WEAK MEAT STRONG EAT

Corey has been at Lompoc Camp now for over a year, having arrived there the first of May 2012. For the most part it has been an uneventful year, other than his graduating from the RDAP for which we were all grateful. It was a tough and stressful program but he made it through. The years prior, at Taft, had become a tight rope act, wondering each and every day IF someone would push him off. If he’d get a call out or be written up and sent to SHU again for something, anything, no matter how petty or minor, but mostly because a prison cop was having a bad day. Just getting on the wrong side of a guard and his fragile ego, can make you vulnerable to the whims of his day.

But like I say, the past 13 months have been calm and free of ‘incidents’. Not that I ever relax in this system, but my daily check ins, via email, with Corey, where we share our days events, help with just knowing he’s “good”, for today at least. Well, all was well UNTIL last week that is, when out of nowhere a ‘cop’ (guard) walks into Unit A’s housing barrack and proceeds to open up all the lockers in the small section Corey has his bunk, tossing everything on the floor. The barrack consists of one large room filled to capacity with open bunks, sleeps maybe 150 men, and has two separate and smaller ‘rooms’ that contain maybe 20 bunk beds within the main room. It may sound more private in these smaller rooms- within- a- room, but its not, the men live elbow to elbow in the small space.

That particular day, the cop on the beat walks in, opening all the lockers in Coreys small shared room, and starts throwing all the contents onto the floor. He tells my son and anyone watching to ‘get the hell out’, he doesn’t want to be watched. In due time Corey is called to the cops office where all his commissary- purchased tins of tuna are stacked on the cops desk. The guard accuses him of running a “meat store”… meaning with so many cans of tuna he must be selling it. Truth be told, and my son explained to the guard, that he’s been buying and saving the tins of tuna from commissary for the last few months of his sentence, now coming up, to begin his heavy duty protein diet just prior to release. He had receipts for everything. After the cop called in the Lieutenant, and they checked off the tuna to the receipts, Corey was let go, along with his meats. He was told he "was lucky", as he was just $5 under his limit. The guard btw, had also taken his plastic cooking ‘pots” (for the microwave) but did not return those, and when Corey asked for them was simply told “get the f*ck out”. He will have to purchase more cooking containers, taking away from the food allowance he has on Commissary. But, it is what it is, such is the life in prison.
This is the type of thing that a prisoner lives with every day. Being subject to the daily changing whims and attitudes of the prison staff. Thankfully Corey kept all his receipts, he learned early never leave anything to chance, be accountable at all times.

We visited last Saturday, and while there in the visitation room greeted a buddy of his we’ve come to know a little bit, who also had a visitor that day. The greeting was simply a wave as an inmate is not allowed to visit/chat with anyone other than his designated visitor. Well, that evening I received an email from Corey, as I usually do every night, in which he mentioned his buddy had been sent to the SHU. Apparently right after visitation his buddy had sought out an area of the common grounds where he had some peace and quiet, an area normally open to the men for meditation, but it was half an hour past the designated hours the area is ‘open’ to the men. Mind you, its simply a small outdoor garden area, out in plain sight. Unfortunately the same cop who had sacked all the lockers looking for contraband last week, was passing by and clearly, still having a bad week…or two or three … wrote him up a ‘shot’ for being out of bounds, punishment being a trip to the SHU (solitary). Sure enough, a few hours later the ‘paddy wagon’ came to drive him over the SHU unit (located in the Low Security Prison, adjacent to the Camp. It all sounds so pathetic and petty to me, that there are these cops, charged with overseeing these prisoners, that feel the need to punish above and beyone what is already punishment enough… the total loss of freedom, the total loss of all privacy and being torn asunder from communities and loved ones. Power truly does corrupt, and as Rod and I watched the Cloud Atlas last nite, I was haunted by a repeated theme throughout the film … “Weak meat, strong eat” meaning the weak are meat for the strong. It's a Chinese (and Japanese) saying. Sometimes it is even translated as "Survival of the fittest"!

A friend, Michael Santos, once said part of his strategy of surviving 25 years in federal prison was to always remember to "be like a submarine, stay submerged and keep your radar up.” 16 weeks and counting, release day can’t come soon enough.

