Tag: Incarceration

Hotel California

On By In International2 Comments

I follow world affairs closely because it all fascinates me. Today was no exception. Earlier as I was watching the world news, Brexit was mentioned, which in a way was a surprise. American news networks seem more concerned with things like the weather or the latest Hollywood buzz than true substantive news. It’s a sad state of affairs here. Thank God for the BBC. So when they mention the news from overseas, I perk up. Brexit was worthy enough to make mention some 13 minutes into tonight’s broadcast. Sorry England, you guys didn’t even beat out the story of a puppy rescued from a storm drain. That bit of breaking news came within the first 10 minutes.

I feel bad for my readers across the pond. Brexit continues to paralyze the country, and there seems to be no end in sight. Ask every day Britons how they feel about Brexit, and the general answer is everyone wants it to be over with one way or another, and you know what? We Americans can relate. While we don’t have the same issues, we have our own political mess. You guys do know this, right?

European history isn’t one of my strongpoints, but I understand why the EU came into existence. Europe is unique, and such a union, it was reasoned, was in everyone’s best interest there. Uh-huh. When I think of how Brussels treated your leader Theresa May, and by extension the people of England, I can’t help but think of The Eagle’s song “Hotel California.” There’s a line in it that goes something like, “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.” To us outside the fish bowl looking in, EU membership looks suspiciously like being in a gang. It’s easy to get in, but go ahead and try to leave and see what happens.

Of course, I’m not serious here, just poking fun at a difficult situation. I’m all for free trade (or not), and I mean no harm to my British and European friends. When life becomes so serious that you can’t laugh at your situation, what’s the point? If we Americans didn’t do this when it came to politics here, we’d’ve all been set to pasture long ago. You do know who our president is, yes?

Which brings me to my next random thought. Sometimes I wonder what people around the world think of us Americans. When I was young I lived in Japan, and the Japanese were very kind to me. I say to them with the warmest heart: Arigato, gozaimasu. Nihon ni yonen imashita. Watakushi wa Tokyo ga daisuki desu. While I was there, I went to an international school, and all my foreign friends were kind to me, too. But it feels like things have changed since those times, and it saddens me.

I once heard a BBC broadcaster say that there’s a saying over there, and it is that Americans should never be the ones to pick the next President of the United States. Ouch. That one stings, but okay, I think we’ve earned it. In our defense, most Americans are so absorbed in their mindless day-to-day chase of the American dream that they are only vaguely aware that there is a world beyond Mexico and Canada (to my Mexican and Canadian friends, no matter what happens politically, you guys are tops in our book).

Which brings me to my readers in Central and South America. Contrary to what our president says, we Americans welcome you with warm and open arms. ¡Y los amo a todos! Whether you are from Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador, it does not matter. We are a nation of immigrants; it is what makes the United States the United States. We’re not a perfect nation, but we are a proud people.

Before I close, I have one last random thought. In all fairness to our president, it should be noted that he’s an outsider fighting The Swamp. He has been willing to push back whenever he has felt it necessary, regardless if you’re a friend or ally. To our enemies he has shown respect and warmth, and built relationships. I’d imagine that by the time he leaves office, some of our current allies will be enemies, who will then by default be our friends; it’s an amazing act of chess-like statecraft.

Oh, and to my Russian readers (when I have some), you guys have played your hand masterfully. Pat yourselves on the back. To everyone else I offer these final parting words: It’s not that serious guys, let’s not forget to smile!

“I Haven’t Killed Anyone Yet.”

On By In Addictions, In This World, RehabilitationLeave a comment

I live in a world filled with men whose personal drug addictions have shaped their lives. Drug addictions are common here, and they span the entire spectrum of abuse.

Over the length of my incarceration, I’ve witnessed terrible addiction-related moments, and these events have helped shape my views and desire to prevent future generations from walking the path of incarceration.

It seems to me that alcoholism receives little attention in today’s opioid driven media reporting, yet alcohol is responsible for the majority of addiction deaths every year here in the U.S. Driving while intoxicated is the most visible outcome of alcoholism, but less visible is the toll alcoholism takes on one’s body. Thousands of people die every year from alcohol related complications.

