THE REFORMATION OF AMERICAN INCARCERATION; An Inmates Perspective
Méndez sought to tour America's prison system to get a better understanding of its excessive use of this practice. He has yet to be granted access to a single isolation unit by any U.S. prison.
But I have.
INTRO
The Reformation of American Incarceration, an inmate's perspective.
It's Not Like This is New.
There's no shortage of opinions these days—not even when it comes to something as complex and formerly taboo as prison reform. From the masterfully crafted philosophical treatises of antiquity to the late-night drunken posts of the Twitter-sphere, people are talking about prison reform.
Only never like this.
All you have to do is look and you'll find readied articles, posts, and blog entries, Sunday-morning sermons, YouTube documentaries, ill-informed water-cooler talk, and even feature pieces for the 24hr news cycle, on the subject.
The broad strokes are easy to find. They're everywhere. The detailed pieces however are much more rare.
In researching this project I came across plenty of contributors willing to point out the failures of our current criminal justice system, much less were willing to take on the details, and still fewer that actually offered up some solutions to the problems. What I have yet to find is an inside perspective; someone with first hand knowledge of the successes and failures of our prison system; someone willing to wrestle with it all, who starts with questioning the very need for reform, examines the resulting answers, explains the problems, offers in-depth solutions and even lays out the actual mechanisms of reform and what the results would look like.
Not-a-single-one.
It's easy to point out the failures. But I want to know what would you do differently; how would you make things better?
Radio silence.
In this absence I figured I should start writing.
FML.
Upon coming to prison I've repeatedly heard some version of the following: "What are you doing here?..You're not supposed to be here..." They mean it as a compliment, but it's bullshit. They like it to mean that I'm somehow beyond this place, beyond these walls—out of place in the best of ways—but they're wrong. Their perspective is skewed.
I AM supposed to be here.
And I know EXACTLY what I'm doing.
However reluctant I may be, I'm here to add another voice to the cacophony of opinions that have already sounded off on the matter of incarceration in America; to add one of OUR voices to the mix. And regardless of my purpose—perhaps in addition to it—I have no choice but to get this shit off of my chest. My only chance of breathing a little easier is knowing that, whether or not anyone hears these muted cries behind steel doors and razor wire, that at least I said something while I still had breath in my lungs.
THIS is why I'm here.
With that being said, I am no social scientist, no statistician, no professor of law, psychologist, therapist, addiction counselor, behaviorist, or criminologist—or any other type of accredited specialist qualified to write this article.
I am however an experienced inmate serving a twelve-year sentence, for involuntary manslaughter, in the American prison system, with a penchant for subversive writing, delusions of grandeur, and big-picture ideas...
This is what I've learned so far.
THE QUESTION
Morality and Criminal Justice
If we are indeed a nation of laws, a nation that aspires to uphold a just and fair society, then it is our duty to fearlessly and frequently check the moral source of our laws, and resulting consequences. If we discover a spring that has remained pure then we must ensure that no entity, idea, or political movement—popular or otherwise—is allowed to corrupt the systems of justice that flow forth. However, If we discover a spring that has grown contaminated, whether by manipulation, short sightedness, ignorance of the electorate, the leadership, or any other poison that draws us away from a foundation of morality then we, as a society, must pledge to reestablish a more worthy source from which to our justice system flows. For nothing is more important to a society's health and validity than a genuine and upstanding moral foundation.
REFORM
Like many things, self reflection comes down to a question, for which the answer must be sought with honesty and fearless diligence.
The question—the hundred BILLION DOLLAR question—at hand is whether or not our current criminal justice system is in need of reform.
Now I could assume we all agree the answer is yes, and I could skip over this next section. But that would miss the point entirely. The problems we're trying to fix here were allowed to grow in the darkness of unquestioned actions. This article will not be another addition in a long line of false assumptions.
As far as I can tell, a successful modern criminal justice system should be judged by two major criteria, both of which must be met for success to be claimed and reform deemed unnecessary.
1. Is our criminal justice system SUCCESSFULLY and EFFICIENTLY providing the safety and security of its citizens to exercise certain inalienable rights—in our case, set forth in the Bill of Rights—of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?
2. Is our current criminal justice system true to the ideals, moral standing, and virtues this country was founded upon? And if so, can they carry us into the future with the same moral standing that once lifted America up as a beacon for freedom & justice throughout the world? Or, will our current path, left unchanged, lead us into a future again clouded by the shame and regret of the lesser moments of our history, such as the genocide of Native Americans, slavery, JimCrow laws, segregation, the Japanese internment camps of WWII, our lag in the human rights revolution in general, and the popularity of David Hasselhoff?
If the answer to just one of these questions is no, then it proves to be an indictment of a system in need of reform. You can't have safety and security at the cost of humanitarian atrocities and Draconian rule and expect to call it a success. Inversely, you can't have a moral foundation so liberal that it paralyzes a state into a lawless free-for-all without consequence and call IT a win.
ANSWERS
1. Success & Efficiency.
Considering America's "Tough on Crime" mentality this should be the easier of the two qualifiers to prove. But like nearly every question simply worded, it excludes a genuine answer from being anything but simple. The question itself is lacking in specificity. Sure SOME people are provided with the security our criminal justice system is intended to provide, yet still, many OTHERS are not.
It shouldn't surprise you to learn that affluent, predominantly white, areas enjoy some of the lowest crime rates in the country. Ask the members of any exclusive country club and they will likely tell you the prison system's success rate is nearing perfection. Ask the same question in an impoverished neighborhood in DC, or a holler in West Virginia, and you would likely hear that the system is anything BUT successful at providing these basic so-called inalienable rights.
But even if the lower income areas were to somehow miraculously be redeemed into safety by extreme versions of mass incarceration and severe punishments—which they're not—that would only push the problem back, not solve it. For mass incarceration to be viewed as a truly "successful" solution to crime, there is an inherent assumption, that the inalienable rights of the millions of incarcerated American citizens somehow shouldn't factor into the equation, that the failure to protect THEIR rights are not to be added to the scales of success.
Look close enough and the answer to this question is actually rather simple; if millions of citizens must lose their "inalienable rights" to ensure the rights of others then that, my friend, is a system in need of reform.
To gauge efficiency, let's take a look at what our current criminal justice system is costing us.
America spends roughly182 billion dollars annually on criminal justice. Just so you can see the zeros, that's 182,000,000,000 EVERY year. That's $2,400 tax dollars, for every family of four, into the coffers of the current criminal justice system. $600 per person.
There are obviously many differing factors that go into determining the likelihood of criminality. But many would argue, none more so than education. And our leaders know it. Studies show that as quality education rises, crime falls. And inversely, as incarceration rates rise, crime rates often follow. Still, education spending lags far behind funding for incarceration. In over thirty years, from 1980-2013, West Virginia increased its education budget by only 58% while its prison budget has grown 483%, out spending education eight fold. Arizona's education budget grew by 188% while its prison budget ballooned 491%, Colorado 103% in education compared to 513% for incarceration, Oklahoma's difference was 60% 341% and Kentucky did slightly better with 102% to 259%, still more than double the investment into locking people up than educating them as children.
So what are we actually getting in terms of SAFETY for all this spending? Oklahoma and Louisiana have some of the highest incarceration rates, yet still have similar rates of crime in comparison with other states. In addition to the lack of correlation between spending and actual crime rate, is the ineffectiveness of incarceration. A 2005 study revealed that, after serving their sentence, nearly half of all inmates were rearrested within twelve months of their release. Another study showed that, within three years of release, 66% of inmates had reoffended. And given a nine year window the percentage of inmates who reoffend jumped to 80%. Yet instead of rethinking these ineffective policies, like a degenerate gambler, we've consistently doubled down on our efforts.
