Never Been Better

A few months ago, I spoke with a good friend of mine who is still doing time in prison. It had been more than a year since I had last spoken with him, yet I could feel his warmth and gentleness as if we were in the same room together.  It is true that the prison environment does little to engender the core attributes of friendship like trust, empathy, and compassion.

Yet, many people had shown him extraordinary kindness during his two decades in prison, and had had learned to pass that kindness on to others. 

I asked him how he’d been doing, and he said to me, “Never been better!” His familiar positivity brought a smile to my face. It was that bright optimism that drew me to him in the first place. Being close to him lightened the shadows I still carried at that time, and gave me hope for the future.

He had embraced faith while in prison, and it became a living force within him. Unlike many people I meet out here in the “free” world, he actually lived his faith. It propelled him into service to others. He had been teaching newcomers in prison about sexual assault prevention for nearly five years before I met him. When he wasn’t teaching, he worked in the chapel as a clerk, where he could assist the Chaplain and volunteers. Over time, they stopped seeing him as an inmate, and put him in charge of facilitating the Friday night chapel services. 

He told his story one Friday night. I’ll never forget it. He had experienced a traumatic childhood, with a chaotic home life and a father in prison. The turmoil led him to drugs and unhealthy acquaintances. Weeks before his 19^th birthday, he accompanied two young men to buy some drugs. Unexpectedly, the two men attacked the drug dealer and killed him. My friend was horrified.

He spent an entire year in county jail claiming that he never had any intention of harming the man who lost his life. The two men responsible for the murder quickly accepted plea agreements that would assure them of release from prison in their late 30s. My friend dared to claim innocence, and asked for a trial. Under the law of parties, my friend was charged and convicted of Capital Murder. 

To punish him for refusing the plea agreement, the prosecutor demanded a sentence that would keep him in prison at least twice the length of time given to the actual murderers. 

The judge agreed with the prosecutor, so my friend won’t even be eligible for parole until 2033. His right to appeal expired long ago. Unless Texas passes a law that makes my friend eligible for a second look by the sentencing court, he will remain in prison until he is at least 58 years old. Some states allow certain individuals, like those who were children themselves at the time the crime was committed, to appeal for a sentence reduction after serving a certain percentage of the sentence. Such a law could be extended to those sentenced under the law of parties, particularly when the actual murderer(s) received more lenient sentences.  Sadly, no such law exists in Texas.

My friend had to learn to forgive others in order to cope with injustice. After having served two decades in prison, my friend learned that one of the men who had committed the murder was on the unit awaiting parole release. The Chaplain accompanied my friend to the release gate, where they met the man. 

My friend looked the man in the eye and said, “I forgive you.” They shook hands, and the man departed the unit to begin his adult life outside of prison.

Both of the men who committed the murder are now free from prison. They are living their lives, able to pursue careers and family. Out here in the “free” world, the same prosecutor who abandoned all sense of fairness, demanding that my friend serve 20 years for being a party to a murder and an additional 60 years for daring to defend himself in court, gets to sleep in a comfortable bed and perhaps enjoy a round of golf this weekend. The judge who went along with the prosecutor, forgetting his sworn duty to remain just and impartial, also gets to enjoy his life, perhaps fishing along the Texas coast. My friend will experience none of these things. 

As for my friend, he’s “never been better.” He’ll teach a class this week that will make prison safer. He’ll share his kindness with people like me, helping them to heal and grow into the men they were intended to be. People who experience his friendship will return to the “free” world with a deeper commitment to improve the lives of others. 

My friend will probably bring a message at the Friday night chapel service. He may talk about an ancient king named Solomon who knew a thing or two about justice. Perhaps my friend will teach others that, when it comes to matters of justice, where lives are at stake, one needs a double portion of wisdom. 

Because wisdom is often lacking in the Texas courts, we need a Second Look Law. It's also time to take a second look at Law of Parties.  

Drug Crimes

Seven years ago I was in county jail anxiously awaiting the outcome of my criminal case.  There was no thought of taking my case to trial.  I had committed three counts of robbery in a 24-hour crack cocaine binge. I was already on probation for another robbery I had committed 18 months prior. I accepted a plea agreement of 15 years with parole eligibility after serving one-quarter of my sentence. When I tell fellow addicts about the crimes I committed in that desperate state, they invariable say, “Yep. I get it.”

Cocaine and other stimulants are not only extremely addictive, they alter the brain.[i] Actual lesions are observed in the brains of cocaine abusers, meaning that drug use literally causes brain damage. The damage impairs decision making even during periods of abstinence, making it extraordinarily difficult to remain drug free long enough for the brain to heal. 

I relapsed frequently.  I was also under psychiatric care for depression and anxiety at the same time, which would suggest the need for longer-term residential treatment and extended aftercare in a supportive environment.[ii]  Instead, I was placed in a punitive halfway house in a neighborhood with high levels of drug activity. Every day presented an agonizing struggle to ignore the oppressive urge to find more crack. The obsessions to use were so powerful that I’d enter into periodic fugue states, unconsciously moving through the day as memories and fantasies of crack cocaine seized my present awareness.     

When I finally relapsed, my only thought was to find more crack. In that state, I would have done anything to score another hit.  I committed robbery to get more drugs.  This is what a drug crime looks like. 

 In criminal justice reform, people often talk of “low-level drug offenders.” I never met a “low-level drug offender” while in prison. In state prison, only 16 percent of the population is incarcerated for drug offenses. Most of the “drug offenders” I met were in prison for theft, burglary, or robbery. These are crimes that undoubtedly warrant a consequence, but the people arrested for these crimes remain treatable. 

