Tag Archives: parent-child relationships

The One I Love

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VINCE

I passed a drug test and breathalyzer. I knew I would, but I did get a little nervous. Well, nothing to fret over now.

—

I remember a lot of good from Aspen Glen [the subsidized housing complex where we lived until Dr. Wonderful came into our lives]. Twenty plus years later, I still think about my daycare family—Duane and Mary and their three kids James, Shawna, and Michael. I spent years with them after school and playing with the kids on weekends. Even after we moved I stayed in touch for years. I really do miss them. I wonder if they wonder about me.

I also remember fondly my years at Bel-Air School. Years later I drove by it, and was surprised at how small it was. Everything is big when you’re a kid.

I remember when the suburb of New Brighton itself was small. Woods everywhere. Again, driving through years later, it looked commercialized. The town I grew up in, plastered with big city names. Big City businesses. I remember when the employees at the Red Owl grocery knew me. That was the first place I ever stole from. I got caught the first time. Oh, how things change.

—

I went out on another RJWC this week (Restorative Justice Work Crew). We spent five hours at a nursing home in Moose Lake. We cleaned all the exterior windows of the facility, then picked at the never-ending supply of weeds in the various gardens. I found quite a few agates in the landscaping. We’re not allowed to keep them so we put them in a bird bath for all the residents to enjoy. They always look nice underwater.

Agate

One of the hundreds of agates Vince collected before he was incarcerated.

—

So far, it’s been raining all day. This is the first time that it’s a rained on a Saturday while I’ve been at boot camp.

If it’s raining, we don’t have to go out and do work crew stuff. I don’t mind working, I never have, but this is a good opportunity to catch up on a lot of things, including writing.

One of my friends sent me a picture of my dog Willie. I instantly became sad. I miss him so much. It’s amazing how close we can get to an animal. He has been through so much with me. He’s about 12 years old now. I can’t wait to see him again.

Who knows how or what dogs think about. Somehow, I know he misses me, and we will both be just as excited to see each other, only I will have tears in my eyes.

79 days and a wake up, and I will have the ability to start figuring out how to get him back in my life.

[ANNE: At first read I thought these passages of Vince’s were not very interesting. After typing them and re-reading them, several things struck me.  1) He is capable of reviewing the past and remembering both good and bad things.  Most of us need to live more in the now, but addicts need to be able to reflect back on the past before they can move forward.  2)  He has at least one hobby, agate collecting.  Hobbies will be important diversions for him once he’s released.  3) He has someone (his dog) he misses; he can’t wait to be reunited.  Someone to miss, and who misses you–I would hope that’d be an strong deterrent to ever being locked up again.  I hope Willie lives a very long time.]

The Restorative Powers of Kittens

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ANNE

When Vince and I started blogging, I didn’t realize that a theme of redemption would emerge. Vince is transformation is probably obvious. Mine is subtler and has unfolded over many years.

I have been thinking about this lately because in the spring and sumer I get dozens of emails a day from the Humane Society about stray kittens. What does this have to do with redemption?

I signed up to do foster care of kittens a couple years ago. These kittens are born in warehouses or barns or even under car hoods. The mothers, if they survive, are emaciated and barely old enough to conceive. So that’s part of what makes fostering redemptive for me—giving care to vulnerable teen moms that I didn’t receive myself.

I keep these kittens, with or without moms, until they are old enough to be spayed/neutered, then turn them back to the Humane Society. It’s not all fun; I’ve had entire litters die because the mother was so dehydrated. Kittens have been smothered by their litter mates. One lost an eye to the claws of a litter mate. So it’s kind of a nature-tooth-and-claw experience.

People wonder how I don’t get so attached to them that I want to keep them. I think fostering is the ideal set up—I get the cuteness of kittens and the Humane Society pays all the vet bills and provides the supplies. I travel too much to have a permanent pet. When I turn them back in, I know they will be adopted immediately—there’s a huge demand for kittens. And I’m not even that much of a pet person.