America's prison population has more than quadrupled since the early eighties. And though it is true that criminals tend not to commit crimes against society while they're incarcerated—mostly because they physically can’t—once they are released they're actually MORE likely to commit increasingly dangerous crimes after serving a prison sentence. Because prison doesn't fix you. It breaks you.
But just for argument's sake—taking into consideration the drop in violent crime since the 80’s—ignoring the numerous statistics pointing away from incarceration and harsh sentencing as reasons for the drop in crime—let’s say that the criminal justice system, when it comes to providing the safety & stability for law abiding citizens is at least somewhat functioning, while being EFFICIENT is clearly an unmitigated failure. In this case we'll say America's prison system is a generous C+, lest I come off as biased (when comparing our crime rate to other western countries, with a similar standard of living, most experts would agree this is indeed a generous mark). Nonetheless a C+ is a passing grade.
And thank god. If it wasn't I wouldn't have a high-school diploma stuffed in a junk drawer
2. Morality And Incarceration
Just a few statistics to be added to the scales of our criminal justice system's morality.
America, the home of the free, has the highest incarceration rate on the planet.
2.3 million American citizens are currently incarcerated.
4.5 million are on probation or parole.
1 in 32 American citizens are under some form of state supervision or incarceration and 2.7 million children have parents currently incarcerated.
More than 10,000 US inmates are serving life sentences for nonviolent offenses.
Roughly 50% of all federal inmates are incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses.
85-90% of those ensnared in the criminal justice system register below the poverty line.
With over 5,000 facilities of incarceration, America has more jails than colleges.
65% of households with an incarcerated family member are unable to meet their basic needs.
With the systematic closing of mental institutions, a considerable percentage of current inmates are mentally Ill. According to a 2017 report for the US Department of Justice 37% of inmates have a history of mental health issues.
These are just a fraction of the quantifiable statistics that point towards the moral failings of our current system. The tip of a terrifyingly deep iceberg.
The problem is, how do you really quantify suffering? How do you put a percentage on the hunger of an inmate who goes to bed without eating because a vindictive CO refused to unlock their door at chow time? How do you make a statistic of an inmate who has his visits permanently revoked because his cellmate had a bottle of spud juice hidden behind the toilet, in HIS designated area of "control"? How do you gauge the level of suffering in the years that pass without a parent seeing their kid, or a kid seeing their parent?
Forget the question of how these injustices could be quantified and, just for a second, ask yourself how they could ever be justified.
These aren't obscure examples. These are real things that I have witnessed or experienced first hand.
At this point, this could turn into a never-ending list of the moral failings I've witnessed since my incarceration, but since it is neither the sole purpose of this article, or entirely necessary, I digress. All we are doing here is determining if our justice system is operating on a morally upstanding ethos. I need only one example of a systematic moral failing to show a need for reform.
No problem.
In 2010 Juan Méndez was appointed as the as the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, degrading, and inhumane treatment by the United Nations. His specific mandate was to "expose and document torture wherever it exists on the plant today."
By 2011, Méndez had already issued a report criticizing the use of solitary confinement as a form of torture. He stated that 22-23 hours a day of isolation for more than fifteen consecutive days can cause permanent, lasting, psychological damage. He also noted that extended and overly-used solitary confinement is particularly severe in the American prison systems.
Méndez then sought to tour American prisons to get a better understanding of the excessive use of this practice. He has yet to be granted access to a single isolation unit by any U.S. prison.
But I have.
I spent years at OAKS, a facility infamous for their disciplinary practices and liberal use of the Hole. HALF of the six housing units were designated segregation units with the sole purpose of isolating inmates for extended periods of time. Because there were so many cells dedicated to solitary confinement, the institution—rather than using the THREAT of isolation to dissuade inmates from committing more serious infractions, with the ultimate goal of the Seg units becoming increasingly empty as the inmates changed their behavior, making the practice of isolation less necessary—the facility, instead, began placing inmates in the hole for relatively minor infractions, just to make use of the facilities. I guess the mentality was, "why have a hole if you're not gonna use it?..even if you have to drum up bullshit reasons."
The minimum stay in the hole, for the lesser infractions was 90 days. Tattoo equipment, substance abuse, disobeying a direct order, or a threatening behavior (which is never a physical altercation and is used as more of a loophole for correction officers to lock up the inmates they "feel" are a problem, or if they simply feel slighted, confronted, or embarrassed by an inmate who also happens to be right.) Segregation is 23 to 24 hours a day on lock down, with no personal property, clothing, commissary items, shavers, TV, or radio. Showers are a brief ten minute affair, three days a week. You're shackled and led down the rock to and from showers in cages wearing nothing but a towel.
And remember, this is the punishment meted out to the inmates who commit the "less serious" disciplinary infractions.
I once saw an inmate pick up a traded cookie from another inmate's tray while in line for lunch. Upon witnessing this egregious act, a CO ordered him to throw out his entire tray and immediately return to his cell. Hunger is a very real struggle in prison. When the inmate explained what he was doing and why he should be allowed to eat, the CO pulled out his taser and ordered him to the ground. He was swarmed by five other COs and promptly disappeared.
It was almost five months before anyone saw him again. If I wasn't so familiar with the physical transformation caused by the hole, I wouldn't have recognized him. He was a gaunt thirty pounds lighter with sunken eyes. He wore the distorted hue that human skin takes on in the complete absence of light. His face was covered in months of unchecked hair. But the most disturbing mark left on the inhabitants of solitary confinement is the thousand-yard stare. It's like the person in front of you is no longer the person you saw disappear into one of the many isolation units.
The mid level infractions would get you laid down (as they say) for longer stretches. A fight, which is nearly unavoidable in here, would most often get you six months to a year. Though a friend of mine did eighteen months in Seg for a rather violent altercation. The more serious infractions could land you in there indefinitely. Another friend of mine, an inmate who was teaching a commutation class I took, served twelve consecutive years in solitary confinement.
As terrible as it is to admit, these are not isolated examples—on the contrary, they are so common that it was difficult for me to decide on just one example of unnecessary isolation to use.
I wonder if Juan Méndez has ever gotten into a prison to see what time in the hole is like. If he did I hope it was at a distance and he was able to maintain his sanity.
If this does not persuade you of a moral failing of our criminal justice system, then I fear your heart has grown so callous, so compartmentalized, that no example would suffice. It remains clear that for justice to be fair, JUST, and moral it must be administered blindly. Hence the depiction of a blindfolded Lady Justice holding her set of scales. It has become impossible to ignore the overwhelming statistics that reveal our justice system is anything BUT blind, that it always has one eye open, and that it is increasingly unjust. When all else is equal, our criminal justice system out prosecutes and out convicts our poorest and darker hued citizens at a staggering rate. This system has deeply ingrained mechanisms that specifically target the poor, such as our cash bail system. Apparently if, while innocent until proven guilty, you're deemed releasable by a judge to await trial so you can maintain employment and take care and provide for your kids, we don't think it's a good idea for you to actually be released unless you have a few thousand dollars of spare cash and collateral lying around to grease the wheels of justice. There is no other way to spin this other than to admit this is a blatant, unashamed, example of outright classicism. How is that moral justice?
And this is to say nothing of the fact that a system that has to incarcerate or monitor 1 in every 32 citizens in the name of safety, must be considered a moral failure by the use of simple arithmetic.
