Category Archives: mandatory minimum drug sentences

Sincerely, Barak Obama

I wrote to the White House about a month ago to thank President Obama for his efforts to lower incarceration rates through sentencing reform, reintegration programs and other “upstream” measures. I thought I would share the response I received. Too bad the White House seal and other graphics don’t show up:

Dear Anne:

Thank you for writing, and for sharing your son’s story. Today, our criminal justice system holds approximately 2.2 million Americans behind bars, at a cost to taxpayers of $80 billion per year. Many of these individuals are violent criminals who are off the streets thanks to hard‑working police officers and prosecutors, but many others who are incarcerated are non‑violent offenders whose punishments do not always fit their crimes. We have to make sure that our justice system is fair and effective and is doing what it can to make individuals, their families, and their communities stronger.

My Administration has taken concrete steps to enhance public safety while also making our system more just. By channeling resources into early childhood education and issuing discipline guidance to our schools, we are creating pathways to success instead of pipelines to prison. Through initiatives like “My Brother’s Keeper,” we are promoting reforms to the juvenile justice system and reaching young people before they’re locked into a cycle from which they cannot recover. Additionally, the Justice Department’s “Smart on Crime” and “Justice Reinvestment” initiatives aim to address the unnecessary use of mandatory minimums in the Federal system and work with states to lower their incarceration numbers and reinvest in crime prevention services.

For currently incarcerated individuals, my Administration has supported critical improvements to our prison system that target overcrowding, solitary confinement, gang activity, and sexual assault. We are promoting rehabilitation programs that have been proven to decrease the likelihood of a repeat offense, and we are expanding reintegration programs—such as those supported by the Second Chance Act—that work with government agencies and non‑profit organizations to help provide access to employment, education, housing, and health care for the nearly 600,000 inmates released annually. In addition, I directed the Office of Personnel Management to “ban the box” on most Federal job applications in order to end the practice of disqualifying people simply because of a mistake they made in their past.

While my Administration remains committed to taking action to improve all phases of the criminal justice system, it is time for Congress to act. Meaningful sentencing reform and juvenile justice reform legislation would make a crucial contribution to improving public safety, reducing runaway incarceration costs, and making our criminal justice system fairer. There is strong bipartisan support in Congress to achieve these goals, and I am encouraged that the Senate and House will continue to work cooperatively to get a bill to my desk.

Thank you again for writing. Throughout my Presidency and beyond it, I will continue working to keep our communities safe and make our justice system fair. To learn more about these efforts, visit www.WhiteHouse.gov/Issues/Civil‑Rights/Justice.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

Seeing how Vince struggles with the after effects of being imprisoned, it is comforting to know that lawmakers on both sides agree the system must change—drastically, and now—and that my president cares enough about this to take it on even after he leaves office. I believe this is the only issue Republicans and Democrats agree on and are working on together nowadays, which tells you a lot about how messed up the system is.

A Draught Experiment

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Because my son lives with me and is on intensive supervised release for a 50-month prison sentence, I am not allowed to have alcohol in my house. Or drugs. Or weapons. But I wouldn’t even know where to get my hands on either of those.

I have to admit I was worried that I couldn’t do it—not have alcohol in my home. Over many years I had developed some habits. Living alone, there was no one to question them.

It went like this: I would get home and have a beer or a glass of wine. Then another one, and sometimes another one. Especially if I was into some TV show, it was easy to just keep the wine bottle on the table next to me so I wouldn’t have to get up and walk to the fridge for a refill.

This was my habit almost every night, except for the occasional night I went out for happy hour, which just involved a different venue.

So I really wondered—what will I do—now that I can’t drink at home? Was I really an alcoholic after all? Would I sneak alcohol into the house? Drink it in my car in the parking lot? Would I stoop, literally, to drinking in the unheated, spider-web-filled basement? Would I be going to happy hour seven nights a week? Would I start stuffing my face with cookies or driving out to Mystic Lake Casino to gamble, as a substitute? Would I go through withdrawal? Would I have to check into Hazelden and if so, could I get a family discount since my dad, Vince, and however many cousins were alumni?

