paid their debt to society is directly contrary to the expressed goals and efforts to reduce the number of people in prison, and encourage those who are to rehabilitate and then re-enter society as productive citizens.  And, it mocks the myth of America as a land of second chances.

“Felon” arouses a sense of fear and loathing in “law-abiding” citizens.  Who would want to live – or work – with a “felon”?  In Virginia the fact that one is a felon can be used to deny a person employment and access to many grants, loans and benefits programs.  It shouldn’t be that way.  Love correctly argues that it is time to scrap the word “felon” and the equally reprehensible word “offender”.

In Virginia, over 90% of those currently behind bars will be released.  Governor McDonnell has correctly noted that any recidivism is too much recidivism.  He has made re-entry of released prisoners a cornerstone of his administration’s agenda.  But, it is idle words if the stigma of “felon” remains.

Words matter.   So do actions.  It is time to lay to rest “felon” from this nation’s lexicon.

In Black and White

As opposed to most white Americans, I live in an integrated world.  Our “learning community” – the “Campus within Walls” is just over 50% white and just under 50% black.  Those percentages are an anomaly in prison where almost 70% of the inmates are African Americans.  One of the eye opening parts of my prison experience has been coming face to face with my preconceptions, my prejudices, about race. I’ve written about it before.  I live it every day.  I’ve learned quite a bit in four years.  First, that for the vast majority of whites, we haven’t a clue what it means to be black in America.  Second, that the vast majority of Black Americans don’t hate us should come as a pleasant surprise.  And third, that race continues to define and damage this country and will do so until we come to grips with it.

I write this as race again rears its ugly head with the news of the shooting of a 17 year-old black teenager by the name of Trayvon Martin (in Sanford, Florida).  His death was senseless.  That the shooter remains free should concern every parent.  When President Obama – a man I don’t often agree with – said “If I had a son he would look like Trayvon Martin”, he spoke from the heart.  Unfortunately, in America, race matters.  Whether “driving while black” or walking back from a convenient market with skittles and an ice tea “while black” it is tough, sometimes deadly to be black in America.

A few weeks ago during a visit, a relative leaned in and whispered to me “Obama hates white people”.  How do you know that?  I asked, realizing the President’s own mother is white.  “It was on the internet”, came the reply.

And it made me think of my own upbringing.  I grew up in an upper-middle income family in upstate New York who had zero black neighbors or friends.  My high school had one black student.  Our church, a 400 member Presbyterian congregation had one black couple.  I still remember cringing as a middle-schooler in the late ’60’s when my mom remarked once that Shirley “is a credit to her race.”  I wonder what that makes me, now a member of the tribe of felons?

My family moved to Raleigh in the 80’s when I was in law school.  They have no black neighbors, no black friends, no black church families.  They have never voted for a black candidate.  The only contact they have with Black America is when they go to the mall.  And if my mom sees young black men she instinctively clutches her purse and car keys. 

And I wonder, thinking about all that, why no young black man in prison has ever suggested to me “your family hates black people”.  White America, I am convinced, doesn’t understand what it means to be black in this country.

Here are some facts to ponder.  Roughly three out of four black children are born out of wedlock.  60% of all black males between 17 and 25 have a criminal record.  80% of black students don’t go beyond high school.  Four in ten don’t even graduate high school.  The dropout rate, the incarceration rate, the mortality rate, the poverty rate for black Americans is dramatically worse than for the white community. 

Those are just facts.  That doesn’t quantify the number of times blacks are stopped by the police for random pat downs, or the fact that while drug use is proportional in both the black and white communities, a young black caught with drugs will almost always end up in prison.  And the white?  Rehab and probation.

America is not a color-blind society, and it’s a shame, a national shame.  Trayvon Martins lies dead for one simple reason; he was a black teenager walking at night.  I hate saying that, but the truth sometimes isn’t pretty.