If our myopic analysis, made while weighing the SUCCESS and EFFICIENCY of our current prison system resulted in a passing grade of a C+, then the evaluation of the second aspect of reform, the MORAL success or failure of the same system, could only result in one conclusion:
America's current criminal justice system operates as an unmitigated moral failure on behalf of its citizens, perpetrated upon by it's wards.
So where does that leave us? Moderately passing in one aspect, and miserably failing in the other. We've already established that a passing grade in a single category is no mark of actual success. A Totalitarian Dictatorship and a state of complete ANARCHY would both score stellar marks in one of the two categories. With that in mind, a failure on either side of the coin, moral or otherwise, makes for a worthless token of criminal justice.
Reformation then becomes the only logical solution.
PROBLEMS
It's not enough to simply admit that our current system is in need of reform. Just ask any addict. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. It's a great first step but it's not enough. That's why they have eleven more, pain-in-the-ass, steps to sobriety.
Before entertaining the idea of any solutions, we must first understand the problems they are supposed to address. It is only through a deep understanding of the troubles you wish to conquer that you can gain the vantage point to clearly see solutions.
In an attempt to come to an analytical decision regarding the need for criminal justice reform, we've merely pointed out symptoms of a failing system. Each successive step in laying out the map of reform will grow in importance and as well as complexity as we work towards change—but one thing at a time.
First, if we hope to find a cure, we must get to the deepest underlying disease belying our current system. Like any malady left untreated, an illness can cascade into many symptoms, which makes a swift diagnosis difficult to reach.
Diagnostics
I've spent six years pulling at the strings of every systematic problem I've come across during my incarceration only to consistently—and rather surprisingly—find that they all lead back to a single source. Only recently has this realization, nourished by intense contemplation, grown into the confidence to admit that there was indeed a preemptive root cause from which nearly every preventable problem facing our prison system arises.
Initially, a realization of this magnitude can seem daunting, but look close enough and you'll find the upside. ONE overarching problem, though large in stature, provides the opportunity for ONE overarching solution. This allows us to search for an actual cure rather than just treating the symptoms.
Every time I reverse engineered a problem back through the chains of cause and effect, I would always look up to see it wasn't an evil administrator, lack of money, or corrupt corrections officer that had spawned the issue—not originally. For the first time, I was able to see the preemptive flaw in our system. The entirety of our failures lie firmly in our PUNITIVE APPROACH to criminal justice. Retribution is the poison tainting the well of our justice system. A poison flowing from our preference of punishment over rehabilitation.
Since the inception of our country, our justice system, for all intents and purposes, has been operating on some form of punishment as a mechanism to deal with crime.
Actually, this has been the dominant form of justice for most of recorded history. Although forward thinkers throughout time have long recognized the problems with this approach, these insightful minds were in the minority. As we've evolved culturally, in nearly every area of human rights, science, technology, logic, reason, general knowledge and understanding, America has experienced a stagnation in our evolution of criminal justice to match the rest of the industrialized world.
Now I'm the first to admit that, in an attempt to keep up with popular movements, many of our punitive practices have changed over time—especially as it pertains to the types of punishments. In the case of the Humanist movement in Europe, which saw a sharp decrease in the use of torture as punishment, this evolution was a good thing. On the other hand, in the case of the Tough On Crime, fear-stoking, era of the 1990s, this regression was not such a good thing, as even the architects of the '94 Crime bill now ruefully admit. There are politicians who will tell you that the shift from punitive justice is, or has, already taken place. But this is where theory departs from practice.
Being in prison, I can tell you one thing for sure; Incarceration is NOT about rehabilitation. There are sparse and entirely ineffective programs tossed about here and there. I'm assuming, in an attempt to claim the progress of evolution. But on the ground level there has been no marked difference.
The reform I'm talking about isn't in simply rethinking the methods of transportation. I'm talking about changing the actual destination.
Choices
So what are our choices?
Punitive Justice focuses on punishment as a deterrent to crime.
Rehabilitative Justice focuses on restoring the offender to the degree that criminality is abandoned.
Restorative Justice focuses on the offender-victim relationship in an attempt to repair any damages: monetarily, physically, or emotionally.
The fact that punitive justice is not the most efficient, effective—and definitely not the most humane—form of criminal justice is an understatement that has become increasingly difficult to ignore.
The urge to treat criminality with harsh punishment is understandable on a base instinctual level. Just ask any parent (until very recently) what their preferred method of deterrence is. It wasn't until modern studies revealed that punishment alone, as a tool to curb behavior, is not only ineffective but actually harmful to the development of the child.
It is only through knowledge and insight, guided by logic, that we can overcome these baser instincts as determining factors in our approach to criminal justice. Violence as a teaching mechanism, murder as revenge, stoning adulterers, and pistol duels to protect ones honor, are all real world examples of how placing our lesser instincts ahead of logic and reason can break bad.
Not only does punitive justice not work as a system, many studies show that jailing people without a focus on rehabilitation makes them more likely to commit increasingly serious crimes with the propensity to branch out into new ones. Not to mention the high recidivism rates of inmates who are pushed out with little to no opportunity to become productive members of society.
One only needs to look to a dog trainer, who's job is entirely dependent on the successful curbing of behavior, to understand the failure of our current thought process. Positive reinforcement works, negative reinforcement doesn’t—not in any meaningful way in which the positives outweigh the negatives. You don't beat a dog into a heel position and get to act surprised when it bites someone. You TEACH a dog that a heel position is a positive sum game in which all parties benefit; that a biscuit is better than a beating.
Save your hate mail, I'm allowed to compare inmates to dogs because I am one. An inmate, not a dog. Though it's not too far off from the way we're treated in here.
Until we make the shift from a focus on punitive justice to a more effective and efficient mixture of rehabilitative and restorative justice we will be rendered incapable of any reform worthy of donning the name JUSTICE. Anything else will be band aids for cancer.
All of the other problems flow forward from this one misstep. Each consecutive problem, slightly smaller, leads to still more numerous and still smaller problems, and on and on, until an all encompassing solution seems impossible.
The first two, and largest, issues spawned from our punitive approach are the evil twins off: (1) MASS INCARCERATION and (2) LACK OF RESOURCES. And though they grew in the same womb, mass incarceration was the first to take breath.
MASS INCARCERATION
What inevitably happens with a system focused on punishment, is that our laws are drafted and passed with punishment in mind.
At the legislative level this becomes a scatter-shot, or better-safe-than-sorry, approach to locking people up. Since the avalanche of mass incarceration, which reached a fever pitch with the 94 Crime Act, this has been the modus-operandi of lawmakers. Politicians who let killers, rapists, junkies, and thieves roam the streets don't often get reelected. Politicians who keep a few extra (thousand) people in prison, on the other hand, have little to fear in the form of political backlash.
This politically expedient approach has led to a prison population rivaled by no other nation on the planet. Our prisons are pushed beyond capacity, both physically and financially, due to PUNITIVE policies. The three-strike laws, habitual sentencing guidelines, and mandatory minimums all but guaranteed that we would eventually find ourselves with a severely overpopulated prison system.
The real problem with Mass Incarceration is neglect. When you lock EVERYBODY up, the system is stretched so thin that NOBODY gets the proper attention needed for rehabilitation. Which would be fine (effectively though not morally) if inmates were never released from prison. But mass incarceration cannot abide by indefinite detention of so many inmates. There simply isn't enough money or bed space. And so, when a system that's already pushed beyond capacity is expected to perpetually take in the new inmates demanded by punitive legislation, something has to give. This means that most inmates, far from being rehabilitated, are kicked back out onto the street as soon as they're eligible for parole, regardless of their readiness to return to society.