I had a notion that this could be an opportunity, but I didn’t know for what.

—

It’s been three months since Vince was released. Not drinking in my home has not been a problem. I joined a private club that’s a block from my house with the idea that I could amble over and have a few cups of cheer without having to drive home. It’s a nice place but I learned that I don’t like going to the same place all the time, so I dropped my membership after a few months.

I haven’t gone wild with cravings. I haven’t snuck alcohol into the house except once or twice, when I stopped at home to change in between the liquor store and going out to a dinner party. I am not aware that I’m eating any more. Once in a while I do wish that I could watch my favorite TV program and have a glass of wine, but it’s not a huge deal. I have enjoyed going out for happy hour twice a week or so, with different friends to different places. I have also found myself shopping more, but that could be because I just bought a new house and I need stuff.

But here’s the unexpected result: I’ve lost five pounds without even trying! I can only assume it’s from all the alcohol calories I’ve passed up. I’ve tracked my drinks and calculated that I’ve foregone over 8,000 calories since Vince moved in. Thank you, Vince! I’m probably not watching as much TV, either, because without my sedative of choice I don’t get lulled into a stupor in front of the boob tube.

When Vince mentioned last week that he had a lead on a house share situation, I had mixed feelings. I was happy for him but worried about myself—would I quickly revert to my former habits? Maybe I could keep up a self-imposed ban on alcohol in my house. Right. Uh huh.

The house deal fell through, and I was relieved.

Jailbird Rock

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Wow! I got another enthusiastic email from JPay, whose slogan is, “Making it Easier.” I feel my blood pressure rise as I read that. Nothing—nothing—makes having a loved in in prison easier. And to the contrary, being ripped off in order to communicate with them adds financial strain on top of the shame, worry, anger, disappointment, and all the other negative emotions.

I will just repeat here what I wrote early on in this blog. When people said, “At least you know where he is, and that he’s got a roof over his head and three meals so you don’t have to worry about him,” my response was, “That’s true. There have been months and years when I didn’t know where Vince was and I worried myself sick imagining he was dead in a cornfield.

It was always that cornfield. Maybe, as a city person, it was my worst-case scenario. If I were going to be found dead, I would hope it was in my own home, fully dressed with my makeup on, after I had taken the empty wine bottles out to the recycling bins. I shudder at the image of being found dead in a cornfield, where in my imagination it is always winter and crows are circling overhead. Ugh.

All you have to do is watch the Prison Rape Elimination Act video to know that there is still plenty to worry about if your kid is in prison.

Back to JPay. Here’s what they say about video visits:

There’s nothing quite like seeing your loved one in person. Visiting them at their correctional facility, however, can often be difficult; the prison or jail may be far away, and the security procedures can be invasive. Sometimes there’s just no way to be there in person.

“When physical visits are impossible or inconvenient, JPay’s Video Visitation lets you talk face-to face with your incarcerated friend or relative from the comfort of your own home. When you can’t be there, this is the next best thing.”

Wow, it almost brings a tear to my eye, how compassionate they are and how they want to help! It’s almost like they know I was ejected from Moose Lake and banned from visiting my son for six months.

So, even though Vince is no longer incarcerated, I’ll share with you all the marvelous ways that JPay helps families stay in touch with incarcerated loved ones.

You could send them money so they can buy ramen and instant coffee—that’s only $9.95 per $100. You could buy one short email for $2.00. Or how about a first-class stamp? JPay charges 40 cents to buy a 49-cent stamp. That’s not a 9-cent discount, that’s 89 cents total for one stamp.

Finally, you could pay $9.95 for a 30-minute video visit.

This is new information to me; when I visited Vince the last time before he was released they were just rolling out this option and the rumor was that it would cost $99—not $9.95. So, my apologies to JPay—$9.95 is actually a bargain compared to taking the day off work and driving for four hours to make a physical visit.

But on this day, JPay was emailing me to say I could fund a media account with no fees for this one day. I could not figure out what a media account was; maybe it’s not available at the facility from which Vince was released. Again, they show hip, attractive, young people having a great time … listening to tunes, I guess.