My family is no stranger to the deadly effects of alcohol. Years ago, my step-brother Kelly was killed by a drunk driver. In Kelly’s case, the driver went to prison. His sentence: two years in minimum security. Two years for taking a child’s life. Worse, once the offender was released, he went on to repeat the same mistake.

For many years I became angry whenever meeting someone incarcerated for drinking and driving. It was worse if I’d learned they’d killed someone in the process. Being incarcerated with individuals who were convicted of similar acts was difficult to accept, and I often found myself in conflict with these individuals.

Of all the addictions and all the men I’ve talked to about their addictions, the DUI crowd is the least repentant. There’s something about alcohol that causes uncompromising denial. But what? What is it about alcohol that causes this? Is it because it’s legal? Is it because alcohol is socially acceptable? I don’t know, but I suspect that each of these points are probably part of the answer.

I had a conversation with a 28 year old fellow named Trevor who was on his sixth incarceration for DUI. Yes, his sixth. This time around he was serving 18 months. As far as Trevor was concerned, he was handed an injustice by the court. So far, Trevor has served eight years of his life in DUI sentences. We have a saying in This World to describe Trevor. We say Trevor is doing “life on the installment plan.” The only person who doesn’t realize this is the person on the plan.

What’s striking to me here is Trevor’s level of denial about his drinking problem. It’s a common theme I’ve encountered over and over again with the alcoholics. Some of the excuses I’ve heard over the years span, “I only had a couple of beers,” or, “I wasn’t drinking,” or, “I’ll be more careful next time driving,” and even, “I’m a better driver after a couple of beers.” What? However, the grandest, most insane excuse I’ve ever heard came from Trevor.

It was a warm summer evening. I was walking with him on the yard, and I had asked him about his sentence.

“How long,” I asked, “is your sentence?”

“Eighteen months,” he said.

“Wow, that seems like a long time for a DUI.”

“That’s what I told my attorney!” he said. “When he told me that the prosecutor was only offering 30 months for a plea deal I couldn’t believe it. I told him, ‘No way. You go back and tell the prosecutor no deal.’ That’s how I ended up with 18 months.”

“Wow, 30 months?” I asked. Something, I thought, didn’t sound right. 90% of the time the DUI guys get a slap on the wrist, six months at most. “That seems like a long time for your first DUI, don’t you think?”

“Hmm? No, it’s not my first. And yeah, it’s a friggin’ long time.”

“How many times have you been locked up for DUI?” I asked.

“Not many.”

“Three?”

“Does it matter?”

“Well, no,” I said. “I’m just trying to understand why the prosecutor was trying to give you 30 months.”

“Man, I don’t know, because this is only my sixth time.”

“Oh,” I said, lamely. I couldn’t believe it was his sixth DUI sentence; that just blew me away. “But,” I said, “it is your sixth.”

“What?” he said indignantly. “What’s it matter if it’s my sixth or third? He still shouldn’t have given me 18 months.”

“Alright, I’m not judging you; don’t take it that way. I’m just trying to understand the courts logic, that’s all.”

“It’s not like I hurt someone,” he said.

I felt my heart pick up speed. I knew where he was going with this and I didn’t want to go down that road. Yet, my mouth kept going. It wouldn’t stop!

“Right,” I said. “But what if you did?”

“But I didn’t–”

“Right, but what if?”

“It doesn’t matter!”

“Well,” I said, “it sorta does.”

“How so?” he said. “You tell me how so”–his hand went out, stabbing at me an inch from my chest–“because what I do on my free time has nothing to do with anyone else. I’m not hurting anyone!”

I looked at the stabbing finger. I felt my teeth grind together.

I said: “Okay, I see your point. I get it. But, when we drink we aren’t at our sharpest, and–”

“Speak for yourself.”

“–driving is the poorest decision that–”

“I’ve been drinking since I was 12 and no one is going to tell me what I can and cannot do! Not the court, not this place, and certainly not you!” he said, finger stabbing inches from my face now.

“I’m not trying to tell you what to do,” I said. “But, what would you do if you had an accident and you hurt someone? Just think about it for a second.”

“I haven’t killed anyone yet!” he shouted at me.

I bit my tongue and tasted blood.

“I haven’t killed anyone yet!” he said again.

“You’re right,” I said. “You haven’t. But someday you might and it will be too late. You’ve got a problem, Trevor, and you need help.” I then turned and somehow walked away.