Julie on Justice: End the Love Affair‏

June 2012
There are a lot of reasons I oppose mandatory sentencing policies. I hate that they take sentencing power away from the judge -- who is supposed to be neutral -- and give it to the prosecutor, who is far from neutral. I hate that mandatory sentences, in their rigidity, ignore complex human behavior in favor of formulaic "justice" (if X then Y). And I hate that so many Americans have accepted this overly simplistic system of punishment for violations of just about any law.

But what probably bothers me the most is that mandatory sentences are so very long -- usually unnecessarily long. In the federal courts, sentences of five, ten, and 20 years without parole are routine. Over 2,000 people in federal prison have been sentenced to die there for their drug law violations. It's no wonder that no one bats an eye at a 10-year prison sentence when there are nonviolent offenders serving life.

But that doesn't make it right.

Two decades ago, the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons was asked at a congressional hearing how much time a nonviolent offender needed to get the message. Her reply was 12-18 months and anything beyond that was merely punitive.

Wow -- 1 to 1 1/2 years. Contrast that with the sentences handed out to these nonviolent offenders: Jack Carpenter for growing medical marijuana (10 years), or Celestia Mixon who was addicted to meth (15 years), or Michael Shuler for possessing heirloom guns (15 years).

If each of those people had been given sentences of 1-2 years, would we be less safe? Would drug treatment have been a better option for Celestia than incarceration?

I don't know the answers, but I am confident -- based on the testimony of someone who ran the federal prison system and on my own experience over the past 20 years of meeting people who have been in prison -- that the combined 40 years Jack, Celestia and Michael will spend behind bars is overkill.

It's natural to want to be safe. And when we're told by politicians (who are busy tripping over themselves to pass ever-tougher sentencing laws) that long, mandatory sentences = safer communities, it's not hard to see how we ended up where we are today. But that doesn't make it right. Or true. It's time to de-link public safety and long mandatory sentences because the evidence isn't there -- especially for nonviolent offenders.

It's time to ask the prosecutor in Montana who appealed a judge's two-year sentence for Jason Washington because it was below the mandatory minimum, "What's the evidence that a five-year sentence for growing marijuana is right? Will Americans be safer if Jason Washington serves an extra three years behind bars?"

It's time to challenge the sentencing status quo. It's time to help your friends and community understand that five years is a very long time behind bars. Even two years away from home in an institution is a long time.

People need to understand that the wake-up call some offenders need to get their lives on track happens during the first 18 months of incarceration. Former prisoners tell me that whatever benefit they got from going to prison definitely diminished after the five-year mark.

So, I have a big request: help me change our culture. FAMM works tirelessly on policy change but what would help us more than anything would be to end America's love affair with incarceration. You can play an active and crucial role in making that happen.

The next time you hear a friend or colleague say that someone got off easy with a five- or 10-year sentence, don't let the comment go. Speak up. Ask them to tell you what the benefit to society is of that sentence. Ask them if a sentence half as long might have had the same impact. Ask them if they've ever made a really stupid decision that could have landed them in big trouble if they'd been caught. Ask them if they remember who they were five or 10 years ago and what has happened in their lives since then.

In other words, ask them to defend the length of a sentence given to a nonviolent offender. Don't let "if you do the crime, do the time" stand unchallenged -- if they support depriving people of their liberty for years, they should be able to defend their position, intelligently.

This is a discussion that can start at the office water cooler and the neighborhood cookout and the family dinner table. We need to change hearts and minds now so the politicians will listen later.

We received a big dose of assistance today from an unlikely source: conservative columnist George Will. While praising the sentencing reform bill introduced by Senators Paul and Leahy he wrote, "Almost everyone who enters the desensitizing world of American prisons is going to return to society, and many will have been socially handicapped by the experience... All this takes a staggering toll on shattered families and disordered neighborhoods."

Amen. Now it's our turn. I'm counting on you to help me -- to help all of us. Every drop in the bucket eventually fills it up.