And at the very bottom are Apple AppStore and Google Play buttons—are these corporate giants getting in on the easy cash to made off of prison families?

Mothers and Sons and Sibs

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Once a month or so since I started this blog, I’ve posted a roundup of all the prison-related news. Lately there has been a lull in the media, but not in my personal life.

I met a grade-school friend for dinner. Even though I have a constant desire to live somewhere else or to at least travel constantly, as I get older I’ve found I appreciate the old friendships more. We went to the same school, lived in the same neighborhood, spent a lot of time at each other’s houses.

And our sons have much in common. Over dinner, she told me the long story of his unraveling. To protect her privacy I won’t go into detail, but he is looking at some serious prison time—maybe 10 years. His circumstances didn’t come about over night; she’s been trying to balance support and detachment for 20 years. All I could do was empathize about how powerless and bereft she felt. She didn’t seem to feel the shame that was predominant for me when Vince was first imprisoned. I think she was too exhausted.

—

Another friend, whose son is a Lutheran version of Vince, called to say she had phoned the police to report her son acting threateningly. It took the police an hour to show up. They took him down to the station and she didn’t know what would happen and she asked if she could sleep on my couch in case they let him go, because she was afraid. I said of course. The police did let him go and there was more drama but in the end they both slept under her roof and no one was hurt.

—

Two professional colleagues have brothers who were recently jailed for Driving Under the Influence, neither one for the first time.

One asked me if I thought she should bail her brother out. In Alanon I learned not to give advice but to talk about my own experience and offer support.

“If you pay his bail,” I said, “expect to lose that money. And since he’s looking at 10 years inside, don’t be surprised if he goes on a major bender.”

“But he’s going to live in the family cabin in the middle of the woods, and he won’t have a car,” she said.

“Is there a riding lawn mower or an ATV there?” I asked, and we laughed because there is a riding mower at the cabin and she knows he would ride it into town to the liquor store.

—

A member of my own family spent time in jail recently. He managed to find an old grade school friend to bail him out.

Note to my grade school friend: If I ever wind up in jail I hope I can count on you to bail me out.

My relative is out now. He was ordered to undergo mental health and chemical dependency assessments as a condition of his release. This is a good thing but since he is homeless and unemployed and doesn’t have a vehicle, it’s hard to imagine how he will make it happen, even if he was enthusiastic about it, which he isn’t. He calls his mother and hangs up, or leaves messages which start out sweet then turn sarcastic when she doesn’t pick up the phone. She is doing a wonderful job of not reacting to him. But then, she’s had 30 years of practice.

It’s never, ever just the person sitting in jail who is affected, it’s the whole family. All the old narratives, grudges, and codependency kicks into overdrive. Mothers feel guilty. Fathers hide in their workshops. Step parents are often the most sensible ones because their identities aren’t hanging on the offender’s actions. Siblings are either overly involved, ordering everyone around like they have an invisible clipboard, or distance themselves even further from the family.

So what’s going on? Is it the full moon, the holidays, the dark cold season? Or because, like most people, I associate with people like myself?

Free But Not Free

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After avoiding each other for a couple days—not easy to do in an 800-square-foot space—I offered to make dinner so Vince and I could talk and clear the air. “Unless u want me to write a letter to u instead,” I texted. No, he texted back, we can talk.

We started with a hug and “I love you.” It reminded me of our moments on the hug rug in prison.

He wolfed down his stir fry while I talked, then talked while I ate. We went through our lists of grievances. To my surprise I didn’t get defensive and he didn’t roll his eyes and walk out of the room.

The one thing I was nervous about was saying, “It is my house.” That’s a fact, right? But saying it would feel like I was lecturing a teenager. This was about my request that Vince ask me—or at least give me a heads up—when he was inviting people over—even family members. He responded that I had brought my friend Sarah home a few nights earlier without warning him.

“I didn’t even know who she was,” he said.

“Sarah? You don’t remember Sarah?” I asked. “We came down to visit you and we spent the day together picking agates. We had dinner at that nice restaurant where you ended up working….” Had he been high on something, all day and evening, and I hadn’t been able to tell? It didn’t matter now.

