Tag: tony casson

Battle Lines – A Song

On By Tony CassonIn Volume 31 Comment

 

When I walked  out the door, The Devil was standing there waiting;

With his dead, icy eyes He stared at me, anticipating.

I returned his cold stare  And I asked what he wanted to do;

He said I think you know  I have come all this way just for you.

I looked straight at him And I said I must ask you to leave;

You are powerless here  For it’s in Jesus Christ I believe.

He just threw back his head And he laughed then he looked back at me;

When I’m finished with you Your faith will be gone you will see.

(Chorus)

The lines have been drawn

 It’s to Jesus I’m sworn

To the Lord I’ll forever be true.

I will fight to the death

To my very last breath

I will never surrender to you.

With the battle lines drawn I’ve taken my stance, I’ll not waver;

With the armor of God The odds are all stacked in my favor.

The ice in his eyes Was replaced with the fires of hell;

I have been there before I remember the pain very well.

We draw back our swords And we circle to start our slow dance;

My faith is so strong That the evil one hasn’t a chance.

<p style=”text-align: center;”

A Sex Offender Like Me: The New Kid in Town – Part 3

On By Tony CassonIn A Sex Offender Like Me2 Comments

“We spoke of the whites. ‘They’re God’s children, just like us,’ he said. ‘Even if they don’t act very godlike anymore. God tells us straight – we’ve got to love them, no ifs ands or buts about it. Why if we hated them, we’d be sunk down to their level. There’s plenty of us doing just that too’.” – John Howard Griffin     “Black Like Me”

“Don’t say, ‘I will get even with this wrong.’ Wait for the  Lord to handle the matter.” – Proverbs 20:22 NLT

      The ‘hater’ with the tattooed proclamations of love for God and hatred for others returned with another man Alan hadn’t crossed paths with yet, but who was familiar to me and  everyone else in the unit as the loudmouthed leader of the movement to control people’s lives and suppress the rights of anyone with sex-related offenses.

      If Alan was intimidated at all by the physical appearance and demeanor of the first man, the second man’s appearance should have been enough to send his nervous system into sensory overload. To say this man was unpleasant to look at would be an enormous understatement.

      Whereas the first man’s eyes were pale, cold and devoid of any friendliness, the second man’s eyes were the eyes of a ferret … dark little beady spots that darted about as they peered out from a greasy-looking face that was scarred and pockmarked, mercifully covered with a beard that was mostly grey. I say mercifully because the beard helped to cover a small weak chin set in an altogether unattractive countenance and helped to mask the fact that most of his teeth were missing. His hair was very fine, thinning, greasy-looking and usually worn with rubber bands spaced a couple of inches apart up its twelve-inch length, giving it the appearance of a rat tail. Like his beard, his hair was predominately grey. He was only about 5’8″ tall. His lower body was slight of build but his arms showed evidence of a view toward “working out” that only consisted of repeated lifting of heavy objects to bulk up his arms. His stomach was huge, fed by a constant stream of snacks and meals whenever he was observed in the unit. Sometimes it seemed as though his eating was the only thing that prevented the unpleasantness of his nasal backwoods twang from permeating the air of the housing unit.

      He had a rather offensive habit of wearing only shorts, socks and sandals around the unit in the evenings when he was in “relaxed mode.” His status provided him a front row center seat in front of “his”  television and he would sit there, sometimes for hours, staring at the screen, usually munching by spoon or hand from an ever-present bowl of chips or something that had been “cooked,” prison style, in one of our two microwaves.

      The man’s stomach was so large and so round, it appeared to sit in his lap and every square inch of it was covered in tattoos, most of which were more than likely applied during one of his many years in state or federal prison. In fact, every bit of visible skin not hidden by shorts or socks was covered in tattoos.

      In particular, the ink on the stretched skin of his stomach looked like a freakish collage painted in blue on a flesh-colored over-inflated balloon.

      As Alan’s further misfortune would have it, the man was in “relaxed mode” when he was brought to the cell where Alan was waiting apprehensively and he was totally unnerved when he stood facing this grotesque beast.

      Alan was asked again, this time by the “beast”, what his charge was and when he began to offer an explanation, he was immediately told to stop, pack up his meager possessions and leave the cell. He was informed that they would have other arrangements made because he was definitely not welcome in that cell.

      Holding his bedroll and little bag of toiletries, Alan wandered out into the common area. Observing an empty chair near a game table, he sat down to await his fate.

      Unfortunately, there were two things wrong with what he did: it was not his chair and sex offenders were not allowed to sit at the game tables. Alan, of course, had no way of knowing these things at this point so he was probably unaware that his actions were only serving to pump up the overall hostility level and increase the tension which, like the rubber band attached to the propeller on a little balsa wood airplane, was being wound tighter and tighter, approaching the point at which it might break.

      Seeing this, someone who sides with those who hate but is a bit more merciful about it, moved him over near the wall and arranged for him to sit in a chair until some sort of resolution was arrived at.

      Many minutes later, Alan was approached by both the “hater” and the “beast” and told to go see the counselor again. He was given another room assignment across the hall from his first one and down a few doors from where he had been sitting.

      He was met at the door to that cell by its current occupant who made it instantly clear that, “You’re not staying in here!” At that point, he stormed past Alan on his way to the counselor’s office, huffing and puffing, beating his chest and loudly proclaiming that he was not going to have this man pushed off on him.

      Given the size of the unit itself and the dynamics of living in a place where small things are big news, word was rapidly racing through the unit that this latest addition to the “chomo” population was getting a hard time. All the while, I sat quietly oblivious in my cell reading a newspaper. Now I am no one’s mother, father, leader or savior. But I do try to make sure that new people are made aware that they are safe and have people to go to with questions or needs.

      In a way, I failed Alan that day by remaining in my cell. But I just felt that we had progressed to a level of tolerance where it was not necessary to stand on the rail and gawk, adding to the discomfort that newcomers feel. As evidenced by what was transpiring outside my door and down the stairs, I was wrong.

      Once again, Alan was placed in the chair along the wall. Most of the activity swirling around Alan – the angry looks, the cursing and grumbling spoken louder than was necessary, the marching in and out of the counselor’s office – was all for show . . . a lame prison version of “shock and awe.” As it is with gorillas loudly beating their chests and giving their fiercest roar, most of what was transpiring was for show. But to the uninitiated, it can all combine to be tremendously intimidating, demeaning and nerve-wracking.

      The individual who had originally “rescued” Alan attempted to calm him down, told him to just sit in the chair and he would be right back. The knock on my door came a few moments later.

      Well folks, Alan did survive that day and, as most people do has adapted in his own way – a way that works best for him – to life in an environment that just a short time ago was as foreign to him as one could possibly imagine.

      As I have said, most enter this place without any discernable tension. For some, however, like Alan, it can be a frightening experience when you’re the new kid in town.

A Gray-Beard Behind Gray Bars

On By Tony CassonIn Inmates - In Their Own Words1 Comment

Written by Steve Marshall

      Before I came in, I lived in faded Levis, a myriad of rock ‘n’ roll t-shirts, (souvenirs of countless rock concerts in days past) and an ever-present baseball cap.

      I am young.

      I take my stairs two at a time and I am seldom under the weather. I have never had a serious illness and can count the days I have been hospitalized on the fingers of one hand.

      I am young.

      So it always takes me by surprise when someone addresses me as “Pops” or calls me “Old School.”

      “Hey, Old School.” That’s the name reserved in here for anyone over the age of fifty. Makes me want to respond, “Yeah, Pre-School?”

      I am young because I think young. I am not in denial of the fact that I am sixty-eight years old. I know my hair, what remains of it, is snow white and I have a beard to match. But thinking young is my best defense against the encroaching years.

      When I first came in, I saw an elderly figure sitting in front of his cell. He leaned on his cane, had no teeth in his head and very thick glasses. He walked as though he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. I pegged him for early to mid-eighties. I wondered what someone that old was doing in prison. Finally, I asked someone how old the gentleman was and was told that he was sixty-seven . . . one year older than I was at  the time. To say I was shocked would be an understatement.

      I was assigned a cell with a man who was two years my senior. This is a man who hated rock ‘n’ roll (“Those Beatles were nothin’ but loud noise!”) walked around humming “The Camp Town Races” and listened faithfully to “The Prairie Home Companion.” To me he seemed to be much more of my grandfather’s generation than my own.

      I am young.

      Oh, the hell with it. Facts are facts. Before I came in, I collected social security and was on Medicare. I had been eligible to join AARP for over fifteen years. So okay, for the purposes of this article, I will grudgingly admit that I’m getting up there. So what’s it like being a senior citizen (blech) in prison?

      To most of the inmate population, I am invisible. As I move about the compound, others tend to look through me. If they do see me at all, I am totally inconsequential to them.

      There are certain advantages to this.

      First and foremost, I am safer than most of the other men who populate this world. Seldom is someone of my age ever targeted for violence because there is no cache in beating up an old man. In fact, the inmate’s code holds that anyone who would beat up an old man would receive retribution of the severest order. Just last week, a man about my age was found standing “too close” to the television. The viewing area was empty except for him but he is a sex offender and therefore required to view television from the back row. Someone approached him and ordered him to move. He refused, saying he wasn’t hurting anyone or anything. With that, the offended party hauled off and slapped the older man hard enough to knock him down. Within fifteen minutes, two other inmates sought out the violence-prone individual and exacted their revenge, prison style. All of them are now locked down in the Special Housing disciplinary unit, including the old man who was slapped.

      But incidents such as this are rare. If an older man minds his own business and doesn’t smart off to anyone, he will normally go about his business unmolested.

      Still, many of the prejudices and judgments made against older people in the free world are here, often even amplified.

      When I first arrived at Oakdale, I was assigned to work on the serving line of the dining hall. It’s a fast-paced, pressure filled environment. One of the others working on the line has a pre-set bias against older men, automatically assuming them to be slow and suffering from some measure of diminished capacity.

      In the year and a half that I have worked on the line, he has never spoken a kind word to me.

      I work hard and my energy reserves are the equal of any man there. I have never once been responsible for the line having to slow down. While my position is somewhat menial, I take pride in doing a good job at it. But back in July, the corrections officer normally administers the dining hall was rotated to another department for the quarter. The prejudiced individual went to the new man running things to complain that I was slow, confused and couldn’t get along with anyone else on the serving line, none of which was remotely true. I was then demoted to “Spoon Roller,” a job usually reserved for older inmates, which consists of sitting at a table rolling up sporks with salt packets in a paper towel, to be passed out at mealtime. My pay was cut from $36.00 a month to $5.25. I did the work without complaining and two months later, when the original man in charge returned, I was immediately reinstated to my former job. The man who had me demoted swore he would quit if I returned to the serving line but that proved to be bluster.

      What has been hardest to accept for me as an older inmate in a federal prison is that these are supposed to be my “golden years.” While I am presently in good health, a seven and a half year stretch for someone of my age could easily become a life sentence. My greatest wish is that I do not die in a place like this. I remain focused on that goal.

      I have a granddaughter who was born five months after I went into house arrest. I have met her once, when my daughter and her husband visited and brought her to see me shortly after she turned one. When I get out, she will be nearly seven years old. I mourn the passing of each day that I cannot be a part of her life. But she is regularly shown pictures of me and I talk to her each week on the phone. She is two now and still can’t quite figure out where that voice is coming from or how a person could be small enough to fit into that tiny device. But I struggle to make an impression nonetheless; to let her know who her “Popi” is and just how very much I adore her. I hope it takes.

      Now if you will excuse me, I’ll revert to the state I was in.

      I am young.

 

 

“Decisions, Decisions, Decisions: A Nap, A Party, and A Birthday Gift”

On By Tony CassonIn Volume 21 Comment

 “We make decisions, and then our decisions make us.”      R. W.Boreham

“Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray.”     James 5:13a NLT

            Each one of us makes decisions many times every single day. Most of the decisions we make are very minor, inconsequential ones that have little, or no, real impact on our day-to-day existence. Still others have a slightly greater effect on the course we are on and then, at a few points in our lives, major decisions are made with prior, full knowledge of the life-altering potential of those decisions: decisions on which college to attend – or whether to go at all; to get married; to get divorced; to change jobs; start a business or even to start a family.