Statistics show that, in comparison to other westernized countries, we aren't any safer for our practice of mass incarceration. In addition we're out spending every other nation on the planet.
Unless we're willing to reinstitute the death penalty with a medieval fervor, or we some how find the funding, bed space, and utter lack of morality to lock people up for the rest of their lives for minor infractions, then we must move from a system focused on punishment, to one based on genuinely fixing people—not for some moral high ground, or a bleeding heart compassion alone but, at the very least, in a pragmatic attempt to ensure the duties that our elected officials have been elected to uphold are successfully met.
The fact remains that this society we're all a part of, including you, me, and your loved ones, is infinitely safer when people are released from prison in better standing than when they came in, not worse.
Facts.
LACK OF RESOURCES
The latter born twin of Punitive justice goes by differing last names depending on who you ask. "Capital," "funding," "money," or "resources." It's first name, "Lack Of," is always the same.
First comes overcrowding then comes underfunding.
It didn't take long for states with overcrowded prisons to realize that their budgets couldn't keep up. Sure, most politicians did what they could to allocate resources, usually by cutting funding to sectors like education, infrastructure, and social programs. But it's never enough. This is when their lack of "adequate" funding goes from a problem to a crutch. The go-to rally cry, or outright excuse, of every politician facing the results of failing policy and declining poll numbers is a lack of funding and resources.
It's a good excuse. I understand why they use it ad nauseam. At first glance it does seem to come down to money; "If we just had more resources we could solve these problems." But lack of funding isn't the real problem.
Not really.
The REAL problem is where the money is going.
Michigan spends a higher percentage (20%) of its annual budget on its prison system than any other state in the Union (just short of 2 billion dollars) without much to show for it in lowered rates of violence or crime prevention, even when compared to states that spend much less. This is because it's not LACK of funding, it’s the EFFICIENCY of the funding. If a train is on the wrong track, pointed in the wrong direction, no amount of coal heaped into the furnace is going to change the shitty town at the end of the rail that no one wants to visit.
Money becomes a problem when you're using it in ineffective ways. Specifically, when you introduce a population, so massive, that the prison system is crippled into simply housing inmates rather than rehabilitating them. Then money IS a problem. However, more money is not always the solution—not a feasible one anyway. There isn't enough money in any state's budget to successfully address crime using our current technique of simply housing inmates until release—not without neglecting every other civic duty in the meantime.
Left to their own devices, the twin children of punitive justice—mass incarceration and lack of resources—will come together in an incestuous affair to birth the ever-dangerous grandchild called Idle Hands. And you know what they say about idle hands. Though it's rather anticlimactic, apparently, they are the devil's playthings.
IDLE HANDS
Most of the higher ups in prison administration would tell you about all the programming they, not only offer inmates, but actually require them to compete for parole eligibility. Most prison systems have required programming based on the nature of your crime: violence prevention, substance abuse, thinking for a change, GED, and sexual offender class. Which sounds good in theory.
This is what it looks like in practice.
Due to overcrowding, the limited programming they do offer is in such high demand that you can't even be considered for enrollment until you're within 24 months of your ERD (earliest release date). And even then, you can only enroll in the programming courses specifically required in your classification paperwork. There is no space for a motivated inmate with a desire for self improvement to seek out additional programming.
Twenty years of idle hands, warehoused under the negative influences of an inmate-designed prison subculture, is—apparently—supposed to be undone with a six week class on welding or a hundred hours of a violence prevention program taught by a former corrections officer a few months before release.
And if you do manage to get into a class in time for your first parole hearing, the level of commitment and expertise involved in the design and operation of these classes leaves something to be desired. Many classes have to be extended for weeks due to the instructors taking an obscene amount of personal days which just further extends the wait time of the already strained resources. And when they do show up, the classes are basically guided workbook lessons taught by under qualified, apathetic, "instructors" with all the enthusiasm and commitment of a second-rate funeral director.
Offering these programming opportunities in the hopes of actually rehabilitating inmates is like giving a hospice patient, with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, a handful of generic aspirin, a pat on the malnourished ass, and telling them to get well.
I've been down for six plus years and have yet to see the inside of a single classroom that offers any hope for actual rehabilitation. Trust me, it might sound good, in theory, but rehabilitation is not the prerogative of the American prison system. Their actual operating procedure, though you might not find it etched into their mission statement, is to warehouse inmates until release, and to cross their fingers as they're pushed out the door.
Upon incarceration inmates, most of which have never had any structure in their lives, are left to fend for themselves; to choose what to do with their never ending time. To expect anything other than frivolous actions and impulsive decisions is ridiculous. At best, they spend their time reading, working out, playing dominoes, cards, or chess in a state of suspended animation. At worst, the majority of inmates fall into gang culture and other vices (see From Junkies To Gangbangers https://www.notesfromthepen.com ), spending their time embroiled in a mixture of mob mentality, extremely negative peer pressure, violence, theft, addiction, substance abuse, and gambling. Just a few traits we pick up on the inside. With idle-hands syndrome most inmates fall into a state of perpetual regression until it's time to see the parole board.
Considering that an overwhelming percentage of the prison population will one day be released, the practice of simply warehousing inmates is a short-sighted and reckless approach to criminal justice.
PAROLE
The next problematic domino to be toppled by punitive justice, or whatever clunky metaphor tickles your fancy, is the current parole process.
Here in Michigan, a few months prior to your earliest release date (ERD), you will be called in for your parole hearing. Most inmates spend the weeks leading up to this monumental event replaying every little detail of their case, analyzing their institutional record down to the simplest infraction, and painfully, fruitlessly, trying to predict the thoughts of the parole board members who will decide their fate. The approach to a parole hearing is lined with many sleepless nights. When the day finally comes, you'll head over to the control center with ten to twenty other inmates in the exact same shoes. Literally. You'll line up outside the room where the hearing will take place. One by one, each of your fellow clammy-handed inmates will head into the hearing room to plead their case to a total stranger. You'll sit by and watch, hoping your heart won't explode before finally getting your long awaited chance to beg for mercy. As each bewildered inmate returns, their face painted in flop sweat, you'll try to guess their fate based on nothing but their expressions. Finally, you'll be led into the room and sat down in front of a TV with a tiny camera perched above the screen. Here you will find the face of the parole board. The face you will plead to for mercy.
Currently there are over 40,000 inmates in the Michigan prison system, and roughly a dozen parole board members. Each panel is made up of three members but you will only ever speak to the one on screen who will then relay his or her thoughts to the other two members. The idea is that majority rule will decide your fate, but the truth is that the likelihood of the other two going against the recommendation of the Face is highly unlikely.
So there you are with the decider of your fate in front of you, his or her head three times its normal size on the screen, flipping through your pre-sentence (PSI) report with all the interest of someone reading an old newspaper in the waiting room of a dentist's office.
Every inmate gets a PSI report. It covers the crime and ensuing investigation, often written decades earlier by a stranger with the same commitment to veracity as a Russian Twitter troll. My PSI—for instance—says I'm Native American. I'm not. At least I wasn't before I came to prison. However, I WAS sentenced in a county where most of the brown people ARE Native American. And seeing as I'm part Korean, I guess it was close enough. Since coming to prison I've tried numerous times to correct this blatant, and slightly racist, mistake. I have been repeatedly told there is nothing that can be done, as if the PSI was etched in stone and laying next to the ten Commandments in the lost Arc of the Covenant. The only two sources of information the parole board members take into consideration, when determining your parole, is your PSI and your institutional record. Neither of which are exactly gospel.