“It’s my house,” I said, and the world didn’t end. We agreed to have dinner together a couple times a week so we can talk things over on a regular basis instead of saving them up.

—

A few days later I texted Vince to ask if he’d like to eat lasagna with me that evening, and he replied that he just wanted to go home and go to be after work.

This is it. This is what they were talking about the day Vince was released, when they said that adjustment to life on the outside would be harder than anything they experienced in prison.

And now the weather has turned, to the cold, dark days of Minnesota winter. It’s hard for anyone to get up and leave the house when it’s dark as night and freezing drizzle, but Vince has to walk six blocks, take a bus and a train, then walk six more blocks to his job in the laminating factory. He still can’t cash his own paycheck because Wells Fargo requires two forms of ID, even for checks drawn on its own accounts.

—

There was an editorial and an article in the St. Paul paper about criminal justice system reform. At the end of a local forum, two mothers got up and spoke about the effects of incarceration on the family.

“There’s no help,” said one mother whose son had committed suicide at age 28 because he just couldn’t make it on the outside.

“There really isn’t,” said the second mother. One of her sons is schizophrenic, and thanks to her persistence he’s in a state hospital, not a prison. She faces eviction because her landlord won’t let her other son, newly-released on 10 years of probation, live with her. He was convicted of criminal possession of a firearm. If I was renting in her building and found out he had moved in, I’m sure I’d be unhappy.

These forums and op-eds are good news—there are reform efforts like this going on at the national, state, and local level, and that they have bipartisan support. But the words of these mothers weighs on me. Vince actually said the other day something like, “It would almost be easier to go back to prison that to be trapped on house arrest like this.” Ugh.

MUST be positive! Must make gratitude lists! Must not indulge in self pity! This too shall pass!

Only eight more months to go.

Your Art Here

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I received an email from JPay, the company that sells email access to inmates’ families and friends. I wrote a couple posts about them in July. They were the new Department of Corrections vendor with the slick-looking website featuring people who looked totally thrilled! to be overpaying to send emails to their loved ones.

JPay asked me to like them of Facebook. As if! Why would anyone want to broadcast that they had a family member in prison, and give free publicity to a company that was harvesting big profits from their misfortune? There probably is a segment of the population who thinks it’s cool to have someone inside.

And now, JPay is having a holiday art contest. The theme is “Season’s Greetings.” Wow, that’s original. Why not something really crazy like “Happy Holidays”?

Or “I’ll be home for Christmas—not.”

Three winners will be chosen to receive up to $500 worth of prizes. Up to $500 each or $500 total? Let me guess, the prizes will be $10 gift cards for JPay emails. That would work out to about 3 emails.

The contest is only open to JPay customers “that are currently not incarcerated.” I guess that means mothers, wives, kids, and anyone else left on the outside. I can’t bring myself to go look at the contest rules. It doesn’t say what will be done with the artwork, but since the submission email is Facebook@JPay.com, I guess they will be broadcasting that you have a loved one in prison for you, whether you like it or not. Just another happy customer!

You can’t make this stuff up. I was taken aback when I saw this in my in box. I had hoped to never, ever have anything to do with the prison industrial complex again.

I could opt out of receiving future emails from them, but the absurdity of of a coloring contest from a prison vendor–not to mention the poor and vague wording–has provided me with so many laughs that now I’m kind of looking forward to what they’ll do for Martin Luther King Day and Valentine’s Day.

Geographic Cure, Denied

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We’re having a long, warm, sunny autumn here in St. Paul. I get outside as much as possible. I hike along the Mississippi River or go to a park and sit in my car with the sun on my face while I read or do a crossword puzzle. I even went camping in the middle of the week.

Well, it was cabin camping. A heated cabin with electricity. I went for a long hike along the St. Croix River then made a roaring fire outside the cabin. I drank some wine and read a book. It was soooo quiet. Lovely. It was just what I needed, but now it seems like a year ago.

I love being outdoors and I love to travel, but I am also a homebody. I’ve been trying to not be home as much as possible because things are tense. Sharing 800 square feet would be tough with anyone, but I am living with my grown son. No grown man wants to live with his parents.