            And then there are those decisions that are born in the first category that – for some seemingly unfathomable reason – grow up having a totally unexpected, unplanned, and profound effect on the person making the decision and – usually – many others around that person.

            Most of the decisions that wind up in this category have tragic consequences. Some have criminal consequences. Still others have both.

            I am going to “introduce” you to several people that I don’t actually know. In one case, I don’t even know the individual’s name, but as the circumstances surrounding their decisions unfold, hopefully we will all realize that we do, in fact, know them (or someone just like them), and the names are not important, just as where they live is neither relevant or significant.

            What will be important is what each of us discovers about ourselves as we consider the circumstances of these people and the effects of the decisions that they made – on themselves and those around them.

            Teresa Chapin, 37, of Council Bluffs, Iowa made a decision to put a 5 month old child down for a nap at a daycare she owned.

            In Des Moines, Iowa, 17 year old KeeVon Bernstine, a prominent member of the Lincoln High School football team, made a decision to go to a party.

            And way over is Las Vegas, Nevada, the granddaughter of Claudette Porter, 75, made a decision to give a very special birthday gift to her grandmother.

            As a result of these three seemingly innocuous decisions, there were 3 deaths, 1 person was hospitalized, 2 people were jailed, and many lives were affected, several in ways that can never be adequately described through the black-on-white words of a man sitting in prison for decisions he made.

            Here, then, are the stories of a nap, a party, and a birthday gift:

            On August 17, 2011, Teresa Chapin put 5 month old Lane Thomas down for a nap. It was about 2:30 pm. When Ms. Chapin’s young daughter went to get him at 4 pm she “found his cold, unresponsive body lying face down.” Ms. Chapin performed CPR. Someone called 911.

            Lane had been placed on an adult bed for his nap. After an autopsy, the infant’s death was attributed to “sudden unexplained infant death.”

            Ms. Chapin voluntarily surrendered her license to operate her daycare on August 25. She was arrested early in October and charged with “neglect of a dependent person”, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, and “child endangerment”, which is punishable by up to 5 years in prison.

            According to the story in “The Des Moines Register”, Sheriff Jeff Danker said, “Teresa is a licensed day care provider in the state of Iowa and has experience and education about child development needs. A provider should have been aware of the hazards of excessive bedding for an infant the age of Lane Thomas.”

            Teresa Chapin made a decision to place 5 month old Lane Thomas on an adult bed for a nap and, tragically, he died, and she now faces up to 15 years in prison.

            We will discuss this tragedy further, but right now, let’s tell the story of KeeVon Bernstine’s decision to go to a party.

            According to police, Bernstine had been at a party on July 17, 2010 when a 20 year old “female acquaintance” informed him that she no longer wanted to speak to him.

            In an article in the “Des Moines Register”, Bernstine “reportedly became upset and started yelling at her. When she yelled back, Bernstine allegedly slammed her against a car and punched her in the face knocking her out.”

            Witnesses reportedly saw the assault and took the woman to the hospital, but not before Bernstine had “kicked the alleged victim in the head twice while she was unconscious, authorities said, which caused swelling, bleeding, and numbness to the left side of her face.”

            He was not charged in this incident until early October, for some reason. Bernstine is facing 5 years in prison for “willful injury causing bodily injury”, a Class ‘D’ felony, as well as 1 year in prison or an $1875.00 fine for “assault causing bodily injury” which is a “serious misdemeanor”.

            KeeVon Bernstine made a decision to go to a party where he made another decision. He decided – “allegedly” – to react so violently to rejection by a “female acquaintance” that he punched her in the face, knocking her out. Then kicked her in the head twice as she lay there unconscious – absolutely, totally, completely defenseless.

            For these brutally violent actions Bernstine faces – if convicted – a maximum of 6 years in prison.

            It must be stressed, of course, that both parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Again, we will come back to Mr. Bernstine in a moment, but first, our third – and final story. The story of the very special birthday gift.

            According to Jim Porter, his wife Claudette, 75, had talked about going skydiving for 20 years. A granddaughter – for whom no name was given in the brief “USA Today” article I read – went to veteran instructor James Fonnesbeck to purchase a special birthday gift for her grandmother: A “Skydiving Adventure”.

            During the tandem jump – where the instructor and “student” are harnessed together, the primary parachute failed to deploy fully. The instructor pulled the cord to release the backup parachute, but it got tangled up and failed to open as well.

            Claudette Porter and Mr. Fonnesbeck plunged to their deaths.

            Fortunately, Claudette Porter’s granddaughter was not arrested. This fact is probably the only bright spot to be found in any of these stories.

            The article did not state who was present, but I imagine that, at the very least, Jim Porter and the granddaughter were there, sharing this special occasion with Mrs. Porter. What I cannot imagine is their shock and utter horror as the realization hit them that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

            I ask all of you to turn to the Lord with me and pray for the man who watched his wife, as well as another human being, fall to their deaths as a longtime dream come true turned into a nightmare of horror and a lifetime of loss. I ask all of you to join me in prayer for the granddaughter as well. She is undoubtedly devastated that her well-intentioned gift of love turned into a tragedy of death and she will probably claim responsibility for it, and suffer through it, for a long time to come.

            Obviously, this innocent decision to give a special birthday gift to someone she loved has altered the course of her life. It has altered the course of Jim Porter’s life as well as the lives of all the rest of Claudette Porter’s friends and family. Finally, it has altered the lives of the family and friends of the instructor, James Fonnesbeck, and we must also pray for them as well.

            In the case of Teresa Chapin, she made a decision that parents, grandparents, and babysitters have made for probably as long as there have been beds. I am guilty of doing the same thing with both my daughter and my son. Fortunately, the dozens of times I made that same decision did not result in the same tragic ending as Ms. Chapin’s did.

            A child is dead and his parents – well, suffice it to say that it is doubtful many of us can comprehend the depth of their pain. We can, however, offer prayers that God will wrap them up in His love and give them comfort in their time of sorrow.

            At the same time, we should also ask God to wrap Ms. Chapin and her daughter in that same love for this tragedy has effectively, irrevocably, altered the course of both of their lives.

            The article did not give the age of Ms. Chapin’s daughter, but given her own age of 37, most likely she is in her teens. Can any of us possibly imagine trading places with that young woman as she reaches out to wake Lane from his nap, only to feel his “cold, unresponsive body”?

            I shudder to the very core of my being as I try to envision what it must have been like as the reality of the situation began to sink in and reveal itself to her.

            I can almost hear the shocked screams of disbelief and horror as she cried out to her mother, and I can almost feel the ensuing chaos and confusion as CPR was administered and 911 was called.

            And I can almost feel their agonizing helplessness as the fact that this tiny boy was to never go home to his parents again began to penetrate and take root in their minds.

            There is no doubt that the effects of this tragedy will stay with all concerned for the rest of their lives.

            As for the decision to charge Ms. Chapin with a criminal act, I honestly cannot comprehend what possessed the local authorities to do so, but the only purpose that can possibly be served is to complete the devastation of Teresa Chapin’s life, to say nothing of her daughter’s.

            There will be no winners here, that she – her business – will be held liable for civil damages is a certainty, though obviously any settlement will fall pitifully short of replacing what was lost to Lane’s family.

            It seems sadly typical of today’s society, though, to label a tragic accident as a criminal act as if doing so can somehow help. We seem to do that more and more these days and use the law as if it were a magic salve capable of wiping away pain.

            Seriously – what victories are to be won here? What can possibly be achieved? I, for one, think the point has already been driven heartbreakingly home.

            May God bless, and help, them all. And may God also help a society that things making things worse somehow makes them better.

            Of course, now we are left with the story of KeeVon Bernstine.

            Although Lane Thomas died in August, charges were not filed against Ms. Chapin until early October. The day the story of her arrest appeared on the front page of the “Des Moines Register”, Bernstine’s story appeared on page two of the sports section under the heading “High School Football”.

            That fact told me that, perhaps this story was less about a brutal attack on an unconscious, defenseless young woman, and more about the impact of the arrest of the alleged perpetrator of that attack on high school football.

            Another testament to the misplaced priorities of this country. (Something I can certainly feel free to speak about since no one’s priorities were more misplaced than my own.)

            According to the story, Bernstine had rushed for 946 yards and 15 touchdowns in the first six games of the season. Quite impressive to say the least.

            The director of activities at Lincoln High School, Phil Chia, said that the incident was a Des Moines Public School “Code of Conduct” violation and that the punishment for a violation was suspension for a third of the schedule or, in this case, three games.

            The article went on to state that his coach was surprised with Bernstine’s arrest and that he was “disappointed” in him. “I know him real well,” the “Register” quoted Coach Tom Mihalovich as saying. “He’s got a good heart.”

            I would agree, coach. It takes an individual with a very good heart to punch a woman unconscious and then brutally kick her in the head – twice – as she lay there totally defenseless.

            I do hope, however, that his heart is now helping him to pray to God daily, thanking Him that the young woman didn’t die, asking for forgiveness, and also asking that there be no permanent physical damage to her although the fact that she will undoubtedly suffer long-term mental and emotional damage is a given. May God help her through all that she faces.

            Of course, all of this is only “alleged”.

            If true, however, Bernstine should spend a little time in prison, since prisons should exist only to house violent offenders, and if this is not a violent act, then I don’t know what is.

            I do pray that he can change, that he wants to change, and that he asks God to help him change, but it is important to note that this was not a little after-school fistfight in the parking lot that can be chalked up to “boys will be boys”. This was a wanton act of inexcusable violent behavior that could easily have ended with the young woman’s death, or permanent disability. It was an act that should require at least some length of incarceration combined with intensive anger management counseling and he should not be allowed to touch a football for any school again.

            But wait a minute! 946 yards and 15 touchdowns in 6 games? This is a young man who could go places! I mean, aside from his on-the-field performance he is already exhibiting the very unprofessional character of many of today’s professional athletes and sports figures.

            Perhaps his talent had something to do with why it took so long to arrest him in the first place.

            It must be noted that a follow-up article in the same paper (and also in the sports section) the day after the first article reported that he had been kicked off the team and not merely been suspended.

            That would be the least that the public could expect, I think, and I certainly applaud that decision, but one has to wonder if Bernstine’s obvious talent will somehow buy him greater consideration for his willful, violent criminal act, than will be given Teresa Chapin for her part in a tragic accident.

            Whatever the legal ramifications for his ‘alleged’ actions, I truly hope he fixes that which is broken within himself before it consumes him and defines his life. Hopefully he will learn that talent without character is nothing, although it sometimes seems that many in this country don’t seem to understand that.

            Quite often, in today’s society, the desire to win – at anything – trumps everything else. Athletics in particular these days appear to be less about character building than they are about winning at any, and all costs, and if we have to overlook bad – even criminal – behavior on the part of the very people our children look up to and desire to emulate, then so be it. In light of these all-too-permissive attitudes, it is more than likely that Bernstine will land on his feet and continue to play ball somewhere and, ultimately and unfortunately – if history has its way – the only lesson to be learned will be that if you have talent, anything goes.

            I pray I am wrong and I would like this prayer to be answered.

            The young man is in need of our prayers, though, regardless of the outcome of all this, as is the young woman who suffered his anger. Bernstine has a gift and when he realizes that his gift came from God, maybe he will pray, himself, for an opportunity to use it for God.

            As for the young woman, I pray that she has suffered no permanent physical damage and that any emotional damage goes away quickly. I also pray that she puts this – and Bernstine – behind her and finds a life of laughter and joy to replace the violence and pain she experienced.

            May each of us pause for a moment to pray for all of the people who have been written about here today: the three individuals who made these seemingly harmless, inconsequential decisions and the many, many more who, like the three, were changed in some way forever when those decisions grew into something very, very different from what was intended at the outset.

            May we also pause for a moment and look inwardly and consider the things that are happening around us as a result of decisions we have made. May we think carefully and ask God for His guidance in everything we do, and how we do it, for some things – once done – can never be undone.

            None of you wants to be the main character in any of the stories I have just told, and you surely don’t want to end up in a place like the ones in which these words were written as a result of a decision made.