So why do I do it, and what does it have to do with redemption? I think it goes back to one of the few memories I have of my dad.

A few weeks before he left home forever, he had been gone for weeks and showed up with a black kitten. I must have been seven, and my three younger siblings were thrilled. I was too, but also leery because I knew my mother was not thrilled. I can see now that the kitten was my dad’s wedge to get back in—if my mother had demanded he turn around and leave, “and take the darn kitten with you,” she would have been the bad guy.

I remember dad telling us to hold her gently and not fight over her because she was a living creature with feelings. He said her name was Surprise! and told us to always say it that way, like there was an exclamation point.

So then dad was back home, and the next day he went out to buy some cat food and kitty litter. He was gone all afternoon and missed dinner. My mom tried to put us to bed early. We did what we usually did, laughed at her and ran in four different directions. But I also can still feel how anxious we all were.

Dad made his appearance just as the cat had crapped under someone’s bed. My mom began to reproach him because of course he was drunk and hadn’t brought home any pet supplies.

We kids were giggling until dad roared, “I’ll Get that goddamn cat!” He ripped the kitten out of my sister’s hands, strode to the top of the stairs, and hurled her down the staircase like a fast ball, screaming, “You goddamn piece of shit!” He raced down to the landing, grabbed Surprise before she could get oriented, and sent her hurtling down the second set of stairs to the first floor.

All of us—my mom and the four of us kids—huddled at the top of the stairs. Someone was whimpering but I had learned to be silent, no matter how frightened I was.

That’s when I had the thought that would teach me to never make wishes:

“I wish he was dead.”

A few months later, he was.

Surprise! not only survived but had a litter of eight black kittens six months later.

Much later, there was a (nonviolent) incident involving cats and Vince but that’s his story.

Who could not feel their soul restored by kittens?

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Money for Nothing

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ANNE

Today, June 26, is United Nations Day in Support of Victims of Torture. Today also marks one year since Vince entered prison.

My organization will host a potluck supper at our clinic in St. Paul. We’re supposed to call it a healing center, not a clinic. It’s in an old renovated Victorian home. I think it’s actually Edwardian, but in Minnesota, we call everything “Victorian,” if it’s more than 100 years old. You can take a virtual tour of it if you like, or you can take a physical tour if you live in the area.

You would think I’d be used to dealing with the corrections system by now, but it still has the ability to throw me off guard. First, in keeping with my accidental theme of critiquing every word, why can’t we call it the prison system? Just what are they “correcting”? I have an image of them straightening out Vince’s limbs and brain with ratchets and wrenches.

On June 23 I got the following message from the corrections system email provider:

This email is to inform you that effective June 30, 2015 the Minnesota Department of Corrections will no longer utilize CorrLinks for inmate message transfers. The MNDOC agency option will no longer be available effective June 30th.

If you would like to request a refund of your balance you may do so by removing all of your contacts and closing your account.

Sincerely,

CorrLinks Support

I so wish I could be an emotional ninja all the time—ducking serenely to avoid upsetting news like this—but instead I flipped out.

UNBELIEVABLE! was my immediate reaction. CorrLinks is the one thing about the entire MNDOC that has actually worked. It’s affordable, simple, and it’s the one effing way I could reliably communicate with Vince.

I assumed they had found another vendor that would cost five times more and was owned by the warden’s brother in law. Or were they just going to discontinue the email option completely? What a joke.

—

I checked the DOC website and it had no information about the change. So I called the them. The person who answered knew nothing about it. She put me on hold and when she came back read me a memo she had managed to track down that said the same thing as the email. But it did go on to say there would be a new system called J Pay. (I wonder if J is for Jail?)

It will cost 40 cents per message instead of 30. Okay, I guess I can afford that.

I currently have a $4 balance with Corrlinks. Am I going to bother requesting a refund? Hell no! I’ll bombard Vince with emails—articles from the Atlantic are good for using up words.