Prior to the conversation, Trevor had told me he already had to blow into a breathalyzer to start his car. It was a result of a previous DUI. Prior to that, he said he had been mandated to attend AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) twice a week at the local community center, and prior to that he told me he had ‘totaled’ most of the cars he’d ever owned while drinking and driving.

Trevor spent the remaining months of his sentence attending AA in the evenings. I thought that perhaps our conversation had spurred him to seek help. When I ran into him again, I asked him what made him want to attend Alcoholics Anonymous. Was it because of our conversation?

His answer? He had decided to attend AA so he could receive the good time credit toward early release. Plus, he had said, they always had coffee.

My experience with Trevor wasn’t unique. Most of the DUI guys I’ve talked to reacted similarly, though not nearly as aggressively as Trevor. Denial, denial, denial sums up most of these conversations and is representative of the type of thinking that’s involved with this crowd.

I’ve thought about the long current structure of addiction services within the institutional environment and wondered, What could be done better? I’ve concluded that the institutions simply aren’t the best equipped to help addicts. Yes, we have programs here designed to address addictions, but oftentimes participation is voluntary. A big fault that I see with these programs is that they all offer attendees a way to reduce their sentence by automatically adding “good days” every month toward early release. There is little accountability aside from program administrators requiring participants to attend classes and periodically participate during class sessions. As a result, most offenders view programming as a means to an end.

I would change this structure to remove automatic good days, and I’d introduce a standardized form that program administrators complete, detailing an individual’s class participation and understanding of session materials. These forms would be filed into the offender’s institutional file and made available to the court and the to offender’s attorney upon request. Early release consideration is then decided by the courts based on the detailed progress as revealed in program reporting. Change ‘automatic’ good days to ‘automatic pending court approval.’ This way program administrators are able to provide valuable input based on their observations, offer a meaningful way for the courts to hold an individual accountable, and to make informed decisions. This also gives offenders more incentive to take rehabilitative programming seriously, and when they do, there is a much higher chance of introspection and thus genuine change. Without introspection, there can be no rehabilitation.

AA is an excellent program, and time has borne that out. It’s sister program, NA (Narcotics Anonymous), is also an excellent program with a long and successful track record, and we have both programs here. What sets these programs apart from others is that offenders can begin attendance while incarcerated and continue once released, by attending any one of the AA and NA gatherings that take place everyday in this country. I think the solution to handling individuals with addictions is to immerse them in comprehensive addiction counseling, intensive inpatient (or outpatient) programs, and to marry this with oversight programs that hold an individual accountable to his recovery and sobriety.

Placing Trevor in prison over and over again serves no deterrent. It’s a terrible waste of public resources, and it serves no other purpose than to satisfy public thirst for punishment. Barring incidents where an individual is physically harmed due to the negligence of those gripped by addiction, incarceration should be the last resort.

For less than the amount it costs to incarcerate Trevor for six months, Trevor could spend three to four months in intensive community corrections based inpatient or outpatient drug rehabilitation programming. Not only would Trevor have a greater chance of realization and change, the courts would maintain meaningful oversight and accountability for an extended period of time. In addition, Trevor would be able to participate in community based projects that give back to the community while simultaneously attending rehabilitative counseling. Both efforts help to bring the individual to an inflection point, where one considers the consequences of his actions.

As a nation, we have a responsibility to meaningfully assist those gripped by addictions. It’s a win/win for everyone, and it’s the way to guide addicts back toward the path of recovery.

Who Do You Love?

On By ChristopherIn Furry Friends, In This World6 Comments

It dawned on me earlier that a growing number of my readers are overseas in places like China, Europe, or Central and South America, and incarceration there is very different from here in the United States. As far as I know, only countries in Europe have the type of program I’m going to tell you about.

In the U.S., many prisons have a dog program where inmates train shelter rescue dogs or dogs that will specialize in helping the disabled (such as guide dogs). These programs offer a way for offenders to give back to local communities, and they provide a valuable service to those in need. Inmates learn a tangible skill, and the presence of dogs within the institutional environment has a calming effect on prisoners. For state corrections, these programs are valued both for their PR and for their practicality.