            I thank you, as always, for putting up with me. May God Bless each one of you

Crimes and Their Punishments: 21st Century Slave Traders: “Removing the Chains of Fear”

On By Tony CassonIn Crimes and Their Punishments, Volume 21 Comment

“Not only do I pray for it on the score of human dignity, but I can clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union, by consolidating it in a common bond of principle.”      Attributed to George Washington

“O Lord, I am Your servant, yes, I am Your servant, born into Your household; You have freed me from my chains.”     Psalm 116:16 NLT

            Although George Washington may have been able to “clearly foresee” the inevitable rooting out of slavery in this nation, we all know that no steps were taken to eliminate it until almost one hundred years later.

            Even then, the first step was taken with such trepidation that it amounted to no real step at all and was, in fact, more an act of political maneuvering than an act of moral righteousness.

            Abraham Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation” which was issued on September 22, 1862 to take effect in January 1, 1863 , actually only went so far as to free those slaves who were located in states that had seceded from the union.

            In fact, in August of that year – prior to deciding to issue that proclamation – Lincoln stated his policy in regards to slavery thusly: “If I could save the union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could do it by freeing all of the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do that.”

            Ultimately, with the issuance of the “Emancipation Proclamation”, it was shown that his fear of losing the goodwill of the slave owners in the border states of Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Kentucky took precedence over securing freedom for all of those enslaved at that time.

            It wasn’t until the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and then ratified by the states that all slavery was abolished.

            Of course, climbing out of the holds of the slave ships and breaking the chains of slavery would prove to be more complicated than just passing legislation.

            The flames of hatred, prejudice, and ignorance – all fanned by the winds of fear – have kept the issue of race burning since the ratification of the 13th Amendment, through the tumultuous – and often deadly – civil rights movements of the 1960’s, all the way to this very day, proving that, while it may be possible to control some human action through legislation, it is impossible to legislate the human heart – or the human mind – and as long as the winds of fear blow in this country, there will always be hatred, prejudice, and ignorance.

            Consider an item I ran across in “USA Today” several weeks ago. It seems that so much “progress” has been made in Louisiana’s Caldwell Parish that the school districts there no longer require federal supervision. A federal judge has ruled that the schools are “officially desegregated.”

            The same court has decided, however, that a closer look is needed at Richmond Parish schools.

            And, in a case dating back to the 1960’s, and also reported in USA Today, Alabama’s Pickens County public schools and the justice department have arrived at a settlement in their desegregation case.

            The fact that the disease of segregation still infects this country is disturbing in itself. The fact that the news that it still festers is deserving of no more space in the paper than might be used to announce a garage sale, is even more so.

           Of course, desegregation is not the hot topic that it was when many people were dying and Mississippi was, in fact, burning. Those very real flames were being fanned by the winds of fear of what desegregation represented.

            Those same winds of fear often prevent the leaders of this country from doing the right thing. More importantly, when those winds are manipulated and directed towards the public, those in policy-making positions are often empowered to do the wrong thing.

            While the winds that flow out of Africa develop into hurricanes as they cross the Atlantic Ocean, the winds of fear are man-made and often driven by the forces of politics and profit rather than the forces of nature.

            In the 1950’s federal mandatory prison sentences were used to combat narcotics (much as they would be again 30 years later), but common sense prevailed and all mandatory minimums were repealed in the 1970’s. Then-Congressman George H. W. Bush, doing the right thing, voted for the bill eliminating them stating: “contrary to what one might imagine, this bill will result in better justice and more appropriate sentences. …Federal judges are almost unanimously opposed to mandatory minimums because they remove a great deal of the court’s discretion… …as a result, we will probably have more equitable action by the courts, with actually more convictions where they are called for, and fewer disproportionate sentences.”

            Eighteen years later, Bush would reverse that position while running against George Dukakis for president. Continuing a “tough-on-crime” mantra begun by Reagan (with encouragement from the American Legislative Exchange Council, which we will look at momentarily), Bush would embrace newer, longer, more wide-reaching mandatory minimums than those he voted to repeal.

            Reagan manipulated the winds that fanned the flames until they were hot enough to forge the public’s fear of crime into chains that wrapped around this country and have squeezed more and more freedom from the American people since that time while making people believe that those chains were, in fact, a protective blanket.

            As those chains of fear have squeezed more freedom from the American people, they also have squeezed out profits for companies and individuals who have formed an unholy alliance that has grown in its size, scope, and power since its inception in the early 1970’s.

            That unholy alliance is, of course, the “American Legislative Exchange Council” – ‘ALEC’ – and the influence and power it wields today is enormous and the profits reaped by the incestuous relationships that abound within – and around – it are staggering.

            The ‘ blacksmiths’ who forged those chains of fear that are strangling this country first opened shop almost 40 years ago at a small meeting in Chicago in September of 1973. Those “blacksmiths” included then Illinois State Representative Harry Hyde, conservative activist Paul Weyrich, and Lou Barnett a veteran of Ronald Reagan’s 1968 presidential campaign.

            The American Legislative Exchange Council was born and – waving a banner for “limited government, free markets, and individual liberty” – has grown to include some 2,000 legislative members representing all 50 states. (I’m sorry, isn’t that what the United States Congress is for?).  Each individual member pays an annual membership fee of $50.00 and gets to meet with other members at 3 conferences per year held at various locations throughout the country. (Who wants to bet that it is expensed as ‘state business’?)

            In addition to meeting with other legislators, some 300 corporate foundations and private sector members pay from $3,000 to $10,000 each to attend – and participate in – these conferences and, as members, assist in the primary function of ALEC which is to write model legislation to be brought back to each of the 50 states.

            ‘ALEC’ has escaped public scrutiny, for some reason, for all of these years until recently. Lately, its practices – and, in some cases, its legitimate need to exist at all – have come into question.  Some of the more recent questions and public criticisms have come from sources such as National Public Radio, Bloomberg News, John Nichols of “The Nation”, William Cronon from the University of Wisconsin, and the Center for Media and Democracy.

            Examples of these concerns and criticisms include: the danger of using ‘ALEC’ to avoid state laws to disclose meetings with, and gifts from, public and private corporations; neither the model legislation that ‘ALEC’ pushes nor the list of elected officials who are members is made publicly available; their nonprofit status has been challenged on the grounds that ‘ALEC’ spends most of its resources lobbying, in violation of the rules governing nonprofit organizations; and the whole organization seems to strive towards a goal that is the advancement of an agenda that seems to be dictated at almost every turn by multi-national corporations.

            These are just some of the ever increasing criticisms and concerns that are coming to the fore, and – quite frankly – I am surprised that a group which is violating at least the spirit of some laws – if not the letter – has operated so openly, for so long, and grown so large and powerful without these – and other – concerns being raised long ago.

            As I showed earlier, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) was formed in 1983 and quickly became an active participant in ALEC’s policy making and legislation modeling. CCA has grown – and profited hugely – as a direct result of legislation passed that was drawn up initially behind ALEC’s closed doors before being introduced – and in many cases passed – in the individual members’ states.

            Thanks to The Center for Media and Democracy, there is a website you should all visit to truly appreciate the scope of ALEC’s intrusion into public affairs that have been conducted in private, with no public oversight, and no public participation, and no public notification.

            The site is www.alecexposed.org – from that website, one member of my massive research staff – God Bless You, Diane – obtained and forwarded to me examples of the ‘model legislation’ ALEC’s ‘ task forces’ and members drew up to be brought back and introduced in each of the 50 states.

            Of the more than 2 dozen examples that I requested (out of the more than 800 listed), many of them directly benefit private companies such as CCA and GEO (which claims to be no longer connected to ALEC).  Both companies were avid participants when much of the legislation that directly benefits them was written, and CCA still is a major participant and financial contributor. CCA also, at one point co-chaired the Criminal Justice Task Force which created the pieces of legislation I am going to discuss.

            Among the examples of legislation I requested for review are the following, with a brief description of how CCA, GEO, and similar Slave Traders of the 21st Century profit from that legislation:

  • GPS TRACKING OF OFFENDERS ACT – This Act enables state and local authorities to utilize GPS electronic monitoring as a means of tracking offenders and pre-trial defendants within a community. Adopted by the Criminal Justice Task Force at the annual meeting, August 2007 and approved by ALEC Board of Directors, September 2007.  Remember GEO’s purchase of Behavioral Interventions, Inc.? That purchase was $415 million dollars, so this is big business, and monitoring is what they do.
  • MINIMUM MANDATORY SENTENCING ACT – This Act establishes mandatory sentencing for drug offenses on the state level (many of which are being repealed, have been recently repealed, or are under consideration for being repealed).
    Private prison companies have benefited by creating massive overcrowding in the nation’s prison system, whereupon the private prison industry has stepped in to offer “solutions”, resulting in major increases in revenue and profits to CCA, GEO, and similar companies.
  • HOUSING OUT-OF-STATE PRISONERS IN A PRIVATE PRISON ACT – This Act would enable a private prison contractor to provide housing, care, and control of inmates of any state.  Obviously, this law would benefit the operators of private prisons such as CCA and GEO.

Other pieces of “model” legislation written by ALEC’s “task force” of legislators and the very private prison companies that they will financially benefit are:

  • Temporary Juvenile Detention Act
  • Private Correctional Facilities Act
  • Prison Industries Act
  • Electronic Home Detention Act
  • Resolution to enforce our immigration laws (which spawned the model legislation that has passed in Arizona, Utah, Alabama and Georgia).

All of these, and thousands of additional pieces of legislation were written by the very people whose pockets will be lined by their enactment. From ALEC’s website is the following statement: “Each year, close to 1,000 bills based at least in part on ALEC Model Legislation, are introduced in the states. Of these, an average of 20 percent become law.”

            Pardon me for my ignorance, but ALEC’s own Mission Statement calls for limited government. 1,000 pieces of legislation – 3 per day – is not limited at all, but any fisherman will tell you that the more hooks you have in the water, the better your chances of catching fish.

            It’s not just in the criminal arena that ALEC wraps its chains around this country either. There are currently eight “task forces” made up of legislators and private industry:

  • Civil Justice
  • Commerce, Insurance & Economic Development
  • Education
  • Energy, Environment and Agriculture
  • Health and Human Services
  • International Relations
  • Public Safety & Elections
  • Task & Fiscal Policy
  • Telecommunications & Information Technology.

This sounds like a list of cabinet offices in the U.S. Government, but is just a very private “back room” full of good old boys and cigar smoke – and it’s the American public’s eyes that are being blinded by the smoke.

But at least we are wrapped in our protective blanket, right?

            The simple fact is this: ALEC has flooded the states with legislation designed to benefit select businesses, or areas of business, while burdening the American people with the costs for implementation of these pieces of legislation, and it is all done in a way that is absolutely opposite of the principles on which this country was founded and the way it is supposed to function.

            The tentacles of ALEC reach far and have grown in number and strength through the years.

            Among ALEC ‘alumni’ are 14 past, or sitting, governors and 85 members of Congress. It would be a stretch of any imagination to think that these ‘graduates’ of ALEC are without connections to, or influence over, what transpires behind ALEC’s closed doors even now that they have “moved on” and are no longer official members. (Remember, this is an organization for state legislators.)

            It would be an even bigger stretch to think that the relationships those ‘alumni’ have struck with ALEC’s corporate members ended upon their “graduation”. Much of the ‘cross-pollination’ I have referred to repeatedly throughout this series can be directly traced back to relationships formed through ALEC, and I never even put a tiny scratch in the surface of the numbers of relationships that exist today.

            Bob Kasten and Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin, John Engler of Michigan, Terry Branstad of Iowa and John Kasich of Ohio were involved with ALEC during its formative years. All have “graduated” gone onto become Republican Governors or Members of Congress.

            John Kasich is now Governor of Ohio. If you recall, in my first of this series, I pointed out that he appointed Gary Mohr as the head of Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections.

            To further refresh your memory, Mohr is a former Consultant and Managing Director for CCA, and you may further remember that, conversely, CCA hired Kasish’s former congressional chief of staff, Donald Thibault, as a lobbyist last January.

