Strangled Again by the Same Villain

Recently, a friend of mine who I met through Celebrate Recovery, a Christ-centered 12-step program, locked up. He told the corrections officers that he was afraid for his life, and they put him in protection. As the details of what happened unfolded, it became clear that just a few weeks before leaving prison on parole, my friend had gotten a hold of illicit drugs in prison and had relapsed. He owed debts for the drugs that he could not pay, and his only recourse was to take the coward's way out. Back into his addictive thinking, he even took advantage of other people, including another good friend of mine, who cared about him. I was angry because my addict friend has effectively set himself up to quickly return to prison. His addiction led him to prison in the first place, and now, just a few weeks before going home, he relapsed. Unfortunately, he is not alone. 

A 1997 survey of prisoners found that 52% had committed their crimes while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. An even higher percentage committed their crimes because of the devastating influence of addictions in their lives. This survey did not even take into account the influence of process addictions, like sex and gambling addictions, on the criminal conduct of prisoners. The fact is that addictions are highly correlated with criminal conduct. 

When individuals leave prison and return to their communities, many continue to struggle with the influence of their addictions. Some, like my friend, start struggling even before they leave prison. Some never stopped struggling, even while they appeared sober in prison. Many ex-prisoners (who I prefer to call "returning citizens") find that struggles with addiction are a significant factor in their ability to positively adjust to life after prison. Even after sometimes years of "sobriety" in prison, many people still feel the strong pull of their particular vice, and they find it very difficult to say "no." Promises of "just one time" turn quickly into full-fledged addiction once again. As any addiction expert can tell you, relapse is often fast and furious. 

One doctor and addiction expert, who works with addicts in prison, noted that trauma is a leading contributor to addiction. She explained that addictions are most often used as pain avoidance, not pleasure seeking. Consequently, until an addict deals with the underlying pain (often from trauma) that is feeding his addiction, he will continue to struggle with addiction. Because of my participation in a 12-step group with my friend, I know he has trauma he hasn't healed from, and despite my anger, I feel compassion for him. 

Because my friend relapsed even before he left prison, his chances of returning to prison are very high. It saddens me for him, but until he is ready to deal with his underlying trauma and to form new healthy habits of dealing with his hurt, he'll continue to return again and again to the drugs that dull his pain. Slowly, the criminal justice system is beginning to recognize that locking up addicts does not rehabilitate them. Instead, many addicts need professional help that is not provided in prison. 

I hope my friend finds the support he needs to live free from his addiction when he returns home. He is fortunate to have family that loves and cares about him who will fight with him for his sobriety. But he has to want sobriety first. Until he's ready, neither prison nor professional therapy will help him live a life free from his addiction. 

Second Chance Initiative Aims to Increase Re-Entry Success

This past week President Trump announced new federal initiatives to make it easier for returning citizens (also known as former prisoners) to find jobs, housing, and support. His "Second Chance" initiative is a follow-up to the "First Step Act" announced in January. At the White House during the announcement, Trump invited two former prisoners to share about their successes after prison and their work to help other returning citizens succeed. He also invited several criminal justice advocates to speak, including TV celebrity Kim Kardashian. Kim announced a new partnership with a ride share service that will provide vouchers to returning citizens so that they can have transportation to job interviews and to work. As Kim noted, transportation is a major obstacle for many returning citizens. 

I was excited to hear about these federal initiatives, not because they directly impact me, but because changes on a federal level normally trickle down to the states. Prison and criminal justice reforms continue to be a priority for many lawmakers. Some prioritize these issues because of the economics of reform ("rehabilitation" efforts of the past several decades have been a miserable failure), but many others simply see the immorality of our currently unjust system. 

I agree that our criminal justice and prison systems are grossly unjust and in need of major reforms, but sometimes I find it difficult to focus on these injustices. It feels incredibly selfish, as a prisoner myself, to focus only on the injustices we experience in the "justice" system. However, the reach of our system's injustices extends to victims of crime as well. When innocent people are convicted of crimes because of prosecutorial misconduct, victims suffer because the person who really harmed them is still free. When the state usurps a victim's offense and makes itself the victim, true victims suffer because their needs and desires are ignored. When the state prosecutes an offender and fails to address how the victim's harms will be repaired, victims doubly suffer. 

The criminal justice and prison systems need to be reformed. Policies and laws of the last half century have been a miserable failure at reforming people and making communities safer. By failing to adequately reform or rehabilitate its charges, the criminal justice system is failing victims who suffer because of crime. I hope that Trump's (and others') reforms make significant positive changes in our criminal justice and prison systems, but I also hope that victims are not forgotten in the process. When offenders are reformed and released back to society as productive citizens, with all the support they need to get on their feet after prison, victims are honored. They're honored when offenders are reformed because victims no longer have to fear their offender will harm them or others again.