My best,

Julie
Julie Stewart President,FAMM Follow me on Twitter, @JulieOnJustice

"Et tu, Post Office?"

I subscribe to email alerts from FAMM (Families Against Minimum Mandatory Sentencing) and yesterday I receive a FAMM email from Julie Stewart (Originator and President of the Organization). As I read it I felt that heaviness that descends when one acknowledges that the road ahead is all but impossible ...YET ... not quite ... not enough to stop one from taking another step, and another...one after the other, in the singular hope that one CAN make a difference. That things can and will change for the better.

The feeling I was left with, after reading her email, led me to contemplate one of several areas one confronts discrimination, if not just an attitude ‘adjustment', when one is merely caught up in the Prison world as a supporter, family member or an advocate for change. One of my experiences has to do simply with how I am, and have been, treated at the Post Office.

There is a shift in ‘attitude’ that happens when ‘civilians ’, those with no personal experience in our nations prison system, realize that YOU do. I remember when we first moved to Taft, and I started frequenting the local post office, the veritable “chill” that would confront me once the postal clerks read where my manila envelopes were addressed. I had somewhat expected this, after the year of mailing items to the County lockups my son was housed at the year of his prosecution, Spokane mail clerks were the first to exhibit an attitude that clearly relegated you to “second class citizen” stature. So it wasn’t a new experience when we relocated to Taft, to live close by the Prison my son would spend his next decade at. Taft is a small town, albeit a “Prison Town”, many locals were employed at the close by Taft Private Prison, and besides, small towns in general seem to be more ‘judging’ by nature, or at least its been my experience, having lived in small towns most my life. More “wary” and suspicious of newcomers.

The initial smiles of the Taft clerk disappeared, an abrupt and a ‘professional only’ demeanor filling its place, my first trip to the local P.O., as I handed over my manila envelopes addressed to Taft Correctional Institution, with my sons name and I.D. number glaringly displayed. I grew used to this, most all the clerks, all women, though professionally friendly enough, gave off the same vibe. Over time one grows a thicker skin, and over time, in the next 5 years, as I was at the post office almost daily, we eventually developed a relatively friendly repoire, the girls and I. It always took my smiling face and an extra effort on my behalf, along with a willingness to be met with some unpleasantness, but in time I won them over. And it wasn’t as if this was out of the ordinary for these clerks, that I was a ‘rare’ type of patron, one who had a foot in the Prison Netherworld, LOL, I learned from the very start, as our mail was delivered right to our front door at Taft, that the delivery clerk was a young woman whose brother was serving a 7 or 8 year sentence (for drugs) in a California State Prison. So these Postal clerks weren’t ignorant of, or immune to the hardships that come with being a family member, loved one, of an inmate. Besides, with the statistics being what they are, 1 in 100 americans is incarcerated in the US today. While Americans represent about 5% of the worlds population, nearly one quarter of the entire worlds inmates have been incarcerated in the US in recent years. With California having more Prisons than any other State in the nation, it soon came as no surprise when we often encountered others with intimate or personal knowledge of our system. My husband, as Safety Director for a large electrical contracting company, constantly meets crew members who either have done time in prison, or have someone they know (family or friend) incarcerated.

Moving to the city of Bakersfield when we purchased a house after 5 years of renting our bungalow at Taft, the process started anew. New post office, new clerks. But I must say, all the clerks at the new post office (on Wilson St) were openly friendly from the start, two in particular, a hispanic gentleman (Manuel) and a blond, older woman (can’t remember her name) who were wonderful to me. I miss them. Perhaps this particular location got more than its fair share of mail to Inmates, who knows, but the three years I frequented this particular office were relaxed, and the clerks always had a smile and a friendly word. One can’t imagine how grateful I felt for this small kindness! No tension as I’d wait my turn in line, wondering how the clerk might behave towards me on any given day. Interestingly, even as we would talk about all manner of other subject matter, no one, not at Taft, nor at this Bakersfield locaton, ever asked any personal questions about the intended recipient of my mailings, and for all I know they thought I was mailing envelopes to my husband, not my son.