            To complete this little refresher course, Mohr had proposed selling 5 of Ohio’s prisons to private prison companies through a bidding process and the proposal moves forward with CCA as a participant. Mohr put out a memorandum that he would not be involved in the process. (wink, wink)

            Now for the update: The Lake Erie Correctional Institution in Northeastern Ohio has become the first state prison in the nation to be sold to a private company. Of the 5 put up for sale, only this one will be sold, according to the state. The winning bid was $72.7 million dollars which is more than the $50 million needed from privatization efforts to balance the state’s prison budget.

            CCA won the bid, but that should come as no surprise because of the relationships between Kasich, Mohr, and CCA. I’m sorry, but I don’t buy the presumption that that relationship had nothing to do with CCA being successful in its bid, nor should anyone else of reasonable intelligence. They take over December 31st pending the outcome of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the move.

            While the trading of human flesh for profit is the primary focus of this series, ALEC itself cannot be discussed properly without pointing out that other industries, businesses, and individuals use their ALEC access to develop legislation favorable to their particular field.

            I came across this excerpt from a “Bloomberg News” article reporting on ALEC:

“Koch Industries, Inc. and Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) are among companies that would benefit from almost identical energy legislation introduced in state capitols from Oregon to New Mexico to New Hampshire and that’s by design.

The energy companies helped write the legislation at a meeting organized by a group they finance: ‘The American Legislative Exchange Council’, a Washington-based policy institute known as ALEC.

The corporations, both ALEC members, took a seat at the legislative drafting table beside elected officials and policy analysts by paying between $3,000 and $10,000 yearly, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg News.”

            According to ALECexposed.org, in addition to CCA, GEO, KOCH Industries and Exxon Mobil, the list of past and present corporate members of ALEC includes: AT&T, Verizon, UPS, Bayer Corp., Glaxo Smith Kline, Coca Cola, Kraft Foods, Pfizer, State Farm Insurance, Wal-mart, and the American Bail Coalition.

            Comparing this list with the list of ALEC task forces, it is easy to see where each would fit – some in multiple categories – and have a vested interest in having a hand in developing legislation that would be favorable to their industry, in general, or their company, in particular.

            None of this would be possible were it not for the arrogant manner in which the American people have been manipulated and wrapped up in those chains of fear masquerading as a protective blanket.

            And nowhere is the arrogance of our elected officials and the alienation of the American people more obvious than in the action of ALEC and the comments of its current Chairman, Louisiana Representative Noble Ellington.

            In an interview with Terry Gross on a radio show produced by National Public Radio (NPR), Ellington got a little testy when Ms. Gross asked him why corporations got a seat at the table with ALEC but unions, teachers, and the general public don’t.

            His response: “I work for the taxpaying public, so don’t assume that they’re not (at the table) because they are. And we represent the public and we are the ones who decide. So the taxpaying public is there at the table because I am there.”

            The taxpaying public did not elect Mr. Ellington or any other member of any legislative body – federal or state – in this country to meet in private with multi-national corporations and draft legislation that directly benefits those same companies, their shareholders, their executives, or their friends.

            But they draft it anyway.

            The taxpaying public did not elect Mr. Ellington or any other member of any legislative body – federal or state – in this country to meet in private with those same companies and build personal relationships to further their own long-term interests and those of their close associates by ‘cross-pollinating’ and creating a revolving door through which passes the members of an exclusive club or collaborative cronies more concerned with feathering their own nests than furthering the causes of those who elected them in the first place.

            But they do it anyway.

            The taxpaying public also did not elect Mr. Ellington or any other member of any legislative body – federal or state – in this country to vote in their own self-interest in matters concerning term limits, line item vetoes, compensation packages, pensions, campaign reform, lobbying matters, ethics, super pacs, and other areas, as opposed to what is best for the taxpaying public they all took an oath to serve.

            But they vote against the best interests of the taxpaying public anyway. Over and over and over.

            “Those who do not move do not notice their chains.”

                                                Rosa Luxemburg

            The time has come for the American people to move in order that they might finally realize that their elected officials have wrapped them in chains and those chains are getting tighter and tighter, slowly squeezing the life – and the liberty – out of every American, not just those on the literal “wrong side of the fence.”

            The flames of fear used to forge those chains were fueled by individuals with a vision: a vision of America so consumed with a fear of crime – and criminals – that her citizens would be willing to pay any price to be protected.

            And the price that has been – and continues to be – paid is one of staggering proportions: The cost to the millions of members of the families of non-violent offenders incarcerated needlessly in this country; the cost to society to feed, clothe, house, and care for the world’s largest population of non-violent offenders; the cost to society when those same people are returned to society after 5, 10, 20 or more years languishing behind bars and are ostracized from the very opportunities they will require to become productive members of society; the cost to all Americans through the ever-increasing loss of personal freedoms; and – perhaps the highest cost of all – the loss of the ability of a nation of free people to have faith that the government that was established by, of, and for the people actually represents the majority’s true, best interests and not just those of the privileged groups, companies, and individuals who are rich enough, connected enough, contribute enough, or can promise a profitable enough future to those who were elected in good faith, with the hope of positive change, but are, like Eddie Murphy in the movie, “The Distinguished Gentleman”, quickly seduced by the privilege, power, prestige, and profit available to those who sell out to the highest bidder while pointing fingers, placing blame, and doing what they do because “I represent the people and I know what is best for them.”

            Are there violent people roaming the streets of our cities using guns, knives and other weapons to commit crimes?

            Is the business of illegal drugs a problem in this country?

            Is illegal immigration a problem in this country?

            Is child pornography finding its way into far too many homes in America?

            Are Ponzi schemes and other financial crimes a problem?

            Is Medicare and Medicaid fraud a problem?

            Are there individuals using computers to prey on our children?

            The answer to each and every one of these questions, of course, is an unequivocal and resounding “YES!”

            But now let me ask this: Is the passing of laws that financially benefit the very same companies, elected officials, and select individuals who participate in private meetings to craft these laws while creating the illusion that they are addressing these problems with your best interests in mind the wisest, safest, most cost effective and productive course of action with which to address these, and other, national issues?

            That answer, my friends, is an equally unequivocal and resounding “NO!”

            The selling of freedom that is crippling our criminal justice system is crippling other areas of American life as well.

            As ALEC develops legislation that affects the businesses of insurance, energy, finance, education, housing, and virtually every other facet of the taxpaying public’s daily existence, the rich and the privileged grow richer and more privileged.

            It is surely a problem of mammoth proportions, this unholy and unethical alliance of business and elected officials, but it is not a problem unique to this country.

            In Egypt, recently, a senior insider in the ousted regime of Hosni Mubarak was convicted of corruption. Ahmed Ezz had apparently become a symbol of the intertwining of business and politics that many Egyptians despise as corrupt.

            If the American Legislative Exchange Council does not epitomize the intertwining of business and politics I simply cannot fathom what would.

            ALEC – and other similar, yes smaller groups (and yes, others do exist) – should not be tolerated by the taxpaying American public. ALEC, and any like it, should be illegal and any input that business wants to inject into proposed law, policies, and politics in general should be done in open hearings in state houses and congressional chambers in full view of the public and not at weekend retreats paid for by the public where the only people not in attendance are the very people whose lives will be affected by what is discussed.

            America should demand that her public servants remember that they are just that, and they should spend much more of their time meeting with, and acting on behalf of, the very people who elected them to serve in the first place.

            For starters, ALEC’s success at profiteering in the area of prison privatization needs to be reversed.

            The temptations associated with privatization are great and therefore I state again that the United States of America should follow the example of Israel and declare that private prisons are unconstitutional.

            Given the fact that the Supreme Court has given private individuals and corporations the power to openly indemnify elected officials to them, their pet projects, or core businesses by allowing them to contribute unlimited amounts to “super pacs” tells me that is not likely to happen.

            So I would propose the following: Under no circumstances should any individual who works in a prison or who writes, enforces, prosecutes, or adjudicates our nations laws profit from the incarceration of this nation’s citizens by owning all, or part of any company, or the stock belonging to any company that conducts business, for profit, with penal institution, detention center, or any other type of institution whose primary function is the housing, care, and control of any human being under the jurisdiction of any federal, state or local authority.

            Furthermore, it should be against the law for any union or any other group representing workers in those same institutions to lobby for longer sentences, mandatory minimums, or engage in any efforts to obtain job security by encouraging public officials to incarcerate more people for longer periods of time or for more reasons.

            It should also be illegal for any pension fund managed on behalf of any group that writes, enforces, prosecutes, or adjudicates this nations laws, or monitors those incarcerated to own stock in any company that profits from any part of the arrest, prosecution, and incarceration process.

            It is true that the citizens of this country should be afraid, but they should be afraid of ALEC and the arrogance and impunity with which our elected officials operate and cater to the whims of those wealthy enough to buy a few minutes of their time.

            In the case of Egypt, social media has been credited with being the impetus of change, so I suggest that Americans follow suit and use the resources at their fingertips and do the following:

            Demand from every governor, United States Congressman, state legislator, and current candidate for office a public answer to the following question:

“Are you now, have you ever been, or do you have future plans on being a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council?”

Then make sure that they know that if they answered ‘YES’, you will not vote for them.

            At the same time, Americans need to understand the unconscionable blow to the American electoral process with its finding in favor of “Super Pacs”. The taking of this incomprehensible step put the welfare of this country even more firmly in the hands of big business and the well-to-do, so while you are saying ‘no’ to ALEC, let the same people know that you will not vote for any candidate who has any relationship with a “Super Pac”, and when they say that they have no control over who spends money on their behalf, let them know with a loud “NO!” that you are not buying it anymore.

            The American people have the power. They just need to stop listening to the same rhetoric and “empty calorie” campaign speeches that influential dollars have paid someone to write and who specializes in bamboozling the American public.

            Due to the unbridled arrogance and misplaced loyalties of many of our elected officials, we are, right now, far removed from the Lord’s promise when He said:

            “You will be secure under a government that is just and fair.”

                                                                                             Isaiah 54:14 NLT

However, the Lord also stated that:

“Human pride will be brought down and human arrogance will be humbled.”

                                                                                             Isaiah 2:11a NLT

            However, before the arrogant can be humbled, and before anyone, anywhere in this country can feel secure under a government that is just and fair, we must heed the words of God when He says:

            “Remove the chains of slavery from your neck.”

                                                                                             Isaiah 52:2b NLT

            Americans must break the chains that are wrapped around their necks and have made them slaves to fear and insist on a new direction – a new way of conducting the business of the people of this, the greatest nation on earth – a new direction in dealing with the way laws are made and in dealing with those who break them.

            Those who are elected to conduct the business of the people should know that Americans are looking for individuals to serve the people and we must tell them that, in a servant we expect someone who is:

Sincere

Economical

Rational

Venerable

Accountable

No-nonsense and

Thrifty

            Until next time, thank you for putting up with me, and may God bless each and every one of you.

Letters to Heaven – Dear Mom

On By Tony CassonIn Letters to Heaven

“Memory is the treasure house of the mind”        Thomas Fuller

“May she who gave you birth be happy”      Proverbs 23:25B  NLT

Dear Mom,

Of all of the words I have written in my life, I have written the least number of them to you.

For this, I apologize, and I will not add insult to injury by offering any excuses. 

In death you remain larger than life, and the words “I miss you” are woefully inadequate to describe the feeling of emptiness that moved in when you left and which has remained there for 3+ years.

I know you are happily at home with God and I am grateful that your long-time suffering has ended. When I see you in my dreams, I see a younger, healthier version of you with your eyesight, hearing and other physical ailments restored.

And, of course, I see that radiant smile of yours that so many people over your lifetime were able to see directed at them, making them aware that true goodness does exist on this earth.

Or did, anyway.

My time spent in prison, so far, has not been spent in vain, I don’t think, Mom. I know you cannot be happy with my being in prison, but I also know you can’t possibly be disappointed by how things are progressing so far.

Since the Lord saw fit to save me from death 2 years ago my heart has been filled with a faith that grows stronger daily. My love of the Lord, and recognition of all he has blessed me with, has led me to peace and contentment, even in this – the most impossible place imaginable where one would think those things could be found

And yet, I have found those things, and I know this is just the beginning; that the best is yet to come.