But I bet there will be thousands of people who don’t ask for refunds.  Let’s face it, one week’s notice is not very much, especially for wives of prisoners who are working full time and have kids.  So let’s say there are even 1,000 people who leave $4 on the table. That’s a cool $4,000 for Corrlinks, or for the DOC.   In fact, I wonder if they switch systems every now and then just to get some quick cash.

Oh I am so cynical!  Probably the money will be donated to some prison-related charity, right?

Life Imitating Work

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ANNE

Once or twice a year, my organization sends out a list of items that our clients need.  I got the latest list the first week in June.  It had the usual things on it, like Target gift cards, quarters (for laundromats), umbrellas (they travel on foot or via public transport and it’s been a rainy spring), and shoes (in this case, men’s size 8, “preferably tennis shoes”).

Someone needed a suitcase.  As an asylum seeker he is not allowed to work and he also is not eligible for any public benefits, like housing.  So he is sleeping on someone’s couch—probably a friend of a relative of a friend who is the same nationality as he is.  The most common nationality we see right now is Ethiopians.

I had a giant suitcase that I was never going to use again so I arranged for him to have it.  Win-win situation: I didn’t have space for it; he needed it, good deed done.  I am so glad I’m not a social worker; our clients’ needs are endless and their stories are so sad.

A week later I got this letter from Vince:

Ms. Mom:

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my release.  I’ve been here 100 days.  82 to go.

I’ve mentioned before that I won’t have much when I get out.  Nothing really.  But there are some necessities and even some convenience items I will need your help with.  You’re the only one I feel comfortable asking, but you may know some others that are willing to help.

So here’s my list of things.  Some of them explain themselves.  Some may not, so I will:

  1. Bed and bedding related items
  2. Clothing (from the ground up, figuratively and literally)
  3. Eye exam and contact lenses
  4. A vehicle and insurance. For this I may (will) need to take out a loan from a loving family member.  With only four hours of personal time per week, not to include AA meetings or physical activity, time management is going to be critical.  For me, a vehicle is one of the more important needs.  We’ll talk.
  5. Gym membership. We’ve talked.  [I told him the YMCA has a sliding scale system.]
  6. Cell phone, if my ISR agent allows one. I think I can pay for it.
  7. Well, that’s a good list so far.

This list wasn’t entirely my idea.  We are all encouraged to write to family asking for help when we get out.  They know we leave with nothing, and it’s good to prepare as soon as possible.

I have a new copy of my driver’s license in my file here, and soon I will have a new Social Security card, so I will leave here with the requirements to obtain legal work anywhere.  My chemical dependency counselor says it would be good for me to get work outside the foodservice industry, so keep your eyes peeled for factory work or anything really that you think I could do that would be felon friendly.

I’m not intentionally trying to add stress to your life so if I am, say so.  They say the more we prepare, the better our chances.  And our resources here are limited.  I know I’m going to be a bit of a burden for a while.  But I’m willing to pull my weight however possible.

I’m coming home with a positive attitude, a good work ethic, and a desire to be productive always.

I need to fill 90 hours of community service/volunteer work.  You mentioned a good volunteer is hard to find.  I volunteered in a nursing home the other day in Moose Lake.  It was very rewarding.

I love you, Mom.  Thank you, again, for all you continue to do.

Vince

A Room with a View of a Brick Wall

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ANNE

I moved again. It was exhausting. I hired my nephew and niece to help me, thinking, “If I’m going to spend hundreds to move anyway, why not keep it in the family?” But here’s a tip for free: rent a big truck, even if your nephew has a truck. All trucks look big to me. But even though I was only moving about two miles, it took 7 hours to move most of it because the bed of his truck wasn’t all that big. I spent two more hours after they had to leave schlepping the rest of the odds and ends in my Mini. Then there was the cleaning up at the old place. Fortunately I had learned an important lesson from the first move: don’t buy cheap packing tape. So this time boxes didn’t spring open and spill all over the truck.

