Doing Time (9 page)

1979, Rustburg Correctional Unit 9

Rustburg, Virginia

for Judge Rose Bird*

This is getting difficult.

Perhaps there's another formula for happiness and contentment I haven't explored or exhausted yet.

But I talk to birds.
I have to put in my partial plates tho
w/tip of index finger fanning wet lips

        do it!

the sound near-identical which amazes me.

Recently the birds woke me up

with their clamorous love wings beating around the bars and glass in animated flight jailbirds in the rush of lusty spring.

I was barely awake, grumbling at my broken sleep then somehow drawn out

into the quiet light
sitting on the side of my bed.

And there they were

     two of em

        beaking it up!

Oh! I could've fallen into curled glee

* Chief Judge of the California Supreme Court, voted out of office in 1986 after frequently reversing death sentences.

wound with the spring's redemption. And the nest already built

under the highest beam in the block.

1988, Sing Sing Correctional Facility Ossining, New York

With the small birds
the sparrows and the grackles
there seemed enough bread
to stave off the fighting and death.

Then the gulls came
hollow desperate and shrieking
replacing the peaceful feeding rituals
with survival's bare wings
beating at the windows.

1981, Attica Correctional Facility Attica, New York

Diane Hamill Metzger

If you are serving a life sentence in Pennsylvania's prison system, you should be well acquainted with the game I'm about to describe. [f not, it's not hard to learn. The only rules arc to have enough hope in happy endings (o lie gullible and to want something so badly that you'll gr.tsp at any straw. The game is called the Manipulation Game, and this is how it goes.

You're arrested for the crime of murder in the first or second degree. It really doesn't matter if you did it or not, or what your degree of involvement was, because when you go to court, chances are good that you'll be convicted, let's lace it: Any selt-respecting jury member
knows
that if the cops sc/y you did it, you
did
ir. So, the verdict comes in and, with it, a sentence of lilt; in prison, mandatory in Pennsylvania. (Father that or death — are the two diflerent?) And now, my friend, you are a
statistic.
You can never have work release. You can never have a furlough, not even at Christmas, even though your buddy with ten to twenty for ihird-degree murder (“plca-bar-g.jin murder”) just won one. You are the best player on the prison Softball team, hut don't expect togo to any away games (though rhose tiot doing life are going). You have earned your college degree, but don't expect to go to graduation (although the baby-killer with ten to twenty went to hers). Your mate may be doing tune in another prison, but don't ever expect visits. Your whole family may die, but don't expect to go to the funerals.
Hut,
if you've got to go to court to get more time, they'll sure let you oft ot the prison grounds lor that! Or if you're breaking your back at eighteen cents an hour on the prison farm crew, that's
different!
After all, you are a l.lt'hk! That label makes you more “dangerous,” more of a risk than any other kind of prisoner — no matter what the others are here for, or plea-bargained their semences down to. None of die good you've ever done, are doing, or will do will change that. If you are innocent of the crime, in the eyes of the state and society you are guilty. If you are guilty, the remorse you may feel, the desire to change your life around — they don't mat ter, either. You owe time to the state. An infinite rime. In Pennsylvania, that time amounts to an average of twenty-three years, usually more. The average is going up, and the slogan “Life means life” is becoming a chilling reality. As a Pennsylvania lifer, you are now four times more likely to die in prison than to ever be released. After all, by taking your life and turning it into a living death, the state and society will give meaning to the life of your alleged victim: an eye for an eye, a tragedy for a tragedy… right? You begin to consider taking drastic measures — maybe suicide, maybe escape, maybe a descent into madness…

But wait! They tell you that you have hope. Your lawyer can put in an appeal with the Pennsylvania Superior Court. So you wait…

You've been in prison seven years now. Your appeal has been denied. But wait! They tell you that your appeal can go to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and you can win a new trial. So you wait… You really want to do the right thing. You have patience.