Sometimes I can almost feel the warmth of your smile as you look down upon me. From that warmth I gather the strength to resolve the past, and find the courage to face the future. I love the time I spend reminiscing; reliving various times in our lives together, both the good – and the not-so-good.

In fact, just the other day, I was thinking about the time, – ok, the first time – I ran away from home on a dare by the next door neighbor.

I was 13.

It wasn’t until I stood in the doorway of Anthony’s bedroom when he was 13 (Can you believe he just turned 24??)and I was watching him sleep (my goodness – did I look that innocent and young at 13?) and for some reason, as I stood there that whole incident popped into my head and I thought “Oh, my God! I was the same age as this precious young man sleeping peacefully before me when my mom woke up one day and I was gone!”

I remember calling you that day and tearfully apologizing, explaining that it wasn’t until the moment I looked at Anthony and I imagined myself waking up and finding him gone that I realized what a horrible thing I had done so many years before. It struck me with substantial force just how frantic you must have been and how much you must have ached inside wondering where your little boy had gone and whether I was safe.

 You reassured me that it was ok, and I felt your teary smile coming through the telephone, but I know that while you were reassuring me, you too were remembering that agonizing sense of panic and loss when my disappearance was discovered.

By the time or conversation ended, we had both laughed and both cried, and I believed you when you said that I had been forgiven long, long ago.

Your capacity for love and forgiveness was greater than that of anyone I have ever known and I believe – now that I know a little more about Him – that you got that directly from God.

Sometimes I am glad that you were not here on this earth to witness my final tumble from grace. That you were not alive to be given the news of my near-successful suicide attempt and the circumstances surrounding it. But I also think that if you had been alive to get up and speak about me to Judge Cohn, perhaps he would have been more lenient with me, for surely you would have convinced him of that, while damaged, I was not broken beyond repair.

He might, however, have sentenced me to more time for having the audacity to cause pain within someone so obviously full of love and goodness as you.

None of that matters, of course, since you were with me that day, in other, more wondrous – and powerful – ways and you remain with me today.

 When ‘Pop’ had his stroke and it was decided that I would move to Florida and hang out with you two and help out where I could, it was as if the Lord was orchestrating all of it as he foresaw what would eventually happen to you, to ‘Pop’, and then to me.

I am very thankful for the time we shared, the three of us, and even though there were rough spots, there were also beautiful moments, happy moments, and humorous ones as well.

When we were 1st together I remember the frustration at the difficulties presented by your hearing problems.  Remember when we finally made that appointment, had you tested and fitted and ordered your new hearing aids?

What a beautiful day it was when se went to pick them up.  The pleasure in your face was a joy to see. You could be so much like a child in your excitement sometimes.

Remember driving home after we left the store?  The conversation in the car was at normal level – no repeated words – no “what did you say?” – no raised voices.  Just the three of us, talking normally.  The joy you felt at being able to hear was evident in your radiant smile, and I’ll never forget what happened when we pulled in the driveway:  I helped you out of the car and you stopped and cocked your head – a puzzled look on your face.  I asked “What’s the matter?” 

“What’s that sound?”, you inquired. 

I listened for a moment, chuckled, shook my head and said, “Those are birds, Mom”.

It was wonderful to be part of that and to see at least a small portion of the quality of your life improve.

Of course, your eyesight had deteriorated much more than your hearing, and there simply wasn’t much in the way of mechanical aids to help you see better.  You had your ‘talking’ watch and ‘talking’ clock both which, with the push of a button would announce the time. Of course, your clock – which was next to your bed – was set to announce when it as 7AM. I remember how it freaked me out when I first moved there and would hear the voice.  That “voice” now announces 7AM for Kathy each and every day.

And let’s not forget your lighted magnifying glass – probably the single most important aid.  Goodness me! I was just sitting here remembering the time I took you to Penny’s so you could get a birthday gift for one the neighbors’ kids and started crying as I recalled watching you struggling with that thing looking at sizes and prices and insisting on being independent and self-sufficient.

It embarrasses and shames me how selfless you were and how selfish I was.  If only I had learned from you sooner, but you know me – “I knew it all”.

Now that’s  funny, right there.

Actually, though – speaking of funny – I get a chuckle recalling the time I planted flowers along the fence in your backyard.  You came to the back door and announced how pretty they were. Laughing, I said, “What are you talking about? You can’t see them!”  You insisted you could, so I just kissed the top of your white-haired head and said, “Yeah, right – but thanks.”

My favorite story is one told by ‘Pop’ and happened long before I got there.  You remember your blind dog, Teddy, of course (What is with that place, something in the water?).

Anyway,  the story goes:

One day you ‘looked’ out the back window and ‘saw’ Teddy lying by the pool. (He never fell in, did he?).  You opened the Florida room door and called out to him, but he laid just there.  You called him again with the same result, so you called out ‘Pop’ – “Roland! Roland!. . .  come here please!”

       ‘Pop’ walked up next to you and asked what you wanted.  You told him that you were calling Teddy to come in, but he wouldn’t come, whereupon ‘Pop’ told you that Teddy was in the living room, lying on the floor. You pointed outside and asked him, “Then who is that by the pool?”  Pop looked past you to where you were pointing, looked back to you and said, simply, “An iguana”, and turned and went back in to join Teddy in the living room.

Kind of glad he didn’t come when you called, weren’t you, Dear?

For the most part though, you were incredible to watch in your own home. One would never know you could hardly see.  You could bake, cook, clean, wash clothes, iron – you could do it all. You were an amazing woman and I’m sorry it took me so long to notice.

Well, Mother, I could go on and on. I guess what I’m trying to say through all of this is that I love you, I miss you and I think of you all the time.

I also want to reassure you that, while I would definitely rather be somewhere else, I am using the time that I have here constructively and in a positive way to strengthen my faith in God and to work on His plans for my future.

I’ll write again and let you know how things are going – maybe share another story or two.

Until then, know this: God will help me set this right. I remember the past, but I spend my days now looking forward and looking up. 

I look forward and I look up to my future and my hope, and my future and hope are with God.

I’m okay with that, and somehow I think you are too.

I love you, Mom.

Tony

“Crimes and Their Punishments: 21st Century Slave Traders: The Horrors in the Holds of the Ships”

On By Tony CassonIn Crimes and Their Punishments1 Comment

“Crimes and Their Punishments: 21st Century Slave Traders: The Horrors in the Holds of the Ships”

“We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.”     Franklin D. Roosevelt

“For the leaders of the people have misled them. They have led them down the path of destruction.”     Isaiah 9:16 NLT

            In 1619, 20 African slaves were sold to colonists at Jamestown, Virginia. After a Dutch frigate pulled into port, laying the foundation for an industry of chained flesh that would soon deliver hundreds of thousands of slaves to the colonies who all survived the brutal trip from Africa in the holds of the slave ships.

            Men, women, and children – kept in holds that were often no more than four feet high – suffered the long transatlantic voyage lying down, chained in pairs, hands to feet, riding out the journey with the indignity, sickness, and death that accompanied each cargo of human misery.

            Many of the guards and overseers were exceptionally brutal and sadistic men who often displayed a liking for the opportunities to beat, abuse or sexually assault those they were charged with delivering to market.

            As long as the holds were full and demand was high, the sacrifice of a few was of no concern to the evil men hired to sail those ships and deliver the “goods” to port. There were no complaints because those who might complain couldn’t speak the language of those they would complain to, and – after all – who listens to the cries of those in chains?

            In the 21st century, Americans do listen to cries of “let’s get tough on crime” and accept the well-lobbied solution to the problem which is more prison sentences, for longer durations, without considering the effectiveness, cost, or the motivation of those behind the rallying cry.

            Ostensibly, those who are elected to lead this country are educated individuals, but it doesn’t take a college degree to know that you can’t lock up the deficiencies of a society. You can lock up that society’s citizens, though, but while the prisons fill up, creating a constant need for new ones, the root causes that created the criminal in the first place remain on the outside of the prison walls, creating still more need for still more prison beds.

            Ultimately, the only benefit derived from this approach is by those who profit financially from the unnecessary misery of hundreds of thousands of this country’s citizens.

            As CCA, GEO, other private companies, and their myriad lobbyists, lawyers, and legislators sail forward on their self-serving quest for higher revenues and larger dividends for their shareholders, they leave behind them a disturbing wake of undelivered promises, suffering, pain, misery, and even death that simply cannot be ignored.

            While this writer claims no degree in business, it would seem to be a safe bet that it simply is not possible to provide better rehabilitative programs, better health care services, better drug treatment programs, better vocational programs, higher trained personnel and greater security – all while providing a healthy bottom line and dividends for shareholders – all while doing it less expensively than a state or federal government run institution.

            The promise of “…the best of the business world with the strong oversight and consistent standards of our governments.” (from CCA’s website) have not been fulfilled by any stretch of the imagination.

            GEO’s website, thegeogroupinc.com, boasts that “our unique approach allows GEO to provide high quality and cost-effective service with state-of-the-art designs, innovative programs and ground breaking treatment approaches.”

            If you consider counseling sessions in a GEO Juvenile Facility in Coke County, TX being run by guards and a guard who raped a 14 year old girl nightly, promising “to kill your sister and your mom if you tell anybody” ground breaking, then I guess GEO has lived up to its claim.

            “LOCKED INSIDE A NIGHTMARE” is a story by CBS News from February 11, 2009 and is our first example of “The Horrors in the Holds of the Ships” operated by the slave traders of the 21st Century.

            Sara Lowe had trouble adjusting after her family moved to Texas from Nebraska where she grew up.

            Sara was 14 when she was arrested for attacking her mother after an argument escalated and she went out of control. Ultimately, she was sentenced to 6 months in Wackenhut Corrections Corporation’s (this was before the change to GEO Group) new Coke County Juvenile Justice Center. It was believed that Sara would receive intensive counseling by well-qualified staff. Sara’s mother, Gayle Lowe, said she was told “they would all have Bachelor’s Degrees in either Criminal Justice or Psychology… Child Psychology. It just sounded wonderful!”

            It was expensive too. The State of Texas paid $118.00 per day for each girl sent there and in addition to the “well-qualified” counselors, they were to receive educational instruction of the same quality.

            It seems the facility never lived up to its billing as Sara was promoted through three grades of high school in just six months, and even though it was an all-girl’s prison, it was staffed mostly by men.

            Sara eventually told her sister, Jenny, about the nightly visits, the rapes, and the death threats, by one of the guards.

            In 1998, the Lowe’s filed suit claiming “widespread systematic sexual assault” of the girls in the prison. Eleven more girls joined the suit and two Wackenhut employees eventually pled guilty to criminal charges of sexual assault. For the company’s part, the lawsuit was settled with the condition that Sara or her parents were to never discuss what happened in the prison.

            Sara Lowe shot and killed herself the day of the settlement.

            Her sister, Jenny, said Sara was upset because neither the company or its founder, George Wackenhut, would admit any responsibility. Wackenhut CEO, George Zoley, told CBS, “we have signed a confidentiality agreement regarding that lawsuit, and I’m really not allowed to speak about it any further.”

            When asked if he thought the company owed an apology to Sara, or any other inmate, Zoley responded, “Not that I’m aware of. I don’t know what you mean by that.”

            Also in 1998, Wackenhut opened the Jena Juvenile Justice Center for boys in Louisiana. In 1999, 17 year old Dale Ortega was sentenced to Jena for 6 months, where, the judge who sentenced him, Marie Doherty said, “…they were to have a first rate substance abuse treatment program with trained substance abuse counselors.”

            Instead, Ortega found that several employees were pushing drugs and sex in the cell blocks. He saw guards smoking marijuana with inmates and some guards had sex with inmates.

            In one year, the facility went through five wardens and turned over the entire staff three times. The U.S. Department of Justice investigated Jena and found that youths were subjected to “cruel and humiliating punishments.” The report also said that guards “routinely used excessive force” and that “the Jena Center is a dangerous place to be.”

            The Justice Department also found that Jena medical records showed 100 serious traumatic injuries in one 2 month period, an “unacceptably high number of traumatic injuries.”

