Catch A Falling Star

May 18, 2013 - Uncategorized

In December of 2012 I was transferred to Lakeland Correctional Facility, located in the city of Coldwater, Michigan. Because of its extremely unique and successful rehabilitation program, Lakeland is one of the premier prisons in the state of Michigan.

The goal of the program is to instill, exercise and prove the characteristics of good citizenship. Every ten weeks a group of 30 to 40 new arrivals enter the facility to begin their transformation. Each participant is challenged with overcoming issues of abuse, abandonment and exploitation. But these admissions aren’t your average prisoners. They are dogs that have been received by the American Humane Society (for more information see: www.rpsm.org). That’s right, prison has gone to the dogs.

During their ten-week stay each dog is assigned a team of two prisoners . Each team is given the task of teaching their dog basic competencies in dog and human relations. Before the dogs can be released for adoption they must pass a battery of tests which, if passed, will award them the status of “good citizenship.”

Barring the issues of history, ethnicity or class, when an offender is sentenced to prison the modern-day courts have adhered an antiquated 1871 ruling established by the Virginia Supreme Court in Ruffin v. Commonwealth, which reads, “as consequence of his crime, not only [has he] forfeited his liberty, but all his personal rights except those which the law in its humanity accords him. He is for the time being a slave to the State. He is civilter motrtus; and his estate, if he has any, is administered like that of a dead man.”(2)

A year earlier, in 1870, Congressman Zebulon Brockway of Detroit, Michigan wrote, “The term reformation… has reference to that ‘correction or amendment of the life and manners,’ that made those who were obnoxious and troublesome, now tolerable, acceptable or useful citizens… the change sought in the character of criminals called reformation is of a practical nature and has to do with daily life in ordinary social relations… The best-behaved prisoner is often the worst citizen… The true basis of classification for prisoners is character, not conduct.”(3)

As the debate over consequence of crime and criterion for re-entry continues between politicians and human rights advocates, the S.T.A.R. paradigm suggests prisoners should be acknowledged, treated and valued as living and active citizens instead of dead men and slaves.

In a recent article on the effects of long-term isolation in maximum security prisons, Christopher Eps, the Commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections and President of the American Corrections Association, said, “If we treat people like animals, that’s exactly the way they’ll behave.”(4)

Treating prisoners as dead men who live in boxes -instead of stars who shine in the darkness- has only contributed to their cultural, moral, social, economic and academic degradation. In turn, they naturally contribute to the decay of society once they are released.

Can we have a reasonable expectation of the 95% -of prisoners scheduled to return to our communities- to act as civilized people and productive c itizens after they have been steeped for years, even decades, in a milieu of concentrated depravity?

Today we require those whom we call “returning citizens” to abide by the law after confining them to a lawless environment. We order them to obtain gainful employment, without allowing them to acquire the sufficient education, skills, experience or ethics. And most importantly, not only do we need them to be self-sufficient, we also need them to participate in the restoration of broken lives and community. And yet, we ask all of this from people who have been dehumanized and psychologically crippled by their forced dependency upon, and conformity to, a paradoxical world.

The efficiency of the dog program speaks volumes to the intent and inefficiency of our nation’s prison system. Where good citizenship is the aim for animals, conformity to prison controls only prepares people to spend the rest of their lives in cages. Just as prisoners are teaching old dogs new tricks at Lakeland, prisoner reform is achievable throughout the nation.

The first Standard To Achieve Reform is -as Brockway has said- to take a “practical” approach at changing the “character of criminals… not [their] conduct.” A true change of character can only be tested in an environment conducive to producing people of good character which amounts to good citizenship. And such a change of character in prisoners will only occur when they are exposed and held accountable to the standards of society.

PARTING THOUGHT:

“Prisons should be considered moral institutions and corrections as a moral enterprise. Inmates should be seen as having the obligation to become virtuous people and to manifest moral goodness.”(5)

Sources:

1. Thomas P. Bonczar, “Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population, 1974-2001,” U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, August 2003. Eric Lotke and Jason Ziedenberg, “Tipping Point: Maryland’s Overuse of Incarceration and the Impact on Community Safety.” Justice Policy Institute, March 2005, 3. Quted by Michelle Alexander in The New Jim Crow. New York, The New Press 2012, p.9

2. Ruffin V. Commonwealth, 62 Va 790,796 (1871), quoted in The New Jim Crow. p.31

3. Zebulon R. Brockway; The Ideal of A True Prison System for a State; Read before the National Congress. October 12, 1870

4. Detroit Free Press, Gabe Newland 2/1/13

5. Francis T. Cullen, quoted in Restorative Justice In A Prison Community, by Cheryl Swanson