The oversized head on the screen will then spend fifteen to twenty perfunctory minutes asking you questions that he or she already knows the answers to—or at least what the PSI is telling them. The one rule of parole hearings is to NEVER, EVER, contradict your PSI. If they ask me if I am Native American I will have to, if I expect to get a parole, agree. I just hope they don't ask me what tribe I'm from. The PSI never told me that. After your allotted time you will be dismissed with an ambiguous comment about your crime, your institutional record, and whatever you should keep doing, or cease doing. You will then have to wait a stressful indefinite amount of time before receiving the decision in the mail.
This is your run-of-the-mill Michigan parole hearing.
Just think about that for a second. An inmate comes to prison at 18 years old. He does over a decade behind bars. And without any frame of reference as to who he actually was when he came in, we expect parole board members to determine if his subtle and meaningful evolution, if the shift in his thinking, in his understanding, in his compassion and self awareness, is genuine. In the time it takes to check your email they're expected to decide if the inmate on the screen in front of them has undergone genuine rehabilitation or if they've just mastered the art of a fifteen-minute deception.
This process is not the fault of the individual parole board members. It's just another resulting flaw of the current system. The board members are undoubtedly overwhelmed with the sheer number of inmates and equally underwhelmed with the options they have at their disposal.
These are by no means the only problems facing our criminal justice system. They are just some of the larger issues that cascade down through the prison system. Thankfully, other writers with more expertise, experience, and general resources than yours truly, have addressed many of the disasters I've been forced to omit in the name of crafting a (somewhat) readable piece, of reasonable length.
Cheers to those writers.
SOLUTIONS
I'll be the first to admit that pointing out problems is the easy part of change. Solutions, they're a little more difficult. Any halfwitted jackass at your local pub can give you a three hour dissertation on the problems of the NFL's ever-softening concussion rules, or how the local plumbers union is actually run by a satanic sect of the Illuminati, and why that's a bad thing. Ask these barflies for reasonable concussion protocol or plumbing-related solutions and, more often than not, you'll be greeted with drooling silence. Make the mistake of asking ME, on the other hand, and I'll give you the ear beating of a lifetime that usually starts with.."Actually I've given it some thought."
Yet Another Disclaimer:
Again, I am by no means claiming to be an expert criminologist, statistician, political scientist, or any other professionally qualified expert in handling the details and minutia of the changes I will be proposing. I don't have access to the resources, research materials, or expertise to fully elaborate on each and every detail that a successful implementation would require. That being said, I stand by these proposals as honest and valuable insights into possible solutions of our current state of criminal justice. These proposals should be viewed as the first chisel strikes to a block of marble, from which a more detailed and realistic depiction can be brought to life by sculptors with the tools and expertise far exceeding my access and abilities.
Being aware that the following proposals would lose credibility if its success was dependent on a budget larger than the current system, I will make my proposals within the current fiscal limitations, or perhaps even lighter.
The final word will be for the economists and accountants. Though I'm half Asian, the complete and comprehensive tabulations are slightly (entirely) beyond my abilities of calculation.
First, a few numbers.
In 2017 the Michigan Department of Corrections reported a prison population of 38,678 inmates with an annual cost of $36,106 per inmate. For the fiscal year of 2017-18 the state allotted $1.95 billion to the MDOC. These are the financial lines between which I will attempt to draw up these reforms.
The most obvious answer for allocating capital would be to simply let a bunch of inmates go. So that's my plan.
Gasp!
Settle down. I'm not talking fast and loose widespread release. But if the ultimate goal is to lower the prison population, then that will eventually mean releasing inmates.
Before you grab your go-bag and retreat to your underground bunker, you should know that it's already happening. It's BEEN happening. Inmates are released from prison everyday. Only, currently, it's done without a genuine attempt at reliably gauging rehabilitation
Now, you can panic.
The way it works is that the prison system has been forced into a Faustian deal in which locking up all these people comes at the cost of a financial inability to keep most inmates past their first or second parole hearing. The terrifying reality is that the decision of who gets released is a rather arbitrary selection process. It has to be. Ready or not, the system simply can't afford to keep inmates incarcerated beyond a certain point.
A wise man once said—a few pages ago—that when you choose to lock up EVERYBODY, you can't afford to truly help ANYBODY.
Now, let's get down to business.
THE SCALE
The first pebble in the avalanche of reform must be a switch from PUNITIVE justice to REHABILITATIVE justice with a RESTORATIVE twist. Fixing people, rather than punishing them, and making amends, if possible, to the victims.
The idea is that maybe we shouldn't define people by the worst moment in their lives. That change is entirely POSSIBLE if you work for it. And that, in understanding the causes of shitty behavior, they can be successfully addressed during incarceration to make sure the inmates we do release are actually ready to reenter society. This switch would open up many avenues of positive change, all of which would be bolstered by the fact that it actually works.
The restorative aspect would also be used to give offenders a better understanding of the up close and personal consequences of their actions, by seeing the results. And to then be guided through the process of restitution, in an attempt to give the victim whatever they need to be made as close to whole as possible. Ideally this would be a healing experience for all involved
We need a better, more reliable, protocol for both rehabilitating, as well as releasing inmates.
To institute these changes we must first learn to differentiate between those who absolutely NEED to be incarcerated, those who are ready for release, or those who would best be served through alternative options. This would both free up the funding, as well as establish a more streamline, moral, and ultimately effective criminal justice system.
The first step would be to undertake a federally funded study, where a panel of psychologists, sociologists, criminalists, behaviorists, addiction specialists, neurologists, social scientists, therapists, family counselors, psychiatrists, and any other pertinent experts would be formed with the primary purpose to design and oversee a comprehensive study on criminal recidivism. Their goal would be to gain a more hearty understanding of the myriad of factors that come together in determining, and reasonably predicting, the success or failure of a released inmate.
Next, the results would be used to create reliable methods for predicting each inmate's chance of recidivism,
This information would then be entered into an algorithm that would also incorporate factors such as—I assume—the nature of crime, level of rehabilitation, mental health, familial and societal support system, meaningful remorse, level of education and any other aspects deemed necessary to make reliable determinations of rehabilitation. Each inmate would then be given a Release Eligibility Score (RES).
These results would then be used to create a graduating scale of rehabilitation.
The purpose of the scale would be two fold: (1) to allocate the funds for reform, by creating a safer mechanism for releasing inmates, thereby significantly lowering the prison population (2) while simultaneously providing the much needed incentive and structure for the genuine rehabilitation of inmates and victim restoration. Both of which would provide a more effective criminal justice structure for a safer, more humane, society.
Adjusting the Scale; a brief aside.
If it sounds like this new scale would be too complex, I should tell you that the MDOC already operates using a scale system of its own (that, and "It's too complex" is the unofficial, all-encompassing, excuse of the MDOC for everything from denying prisoner rights to the reinstatement of Good Time.) The difference is that the current scale is a five tiered security classification scale based on a PUNITIVE approach. It is a perfect example of the ineffective nature of negative reinforcement as the preferred technique of the MDOC.
The individual prisons here are separated by security classifications 1-5, from minimum to super maximum institutions. Level 1 is minimum security, 2 is medium, 3 no longer exists, 4 is maximum, and 5 is super-max.
Inmates are separated into these varying security levels based on two factors: Disciplinary Points and Length of Sentence.