            Investigators found that Jena, Louisiana, and Coke County, Texas, had the same problem – most guards had no experience.

            Dave Ortega also stated that, while he was working as a trustee in the Jena office, he was assigned to shred complaints that inmates had written about the guards.

            When the Louisiana Department of Corrections seized control of Jena, a state corrections investigator reported that a guard was caught erasing a videotape that allegedly showed inmate abuse.

            The judge who had sentenced Dave Ortega to Jena was shocked by the allegations in the report. The CBS report stated that he had released 7 inmates from Jena, placing them on probation instead. He decided Wackenhut was putting their lives at risk.

            “No matter what reason landed these young people at the facility, they are human beings,” Judge Doherty said.

            Admittedly, these first examples of “The Horrors in the Holds of the Ships” are over ten years old. Surely lessons were learned OR were they?

            In 2007, the Coke County Facility that failed Sara Lowe, and the other young women so miserably, closed. It had been changed to an all-boys center after the females were removed, but apparently problems remained. Inspectors had reported that feces and urine littered the common area, while the boys’ “education program” consisted of a daily crossword puzzle slipped into their cells. According to the report, the boys would sometimes go 72 hours without taking a shower, days without brushing their teeth, and were sometimes forced to defecate in something other than a toilet.

            During an inspection, Texas Youth Commission (TYC) Ombudsman Will Harrell observed an “over-reliance” on pepper spray, an insect infestation, gross understaffing, and bedding that hadn’t been washed in a month.

            “There is a greater sense of fear and intimidation in this facility than perhaps any other I have been to”, he wrote.

            Another inspection by Harris County’s TYC liaison noted that “one of the dorms lacked a bathroom so the kids had to relieve themselves on the floor or in a plastic bag (if they have one).”

            Curiously enough, this facility had twice been named “contract facility of the year” after rave reviews by TYC’s own inspectors.

            Remember the phrase I used in the previous article, “cross-pollination”? Two of those inspectors who gave the rave reviews were former GEO employees.

            After the ombudsman’s report became public, TYC had no choice but to send in new inspectors. After walking through the facility – the Dallas Morning News reported – they had to scrape human excrement off their shoes.

            It was at that point that all 197 young men were removed and placed elsewhere.

            All of this in spite of GEO’s website claim that “our team of over 17,000 professionals is dedicated to the safety and care of the individuals assigned to our custody.” Their website states further that “our knowledgeable are experts in… basic education… counseling, substance abuse treatment… and facilities maintenance to ensure that the high level of service our clients demand is adequately provided in each of our business units.”

            It was also related in the CBS story that in 1998 a riot at a then Wackenhut, New Mexico prison left 2 people dead. The story also stated that the company was stripped of a $12 million dollar contract in Texas where 12 guards were indicted for having sex with female inmates.

            CBS reported that CEO Zoley had this to say: “A correctional organization is subject to numerous allegations of this nature. That’s part of the business. People in prison are not Sunday school children.”

            Well, Mr. Zoley, while the last part of that statement may be true, just because they are not Sunday school children does not give those charged with their custody the right to abuse them or treat them like animals.

            Perhaps part of the problem is that it takes too long to find out about the abuses suffered by the human beings in their charge because private prisons are shielded from public scrutiny given that they are a private business and therefore are not subject to the same open records requirements as is a government-run institution.

            As an example, according to Lauren Reinlie of “Texans for Public Justice”, the Texas Depart of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) acknowledged that it does not collect basic statistics about private facilities, even those routinely gathered from state-run facilities. Among the records not kept were: staffing ratios, number of guards at each facility, and guard disciplinary data to name a few.

            Without information, how does TDCJ provide oversight to a group that receives over $200 million dollars a year in public funds and is responsible for the care and safety – indeed, the very lives – of over 16,000 human beings?

            To ensure that state government – as well as the public – received the same information from private institutions that it did from state-run institutions, Texas State Representative Solomin Ortiz, Jr. introduced a bill that would have – among other things – subjected private prisons to the same open records laws as public facilities; mandated public hearings before privatization of county jails; and made it illegal for a public servant, such as a sheriff, to be paid by a private prison corporation while drawing public salaries.

            The bill was successfully removed from consideration amidst intense lobbying by the well-connected individuals named in the first part of this series, although no one will publicly state that it was removed from consideration because of that lobbying.

            One of those lobbyists, GEO’s Michelle Wittenburg, who spoke with at least one of the lawmakers who pulled the bill, took the position that the bill singled out private prison companies to comply with open records laws when “other” private companies have no such mandate.

            Correct me if I am wrong, but “other” private companies – I would assume such as Coca Cola, Wal-mart, and General Motors – do not have human beings in chains and behind bars as their primary “product.” The position that a company operating prisons should be no more transparent than one that manufactures cars, soda pop, or sells garden hoses is a preposterous one to take and would be laughable were it not for one important fact – that position was accepted and the bill was killed.

            For a group of individuals elected to work in the best interests of the state they were elected in to agree with this position is as reprehensible and irresponsible as the behavior of some of the individuals locked up in the places whose secrecy these public officials have agreed to protect through their actions.

            Other attempts in Texas and elsewhere, to force openness in an “industry” that should have never been allowed to grow without openness and accountability, have failed as well.

            In spite of the success at limiting access to records and practices behind these private walls, reports of mismanagement, abuse, criminal activity, sexual assault and other atrocities still manage to be exposed causing a logical thinking person to ask, “If this is what we are hearing about, what are we not hearing about?”

            Some of the more notable examples include:

An ACLU lawsuit filed last year against a CCA facility in Idaho, asks for class action status and seeks $155 million dollars in damages. The ACLU charges that the prison is so violent it is known as a “gladiator school” among inmates. According to the ACLU, guards deliberately exposed inmates to beatings from other prisoners as a “management tool”. The lawsuit went on to charge that guards denied medical care as a way to save money and hide the extent of the injuries. A video surfaced last November that showed prison guards watching one inmate beat up another. The inmate was beaten unconscious with no action taken by the guards. The FBI stepped in to investigate at the beginning of December. CCA, rather than taking responsibility for the actions of its employees, condemned the release of the video as “an unnecessary security risk to our staff, the inmates entrusted to our care, and – ultimately – to the public.”

During hearings in Maine to discuss the idea of private prisons, Shenna Bellows – Executive Director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union – criticized the track record of the private prison companies, cautioning that, “private prison companies in other states have been found guilty of illegal corruption schemes, paying kickbacks to judges and elected officials to secure contracts for the transport of more prisoners to their facilities.” Addressing the issue of violence at privately run prisons, Bellows cited a 2004 report by the “Federal Probation Journal” stating that private prisons had an almost 50 percent higher record of inmate-on-staff assaults compared to similar public prisons. She also discussed the previously mentioned incidents in Idaho as well as suits against a GEO Group for violations at a Mississippi Juvenile Facility which GEO took over just last August. At that facility, which is the nation’s largest juvenile facility, a class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of 13 inmates. According to National Public Radio (NPR), the lawsuit alleges contraband brought in by guards; sex between guards and inmates; inadequate medical care; and prison violence that led to brain damage in one instance.

In Texas, in 2009, the 13th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the largest civil judgment in the private prison industry’s history. A $42 million dollar wrongful death judgment was awarded against GEO for the 2001 killing of prisoner Gregorio de la Rosa, Jr. in its Willacy County facility. The court summarizes the incident thusly: “This case involves the horrific and gruesome death of Gregorio de la Rosa, Jr. Gregorio, an honorably discharged former National Guardsman, was serving a 6 month sentence at a prison operated by Wackenhut Corrections Corp (now GEO Group) for possession of less than 1/4 gram of cocaine. A few days before his expected release, Gregorio was beaten to death by two other prisoners, using a lock tied to a sock, while Wackenhut’s officers stood by and watched and Wackenhut’s warden smirked and laughed.” The court also “scolded” Wackenhut for withholding or destroying evidence, including a surveillance camera recording of the beating. The court opined, “We find that Wackenhut’s conduct was clearly reprehensible and, frankly, constitutes a disgusting display of disrespect for the welfare of  others and for the state’s civil justice system.”

In Arizona, the mother of Linda Haas has filed suit for $40 million dollars against the State of Arizona; Dominion – an Edmunds, Oklahoma company that spec-built a prison in Kingman, Arizona described as being “grossly unsecure”; and Management Training Corporation (MTC), another private prison company. Linda Haas and her husband were murdered by fugitives who escaped from the facility. The inmates – convicted murderers – were also involved in a Colorado shootout, hijackings, kidnapping, and robberies in Arizona and New Mexico, and a robbery in Arkansas.

            Privatization takes many forms within the corrections industry. Often, there is just one aspect of a facility that is privatized, as in the case of PA-based “Wexford Health Services”, which bills itself as “the nation’s leading innovative correctional health care company.” Wexford provided health care service for the Central New Mexico Correctional Facility (CNMCF).

            After his December 2005 arrest and incarceration, Michael Crespin complained of abdominal pains. He was taken to the University of New Mexico Hospital (UNMH) where he was diagnosed with cancer and underwent surgery. Upon his arrival at CNMCF in March of 2006, Wexford personnel were advised of his condition and alerted to the fact that he had a colostomy bag and had prescriptions for medications as well as chemotherapy, which was to be provided through UNMH. Despite Crespin’s requests, and those of his treating physician at UNMH, Wexford employees lost track of his cancer treatment.

            According to his subsequent federal lawsuit, Crespin “missed approximately 14 to 16, or more, medical appointments at UNMH.” The treating physician and staff repeatedly called Wexford staff and CNMCF’s warden to inform them “of the critical nature of these appointments to (Crespin’s) health and that continuing his regular treatments was literally a life or death matter.” The lawsuit further stated that a nurse practitioner from UNMH, Holly C. Rice, spoke to Wexford physician Harvey I. Featherstone in early August 2006 to advise him that “stopping (Crespin’s) treatments would result in his untimely death.”

            It was only after investigative reporters started looking into Crespin’s case and “multiple other and serious instances of Wexford’s deliberate indifference in providing medical services” that the treatment plan recommended by UNMH was followed.

            Sadly, it was too late. Crespin, 50, died on July 2, 2008. The lawsuit he had started was continued by his family and settled under confidential terms in November 2010.

            Not to be outdone by CCA, GEO/Wackenhut, MTC, or Wexford, enter Cornell companies which, prior to being purchased by GEO Group for $730 million dollars in August 2010, was based in Houston, Texas. Prior to that purchase, Cornell had its own set of problems at operations in Arkansas, Pennsylvania, and Texas. In 2001, Cornell struck a deal with the Arkansas Division of Youth Service to manage a facility in Alexander, Arkansas for $42 million dollars. That contract was timely for Cornell shareholders as Cornell was in the process of closing a Pennsylvania Youth Camp after it was discovered that at least 11 kids had been sexually assaulted by guards.

            A year after taking over the Alexander facility, investigations were conducted by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Education. Some of the items for concern that the investigators cited were: under qualified staff; poor monitoring of kids in suicide watch; a lack of textbooks.

            Three years later, 17 year old La Keisha Brown dropped dead from blood clots in her lung. State investigators found that her pleas for treatment were ignored by medical staff.

            During the investigation into her death, other troublesome discoveries were made: falsification of records and the inappropriate use of forced injections of Thorazine and Benadryl as chemical restraints.

            The State of Arkansas resumed control of the Alexandria Facility in 2006.

“Fear the Lord and judge with integrity, for the Lord our God does not tolerate perverted justice, partiality, or the taking of bribes.”     2 Chronicles 19:7

            Perhaps the most telling of these tales of “The Horrors in the Holds of the Ships” belonging to our modern day slave traders occurred in Pennsylvania where, in 2010, two former Pennsylvania Juvenile Court Judges were convicted in what became known as the “Cash for Kids” scandal after accepting over $2.6 million dollars in kickbacks from the owners of a privately run juvenile detention center in exchange for harsh sentences that kept the center’s beds filled. Their actions resulted in the dismissal of over 4,000 juvenile cases they had participated in.

