More on Gov. Perdue's Lifers

I was pleased to see that the N&O published my letter about Gov. Perdue’s Lifers. Please read yesterday’s blog, an expansion of that letter, before reading this one.

1) Prison authorities have been quoted as saying that the system of reducing sentences through good behavior is an important factor in maintaining order in prison. After all, if you see no possibility of getting out, or at least of getting out early, what incentive is there to be cooperative?
So if the official policy now is that all these earned credits will not count toward an earlier release date, then some prisoners – out of boredom or deep-seated anger – may be inclined to break the monotony by causing disturbances.

2) There is a moral issue here, and perhaps a paradox. These prisoners ended up in prison because they did not follow the rules of society. So it is ironic that the Governor is choosing not to follow the established rules – rules regarding the length of a sentence and the rewards of good behavior in reducing that sentence – in now seeking to redefine the meaning of credits earned for good behavior.

3) The Governor has repeatedly referred to these prisoners as rapists and murderers. Indeed, those are the crimes that got them into prison. The implication of these labels is that, once released, these prisoners would resume their past careers of murdering and raping. While I recognize that her stance on the issue is based at least in part on the attitudes of family members of the victims, I find her wording inflammatory; it is an effort to justify doing what some victims’ family members demand that she do: keep these criminals behind bars and throw away the key. I am disappointed that either she is making a decision based on emotion or she is allowing her rational principles to be influenced by the emotions of others.

4) Admittedly we do not know – with total certainty – what these prisoners might do when released. But we have a pretty good idea. First of all, we know that when they committed their violent crimes, they were in their teens or early twenties. And it is well known that people tend to “age out” of their violent impulses. People in their fifties and sixties are far less likely to be involved in violence than young people. And let’s look at the record these prisoners have compiled: To have their sentences, in effect, cut in half, they have compiled forty years of at least good, and probably exemplary, behavior. At a minimum they have stayed out of trouble, in an environment where that can be very difficult. But many of them (and I would like to see the facts on this published) have furthered their education, helped teach fellow inmates, and generally shown that they have turned their lives around. Some of them have done more with their lives in prison than many people I know of out of prison. If you can compile such a record during forty years in prison, then I, for one, have no fears that you will harm me, and I would be happy to have you as a next-door neighbor.

5) Except for the criminally insane, who might well commit more violent crimes if they were released, the goal of society should be to lock up criminals, to offer them opportunities to be rehabilitated, and then to release them back into society as soon as there is reasonable assurance that they are ready to be good citizens. It makes no sense to spend vast amounts of taxpayer money to imprison people who are not a danger and who could be productive citizens.

Free Gov. Perdue's Lifers!

This is an expansion of a letter I wrote recently to the Raleigh News & Observer (which might or might not get published):

For those who came in late: Sometime in the 1970s, the courts defined a life sentence as 80 years. And the prison system has a policy of giving credit for good behavior, such that in effect every day in prison can reduce the length of the sentence by a day. And the net effect of these two policies is that a number of prisoners, originally sentenced to life imprisonment for murder or rape, have now acquired enough credits to be released, after serving some forty years.

When a group of these prisoners petitioned for the release to which they said they were entitled, Governor Perdue stepped n to prevent “the release of murderers and rapists that would threaten public safety.” She is having legal experts and the courts examine the rules to redefine them as necessary to keep these murderers and rapists in prison.

After this issue had been in the news for a week or two, the News & Observer had an article about a petition filed by one of these worst-of-the-worst, Faye Brown, who, in prison, has completed a bachelor’s degree, got certified to style hair, is learning to teach others to cut hair, is let out of prison each day to work as administrator at a beauty school, and gets passes twice a month to visit her sister. Yeah, sounds like a real threat to public safety.

The word “penitentiary” is about being penitent, about repenting, rethinking one’s life. And when that happens, the repentant criminal should be re-introduced into society as a contributing citizen. If we’re not willing to do that, we’re cutting off our nose to spite our face. We’re running up our tax bill to maintain these prisoners, and we’re not letting them contribute to society, all because we’re afraid they haven’t paid enough (not because we’re afraid they’re a threat to society).

Not paid enough? Twenty years (let alone forty!) doesn’t sound like much, until you think about missing out on a generation of family events, children, career, your whole life. These prisoners have paid. Let them have what’s left.