And my grown son is newly released from prison and negotiating all sorts of challenges, like maintaining sobriety in the land of 10,000 liquor stores and bars. His time outside the condo is very limited and must be pre-approved. The probation agents have not come to the house lately, unless they’ve come in the middle of the night and I didn’t hear them. Apparently they are now showing up at his workplace and making him take urinalysis tests there.

He is working full time, volunteering, cooking, getting out into nature and exercising, and going to AA. He doesn’t complain. He doesn’t ask me for much. I thought things were going relatively well.

When there is something I don’t like, I’ve been direct—asking him to take off his shoes when he comes home, for instance. He always says okay.

He’s been mostly silent for weeks. It’s uncomfortable, but I figured he was going through lots of changes and it wasn’t about me. I figured if he had something to say he would say it. Then I discovered that he had said it, just not to me. Ouch.

I want him to have his say. I want him to speak up. This morning he took me to task for making noise in the kitchen while he was sleeping. His bedroom is on the other side of the wall from the garbage disposal…I got defensive at first, then apologized. I’m glad he said it to me, not to the spectators in the arena that is the blogosphere.

—

I interviewed for a job in London three weeks ago. Typical for a nonprofit, they wanted someone who could do at least three jobs in one. They wanted a researcher, a relationship/sales manager, a writer/editor, a trainer, and a budget/finance person all in one. Ideally, there would be a division of labor by people who are suited to and strong in different skill sets.

It was 10 days until I found out I didn’t get it, but it was 10 days of daydreaming. It was like having a “Move to London” lottery ticket in my pocket. I researched where the office was and looked at flats on Craig’s List. I mentally packed two large suitcases with everything I would need. Vince would, of course, stay behind in the condo and have all 800 feet to himself. We would get along great again, once I was 4,000 miles away. I would use every vacation day to travel, travel, travel. London would be such a great base! It would be so much easier to get to my long-haul bucket list destinations, like Australia, New Zealand, Japan, India, and all of Southeast Asia. Oh yes, and the job…of course the people would be easy to get along with and they would love my work and it would be cosmically fulfilling. Then after 3-5 years I would come home and semi-retire, just as Vince was getting married and wanting to buy his own place.

Yep, I had it all figured out. I probably dodged a bullet. But now what?

Prison News Roundup, Suspicious Pork Story Edition

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ANNE

Now, having written in my last post about how my guiding principle in life is the pursuit of justice, I have to confess that I have no desire to do anything on prison issues beyond writing the occasional blog post about them. I thought I would take up the prison-industrial complex’s exploitation of prisoners for near-slave labor, or their milking of families with outrageous phone charges, but I don’t want to even think about these things anymore. I no longer want to carry around clippings about prison abuses in my diary for future blog posts. I want to be free. I want to have fun. I want to go to a trampoline park, or race my Mini on a real track, or bake French macaroons, or just hunker down with a good 800-page novel for the winter.

—

However, there have been some big developments recently on the prison front that I can’t not note.

In case you have been at a silent retreat in Nova Scotia for the last month, you don’t know that the U.S. Justice Department has begun releasing 6,000 federal prisoners. This is the largest one-time release in history. It’s part of a bipartisan effort led by President Obama to reduce crowding in prisons and free nonviolent offenders who were given harsh sentences in the 80s and 90s. Maximum sentences were reduced in 2014 and the changes were retroactive.

About 2,000 of those released are undocumented individuals who will be deported immediately.

The others will have their challenges, as recently featured on John Oliver Last Week Tonight. Thank you, John.

—

In the “I can’t believe I’m reading this” department, the nation’s pork producers are in an uproar after the feds abruptly removed all pork products from the menu for federal prisoners.

I have not eaten pork since I converted to Judaism nearly 40 years ago. I don’t keep kosher; I eat plenty of shrimp. The pork thing is just symbolic. But everyone around me seems obsessed with bacon, so I was very suspicious to read that this pork ban is based on surveys of prisoners which found that they didn’t like pork. Really? When I asked Vince, who loves all forms of pig meat, he said it could actually be true because the “pork” that is served in prison is of such poor quality that it’s nauseating.