Prison is an amalgam of gang bangers, white supremacists, and the rest of us.  I thought when I was first locked up how wasteful and inane the entire gang culture was.  Then, I looked myself in the mirror.  Gangs are a reflection of the sick, pervasive race issues this nation still suffers from.  And it will get worse.  The N.O.I. – Nation of Islam, with their call for race separation and their revisionist history and illogical conclusions passing as “knowledge” grows by leaps and bounds each week behind these walls.  I hear the young black guys discussing their “elements of wisdom” and my heart breaks.  They are being fed falsehood upon falsehood.

Dr. King understood the dangers that lurked for America if we didn’t grasp our race problem.  We are not to judge “by the color of our skin”, but “by the content of our character”.  Those of us who believe in the Gospel of Jesus know well that “in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, free nor slave”.

Trayvon Martin’s tragic death can be a chance for America to be something different, a nation not separated or defined by color.  Surely any parent can feel the pain his family must feel.  And that is as plain as black and white.

Play Ball !

It’s almost Spring.  In here, the seasons are controlled by the equipment on the rec yard.  You always know when summer turns to fall when the rec yard workers come out to install the soccer goals.   Soccer – at this prison anyway – is a fall and winter sport.

And Spring?  Spring arrives the day the yard workers come out on the field, take down those same goals and then drag the infield.  That’s right, just like outside, you know its Spring when you hear the sound of balls pinging off aluminum bats, you see guys playing long toss in the outfield and infield practice begins.  Spring hit last Sunday.  It’s time to play ball.

Our dorm is putting together a softball team – two teams actually.  Because our IT college students (40 guys) have night classes at least two nights a week and our day students (44 guys) have classes at least one night a week, we’ve built two teams.  I’m head coach, a role I’m excited about because I love baseball.  Baseball, you see, always reminds me that there’s hope.  No matter what happened the season before, Spring arrives and you start over.  It’s a new season, a new game, a new chance.

I thought about that the other night as I looked over our list of players:  twenty-two guys spanning the age and “bid time” brackets.  A fair number of our “players” will be heading home at the end of summer, their sentences completed.  For them, this Spring really is a new beginning.

And some of the other guys?  For “old heads” like DC and Saleem – and even Mike, down 19 years (though he’s only 34) – there will be parole hearings.  Those three are still part of the “old law”, pre-1995 when parole existed and inmates could earn “30 for 30”, meaning you only did – usually – 50% of your sentence (assuming you earned good time at the max level).  And they try not to think about the disingenuousness of the current parole board’s practices.  It’s Spring.  They each, deep down, carry hope that they will be part of the select few, 2% last year, who will be paroled.

Me?  This July 1^st I can petition the Governor for a conditional release, converting the rest of my time to supervised probation or house arrest.  And I have hope.  No matter how unlikely it appears, I have to have hope. I have to believe.  After all, it’s Spring.  It’s time to play ball.

The other morning the paper reported that Governor McDonnell was on pace to restore more voting rights to convicted felons than any of his recent predecessors.  The article also noted he granted medical releases to two inmates.  I smiled when I read the short description of the older inmate from Salem who was pardoned after being diagnosed with terminal cancer of the bile duct.  See, that was the inmate whom I helped.  I drafted his petition.  He was able to pass away at home with his family beside him and I was part of that.  It’s Spring and things that didn’t make much sense during those long, cold winter days suddenly make sense.  There’s a reason – and a season – for everything.

A few weeks ago Lent began.  In my old life, my “free” life, I never gave much thought to Lent.  I didn’t “give up” anything.  I just went on as I was.  “AC” – after confinement – I took a different look at Lent.  Renewal, I figured, could come through sacrifice and discipline.  So each Spring (for the past four seasons of Lent) I’ve fasted, meditated and given something I enjoy up.  This year it’s been coffee and chips, my two favorite commissary purchases.

