Category Archives: prison

graduation, prison, speech

Jail Break

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Today featured a moment of true Colorado weather. As I left the prison after being the graduation speaker (92 inmates graduated with vocational education certificates), it rained, snowed, and blazed sunshine in a period of less than three minutes. Proof positive that the old adage “If you don’t like the weather in Colorado, wait five minutes.” is based on a kernel of truth.

I always find it amusing to watch the inmates after a ceremony like today’s. It is standard practice at the prison to have cake and punch supplied by the culinary arts program as the reward for the prisoners at the conclusion. The prisoners line up anxiously for their cake and then politely wait and hope there will be enough to have a second piece. Staff and guests always go first; I’m sure the fact that I always refuse the cake due to my diabetes makes more than one inmate happy I was the honored guest and not someone who might eat the cake.

Why you might ask? Because the diet they get has no deserts and no sweets and is heavy on fats and carbs. So the only sweets they might see in a year from their regular diet is that piece of cake after a graduation celebration. For many of the inmates, it clearly ranks right up their with getting assigned to a red-band group. (Red-band groups are groups composed of prisoners with spotless records and the wardens OK that are sent outside the gates on work details. That is the only way the inmates get a chance to see normal life scenes and open fields.)

It is also interesting to watch the inmates queue up to talk to you. They must have staff permission to approach within arms length of a guest. They must also have permission to speak to you. So they queue up to get permission to even say something so simple as “Thank you for coming.”  or “Thank you for caring.” Makes you really appreciate the freedoms you have in your own life once you spend a few hours there.

It used to be that there was some jocularity amidst the inmates, but it is clear that the murder last week has depressed the inmate population. I wonder how long it will be before some semblance of normal returns. The assistant warden and I had a long discussion on the matter while we were waiting for the inmates to be brought in. They are wondering the same thing.

Time to head for the bed.

prison, speaking, weather

Posting Potpourri

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I knew it was too good to be true. Today was overcast and misty/drizzly highs in the mid thirties. Made the whole day dreary and depressing. Even Molly thought it was downright low – she came and curled up at my feet and slept most of the day as I worked and talked to every Tom, Dick, and Harry on the phone. By the time I got free of the instrument of Satan it was drizzling and looking really miserable outside. Not to be deterred, Molly and I headed out for a good five mile walk. It was after dark when we got back to the house which just made the day seem even gloomier.

In other news, I got a confirmation call from the prison today. I am the honored guest speaker at the vocational program graduation on Friday. They originally asked L, but since she is up in the mountains they settled for me. {*grin*} 

It has been almost three years since I spoke to a vocational graduation at the prison. (The others were college and GED graduations.) The last time I spoke I was introduced by a lady I had known for years.  She was the Son’s grade school principal and had left to work in the vocational programs at the prison about the time the Son headed off to middle school.  Since I last spoke, she lost her battle with cancer.  It will be interesting to see who introduces me. If it is the assistant warden, I can count on it being hilarious. Let it be some of the other muckety-mucks and it will be as dry as two month old toast. There may even be some of the inmates from this post and this post in attendance as graduates. I hope so.

It will also be interesting since there was an inmate murdered in his cell last week – he was housed with a high risk offender due to the state budgetary constraints not funding opening the new high rish offender prison just completed. As a consequence, high risk offenders are now crowded into the medium risk populations. That leads to higher incidences of violence within the prisons, amidst other problems. Makes me suspect that security may be a bit edgier than normal.

One of the side benefits of gloomy days is that I tend to put on random music and listen to some really different stuff. Apropos of a gloomy day, I heard some music I haven’t heard in 40 years. Which is a topic for gloominess in and of itself. But in any case, I give you The Chocolate Watchband with Come On:

Hard to believe they used to open for the Grateful Dead at places like the Filmore, isn’t it? Even more amazing was that they played with groups like The Mindbenders at the Filmore.