You've been in prison for nine years now. They say the wheels of justice grind slowly. You heard from your lawyer today: Your appeal was denied. It's time to look at alternatives, drastic alternatives. But wait! They tell you not to be a fool. You have nine years in, nine “good” years. File a P.C.R.A [Post Conviction Relief Act]! Get back into court. So you do; you have a hearing and you wait…

You've been in prison for twelve years now. Oh yeah, your P.C.R.A. was denied some time back. Thoughts of
taking
your future back enter your mind… but wait! They tell you to file for commutation of sentence with the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons. So you begin the long, soul-killing process of applying for clemency.

Your case was heard by the Board of Pardons for the second time. You were denied, again. You look back on the fourteen years you've wasted, years you can never get back… But wait! Don't be a fool, they tell you. You've put in fourteen years now, and it would be crazy to throw them all away. You're always turned down for commutation the first couple of times. Try again in another couple of years. So you wait…

You've been in prison eighteen years now. You've been denied by the Board of Pardons for the third and fourth times. This has gone far enough; it's time to do things
your
way now. But wait. They ask you how you could even consider throwing away eighteen years. Try commutation again in a couple of years. When you have twenty years in, you'll have a
real
good shot. So you wait…

You've been in prison twenty years now. The Board of Pardons denied you again. They want more time out of you. After all, you're asking for
mercy.
When you first came to prison, the average time done on a life sentence was between eleven and fifteen years; it's almost double that now. You've done all that was expected of you, and more, but they've kept changing the rules on you. Maybe you're too tired to think of alternatives now… but
no,
damn it, you've had
enough.
But wait!
Twenty years!
You're almost there, they tell you. Don't throw it all away! So you wait…

How long
do
you wait? When should the waiting end? At seven years, fifteen years, twenty years? Your children are grown now. Your parents have passed away. Everything out there has changed, and you're just too damned tired and empty to start all over again, and maybe too old…

The manipulation game is an insidious game. Its perpetrators are those in power, maybe even your own family and friends play their parts, and the object of the game is to dangle the carrot, that hope of freedom, endlessly, until with each passing year it seems more and more foolish to risk blowing the time you have accumulated, the time you have
wasted…

Hope is a beautiful thing, // you are one of the very few lucky ones in this game of political roulette and you make it out. But if hope turns out to be fruitless, then it becomes destructive — a tool used by the vicious to control the helpless.

Tell me, where do you draw the line?

1994, State Correctional Institute Muncy Muncy, Pennsylvania

The jury deliberated for fifty minutes before delivering their guilty verdict against me. With their decision thirteen years ago, I was convicted of murder and sentenced to spend the rest of my life behind bars.

Since then, I have witnessed the ugliest side of what prison life can be about: the fear and mistrust, the violence and chaos, the isolation and emptiness, the hollowness of spirit that at one point brought me to contemplate suicide. But in these last few months, a setback of the worst kind has gripped me. Maryland governor Parris Glendening has said that, except in extraordinary circumstances, he will not consider parole for violent offenders who have received life sentences. He may not realize it, but in the eight months since he rendered that decision, the governor has drained the state's prison culture of a crucial, if intangible, element: its sense of hope.

This may seem insignificant to those on the outside, but in the steel-and-concrete world of the Maryland penitentiary system, it is everything. The tension and fears that have been set off since Glendening's decision are almost palpable, not just among those of us serving life sentences, but even among other prisoners who, strange as it may sound, have come to look upon us lifers as role models.

From the perspective of those inside the prison, it seems like there's a new breed of mean-spiritedness among politicians, and more of a concern with public opinion polls than tehabilitating criminals. The problem is that, if the governor's goal is really to reduce crime and target those most apt to commit it, Glendening wouldn't be going after lifers. Why? Because, perhaps surprisingly, we're not the most dangerous felons behind these walls.

Indeed, according to research conducted by the Maryland Department of Corrections, young felons go through a natural maturation process. By the time they reach their late thirties to early forties, these once-radical youngsters tend to drift away from criminal behavior. For those who committed a violent act when they were young and have been in prison a long time, there is often a realization that bucking the system is futile.