And giving them up has been fairly easy, just like engaging in 36 hour fasts.  It’s because I know Spring is here and Spring brings renewal, hope and life.

Our ball teams are excited about getting the season underway.  It’ll be a nice break from the three-a-day classes the guys have, a chance to get out in the fresh air and run and playball.  And all those things matter in here.  It all matters because time is the most painful part of prison and Spring brings hope and hope eases the pain of time.

Pardon Me

This past week the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported on the number of felons who have had their civil rights restored by Governor McDonnell.  This Governor, it appears, is on pace to exceed rights restoration for felons by his predecessors.  The Governor should be applauded for his efforts.  But, 300,000 Virginians still wear the scarlet letter “F” for felon and are denied their basic right to vote.

This isn’t about civil rights, perhaps it should be.  Suffice it to say, this Nation was founded on a principle that rights derive from God, not man. While society has an absolute right to legislate certain behavior and enforce a code with criminal penalties, Virginia is in the minority of states who do not automatically restore a felon’s civil rights at the conclusion of his (or her) sentence.   That Virginia stands out with such a hostile position on rights restoration is ironic given the Commonwealth’s history as the focal point of this Nation’s democracy and the home to revered figures such as Jefferson and Madison.

But that isn’t the point of this piece.  This is about the lack of political will by Governors to use their power to pardon.  Exercising that power is not without risk.  Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour pardoned 200 present and former inmates on his last day in office and was publicly skewered, mostly by CNN talking head Anderson Cooper.  As an aside, I wonder if Cooper’s continuing interest in Barbour’s pardons is the result of Barbour being a Republican (Anderson said nothing when New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo (Democrat) released thousands to reduce his state’s huge budget deficit).

Barbour acted, as he said, out of a deep sense of “Christian faith” that everyone deserves a second chance.  That sentiment is shared by men such as former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) who coincidentally is also an ordained Baptist Minister.

And the exercise of that power has historically been routinely used by Governors to manage prison populations, correct miscarriages of justice and to make far-reaching statements about our criminal justice system.  Somehow though, as the call for more religion in our society has grown, we have become a Nation using the criminal justice system solely for retribution.  The demand for longer, harsher sentencing, and the public’s indifference to the horrendous conditions in our Nation’s prisons, are completely devoid of the fundamental premises of Christianity which so many politicians and pundits espouse.

No less an authority than United States Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy along with the American Bar Association wisely recommended in 2004 that both the President and Governors “revitalize the clemency process”.  This plea has, it appears, fallen on deaf ears.

Virginia currently has as its Governor, Robert McDonnell, a graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regents University Law School, a school dedicated to the practice of law in keeping with the tenets of Christian faith.  McDonnell, during his election run, routinely spoke about his faith as he courted Evangelical voters.  Throughout his first two years in office he has spoken eloquently about his faith. 

And yet, McDonnell has done virtually nothing to alleviate overcrowding in Virginia’s prisons.  He has done virtually nothing to institute meaningful sentence and prison reform.  Last year he released two terminally ill inmates on conditional release so they could die at home with their families, just two.  Meanwhile, the number of inmates over the age of 50 has grown dramatically.

McDonnell’s parole board releases less than three percent of the inmates who appear before them, an abysmal number.  Inmates are all treated the same regardless of the efforts they show to be remorseful and rehabilitated.

I wonder how differently the growth of Christianity would have been if Jesus, when confronted by the lawyers holding the adulterous woman had said, “Give me the rock.  She broke the law.  She deserves to die.  No mercy.”

But, thankfully for all of us, that isn’t what He said, or did.  He set a high bar – for all of us.  We are called to show mercy.

Governors have that power.  It’s high time they use it.  Prison is supposed to create an atmosphere of rehabilitation and remorse, not a breeding ground for revenge and retribution.  Governor McDonnell can be a leader in the effort to bring real faith into the system.  Pardon me, Governor.  Isn’t that what our faith is all about?