The highlight of the move was when they couldn’t get my diningroom table through the back door. They removed the center legs. They tried to remove all the legs, which didn’t work. They tried opening it all the way (it’s huge—it seats 12 people). This resulted in some fairly deep gouges in the top. They tried taking the door off the hinges but the screws were rusted in place. They finally loaded it back in the truck, drove around the block, and brought it in the front door, which required carrying it up about 5 flights of steps.

But I’m in.  If I am really disciplined, I can pay it off and not have a mortgage or rent payment when I retire.

It’s not just the moving that’s such a pain. There’s changing your address for everything—which I had done three months earlier. Here’s another tip: walk into a post office and do it. Don’t do it online. I’ve tried it twice now and it doesn’t work.

I took the opportunity of moving to liberate myself from KomKast. I now have an antenna and can get about 10 TV stations. I switched internet providers, to CenturyLinke, and am so far pleased with them. I named my new wireless network “I’llNeverMoveAgain.”

—

So now I live in a gorgeous old wreck of a place; below are some photos. Another niece, and my cousin and her girls, came over before the move to help me paint. Tip number 47: get the right height ladder. Trying to paint 10-foot ceilings when you are 5’3”, using an extension pole while precariously balancing on a counter top on a wobbly footstool … well, I feel lucky I “just” had a sore neck and back for a couple days and didn’t break either.

When I sold my last place six years ago, I swore I would never own again.  I would never spend a sunny Saturday morning at Menard’s.  But the economics of renting vs. owning changed with the Great Recession.  So here I go again, buying all the stuff like drills and putty and ladders that I got rid off back then.

Now I lie awake at night thinking of all the things I want to do. I want to re-do everything, basically, with no money and no time and no expert help. I just try to observe myself, have a little laugh at my own expense, try to be kind. Tell myself, “one thing at a time.”

My favorite feature of the place: a big south-facing window with beveled glass.

LR LR2

The dining room, with the troublesome table, which looks amusingly tiny now.

DR

I think this layout, with a long hallway, is called a Pullman.

Hall

The kitchen is horrid. I have a grand vision for remodeling it but that will have to wait.

Kitchen1

This will be Vince’s room on September 9.  It’s a work in progress, like the rest of the place.  I hope the brick wall doesn’t make him feel claustrophobic.  At least he’ll have his own room with a door he can close, and a bathroom he can use by himself, with a door he can close.

Vince's BR

All Those Pizzas

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ANNE

The last post, in which Vince and I recalled Aspen Glen, reminded me of a vivid memory from that time.

Vince came rushing in the door from school; I think he was in first grade so he would have been six or seven.  Before I could turn around from whatever I was doing in the kitchen to say hi, he was out the door again.

About an hour later, he came flying back in and flung himself to the floor, crying pitifully like his heart was breaking.  “What on earth is the matter!?” I asked in alarm.  Still prostrated on the floor, he sobbed, “We have to sell pizzas for a school fundraiser, and I went to every house in Aspen Glen and didn’t even sell one!  How am I ever going to sell all these pizzas!?”

I hid my laughter.  Every unit in Aspen Glen had kids, and they all went to his school.  Why would anyone buy a pizza from someone else’s kid, especially since we were all on food stamps?

—

I think about this story when I’m feeling overwhelmed with work or chores (or the demands of this blog).  I say in my head, “How am I ever going to sell all these pizzas!” and chuckle to myself.  It reminds me that nothing is that important that I need to fling myself onto the floor and sob.

But I do wonder if this little episode is emblematic of Vince’s personality traits that may have made drugs appealing.  I know, this is called “taking someone’s inventory.”  I am only supposed to take my own inventory.  But still.

Another example: Vince bought a pair of roller blades with his bar mitzvah money.  He laced them up, hobbled outside, and 10 minutes later crawled back into the house, ripped off the skates, and hurled them across the room, screaming, “I’ll never learn how to roller blade!”  Of course he was a master of it within a week, skating backwards and doing pirouettes in the street, which made me shudder.