There is no research that supports the notion that long-term incarceration is a form of rehabilitation. 

Researchers have studied drug addiction treatment so extensively, that they can affirmatively state: Treatment Works. The National Institute of Drug Abuse even established principles of effective treatment.[iii] Therefore, when one talks of rehabilitation for someone convicted of a drug-related offense, the proper response is treatment, not more time in prison. 

Unfortunately, judges and prosecutors have little confidence in treatment.  In many counties in Texas, the vast majority of felony convictions result in prison or state jail sentences, not community supervision.  While Texas has a long way to go in terms of making evidence-based treatment more widely available, people on community supervision at least have greater access to treatment than those in prison. 

In prison, pre-release treatment can only be accessed through a favorable vote of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. You read that correctly: one can only get treatment in prison after serving the minimum sentence imposed by the court, and only then by a vote of non-clinicians. Sadly, the Parole Board continues to view parole denial as a tool for rehabilitation. In Texas, nearly 85% of those eligible for parole will be released within five years of initial parole eligibility; however, the Board only approves about 35% of those eligible every year. 

This means that the Parole Board spends $835 million each year to keep about 44,000 people in prison beyond their minimum sentence, most of whom would have benefited from treatment. In true Texas fashion, many of those people are denied parole because of a history of drug use. Again, you read that correctly: 

In Texas, the Parole Board can deny someone treatment because the individual has a history of drug abuse. 

Just as I had to understand my problem before I could truly grasp recovery, Texas has to understand that addiction is at root of a significant proportion of crimes committed in the state. Knowing that incarceration will not address the problem, we must invest our limited resources in what does work. Treatment, housing, and aftercare are effective strategies. 

Treatment does not preclude a consequence for serious crimes, but thinking of incarceration as a form of rehabilitation is the very definition of insanity.  

Citations

---

[i] Fuchs, Rita A., et al, “Differential Involvement of Orbitofrontal Cortex Subregions in Conditioned Cue-Induced and Cocaine-Primed Reinstatement of Cocaine Seeking in Rats,” The Journal of Neuroscience, July, 21, 2004, http://www.jneurosci.org/content/24/29/6600.full.pdf.

[ii] National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, “Treating cocaine/crack dependence,”

[iii] National Institute on Drug Abuse, “Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research-Based Guide (Third Edition,” http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-addiction-treatment-research-based-guide-third-edition/principles-effective-treatment. 

Nature of the Crime

Holliday Unit, Huntsville ,Texas

I appreciated Scott Henson’s recent Grits for Breakfast post related to prison release rates in Texas (see “The arithmetic of de-incarceration: TDCJ edition”). Scott has a way communicating about complex issues that paints a simple and easy to understand picture for the reader. It’s one of the reasons why his reporting often leads to tangible policy changes, like the recent adjustment of property offense penalty thresholds.  That measure will likely decrease the number of felony theft cases and shift additional cases into community supervision, hopefully leading to treatment and services for people with addiction and mental illness. 

In Scott’s recent post, he provides a graph comparing the number of people sent to prison each year to the number of people released.  You can immediately see a problem that could stall progress on criminal justice reform in Texas.  

If the number of people received into the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is not equal to or less than the number of people released from prison each year, we will soon have to build more prisons.  

Texas prison populations have declined, but only by 3.6 percent.  We have a long way to go before we come close to the reductions in prison populations achieved by New York and other states.  Most advocates believe that Texas should decrease its prison population by at least 30 percent.

There has been undeniable progress.  The number of placements into pretrial diversion programs has nearly doubled since 2005, with a 63 percent increase in felony diversion.  Also, thanks to the leadership of the outgoing Chair of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, Rissie Owens, with support from former Governor Perry and the Legislature, the number of people approved for parole release has increased by several thousand each year. 

Also, the Parole Board decreased the number of parole revocations each year by 30 percent.  This happened because the Board was given additional options in terms of treatment and intensive supervision, allowing TDCJ to address higher levels of risk and need in the community instead of in costly prisons. 

But the numbers illustrated by Scott Henson bring up important concerns.  The number of people sent to prison each year remains relatively stable when it should be declining along with crime rates and greater use of diversion programs. Further, even with increased parole approval rates, the number of people released from prison each year remains fairly low.  There are at least three issues that need to be addressed by the next Legislature to prevent criminal justice reform from going backwards:

1.      Increase the number of people sentenced to community supervision instead of prison;

2.      Reduce probation revocations; and

3.      Increase parole release rates. 

I’ll follow with three posts to a discuss each of these issues.  As an introduction, I should emphasize why this is important. Despite all of the progress, there remain 150,000 incarcerated people in Texas, a staggering number.  The prison population in Texas increased by 200% during a period when the actual population increased by only 48%. Prison stopped being the last resort for those who commit violent offenses, and the state created an assembly line to process more than 70,000 new prisoners each year.  

If you pass by one of the prison units built rapidly in the 1990s, you’ll see a half mile stretch with two rows of buildings that look exactly like warehouses. 

The state spends $6.2 billion every two years on this out-sized system.  It separates families, often forcing parents and children to travel 600 miles across the state for a brief weekend visit with their loved ones. Even prison officials argue that the system is too large, making it nearly impossible to adequately address the factors that led to criminal involvement in the first place. There is a better way to deal with crime in this state. Stay tuned for the next post on more effectively addressing social issues through community supervision instead of prison.