Something very interesting happened to me on Friday, June 13th. For the first time ever, I had scheduled a TV and DVD player in the chapel. I wanted to watch “End of the Spear,” a book I read a few months ago & finished a book report that was put on PPT. When I finished the movie at 10:00, I walked back into the Religious Services offices. One of the chaplains said that he was looking for me as I had a 1:30 meeting with the new Assistant Director of the BOP (Joshua Smith) who was visiting Lexington today. I laughed, said “yeah right” and turned away to return my DVD. The guy receiving the DVD said that this was real. I asked what was expected of me and he said he did not know. Of course, I was excited for the opportunity.
As soon as the move was on, I ran to Unicor and asked two of my friends to help me compile a list of the main issues. They helped for a few minutes and then I started writing. I skipped lunch and continued writing/revising and ordering them in the order of priority – still not knowing what I was supposed to do. I finally decided that he would be asking questions related to either cost-cutting or better rehabilitation, so I structured the list at the bottom of this email. I went to the meeting at 1:30 and there were twelve of us there – black, Latino & white, new & old prisoners, some who were leaving for a camp next week and others (like me) only about 25% through their sentence. My goal was to represent the view of the majority of the prisoners if asked a question.
The Assistant Director arrived about 2:30 and like a typical politician, started talking immediatlely – telling us of some of the general thoughts of the administration and that there would be a new memo coming out in the next few days and that it would explain some things better and be viewed well by us inmates. Whenever there was a pause, an inmate would interrupt with a question and I think there were about 6-7 questions asked, which I am trying to recall to the best of my ability:
1) How serious is the administration taking this? Is this really going to happen? His reply was that they were very serious about it.
2) A prisoner asked about how much assistance could be provided when they get out, like help with clothing, housing, a job, etc. He replied that there were not much assistance on this and given that prisoners were very resourceful, we need to do the best we could when we got out, which meant taking a job, showing up early & leaving late, doing what was asked of us and even more, conducting ourselves in a way where we were law abiding and would not go back, etc.
3) ** I raised my and and basically stated #1 on my list below and asked if this was something that they were thinking about doing in the future. He replied they were looking at all options.
4) Another question followed up on my question, stating how effective the CARES Act was & wondering if they were going to do it again. The response was that they had to take into consideration the risk to the general population of early released prisoners, but they, along with Alice Johnson (Pardon Czar) were looking at all options.
5) Another prisoner mentioned that the prison here had asbestos and mold and needed to be updated. The response was that there were prisons worse off than this and they were doing the best they could with the finances & staff available.
6) Another prisoner asked if they were looking at sending released prisoners directly to home confinement as opposed to HWH. He replied that they were dedicating more funds to HWH’s as soon as possible, but that going direct to HC was a possibility.
7) An inmate who was an illegal immigrant asked a question about going home after his sentence was up. The answer was that Mr. Smith was not certain about this and asked the inmate what he thought most of them wanted. There was a little bit of back & forth on this and I had trouble hearing all that was said here.
He then mentioned some other things that they were thinking about doing as it relates to this prison, talked about staffing difficulty, his time in prison, different incentives, that we needed to conduct ourselves well in prison and that one bad apple could spoil it for the rest of us, etc. That was basically the end and he then went to the chapel to meet with a large number of CO’s.
I am happy that I was chosen to speak. I was pleased that I got a list prepared with the resources and time available, especially since I did not know what was expected of me. Lastly and most importantly, I felt good that I got my question in front of Mr. Smith and that another prisoner built on my question with a similar question – showing how important we thought this was. In general, our little group represented the inmate population the best that we could as it relates to expressing our thoughts and questions. I only wish we would have had more time with some more one-on-one questions, but it went well in general.
LIST OF QUESTIONS:
Cost-Cutting
1) Under the CARES Act, the BOP released 13,200 individuals into home confinement and only 0.17% of them returned to prison for comming a new crime. White collar inmates, as well as the old, sick & wheelchair bound should be released early as they were not likely to hurt anyone once they were released. This would save in excess of $528 million. (This came right out of the PPF Release Plan Guidebook).
2) White collar offenders should go directly to home confinement. Going from low to camp to HWC to HC just wastes time & adds to transportation costs. Each day a prisoner remains in confinement is something like $130/person/day. It adds up.
3) First-time offenders should be treated differently from repeat criminals or those of a violent nature.
4) FSA & SCA should be maximized. Right now, one person in the prison (CRC) makes the HWH/SCA determination, which is very subjective. Why does it take so long to designate & move prisoners?
5) On long sentences, the marginal cost exceeds the marginal benefit. When the main breadwinner goes to prison, these sentences lead to divorce, bankruptcy, homelessness, etc. Plus, many guys go frmo paying taxes to being on glorified welfare.
6) Regarding sex offenders, there should be a distinction between “touchers” and non-contact “clickers.” Many of the latter could be released early with no recidivism.
7) Why are illegal immigrants being kept in prison? I worked overseas for 11 years. If I overstayed a visa (making me an illegal immigrant), I just got sent home. I didn’t go to a prison for 1+ years. Each illegal released early back to their country saves $49K/year.
Prison/Rehabilitation Improvement
1) The notebooks we have need to be set up fro eductional & communication purposes. We should be able to download books, classwork, practice tests, etc. for high school & college classes. There should be Word, Excel and typewriting training on them. Facetime/Zoom would increase communication with outside support networks. This is particularly needed because only 2 of the 5 phones in our unit are working.
2) Develop some sort of public-private partnership with someone like Lincoln Welding to come in and train inmates at 8 hours per day for 20+ weeks (however long their normal course is). Immediately after graduation, they should be released to start working a company doing welding. This is just one example.
3) Benchmarking – there should be benchmarking between units and between prisons to ensure that those of similar sentences are being released on a similar timeline.