Now that we have sold the house and are living in an apartment in a different zip code of Bakersfield, I am now using a new Post Office. Yesterday as I took two large manila envelopes to be mailed I watched a gentleman clerk being very friendly and outgoing to the customers ahead of me. When I laid down my two envelopes it was not my imagination that a very palpable “chill” descended. He asked what the contents were, I replied “magazines’, he then asked if there were any letters inside the envelopes and I replied no, just magazines … I assume the question was asked so as to determine whether the items qualified for Media Mail prices vs Priority ( about a half price difference). If one includes a letter with a Media Mail item it cancels out the Media option. He then proceeded to charge me Priority anyways. I had told him I would pay with my Debit Card. Rather than allowing me to swipe my card thru the counter machine, he asked for my card (??) as well as my I.D., proceeding to then run it through himself, handing me a receipt. When I wasn’t asked to enter my PIN I knew he had run it through as Credit, not Debit which I prefer, and asking him if that’s what he did, he said, rather awkwardly, ‘”well yes, I did” to which I replied ‘I told you I would be using Debit, but thats fine, it’s a done deal”, smiling to defuse the situation, despite his unprofessional and albeit rude attitude from the beginning. He just stood there, you could see he was embarrassed (?) but more likely upset I’d ask him to void the transaction and rerun it as Debit. That’s what I should have had him do, but why add fuel to fire. I suspect this is the type of service I can expect from him going forward. Its clear he has a very negative disposition towards anything Prison related.

Its seems the very word PRISON, in a conversation, or on an address, makes most everyday citizens uncomfortable. It represents a ‘dark’ alter world perhaps (?) that I suspect they don’t even want to acknowledge exists. Its this very attitude that prevents change in our system. This DENIAL, this unwillingness to even acknowledge a system voters and Law Makers continually voted to make more punitive and tougher over these last 3 decades. And that many, ignorantly, still continue to vote for today. Until one is caught up in the system, either directly, or just being a friend or relative of the incarcerated, one rarely comes to grips with the broken, oppressive system we have in place.

And so, in reading Julies email that I will copy and past into a following post, I felt an ‘almost’ resignation in her tone, her words, as she calls on all of us to step up, in some small way, because “Every drop in the bucket eventually fills it up.” Julies letter is next.

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” ~Leo Buscaglia

US SENTENCING COMMISSION - REQUEST FOR COMMENT

The other day I recieved a news alert from FAMM (Families Against Minimum Mandatory Sentencing). In it Julie Steward, the head of the organization stated "Every year, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which writes the federal Sentencing Guidelines, suggests changes to the guidelines. These are known as guideline amendments. The process starts when the Commission publishes a list of priorities -- issues it wants to tackle -- and asks the public for feedback on whether that list is right. The Commission published its 2014 list of priorities on May 30. You have until July 15, 2013, to comment on that list."

This morning I sat down and wrote my letter to The Commission and dropped it in the mail slot. Here is my letter to them, urging them to consider, in particular, a few amendments I feel most important.

The United States Sentencing Commission
One Columbus Circle, N.E., Ste 2-500
South Lobby
Washington, D.C. 20002-8002
Attn: Public Affairs -- Priorities Comment.

To The Sentencing Commission,

I respectfully write today to respond to the Commissions request for public comment as regards the list of priorities set forth as relate to the Ammendment cycle ending May 1, 2014. I have a personal interest in this subject matter as my youngest son is just nearing the end of a 12 ½ year sentence for a first time, non-violent marijuana offense. I can’t begin to try to explain how devastating this sentence was, for my son, as well as we his family. But I CAN urge the commission to continue its review of the Mandatory and Minimum Sentencing Guidelines currently in place. The guidelines as set forth have been largely responsible for the massive growth of our prison industrial complex, the failed experiment in mass encarceration, and beyond punitive measures as regards any drug crime.