“As David said, “Let their bountiful table become a snare, a trap that makes them think all is well. Let their blessings cause them to stumble, and let them get what they deserve.”
Romans 11:9 NLT

            That these same types of horrors can be – and are – found in government-run facilities is without question, but studies have shown that, in addition to inmate-on-staff violence being 50 percent more likely, inmate-on-inmate violence is 65 percent more likely to occur in private facilities.

            The need for profits requires more than running an efficient operation. It requires cutting costs and – in the process – cutting staff, cutting services, and cutting quality of care.

            This is not rocket science, this is the business of slave trading in the 21st century.

            To reiterate what Israeli Supreme Court President, Dorit Beinisch, put so succinctly:

“Thus, when the power to incarcerate is transferred to a private corporation whose purpose is making money, the act of depriving a person of his liberty loses much of its legitimacy.

Because of this loss of legitimacy, the violation of the prisoner’s right to liberty goes beyond the violation entailed in the incarceration itself.”

“Crimes and Their Punishments: 21st Century Slave Traders”

On By Tony CassonIn Crimes and Their PunishmentsLeave a comment

“Men fight for freedom; then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves.”                                      Thomas Jefferson

“It could probably be shown, by facts and figures, that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”                   Mark Twain

“You rulers make decisions based on bribes.”           Micah 3:11a NLT

    Slave traders in the 18th and 19th centuries used ships to move their cargos of human misery from Africa.

    Enduring weeks in cramped, filthy cargo holds that smelled of human waste, sickness, and death, hundreds of chained human beings were crammed into as little space as possible in conditions that would ensure that as many as one third of them would never survive the journey.

    Those who were fortunate – or unfortunate – enough to survive the inhuman treatment or the grueling trip would ultimately be sold, their usefulness to the ones who traded in their flesh ended.

    Those who profit from human misery today do not face the transportation problems of those from centuries past. The modes of transportation today are planes, buses, vans, and cars, and while almost all survive the journey from city to city and state to state, that journey is still made in chains and the bodies chained are still the commodity they once were, and I say commodity because since the 1980’s prisoners have become exactly that.

    The push towards prison privatization has helped to create a huge  prison industrial complex in this country, as well as in other parts of the world.

     Due in part to the influence of these private companies and their powerful lobbyists, millions of dollars in campaign contributions, and extremely close – almost incestuous – relationships with state and federal governments and various bureaucracies, prison budgets have grown exponentially since the early 1980’s, and continue to do so today, even as these same private companies claim to be able to save money for the governments they have contracts with.

     According to the “PEW Center for the states,” state prison budgets since the mid-1980’s have risen from $10 Billion to $52 Billion as state prison populations have grown from under 500,000 to about 2.8 Million today. According to the Spring 2011 issue of FAMMGRAM (a publication put out by “Families Against Mandatory Minimums”), the Federal prison population has increased at least 3 times the rate of State prisons since 1995 and costs the taxpayers over $5 Billion per year!

    Since the concept took root, the US has grown to be the largest private prison – and related service – market in the world. England, Scotland, and Wales comprise the 2nd largest market, but the concept of privatization has spread – or tried to spread – to other parts of the world as well.

     In 2004, the Israeli Knesset passed a law to allow privatization of prisons in Israel. However, in 2009, 4 years after a petition was filed by the Civil Rights Department in the Law Academic College of Ramat Gan,  an expanded panel of 9 judges of the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that privately run prisons are unconstitutional.

Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch wrote, “Israel’s basic legal principles hold that the right to use force in general, and the right to enforce criminal law by putting people behind bars in particular, is one of the most fundamental and one of the most invasive powers in the state’s jurisdiction. Thus, when the power to incarcerate is transferred to a private corporation whose purpose is making money, the act of depriving a person of his liberty loses much of its legitimacy. Because of this loss of legitimacy, the violation of the prisoner’s right to liberty goes beyond the violation entailed in the incarceration itself.”

     In this country, Illinois in 1990 (Private Correctional Facility Moratorium Act) and New York in 2000, enacted laws that ban the privatization of prisons, correctional facilities and any services related to their operation.

     The growth of privatization in this country has been spearheaded by two companies: Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) was founded in 1983 by Thomas Beasley, a former chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party (which, of course, gave him an instant “in” with Republican Legislators all over the country); and GEO Group, based in Boca Raton, Florida, was founded in 1984 as Wackenhut Corrections Corp, a subsidiary of Wackenhut Security. Somewhere along the line it was changed to GEO Group, probably to distance itself from Wackenhut’s respectable core business of Armored Car, Home and Private Security Services.

     Their combined companies house over 170,000 prisoners in over 175 facilities nationwide. To put things in perspective, 170,000 inmates would have been almost half of the total state prison population of 350,000 in 1983, although that figure represented only about 6% of the total 2.8 Million incarcerated today. But it is enough to earn CCA alone over $155 Million in profit last year on $1.6 Billion in revenue.

     As prison populations continue to rise, and the costs to house them as well, we are likely to see even more of a shift to privatization, but are the costs – or the savings – really the main factor in making the determination to “go private”?

                     OR is it just good old American greed?

     There are studies that show that privatization saves money. Ostensibly these are well documented, independent studies and it should follow that these studies would speak for themselves in helping legislative bodies make decisions.

     If that is the case, why is so much money spent on lobbyists, and on campaign contributions, by companies such as CCA and GEO?

     There is so much money moving in so many different directions that it is all but impossible to wrap it all up in a neat bundle to present to you here. But I will give you some disturbing examples of what is happening on a daily basis around this country:

  • Since 2001, the Florida GOP has received over $1.5 Million from CCA, GEO, and their affiliates, almost $1 Million of that coming in the 2010 state election cycle alone. It should be noted that since that time Florida passed its $69.7 Billion Budget. As a result of that budget passing on May 7, 16 prisons in the Southern third of the state will be privatized, thereby quadrupling the number of prisons run by private firms in the 3rd largest prison system in the country.

Almost $800,000 of those contributions came from GEO and, if you recall, they are headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida – which happens to be in the Southern third of the state.

  • In Texas, private prison companies and their PAC’s have given over $130,000 to candidates since 2006.
  • In Arizona, CCA gave $10,000 to the “Yes on 100” campaign, a state sales tax initiative heavily promoted by the governor.
    • By coincidence, the state has since reopened the contract process for 5,000 prison beds despite a 2010 internal state audit that found that private prisons cost taxpayers more money per inmate than public operations.
  • In New Mexico, GEO and CCA have contributed over $38,000 to the campaigns of New Mexico Republicans in recent years, including $25,000 to the campaign of the current Governor, Susana Martinez. 
  • In Tennessee – home to CCA – nearly $60,000 was donated to local and state parties in 2010 alone. Over $179,000 has been donated since 2006.
  • CCA alone has spent $14.8 Million dollars lobbying various Federal agencies from 2003 to 2010 including The Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Bureau of Prisons.
  • Georgia, which is the 3rd state to pass an anti-immigration bill similar to the one passed by Arizona, also appears to have profited from private prison largesse: State Senator Donald Balfour received $7,750 in campaign contributions between 2006 and 2010;  Governor Deal received $5,000 in 2010 and Lt. Governor Casey Cagle has received at least $7,000 from CCA since 2006; Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers has received $3,500 from CCA since 2008.

     These examples in no way make up a complete picture of the money being spent to further the cause of privatization. Indeed, this is just a small number of the contributions made and examples can be found in every state.

     Of course, direct campaign contributions and lobbyist’s money are not the only ways people in a position to influence prison populations – and oversight – profit from all of this. Outright ownership of stock in CCA, GEO and many other companies owned by – or providing services to – the private prison industry is another way, and if there are laws regulating ownership, it must be emphasized that it is next to impossible to enforce them. Especially when a multitude of seemingly innocuous other public companies have a stake in all of this, too.

     Take, for instance, GEO’s purchase this year of Behavioral Interventions, Inc. BI uses technology to monitor 60,000 non-incarcerated individuals for 900 agencies nationwide and GEO recently paid $415 Million dollars for the company. However, if you own stock in Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, Barclays, or JPMorgan Chase, you helped finance the acquisition.

     Apart from campaign contributions, lobbyist’s money, and stock ownership there is also the myriad relationships between government and business that should be questioned.

     The single most self-serving relationship would have to be that created by the “American Legislative Exchange Council”, or ‘ALEC’. Consisting of 2000 state legislators and 250 private and corporate citizens, including employees of CCA. ALEC is based in Washington, DC, and is actually engaged in criminal justice discussions in the U.S. Congress as well as in state legislatures. ALEC is a public policy organization that promoted tough-on-crime legislation and principles such as privatization.

      It was during an ALEC meeting that CCA employees and a legislator named Russell Pearce crafted a model legislation that later became almost word for word, Arizona’s controversial Anti-Immigration Bill SB1070.

     ALEC’s current push around the country is centered around illegal immigrant bills such as Arizona’s (and now Utah and Georgia) as well as sex offender legislation, focusing on two groups that are unpopular with the media and the public in general.

     According to one source, 40% of CCA’s business is done with the Federal Government. Much of it in immigrant detention which is the area where CCA obtained its first Federal Government contract in 1983.

     Why does this country prefer to pay to keep an illegal immigrant locked up for 20 years for drug smuggling, or some other crime, and then deport them rather than just deport them upon conviction under the threat of serving their sentence should they return?

     At $60 per day per person could CCA have influenced that decision? (The Federal Government pays over $60 per day for CCA to house detainee’s at the Stewart Detention Center, the largest immigration detention center in the country, located in Georgia, among others located across the country.)

     According to reports obtained by national public radio, CCA believes that immigration detention is “the next big growth market for privatization”.

     The simple fact that ‘ALEC’ exists at all is disturbing – if not outright frightening – in and of itself. It seems to function as a government within our government that has no public oversight or accountability.

     Public officials meeting in private with corporate entities to discuss public policy matters and make recommendations to legislative bodies on state and national levels which will financially benefit some – or all – of the participants in those discussions, with no public discourse or record of the proceedings does not follow this writer’s understanding of the principles of this great country. Indeed, ‘ALEC’ deserves further in-depth scrutiny by the very public on whose behalf they are supposedly working.

     To this writer ‘ALEC’ could more accurately be described as a cancer that needs to be eradicated from the government body before it spreads to the very heart of this country.

     Consider that ‘ALEC’s’ corporate funders include CCA and used to include GEO Group. A past co-chair of the “Criminal Justice Task Force” – a group within their group – was Brad Wiggins, who is a highly placed CCA employee. As for GEO’s involvement, outgoing COO Wayne Clabrese, on November 11, 2010, told a large community gathering that GEO had withdrawn from ALEC years earlier because of the obvious conflict of interest involved in creating legislation that insured an increased supply of prisoners.

     Certainly, when one looks at the countless other individual relationships and “cross pollination” (the author’s term) between CCA/GEO and state and federal governments enough red flags should go up and warning bells go off to alarm even the most skeptical of individuals.

     In Texas, for instance, well-known and well-connected individuals are employed by CCA and GEO to further the cause of prison privatization.

     Following is a list of lobbyists employed by GEO Group in 2007:

  • Ray Allen who , in 2003, was Chairman of the Texas House Corrections Committee. At the same time, he was lobbying for a private prison company outside Texas. His salary with GEO – $100,000 per year, and he was quoted in the Dallas Morning News as saying he was “tired of being broke” when he resigned in the middle of his 7th term, in 2006 to take the job.
  • In 2007, then House Speaker Tom Craddick was lobbied on behalf of GEO by Bill Miller – who once served on Craddick’s Transition Team and as a consultant – and also by Michelle Wittenburg who served as the Speaker’s General Counsel. Both were paid $50,000 for their efforts.
  • The highest paid lobbyist for GEO in 2007 was Lionel “Leo” Aguirre who was both a state and federal lobbyist and was paid a salary of $250,000. Aguirre was a former Executive with the Texas State Comptroller’s Office, and is the widower of Lena Guerrero, who served 3 terms in the State House and was also the first Latina Chair of the Texas Railroad Commission in 1992.