Here, we have two types of dog programs. One trains local shelter rescue dogs for adoption, and the other provides daycare, boarding, and training services for dogs owned by staff. In the rescue program, the local shelter sends us dogs as they receive them, and inmates who train them receive no compensation. Staff that bring their pets into the Staff Dog Program pay a daily fee, and the inmates involved in the program make a percentage of this fee.

I spent 10 years as a volunteer training dogs in the shelter rescue program. I’ve trained somewhere between 50-60 dogs, as training usually takes two to three months per animal. The experience is therapeutic and rewarding.

Training rescue dogs consists of commands like “sit,” “stay,” “come,” “down,” “off,” “sit-stay,” “down-stay,” “heel,” and potty training when necessary. Some dogs take to training with ease, and it’s a wonderful experience to discover a dog that learns in far excess of these commands.

One day the shelter sent me a 50 lb Rottweiler Lab mix named Allie. She was black and brown with white patches, a year old, and very intelligent. In fact, she was so smart that she learned and mastered the eight basic commands in about 10 days; faster than any dog I’ve ever handled. To give you comparison, most dogs require weeks to months to master all eight commands.

I knew something was different about Allie after the first day of training. I was teaching her to heel, which requires the dog to walk beside you on your left side with its shoulders no further than your knees. The dog is expected to sit whenever you stop walking and to automatically continue when you start to walk again. ‘Heel’ requires the dog to learn how to move in accordance to your movements. If you go left, the dog automatically moves left, and the same is true for when you go right. This discipline usually takes a number of days for a dog to master, as it is the most complex of all the eight disciplines. Allie learned ‘heel’ in two days. By the middle of the second week, she knew all the basics.

One afternoon, I came upon the cell after being outside. The cell doors are solid steel with small slit windows. I could enter the cell with a personal key, and I could exit the cell by pushing a button from the inside. On this day, Allie greeted me at the window.

As I put the key to the lock, I noticed Allie pawing at the button from the inside. It could have been coincidence, as she was all eagerness and paw motion. So I said to her, “Push the button!” each time I saw her pawing at the button. While she didn’t get the door open, she did figure out I was encouraging her to do what she was doing: paw in the area of the button.

So I decided to experiment. Using toilet paper, I fashioned a soft, bulbous bump shaped kind of like a Hershey’s Kiss chocolate. I then taped it to the button, which was indented and not flat. I departed the cell. Moments later, I returned to the door.

There was Allie, obediently waiting and looking up at the window. I said to her, “Allie, press the button!” She jumped up and looked through the window, but didn’t quite understand what I was getting at. So I said it again, “Press the button! Press the button!” and tapped on the door frame about where the button would be, and what do you know? She pawed again at the button, and this time the door clicked open and she came bounding out in circles. I pet and fussed over her, and we did this several more times before she had it down.

It wasn’t long before she was also closing the cell door. I had created a soft coat hanger out of shoe strings, a rolled up magazine, and a towel, and I affixed it to the inside of the cell door and encouraged her to bite into and pull the towel wrapped magazine. “Close the door!” was the command, and she figured it out after only a couple hours of work. I couldn’t believe how smart this dog was! Interestingly, Allie never let herself out of the cell when I wasn’t around.

Everyday the dogs played together in the community area of the day room. On this particular day, there were a number of puppies playing, and Allie seemed to be keeping an eye on them. Whenever one strayed from the pack, she herded it back into the fold. This habit went on every time there were puppies and was great amusement for everyone.

Then one afternoon Allie was playing with several puppies, and I wondered about something.

So I said, “Allie, come.”

Allie disengaged from puppy mania and came to me. There she sat, tongue lolling out of her mouth, pulsing up and down.

“Allie,” I said. “Get the puppy.” Her ears flickered straight up.

“Get the puppy! Get the puppy!” I said.

Allie jumped to all fours running from dog toy to dog toy–

“No,” I said.

–to the next toy–

“No-o,” I said. “Get the puppy! Get the puppy!” I pointed at the puppy I wanted.

She ran over to the puppy and looked around, then back at me, then ran in a circle around the puppy.

“Get the puppy!”

And in that moment the greatest thing happened: Allie put her mouth down on the puppy’s scruff and brought the puppy to me.

“Good girl! Good girl!” I then hugged her.

On another day, it was just Allie and a 50 lb hound dog playing together. I wondered what would happen if I told her to ‘get the puppy’ now?

“Allie,” I said.