And he often complained of being bored.  Lots of kids say, “I’m bored!” but he was saying it up until he was arrested, at age 35.

Okay I’ll just say it: I think Vince is impatient and impulsive.  He needs stimulation and instant results or he complains of boredom or finds something to fire him up.  Just a few years ago, he took a dare to eat a tablespoon of dry cinnamon.  Dry cinnamon!  Maybe a tablespoon doesn’t sound like that much to you, but try it some time.  No, don’t.  He was sick for days.  Why would anyone do that, if they weren’t looking for a little excitement and they didn’t care if it was positive or negative?

I am never bored, so it’s hard for me to understand.  I am also a high energy person, up at the crack of dawn, on the move, tackling my to-do list—go, go, go.  That has its own downsides.  But that’s why I’ve never even been tempted to try a drug that would pep me up, like cocaine.  I don’t need to be any more hyper.

If it’s true that Vince’s personality traits feature impatience, a need for constant stimulation, and impulsivity, how will he manage when he’s out, when he has every opportunity to relieve his negative impulses?

A Room with View

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VINCE

Today we watched a movie in treatment called 7 pounds.  (The number is shown in that form in the title so I can’t be faulted for not spelling it out.).  It stars Will Smith.  And it’s one of the better movies I’ve seen in a long time.  It’s really sad.  Funny in the right spots.  And at one point in the beginning he says to a man when asked why he was deserving of his help, “Because you’re a good person, even when you think nobody is looking.”

I liked that.  I want to be like that.

Throughout my life, I have always thought of myself as a good person.  Unfortunately, I haven’t actually acted like one very often.

From dealing drugs to stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down, to abandoning friends and family alike, I’ve done nearly everything possible to be a bad person.

I’ve looked into that a lot over the last two months, done a lot of soul searching, taken my moral inventory.  I can see the harm now in the things I’ve done.  Now I’m starting to build myself back up.  To gain the confidence I never had.  I can be that good person I’ve claimed to be.  I am going to be a good man.

—

Last night at 2100, like every other night, we stood at the POA at our bunks, waiting to be counted.  This time I noticed that it was still light out.  It reminded me of my childhood in Aspen Glen, the suburban subsidized housing complex we lived in until my mom met Kermit.  I remember staring out the window at the other kids still playing outside.  I don’t remember how old I was, or what time I had to go to sleep, but I do remember hours of boredom.

No boredom here.  Today we were allowed to raise our Reebok Step up to ten inches.  Ugh. What a difference.  For 40 minutes, they extra two inches made me sweat like a hog.  (That’s what she said?)  It was a good workout.

[ANNE: I feel myself getting defensive as I read Vince’s memory of Aspen Glen.  There must have been hundreds of kids who lived there.  We moved in when Vince was four.  Maybe he was staring out the window at the other kids because he was four and I actually enforced a bedtime, unlike a lot of the other parents.  There were good parents there, but there were terrible ones too.  And a lot of them, like me, were completely overwhelmed and exhausted with work, school, household chores, and parenting.  Sometimes I couldn’t stay awake past 9:00.  Unlike me, Vince is a night person, so I can imagine he was bored because he couldn’t go out and play and he couldn’t go to sleep.  But it’s not like I kept him locked in his room and slid trays of food under his door—just to be clear.]

Brown Hat, Hurrah!

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VINCE

We finally had our red-hat reviews. A week late—better late than never.

I did about as well as I thought I would. No formal discipline. No major issues in Physical Training, Chemical Dependency, or Military Bearing. I will get my brown hat tonight.

What does that mean? Well, all of us that passed (14 out of 17) will have a higher level of responsibility.

We will be lifting weights now twice a week. And we have to do 30 pushups when we are informally disciplined. It’s time to really step it up. I will.

The three members of our squad that didn’t make it will have a chance in a week to get their brown hats. They accumulated too much discipline over a short amount of time. My prediction: one of them will be held back a month. He hasn’t lost his attitude. But…it’s not my job to worry about him. I can only control myself.