I see this in my own life, and the statistics bear it out. Recidivism rates are much lower for felons who serve ten or more years at one time than they are for those repeat offenders who do life on the installment plan — serving numerous shorter sentences over a long stretch of time. In fact, from 1978 to 1987, seventy lifers were paroled in Maryland; only five returned to prison, according to the correction department's
Parole Release Rates for Life Sentenced Inmates.
According to the state's Department of Public Safety, this compares with a recidivism rate of 47 percent for the prison population as a whole.

So why isn't this kind of data reflected in the policies that emerge from the governor's mansion? It's hard to find any plausible answer except politics: The public wants to feel safe, and politicians offer up simple solutions.

I know from my own experience that most lifers who have spent twelve or more years behind bars are no longer even thinking about crime. Most of us have taken the initiative and are motivated, despite our tribulations past and present, to transform ourselves into mature, productive human beings. We've been told that if we worked hard, and followed the rules, that the system would work fairly for us, as it does equally for law-abiding citizens outside these walls. We had to earn parole, they told us. But it was possible, something to work for.

Now that's changed. Since Glendening's new policy was announced hist fall, none of the 1 10 liters living here at the Maryland Correctional Insiiimion in I lagersiown have won parole. And though then' is less hope, we haven't reacted with auger and rage at being betrayed by the system. There is still the possibility of parole under special circumstances, for the very old or terminally ill, for example, bur the chance of any of us winning parole is greatly diminished, since the parole commission can release anyone serving a limited sentence, but any parole ol a felon serving life must be approved by ilie governor.

In my case, I was convicted ot a double homicide in 1983 and am scheduled to have my first parole hearing m 2006. Although I maintain my innocence, 1 readily confess that my life on the streets was undisciplined, unfocused, and out of control. And I accept that i am in prison for being a threat to society, and to myself, lint having been incarcerated now for fourteen years, I can say unequivocally that I want to change my life. I have remorse not only tor the wasted years of my youth (I'm now fifty-four) but for the deaths of the two people 1 was convicted of killing. And as a result of these feelings, 1 have made a commitment ro never again repeat a malicious act.

And so, when the time comes, I think I should be considered for parole, and so, apparently, did the judge who sentenced me or he wouldn't have allowed for the possibility. In 2006, when I will have the opportunity though by no means the certainty of parole, I will be sixty-four years old and will have served twenty-three years in prison. And for every year I've been in, I've been sustained by the hope that I might one day earn my release — until now.

Like many others, I'm simply trying to show I'm worth a second chance. Even when the rules were changed midstream, most of us have continued to work on our rehabilitation, through education, vocational training, psychological counseling, whatever we can find. In effect, our faith and perseverance demonstrates our iron will to change our lives. It is perhaps this strength of character among lifers that has turned us into positive role models and mentors to those inside the Wall. People on the outside don't realize this, and clearly the governor doesn't, but it's true.

The lifers I live with in Hagerstown are involved in all kinds of projects to better themselves and the community. Obviously, they have made terrible mistakes in their lives and some have been convicted of heinous crimes. It's also true that not every lifer is sincerely committed to getting back on track. But by and large, my experience shows, a lot are. Douglas Scott Arcy single-handedly puts out the prison newsletter that serves as the center of information for our corn lrumiiy. He's also the only prisoner in the state who earned a master's degree while in prison. Jeffrey Kersey, another liter, aets as our in-house social activist by working with members of a prisoner sell help organization — Lifestyles — and by writing letters on behalf of lifers to politicians and community groups throughout the state. Another man, David Helton, has written a book about his conversion to Christianity and continues ro serve as a guiding force in the institution's drug and alcohol abuse programs. I, myself, have chosen a more spiritual path of resistance. Through yoga and meditation I have discovered that kindness is a virtue respected by others and not a weak ness.