That's Just Money Down the Drain

The Michigan Department of Corrections consumes more than $2 billion of Michigan's annual budget. That's a lot of money to house around 40,000 prisoners per year. For years now the Michigan legislature has been trying to cut costs, closing prisons and crowding prisoners into other facilities, reducing the quality of food, cutting the number of clothing items it gives prisoners, and other "fat trimming" measures. Nevertheless, all of these cost-cutting measures have done little to trim the corrections budget. After decades of growing Michigan's prison industrial complex, retirement benefits, and current employee salaries and benefits still strain the already thinned out budget. 

With such a strained budget, I'm mystified by the MDOC's wasteful use of its funding. Two extraordinary examples of government waste that come immediately to mind are the department's waste of utilities/environmental resources and its abuse of overtime. 

The MDOC continues to print tens of thousands of "itineraries" for prisoners every day, despite the massive waste of paper, toner, and wear and tear to copiers/printers. Its employees also routinely leave "security lights" on during the daytime, despite their uselessness in providing any security. Hundreds of light bulbs per unit with at least half a dozen units per facility amounts to a whole lot of wasted electricity. Additionally, in my unit alone five showers run non-stop because maintenance cannot be bothered to come around and fix them. Several of the showers have been running for at least six months, and at least one for a year. At an average of three gallons per minute per shower, that's 21,600 gallons of wasted water *every day!* And that's just one of six units at this facility. 

The MDOC also has a staffing crisis right now. It is severely short-staffed, requiring officers to frequently work overtime. It is common for many officers to work two or three overtime shifts per week. Since officers are paid overtime pay when they work more than their normal shifts, the department is shelling out millions of dollars in extra pay. Apparently the department is having difficulty hiring more officers right now because many people cannot stand to be away from their social media for eight hours at a time. While this dilemma boggles my mind, I have a recommended solution. Rather than hiring 750 more officers as announced several months ago, why not make some significant, retroactive changes to sentencing laws and significantly reduce the prison population?

Michigan has some significant budget problems to work through, not the least of which is finding $2.5 billion in road repair funds. We're in a strong economy right now, but that does not mean we should be wastefully spending our resources when they could be better invested. Undoubtedly, these problems of waste only scratch the surface of the department's true wasteful spending. It's also very likely that the problems are far more complex than they appear on the surface. It's easy for me to criticize from my own perspective, but I'm aware of how enormously difficult it is for the department's top officials to get all of its staff to care about saving money. If only it were that simple. But there are not simple solutions to these problems. Solving the budget problem requires innovative thinking and creative solutions. However, sometimes we have to start where the problems are obvious, like fixing broken showers to save millions of gallons in wasted water.

How to Cultivate Good Character in Toxic Conditions

I am fortunate this year to be one of the few prisoners at MTU who were given a small garden plot (7' x 9') in which to grow vegetables. Gardens are awarded in a lottery for those who sign up and qualify (it requires being ticket free for a period). It's not much to work with, but it will provide some much desired fresh vegetables, which we do not get at chow, later in the year. It also provides a place of solace where I can "hang out" without crowds of loud people around me. We've gotten a lot of rain over the last two weeks, and the garden soil has a lot of clay, so as the ground dries it also develops a hardened crust. In order to keep the garden aerated so the plants can grow, it takes slow and steady work to break up the hard crust on the surface. It's tedious work, but it's worth the benefit of stronger, healthier plants. In the end, I hope the work I put in will lead to a greater harvest. As I was working the soil this morning, it struck me how close the parallels are between gardening in poor soil and trying to grow as a person in prison. Prison is a toxic environment with a proven track record of producing people who are worse off when they leave prison than when they were "planted" here. It's inevitable that you'll have those results when you put a bunch of criminally minded people together in one place. For example, non-violent people with non-violent crimes even tend to develop violent tendencies because of prison's culture of violence. So, how can a prisoner avoid being a statistic? How can he protect himself against the corrupting influences he encounters in prison? How can he grow and mature as a person so he leaves prison changed for the better? It takes careful and intentional cultivation. It will not just happen, and it is hard work. But here are a few keys that will increase one's chances of leaving prison with better character: 1. Weed regularly. Be honest about your flaws. Listen to trusted people who tell you what needs to change. Be teachable, and do the work of change. 2. Remember that growth takes time--but stay moving towards your desired change. 3. Cultivate healthy relationships, inside and outside of prison. We grow best when surrounded by the type of people we want to be, so avoid hanging out with knuckleheads. That's difficult, but possible in prison. Don't look for perfection in others, though, just inspiration. 4. Feed yourself right. Listen to positive music, read positive books, watch positive TV (if you can find it), feed your spirit and soul (cultivate a right relationship with God), and pursue education. 5. Grow deep roots. This means developing deeply-thought-out beliefs and values, and practicing them daily. There's a world of difference between values you aspire to and those you practice. These are just a few of the practices that require daily intention for a prisoner to grow in character in a place where good character has little value. If one can cultivate good character in prison so that it has deep roots, and practice it in one of the most difficult situations available, it will likely bear fruit even years after prison.