Allie stopped playing.

“Get the puppy!” She ran around the play area, looked back at me several times, but kept searching. Eventually she circled back upon the hound dog.

“Get the puppy!” I said again, this time pointing to the hound dog.

Allie stretched her front paws at me and shouted a series of barks and whines.

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Go play!”

And like that, she was black and brown action playing again. That was the first and only time Allie ever barked at anyone. Apparently, 50 lb hounds were the limit.

Another neat move she learned was how to hug you. On the command of “Who do you love?” she would jump up on her hind legs and place her front paws at your sides like a hug, with her chin up against your chest. Sometimes she’d lick your chin when you did. I made sure to hug her back each time.

Every day I took Allie for walks on the yard. She was fond of this and happiest when we were outside. Eventually I stopped putting her on a leash, and we’d slow stroll everywhere. Other times we’d go jogging together. I’d be on the track running, and she’d be in the grass running beside me.

At night, I usually kenneled the dogs to prevent them from getting into mischief. I’ve had electronic items, towels, flip-flops, books, and letters from home chewed on or eaten by dogs over the years. As for Allie? I always left the kennel door open for her. Sometimes she’d sleep in the kennel; other times she slept with me at the foot of the bunk. Some mornings I’d wake up to discover that she had crawled up from the end to wedge herself against me and the wall.

About 10 weeks in, I started teaching her American Sign Language. I wanted to see if she could learn some basic commands in ASL. She had proven herself very intelligent, and at this point I was sometimes catching myself talking to her when we were alone. She never felt like a dog to me. She was smarter than some of the guys I knew!

Allie had only one bad moment. I had made a pizza and placed it on the top bunk just for a minute and left the cell. Allie was curled up in a ball on the floor minding herself. When I returned, Allie was still curled up on the floor, but I had noticed something different about the pizza. Someone had excised a perfect square slice from the middle (it was sliced in squares), but left the rest of the pizza untouched. At first I was baffled.

I looked at Allie.

“Allie,” I said. “What did you do?”

Allie looked away. Ah, I thought, guilty.

I couldn’t help but think that she had figured I wouldn’t have believed it was her. After all, what dog eats only one slice?

By the time she was scheduled to leave, she had learned more than 45 verbal commands and 14 genuine ASL commands. Eight of the ASL signs were based on the eight basic commands, but the other six weren’t. They were single ASL signs for “get” (which I used for “get the puppy”), “I love you” (which was used for “who do you love?”) ,”wait” (which I used for “lie down”), “run” (when I wanted to tell her to go play), “cut” (when I wanted her to stop playing), and “no” (whenever I wanted to tell her to knock it off). She understood verbal commands for all kinds of dog toys and could fetch them by name. She understood the names of all the other dogs, and she understood the names of a number of non-dog related things like “shoes,” “radio,” “coffee,” etc. At one point, I started to wonder what the world’s smartest dog knew. I wasn’t so sure that the smartest dog wasn’t the one sitting in front of me.

More and more I found myself spending every waking moment with her and not wanting to do anything else unless she was with me. How, I often wondered, did this wonderful dog ever find its way to the pound?

On the weekends, the local PetSmart held meet and greets for customers looking to adopt a shelter dog. I knew that when Allie’s turn came, she wouldn’t return to me. Someone would adopt her.

Then the day arrived. I gathered her paperwork, which included a daily training diary explaining all that she knew and my observations and recommendations. Before the shelter came for Allie, I took one last moment alone with her.

“Allie,” I said. “I’m gonna miss you.”

Allie sat quietly looking up at me.

I signed the ASL sign for ‘I love you.’

She jumped up and put her paws at my sides and licked my chin.

“Now go,” I said, “and make someone happy.” And I hugged her.

That evening, all the dogs returned except for one: Allie. Someone had adopted her. She was gone. I walked back to the cell and closed the door behind me. Her absence was the first thing I noticed. It was quiet, and the cell felt empty.

I thought I’d prepare the kennel for the next dog, so to take my mind off of Allie. As I did, I discovered three of my socks buried under her blanket. They’re all different, I thought. She must have snuck them from my dirty laundry when I wasn’t looking. But when?

I sat there for a long time holding the socks in my hands.

I thought of all our moments together and smiled.

“I love you, too,” I said.

I then finished preparing the kennel.