—

We got a new squad in our barracks. There are 12 squads, four in each of the three barracks. Two squads leave and arrive each month. Anyhow, it’s amazing to see the new guys and see how far we’ve come in 2½ months. They are a mess. They have a constant look of fear about them and are totally disorganized. I can’t believe we were like that, but all new squads are.

—

Yesterday I worked KP for the first time. It was nice to be back in a kitchen setting, however I was quite disappointed with the overall operation.

First, for what their labor cost is, it should have been the cleanest place in the world. But I saw obvious signs of neglect. After breakfast, lunch, and dinner service, I spent my time cleaning nooks and crannies using only a large towel. There are no useful cleaning tools (like steel wool or green scrubbers). And we aren’t allowed to spray cleaning chemicals, only pour them on towels.

The worst parts were two equally horrible things:

  1. I have never seen so much useful food thrown away in my life. Hundreds of pounds of cooked, edible food, tossed in a garbage can. They only let the offenders eat a certain amount of food. It’s plenty, but I don’t see a reason to not let us get seconds on things like broccoli, bread, or salad. Or how about doing something cliché like somehow getting the extras to homeless shelters? I dunno. Things like that get to me. What a waste.
  1. The kitchen staff (not state employees) use the power they have to degrade and belittle the offenders. Unfortunately I can’t write more on that, but I will when I am a free man.

[ANNE: I kind of feel like one of the old geezers on Sesame Street, commenting from the peanut gallery on Vince’s posts. But since we only get 13 minutes to talk on the phone every two weeks, we don’t waste time clarifying the finer points of the blog. So. I don’t get why he was so looking forward to getting his brown hat. It sounds like it just makes life more demanding—I mean, 30 pushups? I can barely do three.

I think this goes to show that many of us thrive when more is asked of us. I see this at work with volunteers. The ones whose supervisors “don’t want to overwhelm them” by giving them too much work usually don’t stick around. The ones who we pile work on, rise to it and usually do even more than we asked of them.

I always thought Vince’s problem was that he couldn’t handle stress; that was why he lived in the boon docks, didn’t own a car, never aspired to become a chef rather than a cook. But maybe I had it wrong. He seems to be thriving under high expectations. It’ll be interesting to see how he manages when he’s outside, with just the minimal expectations that he not use chemicals and not break the law.]

Fit, Fat, Ffffttt

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VINCE

This morning at 0645 hours I finally achieved my goal of completing a run. I ran 4½ miles without stopping. It hurt a lot, especially with some cramping near the bottom of my ribcage, and general soreness in my knees and thighs, but I was too happy to care. I did it.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it every time, but I do know now that it’s possible. On a side note, I started taking a probiotic supplement today. I think it’s supposed to help me with my poops. But for now it just makes me fart a lot. More on that later.

—

Two days later, 0633 hours. My down day, my second least favorite day. Yesterday was tough. For the first time since my arrival we did not go out on work crew assignments. We did, however, practice marching. The worst was from 1415 to 1610 [2:15-4:10pm] when we did half step march (120 steps per minute) up and down the side of the track. Half step is difficult because it’s faster and we have to pick our boots up about 6 inches from the ground every time to keep us all in line. It looks nice, but doing it for two hours hurt.

That wasn’t the worst of it. We had to wear our full khaki uniform and work gloves and a hat. Ugh. So hot. My gloves were soaked by the end. We did a total of five hours of marching yesterday. I’m still alive.

—

I completed the run again. 4½ miles. I even felt great afterwards. This is especially good because our brown hat review is in a few days. It’s the second of four big reviews. We will have a meeting with our case manager, counselor, squad officer and physical trainer. We will go over everything positive and negative from the past month. If all goes well, we get upgraded from red hats to brown hats. That means our seniority goes up, and we have more responsibility. More on that later.