On the one hand, I think the cases of these prisoners should be examined one-by-one to be sure we are not indeed releasing people who are a threat to public safety. But it seems to me that if a convict can stay out of trouble in prison for forty years in order to accumulate forty years of credits, that person has been rehabilitated and needs to be let out to become a productive member of society.

The other day I bemoaned the fact that the Raleigh News and Observer rarely published any of my letters, so today they published one. The background is that a prisoner with a life sentence filed to be released. Seems that a life sentence had been defined as 80 years, but for a brief spell -- when this and some 19 other prisoners were sentenced -- a life sentence had been re-defined as forty years. And these prisoners had all served their forty years. And the state suddenly realized why these prisoners had received life sentences: for heinous murders and rapes. The newspaper headlines screamed: "Murderers and rapists to be freed!" Here's my response:

"Given that the convicts expected to be released are all in their 50s and 60s, many having been incarcerated since they were teenagers, I can't help wondering: Haven't some of them perhaps turned their lives around? I realize you wanted to get the headlines out on the street quickly, but don't you have an obligation to tell more of the story? I for one would like to think that prison can transform people -- otherwise why not execute them and be done with it? But even if the crime was horrific, forgiveness must be an option -- as long as there is reason to believe the prisoner will no longer be a threat to society."

The first thing I need to emphasize -- in case it's not clear enough from the necessarily very brief letter to the editor -- is that I'm not urging that these prisoners be automatically released. (It appears that the technicalities of the applicable laws might require that they be released, but authorities are looking for other charges on which they could be convicted and re-sentenced, and the legislature is being urged to pass some sort of law to keep them in prison as well.) But I am urging that those who have in some sense been rehabilitated, those who do not appear to pose any threat to the public, should be released.

Please realize that my question -- "why not execute them and be done with it?" -- is rhetorical. Though I don't believe in the death penalty, I'd be willing to countenance it IF the crime was particularly violent and IF we could be ABSOLUTELY sure that the person was guilty. But, idealist that I am, I'd like to see prison function as a place of rehabilitation, with the goal that just about every prisoner could eventually be released to become a productive citizen. (Yes, I know that's a dream -- we're miles from anything like that now.)

Further, I'd like to see society transformed so that few if any young people become criminals, particularly violent criminals. (Violent crime seems to be largely committed by young men -- few women and few older men.) Look at the background of anyone arrested for a violent crime. It's depressingly monotonous: an emotionally and often sexually abused, unloved child, no effective intervention by schools or social services, a trail of minor but increasingly serious crimes, leading to the big one(s) resulting in that life sentence. (There's one other less frequent but recurrent pattern: the quiet, model child who suddenly explodes and commits multiple violent acts -- think Columbine.) I'd like to see a system that enables us to spot these developing crises and intervene before they erupt.

What we have now is like a sinister version of a Monopoly game, in which some of the players are given a "Go to jail -- go directly to jail" card, and once there, they can't get out. If you are that player, you are destined to be a loser, and there is only a negligible chance you will somehow escape that fate. It'd like to see a system in which we offer a chance for the losers to change their lives and maybe become winners -- losing should not be guaranteed permanent.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent?

A few days ago I sent off one of my occasional Letters to the Editor of the Raleigh (NC) News & Observer. I had been following the story of a young man who had spent some sixteen years in prison, and now a review of the case made clear that he is most likely innocent and should never have been convicted. While Greg Taylor continued to sit behind bars, the district attorney spoke out. And I felt I needed to speak out too. My letter didn't get printed (my average is about one out of every ten), so I offer it here. (I refer to a "misquote," though of course I know that it was -- unfortunately -- anything but a misquote.) Here's the letter:

"I need to point out a glaring misquote in Wednesday's paper. In the article on Greg Taylor's innocence of the crime for which he has been in prison for the past 16 years, Wake district attorney Colin Willoughby is quoted as saying, "The evidence in this case fails to show by clear and convincing evidence that Greg Taylor is innocent...." Surely no representative of our justice system would argue that you are guilty unless you can prove yourself innocent. (Would he?) If that were the standard, few of us would be able to keep ourselves out of prison.
Or have the rules changed?"