I think it is a safe bet that you, my dear readers, haven’t listened to either The Chocolate Watchband or The Mindbenders in recent days.

ministry, panel, prison

Prison Ministries Fundraiser

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Tonight was the night of my guest appearance on the panel for the Good New Jail & Prison Ministry fundraiser. This has become a crucial time for the organization since all charitable donations are down in this economy. This program is one that is entirely donation based, accepting no grants or government funds, so the ability to garner donations is critical to the services they provide.

The panel consisted of a real mixed bag: myself as mayor of the town, the chief of police, the county sheriff, the assistant warden at the prison, the pastor of a local church, and an ex-con who is now an ordained minister at a church about 50 miles from here. We were asked three questions and each person got a couple of minutes to give their answers to each question. It was amusing because the panel was seated up on the ballroom stage, towering over the audience seated on the ballroom floor. So after our meal of prime rib and stir fry, we panelists traipsed up on stage to entertain the audience before the real motivational speakers and the auctions got underway.

The questions and my summary of the responses ran as follows (please note that the chaplain that wrote the questions was a a bit over the top in his wording, but we all gleaned the real intent) :

Good News Jail & Prison Ministry was invited by the Department of Corrections to establish quality trained chaplains to serve as non-paid staff. Give your view, based on the economic climate of today, of the chaplaincy at the XXX Correctional Facility?

The assistant warden had the most telling things to say on this topic. She had the interesting statistics about the lowered rates of violence and the lessened discipline problems in the areas where chaplains serve. She (the AW) also brought up the fact that the chaplains work with the staff. Prison workers tend to have high stress and high domestic violence rates because of the spill over from the work environment. Chaplains help reduce that stress and make it easier to retain good staff. I have to admit that i had not thought of that aspect.

My main point was that having a full time professional chaplaincy supported by groups on the outside supplied hope and a connection to humanity for the prisoners. I have been inside the prison a number of times, usually to speak at graduation ceremonies and/or to meet with staff about programs that have a community interface. The prsion is also a customer of the city as they buy their water and sewer services from us. The environment on the inside is intentionlly designed to isolate and remove hope. Knowing that someone, anyone, cared enough to supply a chaplain is often the difference maker in the prisoners’ attitudes.

Given that XXX Correctional facility is the largest prison in Colorado; what value do you see from qualified chaplains serving behind the walls?

-and-

Offenders returning to society, what value do you place upon Faith Based Programs in the jail and prison? How do we stop the cycle of recidivism?

There was a spectrum of answers given to this topic, so I’m going to stick to what I had to say. I doubt I could do justice to all the others’ views. (Although we all did comment that the size of the prison had little to do with the issues at hand.)

I concentrated on the fact that the chaplains are one of the few groups working hard to prepare the prisoners to leave the prison environment and thrive in the real world. Those preparations include:

  • Introduction to a moral system – many prisoners have no moral system when they enter, especially how to treat others and expect others to treat you.
  • Introduction to the skills of planning and calendaring and preparing. In prison, life is not under your control and very regimented. Many prisoners do well in that environment and then fail in the real world. Many times it is because they have never learned to schedule their own time and efforts. The chaplains teach classes in how to do that even within the confines of the prison system.
  • Introduction to an accepting community of faith. Many prisoners feel that no one will ever care about them as people again. Just the fact that there is a community that cares for and about them and can act as a support group helps keep parolees out of trouble.

I also noted that although faith based systems have the lowest measured recidivism rates, the rate is still abysmally high. Prisoners in Colorado who are  part of a faith based system like Good News  have an 85% recidivism rate. Other programs run about 90%. Those that are part of no program run a recidivism rate of 95% or more. To me, that is one of the real glaing problems in the US. No other country in the world imprisons a higher percentage of its population and no other penal system suffers the same abysmal recidivism rate. I cannot fathom a system that has people serve their debt to society, relases them, and sees somewhere between 8 and 10 of every 10 released be re-imprisoned within 2 years.

So that was how i spent my Saturday night – how did you spend yours?

council, prison, Tuesday

YATA

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Yet Another Tuesday Again. The acronymic titling just keeps on coming.