We had our monthly weigh-in this morning. I went from 194 pounds and 13.4% body fat to 189 pounds and 11.2% body fat. That’s pretty good for a month. It means I’m turning fat into muscle, I think.

[ANNE: Eleven percent body fat!? That’s so unfair! I signed on with a personal trainer for the first time in my life about a month ago, and she measured me at 34% body fat. Ugh. I’ve always loved weight training, and she has added all sorts of cardio, which I hate because I hate sweating. But I am doing it. And after three weeks Ta Da! Still 34% body fat, no weight loss, not an inch lost. Again, ugh. She told me not to be discouraged, to keep it up. I mentioned that Vince is at 11% and her jaw dropped: “That’s really, really good for a 36-year-old man,” she said. Skeptical analyzer that I am, I wonder if the devices at the Y and in prison are different? Maybe I could find some way to have them test my body fat when I finally get to visit Vince? No, that’s crazy thinking. Now I understand why there’s such an obsession with naming thing “boot camp,” if it gets those kinds of results.]

 

Nodrinkalotine

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ANNE

There seems to be all sorts of momentum to reform drug sentencing, to reduce mass incarceration, and to make it easier for ex-offenders to make it on the outside.

There was a full-page article in my favorite magazine, The Week, entitled “Opening the prison door: A new, bi-partisan movement is challenging the notion that jailing millions of Americans makes the U.S. safer.”  You have to be logged in to see it, otherwise I’d share it.  It cites the stats: taxpayers spend $80 billion a year to keep 2.4 million prisoners locked up.  It examines what’s going on in various states, including the reddest of red states, Texas. I never thought I would admiringly quote Texas Governor Rick Perry, but he said, “The idea that we lock people up, throw them away forever, never give them a second chance at redemption, isn’t what America is about.”

Current affairs geek that I am, I enjoy watching 60 Minutes on Sunday evenings.  I hate it when it is delayed for some stupid sporting event, like football.  ANYway, a few weeks ago they did a story on TED Talks, and one of the TED talkers they featured was Bryan Stevenson, a public-interest lawyer and the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, which is challenging racial discrimination in the criminal justice system.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune is full of related articles.  One is about a couple of drug reform bills that failed to pass.  Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman is quoted: “Those people who possess large amounts [of drugs] for sale suffer from the disease of greed, and the answer to their problems isn’t treatment, but the big house.” The big house? Is he living in a Jimmy Cagney movie or what? Regardless, most people in prison on drugs charges, including Vince, were busted with small amounts of drugs.  Sigh.

There an article about how the DOC has succeeded in banning journalists from taking photos or video inside prisons.  To me, this sounds very much like the DOC has something to hide, and also like a slippery slope toward becoming more like North Korea or Iran.  I mean, freedom of the press is a pretty fundamental part of democracy, and nowadays visuals are so much more vital to reporting than ever.

There’s an editorial, “Restore voting rights to former felons.”  This is a hot button issue for me.  Because Vince was convicted of his first felony shortly after he turned 18, he wasn’t allowed to vote until he’d cleared his record–when he was 30.  It so happened that this was the year Barak Obama was elected, and Vince was jubilant.  “My team won!” he exclaimed.  I was so happy for him.  Now he’ll start from square one.

At work, I see all sorts of funding opportunities for studies of addiction. These are just two that I saw in the same day: “Second Chance Act Strengthening Families and Children of Incarcerated Parents” from the Department of Justice, and “Human Studies to Evaluate Promising Medications to Treat Alcohol Use Disorder” from the National Institutes of Health.

So there really does seem to be a movement to end mass incarceration, and there is promising research being conducted to get at the root causes of addiction. Someday maybe, when you take your 10-year-old kid in for his annual exam, the doctor will run some routine genetic tests. “Mr. and Ms. Jones, I’m afraid your son has inherited your family’s gene for addiction. The good news is, we can tweak is DNA, or put him on a course of Nodrinkalotine. Let’s discuss the pros and cons of each….”