Of course there are those who suspect that the Obama Administration is kow-towing to Muslim prisoners (he’s a Muslim, you know).

The story mentions that pork has been getting more expensive, but why ban it completely?

My personal suspicion is that there is some corporate interest at work here, such as the American turkey industry, who took a huge hit this year due to Avian influenza and may be looking to make up for lost profits.

A note: There are 206,000 federal prisoners—er, I guess 200,000 after the aforementioned prisoner release, which still leaves about 2.2 million non-federal prisoners who will be able to pig out on pork.

A Break from Breaking Free

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ANNE

Vince says he’s hit a wall with the blogging, and I need more than 10 minutes notice to come up with new material. After over a year of blogging and nearly 200 posts, I’d say we’ve earned a break.

We’ll be back. If you haven’t yet binge read the thing from the beginning, start here and click on the right-pointing arrow at the bottom of each post to proceed. Feel free to share with others, and thanks for reading.

Gross

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VINCE

The following post is a recap of two of the more disgusting things I saw or dealt with while I was locked up. I lived with all men for about 460 straight days. Most of these men, including myself to some extent, were either not capable, or not willing to clean up after themselves, communicate appropriately with others, use toilets properly, or masturbate out of view (not me!).

I’ll start with my personal favorite. It happened while I was working in the garments section of MinnCorr at Moose Lake prison. I have mentioned before that I sewed men’s underpants together for a living there. On a quick side note, it was alarming to me how many grown men take off all of their clothing to make a poop (shit). It is also interesting to know that roughly 10% of men wipe from the front. And maybe 2% wipe while standing up. Keep in mind that these prison bathrooms have a privacy wall on the sides, but nothing at all on the front. So, as I entered the bathroom this particular day I rounded the corner and saw a man with no pants on taking a shit. What I found odd is that his hand was reaching into the toilet through the front side. I don’t normally watch people but that kinda drew my attention. Without hesitation, he pulled up a piece of his own feces and brought it up to his face and smelled it. A small piece fell off one end and went back in the bowl. My only thought was that I was happy he didn’t eat it. I looked away. At this point I walked all the way through the bathroom to the other door and exited, having lost my desire to urinate. I had a slow walk back to my work station, trying to process what I had seen. Nothing. I got nothing for ya.

This next incident happened while I was in St. Cloud. A rather large, very openly gay, very openly H.I.V. positive black man was moved into B house, where I was one of the swampers, otherwise known as house cleaning crew. Every day I would walk by the cells with cleaning supplies and talk with the other offenders. It was nice because almost everybody in that terrible prison is on lock-down for about 22 hours a day, so we got to chat. Well this new guy took a liking to me in a very creepy way. Every time I walked by his cell he would be very naked, and he would try to talk to me while he was cleaning, but I would walk down the aisle to avoid that. He would try to touch my hand when I grabbed the spray bottles off of his bars and smile at me in what I assume was an “I’m gonna butter your bread” sort of way. Well one day he happened to be sitting at my table during chow and he just wouldn’t stop looking at me. So finally I snapped and yelled, “what!” He smiled and said, “I would eat you alive.” Then he proceeded to eat a banana in a very inappropriate manner. That night during our flag time I walked by the shower stalls and he tried to get my attention while he was showering but I didn’t look. That night he got his red box and he was shipped out two days later. I don’t have A.I.D.S.

There aren’t enough words left for me to type another story. But in general, prison was the worst place you could ever be. There are so many things I think of on a daily basis that ARE the reminder to me–I fuck up, I go back to prison. No high or drunk can ever be worth losing my freedom. Nothing in prison will ever be like the relationships I have started anew out here with my family and friends. Nobody out here poops on the shower floor then mashes it down the grate so they don’t have to do it on a public toilet. I hope. And I have yet to see anybody out in the world eating with mouths wide open, splattering bits of food and saliva to and fro.

After a month, things aren’t so overwhelming and everything is getting easier day by day. It’s still a work in progress, but my future looks bright to me.