Like many Americans, too busy caught up in just earning a living, providing for our families, living our daily lives, learning about the Minimum and Mandatory Sentencing guidelines came as a shocking eye opening moment for my husband and I. We’d no idea where our system of justice had evolved to. Our young son had never been in trouble before and for us to grasp that he would be taken from us for 12 ½ years for a first time, non violent marijuana crime was beyond belief. My husband and I decided then and there if our son was to emerge from this journey as unscathed by prison institutionalization and prison life/survival in general, if we had any hopes of seeing the wonderful, smart, funny young man emerge from prison that he was when he went in, we needed to be close by to share our lives on a regular basis. To that end my husband and I both left our longtime jobs, both in Management positions in our firms, to relocate 3 states away, to southern California, to be able to visit him, spend time with him, on a weekly basis. My husband had to return to the job force for financial reasons (this was and continues to be an expensive journey for us all) but I have devoted much time over these years to being in my sons life in every possible way, despite limitations imposed by the BOP as regards visitation, phone, etc. Not many families are able to make the life change that we did, but we felt we had no other choice and have never regretted it, despite its setbacks and separating us from most our extended family all these years, being unable to watch our grandchildren grow up, share in our other son’s life.

Its no secret to us now that the US encarcerates more of its citizens per capita than any other country in the world. American prison sentences are overly lengthy and have contributed to massive prison growth, overcrowding and a spawning of a prison industrial complex that has become more about profits than about justice or keeping society safe. Putting young men and women away for a decade and more, for a first time, non violent drug offense robs them, in more cases than not, of their entire future. I have come to see there is no forgiveness in our system once caught up in the federal criminal system. Following my sons lengthy sentence he will serve 5 years of supervised release. In other words, and as I recall the sentencing Judge say to my son “make no mistake, this is as serious a sentence as the first 12 ½ years that you will spend in prison, it is the second part of your sentence.” In other words, my son is serving a 17 ½ year sentence for a first time, non violent, marijuana offense. It is still astonishing to me to realize this is what our system of justice has come to in America. What we have in place seems like something one would expect to find in a third world country, not in an ‘enlightened’ democracy. President Bush himself has gone on record to say we are a land of second chances. But that simply is not true and it has been devastating to come to this realization.

With a felony on my sons record FOR LIFE, for a marijuana drug offense (not murder, not theft, not a sex crime, none of the violent acts that our system was set up to protect society from) and having lost 10 years now to encarceration, he returns to the world with few skills, and more roadblocks and hurdles than most would ever imagine. The leaps in technology alone stagger the mind! He returns to a very different world than he left 10 years ago. Why on earth do you think our recidivism rate in this country is so high?! My son is an intelligent young man and has earned two associates degrees while serving his time, through distance learning classes my husband and I fortunately could afford to pay for, most families of the encarcerated cannot. This in the hopes it MIGHT help him find a minimum wage job as he seeks to re-enter the job market with a 10 year gap in his employment history, but in this economy even that is unlikely. There will be few employers who will look beyond that gap or his Felony record.

My son has taken full responsibility for his offense, he looks forward to his future release albeit with anxiety and trepidation of what awaits him. He is not unaware of the 75% recidivism rate in the country, but I know will strive to overcome whatever roadblocks are put in his path, and become a law abiding, contributing member of society, as soon as he is allowed to. And we’ll proudly stand by him every step of the way.

I urge the Commission in particular to review and consider possible amendments to the guidelines applicable to drug offenses including possible consideration of amending the Drug Quantity Table in 2D1.1 (Unlawful Manufacturing, Importing, Exporting, or Traffick ing (Including Possession with Intent to Commit These Offenses); Attempt or Cons piracy) across drug types.

In addition I urge the Commission to continue its comprehensive, multi-year study of recidivism, including (A) examination of circumstances that correlate with increased or reduced recidivism; (B) possible development of recommendations for using information obtained from such study to reduce costs of incarceration and overcapacity of prisons; and (C) consideration of any amendments to the Guidelines Manual that may be appropriate in light of the information obtained from such studies.

Thank you for your consideration, and I sincerely hope, for the sake of our future generations, and for the young men and women, and their families, all those those caught up in the web of the Governments drug war, that we shall see a more sane, fair and sensible drug policy in the future. The system as it stands promotes hopelessness and despair and failure. We can do better.


I don't expect an answer from the Commission, I just hope my voice, one of many, will be heard as the Board weighs in on where to prioritize actions in 2014.