1. Points
Inmates are issued points for disciplinary infractions. A spectrum ranging from assault, to lending & borrowing food, or misuse of state property will result in disciplinary tickets and points being issued. Stack enough points and your security level will be raised, and you will be relocated to a higher security facility This is one of many ways to get from a minimum, to a maximum security prison.
2. Length of prison sentence
This security classification tool is completely baffling. And frankly, it's fucking dumb! If you come to prison with a sentence of seven or more years you automatically go to a level-4 (maximum security) facility until you've either come within seven years of release OR until you've been in prison for at least three years. I came down with a twelve year sentence. I had to stay in maximum security for three years.
It doesn't matter what you do in those three years. You CANNOT earn your way down to a lower level facility. No matter how closely I followed the rules, how much I changed or how many classes I completed, I was not getting out of max until I'd served my three years. The system is shooting itself in the foot. There is absolutely ZERO incentive for inmates to alter their behavior. So most don't. This is the reason level 4s and 5s become self-fulfilling prophecies of chaotic arenas of extreme violence and reckless behavior.
There is this unexplainable, almost mystical, quality to the MDOCs total inability to observe the natural relationship between cause & effect.
The stove is hot; if I touch the stove it will burn me.
As far as the MDOC is concerned these are two entirely unrelated statements. The fact that they're both true is nothing more than coincidence. It is terrifying, confusing, and utterly maddening to watch the administration willfully trigger a cause only to, later, show a genuine disbelief and confusion when the inevitable AFFECT takes place. For their first three years in prison, many inmates are forced into maximum security facilities that are populated by hardened inmates who've EARNED their residency through violence, gang affiliation, and countless other examples of a lack of manageability. Like the inmates in maximum security, the officers at these facilities have also adapted their own demeanor based on the environment and caliber of the inmates they're forced to interact with.
What a beautifully planned recipe for disaster
How the MDOC can both force this experience, and then have the huevos to proclaim innocence and feign ignorance to the causes of the inevitable effects, is ridiculous.
I took this little aside to show that a newly scaled rehabilitative system is not something beyond the limited capabilities of the MDOC's current prison system, when I unwittingly found myself with the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the counterintuitive policies of the current system.
Now where was I?
Right! the rehabilitative scale.
A mockup of a hypothetical scale of rehabilitation:
Tier 1: Release eligible.
Inmates with a RES in the 90-99th percentile. These inmates, the truly reformed, would be eligible for unconditional release, as they if they'd served their maximum sentence. And in addition, after paying their debt to society, their rights would be reinstated.
Tier 2: Parolable release.
Inmates with A RES between 80-90%. They would be eligible for release with similar guidelines for current parolees: employment, reliable housing, no drugs, no guns...etc, and a parole officer to report to. The main difference is that, in the switch from a punitive standpoint, if an inmate violates the conditions of parole (aside from new crimes) the de facto response wouldn't be to reincarnate but to find other methods of compliance.
Tier 3: Conditional Release.
Inmates with a RES of 70-80%. Upon release these inmates would be subjected to stricter guidelines and safety measures, such as the use of electronic tethers, community supervision, frequent drug testing, employment requirements, counseling, community service, curfew, no alcohol consumption... These conditions must be designed as a TEMPORARY tool with reasonable and complete guidelines that, if failed to be met, are not then used as justifications to re-incarcerate.
Tier 4: Low security-level incarceration.
A RES between 60-70%. The inmates on the cusp of working their way to conditional, or unconditional, release, though still incarcerated, would have more access to family and social reentry programs, victim restoration projects, visits, conjugal visits, supervised furlough, AA/NA meetings, anger management, counseling, therapy, intensive training in trade and employment skills, education courses such budgeting and financial responsibility.
Tier 5: General population
RES of 0-59%. The last tier is for the remaining prison population and should be broken down into still smaller sub categories based on their individual Release Eligibility Scores. These subcategories should include extensive programming designed to MOTIVATE inmates, as well as provide them the tools to graduate up the scale, to gain a better understanding of the consequences of their previous actions, all while gaining opportunities and privileges as they ascend the internal levels of this category.
Level C: inmates scoring 40-60%
Level B: inmates scoring 20-40%
Level A: inmates scoring 0-20%
This Scale would make just those inmates in the top three tiers, at the highest 70% of rehabilitation, eligible for release. In order to prevent a flood of newly released inmates, each of the three tiers would be addressed with a predetermined amount of time between the release of inmates—six months to a year, for example—to allow for minimal disruption to society. Over the next few years, in Michigan alone, that would result in roughly 11,600 rehabilitated citizens reintegrated back into society. At a cost of $36,106 per inmate these initial savings would be $418.9 million. Not to mention the incalculable effects of reuniting families...etc
Reallocation Of Funds
Safely lowering the prison population by nearly 12,000 inmates in under three years, and approaching half a billion dollars saved, is a decent start.
Now it’s time to get SOMETHING for our money.
The newly allocated funds should be divided into 3 categories for investment/distribution.
1. Alternatives to incarceration.
With the switch from punitive to rehabilitative justice we can provide alternatives to incarceration for two widespread afflictions, both identified in the DSM, that beg for more compassionate and effective policies: Mental Health and Addiction.
If only 10% of inmates (an extremely conservative number), with a history of substance abuse and related charges, could be better served through intensive inpatient addiction treatment, and another 10% of mentally Ill inmates (again conservative) would be eligible for inpatient psychiatric care as alternatives to incarceration. At 20% of the current prison population that would free up another 7,734 inmates. That's $279.2 million of the state's annual prison budget, more than enough to pay for the construction, personnel, and operation of these alternative facilities.
2. Supervision requirements
This would be the funding needed to add and retrain personnel and provide equipment and service for inmates on conditional release and parole.
3. The institutional changes from punitive justice to rehabilitative justice.
This is the big one. Most of the newly allocated funds would go to providing the resources, programing, and structure for the remaining inmates of tiers 4 & 5, as well as hiring the professionals, experts, and the additional staff. We would also need to retrain the instructors, corrections officers, parole board members, and prison administrators in behavioral modification, sensitivity training, cultural and racial bias, de-escalation techniques, to equip the staff with the ability to implement this new directive.
Rehabilitation in action
The inmates in this reformed prison setting would have their Unit-Parole Counselors (UPCs), caseworkers, psychiatrists, therapists, counselors, teachers and instructors to guide, monitor, and evaluate them. But it would ultimately be up to them to earn their way to freedom through effort and progress. Inmates would be given the tools and assistance to change their lives and to prove that they're ready and capable to be productive members of society.
If, for instance, you came to prison with a ten year sentence and you wanted to sleep all day, gang bang, gamble, fight, and steal, then you could do every single day of your sentence (possibly more). If you wanted to participate in the bare minimum of available classes and programming then you would do a portion of your sentence commiserate with your effort. If, however, you wanted to commit yourself to 10+ hours a day of education, counseling, group therapy, solo therapy, work detail, skill development, job training, communication courses..etc, you would have the ability to reduce your sentence. This new system would be a proactive Rehabilitative Meritocracy.
The way I see it, from the inside looking in, there are a certain percentage of inmates that you could release today with little chance of recidivism (some of which are currently doing life sentences). There are still MANY more that need rehabilitation before being released. And a small minority, maybe 5-10% of inmates who seem to be "unreleasable." Inmates who can, likely, never be released without posing an imminent danger to society. However, if these same inmates ever show the signs of change nothing would keep them from climbing the rehabilitative scale. The goal should then be to get the prison population down to as close to that unreleasable percentage as possible while rehabilitating those who need it.
Every society should aim for the lowest prison population possible while still ensuring a level of safety to its citizens.