     In addition to its lobbyists in Texas, GEO’s local attorneys also have close ties to state government:

  • In 2007, Carlos Zaffirini, husband of State Senator Judith Zaffirini, was a lawyer for the GEO Group and lobbied on their behalf before the Webb County Commissioner’s Court.
  • GEO also used the Brownsville, Texas law firm of State Representative Rene Oliveira as its local defense counsel. The senator’s cousin, David Oliveira – a partner in the firm – has represented GEO in a lawsuit against them alleging misconduct that one court described as “reprehensible”.

     GEO is not the only one well-represented in Texas; CCA hired Mike Toomey to lobby for them. Toomey, one of three consultants for “Texas Lobby Group”, is a former three term Texas House of Representatives Member. In his biography, Toomey bills himself as the “only individual in Texas history to be Chief of Staff for two Texas Governors”.

     In Florida, GEO employs 16 lobbyists. Additionally, the following items should serve to further provide evidence of the extent of “cross-pollination” employed by these companies:

  • GEO donated $25,000 to Governor Rick Scott’s inaugural celebration in January.
  • Donna Arduin was a top transition budget advisor to Scott. She is also a former trustee of a GEO Real Estate Company – “Correctional Properties Trust”.
  • Jorge Dominicis is head of GEO Care, GEO’s Correctional Health Care Subsidiary. Does Dominicis have a strong background in the health-care industry? Not exactly, but he does know his way around the Florida State House in Tallahassee – for years he was well-known as a lobbyist for the sugar industry.

     In Arizona, where CCA’s influence has already been demonstrated, it is perhaps easier to understand that influence when one considers the following facts:

  • The Governor’s Deputy Chief of Staff is Paul Senseman, who is a former lobbyist for CCA. Senseman’s wife is a current lobbyist for CCA.
  • Chuck Coughlin is one of the governor’s policy advisor’s as well as her campaign chairman. Coughlin’s company, “High Ground Public Affairs Consultants”, currently lobbies for CCA.

     “Cross-pollination” is not limited to the south, however, as evidenced by some recent job changes in Ohio Governor John Kasich appointed Gary Mohr to head the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections. Mohr is a former consultant and managing director for CCA. Conversely, CCA hired Kasich’s former Congressional Chief of Staff, Donald Thibaut, as a lobbyist in January.

     As this article is being written, Ohio is in the process of selling 5 prisons to private companies through a bidding process. CCA is one of the three (GEO and a company from Utah, MTC are the others). Mohr has stated in a memorandum that he will not be involved in the process.

            Excuse me – may I raise my eyebrows here?

    State-level government does not have an exclusive on “cross-pollination” where prison privatization is concerned of course. On the federal level, Stacia Hylton was recently appointed heard of the U.S. Marshal’s Service. Until 2010, Hylton was the Federal Detention Trustee.

     During Hylton’s tenure, the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee awarded several contracts to GEO. In between the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee and her recent appointment to head the U.S. Marshal’s  Service, Hylton worked as a consultant for GEO, and now as head of the Marshal’s Services will house federal detainees in privately owned institutions.

    Some, coincidentally, are owned by GEO.

    CCA, on the other hand, dipped into the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) talent pool, first in 1992 when J. Michael Quinlan resigned as its director and went to work for CCA, and again in 2011 when, in June, CCA announced the hiring of Harley Lappin as its new Executive VP and Chief Corrections Officer. Lappin had served as Director of the BOP from 2003 until May 7 of this year when his resignation took effect. As Director of the BOP, Lappin would have overseen government contracts with CCA worth 10’s of millions of dollars. CCA spends approximately $1 million dollars annually lobbying at the federal level alone.

“There is a time when we must firmly choose the course we will follow, or the relentless drift of events will make the decision for us.”        Herbert V. Prochnow

     The time is rapidly approaching when the citizens of this country are going to have to quote a phrase from my Mother and say “Enough is Enough!”

     The reasons will be clearer when I continue telling you about the Slave Traders of the 21st Century.

Father’s Day Felons II

On By Tony CassonIn Volume 21 Comment

“A child is not likely to find a Father in God unless he finds something of God in his Father.” –Austin L. Sorenson

“My child, listen to what I say and treasure my commands. Turn your fears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding” – Proverbs 2:1-2 NLT

    On July 15, 2010, my son posted something I had written called, “Father’s Day Felons”. That article was written, and posted, after Father’s Day and was a response to the day itself—my own thoughts and feelings, as well as my impressions of what those around me were thinking and feeling.

    In that article I wrote, “ A Day that used to be filled with a tremendous amount of pride and happiness suddenly has become a day I will dread, each time it arrives, for as long as I am here.”

     Well Father’s Day #2 is right around the corner and while I am pretty certain that most of the thoughts and emotions that I wrote about last year will still be at the forefront of my heart and mind this year when the day actually arrives, I must revise part of the statement I quoted.

     I do not dread this Father’s Day. No, I do not dread it at all—in fact , I am EXCITED to see this Father’s Day approaching and I look FORWARD to Father’s Day 2012 because it will be the next to the last one I will spend in prison. My projected release date is about one month before Father’s Day 2014.

     Last year I wrote about my pervading sense of personal failure that I felt in relation to my own two children. I still recognize that I failed them both miserably—and in many ways—but I still pray for their forgiveness, understanding, and love every day.

     Instead of dreading the day, though, I will use it as a reminder of how a Father IS supposed to act and what a father is supposed to BE.

     Instead of dreading the day, I look forward to it and will use it as a marker of time until the day when I can once again hold them and kiss them and tell them I love them with nothing between us but that slight bit of air capable of finding space between us.

     On Father’s day in June of 2014, my children will be proud of me. That is my goal. That is my objective. If I cannot achieve that goal in the time I will have spent in prison, then I will have wasted that time and I refuse to do that for I have already wasted enough time in my life.

     I have shorthanded enough people who wanted nothing from me but my time and my love and I’ll not deprive them of either of those things again. The Lord has gotten me from Father’s Day I to Father’s Day II and has enabled me to do it with ever-increasing faith, confidence, wisdom, and understanding. He has helped me learn that I am important to a number of people in this world and that it is incumbent upon me to be someone who can be relied upon and looked up to.

     For anyone reading his who has a Father in a similar situation as me, being angry and hurt is normal and acceptable but it is also necessary to move beyond that and begin looking away from the past—which got us here—and to begin looking to the future. Which will move us forward.

     I would like to take this opportunity to wish a “Happy Father’s Day” to two of the best fathers I know—my son’s stepfather, Russ and my sister’s husband Larry. I thank you both, individually for different reasons, but together for what you have in common—you are both top notch fathers!

     And for all of the Father’s who will see this Father’s day pass from behind walls, fences, or wire—this will make it one less we all face in here.

     That is something, anyway.

“Crimes and Their Punishments: the Goose, the Gander and the Little Old Lady”

On By Tony CassonIn Crimes and Their Punishments1 Comment

‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’                                George Orwell

 ‘ I have observed something else under the sun: the fastest runner doesn’t always win the race, and the strongest warrior doesn’t always win the battle.  The wise sometimes go hungry and the skillful are not necessarily wealthy. And those who are educated don’t always lead successful lives’            Ecclesiastes 9:11 NLT

    Life is not equal, nor fair, but right should be right and wrong should be wrong and is shouldn’t matter whether it is a Federal wrong or a state wrong.  Right?

   Wrong.  Not all state crimes are federal crimes and vice versa, but where they are similar, the sentences meted out certainly are most assuredly not.

    As I stated in an earlier posting, I was robbed and beaten a couple of years ago and – in the ensuing court case against my assailant – was required to disclose my federal arrest for possession of child pornography to both the state’s attorney as well as the assailant’s attorney.

    At one point, the state’s attorney told me that had my charges been state charges instead of federal I would have never gotten a prison sentence – I would have been given probation.

   Unfortunately for me – and my family – it was a federal charge and probation is almost never an option.

    Take the case of our ‘Goose’.

   In a 24 May 2009 story found on www.signonsandiego.com, a federal judge sentenced a 68-year old Vietnam War hero to 37 months in a federal prison for possession of child pornography.  This was less than the prosecutor was asking and more than the probation his lawyers sought.

   The man was Wade Sanders and he was decorated with the Silver Star, Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, and other Navy Commendations during his service in Vietnam.  He had much support throughout his ordeal including a character reference from Sen. John Kerry.

   A therapist who had been treating him testified he was not a danger to children, and several mental health experts who examined him concluded he was not a pedophile.

   When his seized computers were analyzed, they showed that he frequently viewed ALL kinds of pornography.

Now let’s ganger at the Gander. . .

   From a recent issue of “Prison Legal News” we learn that in California on 28 Jan 2011, former Riverside County Probation Officer Elizabeth Z. Nolan pleaded guilty to a felony charge of unlawful intercourse with a minor.

   As part of a plea agreement, 16 other counts – including oral copulation with an minor and rape by force or fear – were dropped.

   Nolan was accused of having sex with a juvenile offender over a period of several months; at the time her husband was a Riverside County Prosecutor.

    She was sentenced to ONE year in jail in February 2011.

  TO RECAP:

   Our Goose gets 3 years and 1 month for pictures, while the Gander gets 1 year for unlawful intercourse with a minor (and with 16 additional counts dropped).

   Hmmmm. . . . .

   It is not uncommon in the federal system for people convicted of crimes involving pictures to receive 6-10 -12-15 or more YEARS in federal prison. I’m not talking about those who profit from producing and distributing child pornography.

   I am not – in anyway, shape or form – excusing my behavior or anyone else’s who views this material, but we DO need to stop and put things in perspective.

   My own sentence was 51 months – one of the shorter sentences among the men with similar charges I have met here.  Almost 5 years.

   On June 17, 2010 in a Dutch court, five Somali men were convicted of attempting to highjack a cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden in 2009.  “Piracy is a serious crime that must be powerfully resisted” said Judge Jan Willem Klein Wolterink.

   He sentenced each of them to 5 years in prison.

   It is not uncommon for people convicted on the state level of actual ‘hands-on’ crimes against children to receive lesser sentences than those meted out on the federal level for cases involving only pictures.  Nor it is unusual – with increased levels of “good time credit” on the state level and the possibility of parole, which the federal government abolished in 1984 – for someone who actually molests or otherwise harms a child to serve 1/3 or even 1/4 of the prison time as that of a federal inmate serving time for possession of pictures only.

   The same is also true in drug cases.  Federal laws are stricter, with more mandatory minimums than most states. Yet even the states take up more bed space – and money – incarcerating non-violent offenders when violent offenders are allowed to roam the streets.

   Most of the laws passed have been brought into existence with much fanfare on behalf of the legislator sponsoring the bill. This “tough on crime” stance can then be parlayed into votes come election time.

    Actually, if you want to fight crime, it is necessary to fight 2 of its main causes – poverty and lack of education – am putting more people in prison for greater periods of time accomplished neither while draining valuable resources that could be used for both.

   Is the American public any safer or are we just wasting money we don’t have?  Is the average man, woman, or child really at increased risk in this day and age or has the media just used the saturation and sensationalization of isolated cases as a means to capture its audience and foment fear?

   None of country’s prison policies make much sense, but those policies do make a lot of $$$$ !

   The truth is that so many billions of dollars are at stake here that it is all about profits and votes.

   There has been much written about the prison – industrial complex that has risen from almost nothing in 1980 to the behemoth it is today.

   Although what I am capable of doing here is no more than scratching the surface, I will put together some statistics for next time which may cause someone to delve further into the whole problem on their own.

   Perhaps it will be easier to understand how any talk of shrinking the prison systems raises the protective nature in people – not to protect you, but to protect their jobs, profits and stock portfolios.

   Interesting stuff, indeed.

   But wait!!

   What about the “little old lady”?

   According to USA Today, back in December 2009, a school bus stopped to discharge a 5-year old Karla Campos in Marietta, Georgia.  The child was struck and killed by a car driven by an elderly woman who – apparently – panicked when she saw the bus and little girl and plunged her foot down on the gas pedal thinking it was the brake.

   The purpose of the article in the USA Today was to announce that Edith Main Anderson, age 87, had been released from prison after serving 76 days of her 3-year sentence.

   What in the world are we doing?????