Today I spent a few hours at the prison listening to the gang intelligence unit. Some interesting stuff and some stuff that leaves you scratching your head and going huh? Probably pretty normal for a non-gang person listening to stuff about gangs and gang members. They covered the gamut from bloods to crips to seranos to nortes to kkk to war … Colorado is interesting in that the prisons don’t segregate by gang like California and some other states do. They practice a zero tolerance “you are all prisoners” strategy and isolate only trouble makers. Doesn’t make some of the gang members real happy.

The gang that was the strangest to me was the Juggalos. The key for membership seems to be a liking of the Insane Clown Posse, often acronymized as ICP in signs and tattoos, and a preference for hatchet or ice pick violence, and/or a liking in general for the music akin to ICP like Dark Lotus, Twiztid, Anybody Killa, Jumpsteady, Psychopathic Rydas, etc. They are one of the rare gangs that accept all religions and races and even allow concurrent membership in other gangs amongst their members. What makes them troubling is that they are a small subset (est. 15%) of all the people who follow ICP in a manner similar to the Deadheads that followed the Grateful Dead. That 15% subset is the actual violent gang, the rest are just somewhat demented music followers. It is also troubling that they are one of the fastest growing gangs in Colorado and in the prison population. The gang logo is a dread locked running hatchet wielding man, often stylized with dripping blood, etc. The iconic image of hatchetman looks like this

This gang is also troubling in that it has a strong middle school  following. The members like to dress in black, wear hatchetman regalia, have tattoos of ICP and the hatchman, and wear clown makeup. Not exactly an inconspicuous crew.

The city council meeting was of the normal variety.  We went through the agenda in a business like manner, had a brief discussion on a couple of upcoming topics, and adjourned. I did try to convince the reporter for the weekly news paper who arrived after the meeting was over that she missed the wildest meeting of the year. I told her that the entire council had stripped naked and danced the can-can on the council bench. She didn’t believe me. She just said that she was really happy she missed it and proceeded to quiz me about the agenda items one by one. Oh well. Maybe I just need better lying skills.

cold, meeting, prison, walk

The Cold Front (and Rear)

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Today as Molly and I headed out to walk, it was about 40 and calm. A nice day for a walk.

So I have on my walking shorts and a sweatshirt and a windbreaker. Just fine for the weather at the start. Molly and I begin our trek heading North, directly into the little breeze that is about. As we walk, the wind starts picking up and the temperature dropping. At the half way point about 3 miles out when we turn around, the wind is up to about 20 mph and the temperature is dropping fast. Pretty much a typical storm from coming in here on the plains.

By the time we are within a mile of the house, the wind is gusting to 40 mph and the temperature is down to 30. Molly’s fur is blowing forward on her face and has her tail whipping in the breeze like mad. I am walking a bit like a Keystone Kop from the old movies. You know, the hop-skip-jump-step that looks so funny in the movies. That is because the wind is blowing right up the back of my shorts and freezing what the TV commercials so politely call “that certain part of the male anatomy.” Needless to say, Molly and I were both happy to arrive at the house and get out of the wind and into the warm. Our walk tomorrow will probably require sweatpants – it is forecast to be cool and maybe even have some new snow.

Tomorrow looks to be busy as I have a haircut and then am off to the prison for a gang activity briefing from the Department of Corrections intelligence service. It will be interesting to see what is going on. Events and trends in the metro and front range areas tend to migrate out here to the rural areas with a certain lag factor. Thus we get a bit more time to prepare for upcoming trends. I don’t know whether to feel honored or insulted – I am the only non-law enforcement official invited. Is that good or bad? Assuming all goes well and I don’t get stuck in a lock down, I have the council meeting tomorrow night. The agenda doesn’t look too bad, but we are going to have to meet on the 23rd because we have a first reading of a contract ordinance tomorrow which means that we have to have the second reading and public hearing 2 weeks later for the contract to be in force by the end of the year (which it needs to be). The council members are generally pretty good about such needed formalities.

Well, time to see if this will post or not. Blogger has lost it’s editing headers and the font controls and … So I am not sure if enough of the function is present to successfully post or not.