After the initial release of the top 30% of inmates, as well as the 20% eligible for alternative treatments (addiction/psychiatric) the rehabilitative scale should then be incorporated into the judicial guidelines for actual sentencing, in order to prevent the immediate return to mass incarceration. The remaining prison population would use the scale, as a ladder, with yearly evaluations to determine their progress. To prevent a system where nearly every inmate is placed on conditional release, with supervision, as soon as they reach the second or third tier, they would be given the option to stay and attempt to further progress until they reach unconditional release, surpassing the lower tiers and avoiding the more stringent guidelines and regulations.
My experience is that the majority of inmates are looking for avenues—but more importantly—tangible reasons, to evolve and progress into better people. It is on us, the electorate, as the mechanism that lifts our leaders into the positions of power, not to stop until we've given them the tools and motivation to do so.
PROGRAMMING
I will keep this section short in saying only that comprehensive overarching programs should be created combining many fields of expertise, presumably based on the original recidivism study, and customized to meet the rehabilitative needs of individual inmates, taking into consideration a variety of factors such as mental health history, criminal history, current criminal case, and social development.
This comprehensive programming, comprising a litany of courses, classes, and groups, would serve as the rungs of the ladder for inmates to ascend the rehabilitative scale towards their release eligibility.
I'll leave it to the experts to create the actual mechanisms in which this aspect of reform will operate. Not that it has stopped me up to this point, but my lack of general knowledge when it comes to the fields such as behavioral science and criminology would undoubtedly make any hypothetical planning or specific ramblings in this area sound under informed at best and outright silly at worst.
Plus I can't do it all you lazy fucks. After all, I'm just a lowly convict.
Parole
The next step would be in creating a more efficient and reliable parole process.
The current practice of perfunctory rubber-stamped parole hearings cannot be allowed to continue. We have to entirely rethink the parole mechanism and redefine the service it provides in this updated system.
We must find a way to give the parole board the time, resources, and ability to gain a more comprehensive, hands-on, understanding of each inmate during their entire incarceration if we expect them to make informed decisions. The parole board, in this new system, would see their responsibilities shift from that of glorified doormen to involved sponsors and advocates for inmates during their incarceration. In addition, certain positions would be created to serve as guides and gatekeepers to lead inmates through the rehabilitative scale.
This comprehensive shift would be impossible with just the dozen or so current members of the parole board. The entire department would need to be expanded, requiring many new positions serving different capacities in the rehabilitative process.
We would need to hire more Parole Board Members (PBM) and create new entirely positions such as Unit Parole Counselors (UPC) who would work in the inmate housing units to serve as a more direct contact with the inmates. (We have unit counselors now, only their job descriptions are very different and seem to be predicated on being constantly annoyed, dismissive, or outright indignant with the inmates they spend their days trying to avoid).
The insight into the progress of rehabilitation would flow upwards through the parole structure, starting with unit officers and the programming professionals: the therapists, psychologists, instructors, and teachers who have daily, in depth, interactions with inmates, up to the UPC, who would forward their recommendations up to the actual parole board members, who would still serve as decision makers in regards to release but also in determining the programming needs of individual inmates.
Nuts & Bolts
In order to build and maintain a meaningful and informed relationship, the UPC would need to meet with each inmate in his caseload at least once a month. In addition, the Board Members should also have at least one annual session with each inmate in their caseload to gauge their progress.
I figure in an eight hour day a UPC could manage five, hour long, inmate sessions, leaving a few hours for paperwork and personal time. That's 100 sessions a month per UPC.
The parole board members would only have to do two annual interviews a day, allowing for more comprehensive sessions.
Even if we were to get the prison population back down to 20,000 inmates, as it was in 1985, we would still need 200 UPCs and an additional 35 parole board members to meet these needs.
Not only would we need to hire significantly more parole board employees, we'd also need to pay them significantly more in order to ensure that enough exceptional, qualified, candidates would seek to fill the positions.
The importance of quality control in this aspect CANNOT be overstated. All it takes is one wrong hire to lead to a system tainted by the abuse of power. It would be a good policy to have the board members check individual UPC recommendations against the broader UPC averages of inmate success graduating up the rehabilitative scale in order to prevent some vindictive or simply misunderstood asshole from refusing to advance deserving inmates. Not quotas, just a safeguard in place to spot anomalies. An institution is only as good as the people comprising it.
Two hundred new UPC hires, at competitive annual salaries of $70,000, come to $14 million dollars a year, and the additional 35 PBMs at an annual salary of $100,000 comes to $3.5 million, for a grand total of $17.5 million dollars a year.
Sounds like a lot.
And it is a lot, depending on what you're spending it on. If it's beer money, then I agree, it's slightly too much. If it's for safe, practical, and effective criminal justice reform, then I'd argue it's more than reasonable. To put it in perspective, these expenditures, in TOTAL, with new hires and increased salaries, would cost less than 1% of the MDOC's current annual budget. A small price to pay for peace of mind and a working system.
One of the biggest benefits of a more manageable prison population is that, in addition to freeing up the resources to pay for these reforms, it would also free up bed space. This would allow the parole board to make actual decisions. If an inmate proves to be too dangerous to be released at the time of their first, second, or twentieth parole hearing, then actually keeping them in prison would now be effectively back on the table with the resources to make it sustainable.
The point is, that the parole board should be genuinely involved throughout an inmate's sentence, not just at the very last moment of their incarceration. That's like telling someone to learn how to swim and leaving them to their own devices for years, with no tutorials, no instructor, not even a pool, and then, just before throwing them into the ocean, asking them if they ever figured out how to tread water.
I haven't thought of everything, but these reforms should be enough to lay down the foundation of a new system based on rehabilitative justice.
There has to be a point where I draw the line. This piece cannot continue forever. And since I'm not doing a life bid, I only have so much time—roughly six years—to get these proposals accepted, hashed out, and put into practice if I want to witness the benefits, or failure, of this maddening need to convey my experience behind bars. Luckily, for you, it's almost over.
PLUGGING THE HOLES
There are a few more things you should know before heading back to the daily grind of life in the free world, and replacing this article with whatever reality show is currently nearing its finale. Plus they're about to call us to chow. Chocolate chip cookies tonight!
Federal Prisons vs State Prisons.
Federal prisons and state prisons are completely separate entities. The recently passed bipartisan prison reforms of the 1st Step Act took place at the federal level—affecting federal inmates and, ONLY, federal inmates. Those reforms do nothing for the inmates in state prisons, where the vast majority of American inmates reside.
This difference is a source of frequent heartbreak for those of us in state prison. Especially those of us in states that are exceedingly behind the curve of effective prison reform, run by politicians who drag their feet as a political practice.
My home state of Michigan currently makes Texas look like a liberal safe haven. That's right, I said gun-toting, everything's-bigger, more inmates-executed-than-any-other-state, Texas.
For meaningful change to spread to the individual states one of two things would have to happen; the passing of federal laws forcing states to adapt reformative prison policies (highly unlikely), or citizens—like YOU—demanding change from their elected officials (only slightly less unlikely. But still infinitely more possible.)
Restorative Justice
There has been a recent push for a switch to restorative justice, and though aspects should undoubtedly be integrated into the rehabilitative reforms of our current criminal justice system, a single minded focus on restorative justice would, I fear, fall short of addressing the comprehensive change we need. Restoration should be one part of rehabilitation while attempting to make reparations, whenever possible, to the victims.
The SOLE focus on the victims of crime, however, is to miss the point. Rehabilitation HAS to take a prominent place in the hierarchy of justice to ensure the benefits of a lowered crime rate and safer societies to produce an outcome with ultimately LESS victims who would need restoration in the first place. This is by no means a dismissal of the benefits of restorative justice. On the contrary, it is an inclusion into the process as an indispensable tool for rehabilitation. I'm simply making the argument of "Yes...and then some" when it comes to the tools at our disposal.
Reality and Perception
It's important that, in my descriptions of the prison experience, I don't perpetuate the narrative that where we are today, when it comes to criminal justice, comes from evil men by evil design.
If only it were that simple.
The roots of our criminal justice system, though misguided, are far from evil and even somewhat understandable when taken in the context in which they were created. The lack of perspective and understanding, the limited knowledge of the fearful men and women, the religious fanatics, the judgmental and injured citizens forged by daily hunger and struggle, and the outright lack of viable alternatives to crime prevention all came together to inform this, now archaic, form of punitive justice. Remember, it wasn't that long ago that we were holding witch trials in this country. The point is, we must not make the mistake of confusing the ignorance of our past as actual EVIL.
If evil does exist in our current criminal justice system it lies not in the ignorance of those men and women who came before us but in those of us NOW who stand aside and do nothing as injustice is perpetuated on a mass scale. Outdated concepts become evil when ignorance becomes understanding, when blindness gives way to sight, and when confusion resolves into clarity, and still nothing is done. Evil isn't in the misguided, unintended, creation that led to a system of oppression; it is in every moment that passes after we finally understand that there is a better way to do things, and still do nothing.
With that being said,
I am not perfect.
GASP!.
Neither is this piece.
Obviously.
There is no realistic way to address every problem in our criminal justice system in a single article—no matter how verbose and drawn out it was originally written—or charismatic the author.
Admittedly, as in any system of change, many of the solutions I have proposed—all of them in fact—carry with them potential flaws. Even as I write this, I can think of details to be worked out before any implementation could take place. No system of change, no matter how necessary, has ever been instituted flawlessly. The end of slavery, desegregation, women's suffrage, and the civil rights movement all had detractors who stoked and exploited the fear of unforeseen problems in their attempt to lobby against change.
It's the mantra of the status quo: accept the flaws we know rather than institute a change we don't.
This cannot be OUR mantra.
I'm OK knowing that perfection has not been drafted between these pages. This isn't about perfection. It's about recognizing the need for change, envisioning the possibilities of a better way, and putting forth the ideas to maybe, one day, get us there.
Let's be honest, the reformation of our criminal justice system will not lead us into a thousand-year utopia with us spinning through rolling green fields to the Sound of Music. Change isn't to be undertaken for the SAKE of perfection, it's to be undertaken in the DIRECTION of perfection. Which starts with incremental steps towards a better future.
There will still be crime. And there will still be the need for mechanisms to deal with crime. The fact remains that, for the foreseeable future, some form of institutional segregation will be necessary. What is UNNECESSARY is the way in which we currently operate these mechanisms. Our knowledge, understanding, and insight into the factors leading to crime, as well as the rehabilitative techniques leading away from crime, has outgrown our techniques for dealing with crime. And so it is time to abandon this practice in place of something more compassionate, more efficient, more EFFECTIVE, and yes...MORE better!
That's all this is; the first few clumsy chisel marks on a slab of marble containing the criminal justice system we ALL deserve. It might not be pretty, it's definitely not done, but hopefully it will help you imagine the sculpture within.
In any case, I'm finally done! To never again broach the subject of prison reform, to never again opine on the theories of criminal justice..I'm finally FREE!.. Right?...oh please tell me I'm right...
Now before you get back to binge watching the Bachelor or that next level of Candy Crush: Call To Action
This is the only article of its kind. Trust me, I looked everywhere for an excuse not to have to write it. While the rest of the prison yard swirled around me, I actively avoided gang fights, crooked COs, stabbing-happy convicts, buck-fifties artists, spud juice enemas, and ladyboys with large hands—or I at least cut back a bit—while I wrote what this.
It all essentially comes down to this: What, as a society, are we willing to accept? And at what cost? You have to ask yourself what it is you're willing to give up for an illusory sense of safety? Cash, votes, your fellow citizens...your moral integrity? How willing are you watching your money build prisons rather than fix schools? How willing are you to turn a blind eye to injustice as long as it's not happening to you? How willing are you to accept ideas because they're more comfortable than the truth? How willing are you to accept fuckery until it happens to you? How long are you willing to wait to do something?
Until it’s too late?
And if you are willing to give all this up for a false sense of security, then I have to ask: What are you willing to sacrifice for a system that actually works? A system that can provide security without bankrupting the budget, bankrupting our self respect, or losing on our humanity? Maybe it's not so much what we are willing to sacrifice but what we’re willing to have taken from us.
There is a better way—there has to be—we just have to make it happen.
The terrifying part is that NONE of this shit matters if we can't get the attention of those in the position to institute change.
If you've ever felt the NEED to fight against injustice, to help those who can't help themselves, or if you're just tired of politicians who won't stop taking your money under the guise of protection but, in reality, could care less about you as long as they can "count on your support," if you've ever given money to help a shivering puppy or malnourished cat but have stopped short of helping the actual people from your community, NOW is the time.
I don't want your credit card number.
We don't need your money.
We need your VOICE.
Please, spread, share, retweet, link, promote, do whatever it takes to make this thing go APE-SHIT viral—because it HAS to, and because we can't wait any longer! Write, text, email, snail mail, call, blog, drop a message in a bottle, or a smoke signal to everyone you know, your local representatives, morning radio DJs, Instagram models, any and all Kardashians, CNN anchors, Van Jones, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, Johnny Depp, the ghost of Tom Joad, the fucking President (or one of his kids), Bill Maher, the editors of Rolling Stone, Playboy, the New York Times, the Washington Post, your local newspaper, and any magazine, celebrity, or website who will post, rerun, or share this piece and let's FINALLY do SOMETHING.
I like to think of myself as somehow above leaning on other people's quotes to end a piece, but considering the source, and the fact that there's simply no better way to put it, I'll swallow my remaining pride and simply say that MLK, a man much better than me, once said, "Injustice ANYWHERE is a threat to justice EVERYWHERE."
This is from those of us in the darkest corners of ANYWHERE. One last plea for justice EVERYWHERE.
'Till next time, if there is a next time, remember to appreciate the small things. Now stand up and FIGHT!
Your friendly neighborhood convict..Now I gotta go, it's chocolate chip cookie night. Hugs & Kisses....Robert Caldwell
Please help share this important message. Listed below are just a few people who are committed to prison reform.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer Twitter: @GovWhitmer FB: @gretchenwhitmer Office: 517-373-3400 Website:https://www.michigan.gov/whitmer/0,9309,7-387-90498_90663---,00.html
Michigan Department Of Corrections: https://www.michigan.gov/corrections/0,4551,7-119-68921-269692--,00.html
John Legend Twitter: @johnlegend
Meek Mills Twitter: @MeekMill
Van Jones Twitter: @VanJones68
Bill Maher Twitter: @billmaher
Jay-Z Twitter: Mr. Carter @S_C_
Michael Moore Twitter: @MMFlint
Geraldine Sealey (The Marshall Project) Twitter: @geraldinesealey
Contact info for Robert Caldwell: Twitter: @notesfromthepen
FB: Notes From The Pen
Further prison reform pieces written by Robert Caldwell: Good Time, Killers Monsters and Regular People Everywhere, From Junkies to Gangbangers, and Slavery. https://www.notesfromthepen.com
