Why Go Easy on Junkies?

August 13, 2013 by J. Nelson

Reforming mandatory minimum sentences for low-level drug offenders.

Q: What’s in it for you?

Q: Why should you care?

Q: Nonviolent criminals are still criminals, so why go easy on junkies?

A: Mandatory minimum sentencing reform for nonviolent drug offenders is not “going easy on junkies.”

In fact, nobody’s going easy on the junkies, especially junkies themselves. Addiction is a prison in its own right, and when our laws dictate that we actually imprison as many as we can for as long as we can, we perpetuate a cycle of inmates returning to their communities as maladapted as when they were prosecuted.

Still, does helping to change the life of an imprisoned drug addict sound wrong to you? Then think of it this way: Why should taxpayers like you and me spend upwards of $50,000 a year to simply house an addict? We’re not actually helping them become productive citizens, after all; a recent LA Times editorial on California’s incarceration woes reminds us that “prisons have been notoriously ineffective at purging inmates of their addictions, illnesses, gang ties or antisocial attitudes.”

Besides, junkies usually commit crimes the way lab rats run in circles or jump through hoops – because they’ve either been stimulated or manipulated into doing so. On the other hand, lawbreakers like me – convicted and sentenced to prison for robbery – are deliberate. We have getaway cars and backup plans. I’ve never seen a junkie or a lab rat with an escape route. Read more

What Is Herman’s House?

July 8, 2013 by J. Nelson

It’s a dream house built by an artist for a man in a cage…

Isn’t it just when you find something you want to record that you encounter holes in your cable package? This became an issue for me when I attempted to DVR “Herman’s House,” a documentary airing tonight on the PBS series “POV.”

Turns out AT&T U-verse, my provider, isn’t much of a friend to public television; they don’t actually carry the non-profit public broadcast network, PBS. I find that unfortunate and insulting, since they carry loads of useless crap.

At any rate, Herman Wallace is an imprisoned member of the Angola 3 who has been living his life – 41 years and counting – in solitary confinement. He’s maintained correspondence with artist Jackie Sumell for many years; it’s with her help (and at her urging) that Wallace has conjured his “dream house.” The journey began when Sumell asked Wallace in a letter, “What kind of house does a man who has lived in a six-foot-by-nine-foot box for over 30 years dream of?” Read more

Prison Diseases Will Kill Your Pets

June 28, 2013 by J. Nelson 1 Comment

Apocalypse Hoosegow 7 Contagions, Taxes, and Pets Edition

For delaying action in addressing recurring outbreaks of Valley Fever in California’s prisons, Governor Jerry Brown and the California Department of Corrections were criticized this week by U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson in a federal court order that demands they move some 3,200 of 8,100 inmates out of Pleasant Valley and Avenal state prisons, two facilities with the highest infection and fatality rates.

Particularly affected by Valley Fever are African Americans and those with compromised immune systems. Over the last 6 years, 36 inmates who contracted the disease have died. But then, according to Henderson, California officials “clearly demonstrated their unwillingness to respond adequately to the healthcare needs of California’s inmate population.” Read more

New ‘Where Excuses Go to Die’ Chapter Excerpt

June 17, 2013 by J. Nelson

Good Men Project cracks the spine of Where Excuses Go to Die

As of today, there are three publicly available chapters excerpted from Where Excuses Go to Die. Two are located here, and the latest, over at The Good Men Project, where I’ve been invited to contribute.

If you’re interested in getting air-dropped right into “Big Forehead” Ernie’s world of interstate Grand Theft Auto, check out:

TJ Max and his Middle Finger

March 20, 2013 by J. Nelson

Clearly, he intended to make a lasting impression.

T.J. Lane wanted us to witness his transcendence to what he mistakes for character: he offered no excuses for his murders, his obscene defiance, and his soulless ability to surprise.

He hit that ball right ‘outta the park, too, because today, like a bunch of scattering, squawking crows, cable TV news outlets are cycling the young man’s name and footage of him in the courtroom every 15 minutes. (Is his Tumblr fan site really a shocker?)

Countless wrathful comments now follow every T.J. Lane-related post. Some are angry, others giddy, and still others are nauseous with indignation. Many simply praise the treacherous world of prison, believing T.J. Lane will encounter Samuel Jackson’s Ezekiel 25:17 death speech from Pulp Fiction every day for the next 62 ½ years.

(Example: “…tumblr isn’t going to save him from the ass ramming he’s bound to get in prison.”)

Touchdown, or Lockdown?

February 22, 2013 by J. Nelson 2 Comments

Hey, what the heck is prison doing in your living room?

Florida Atlantic University recently accepted $5-6 million from the “charitable” arm of GEO Group, a controversial private prison administrator operating in several states. Despite the long-sought windfall, things don’t bode well for FAU: just minutes after news of the deal reached the NY Times, a company spokesperson was caught altering the firm’s Wikipedia entry, attempting to hide the history of human rights abuses that took place in several GEO-run facilities.

Let’s be honest: the buying and selling of naming rights for buildings and sports stadiums has become a ho-hum fact of life. But a university selling those rights to the private prison industry feels like an exasperating defeat. Given the country’s incarceration trends, some of the same young men competing under that banner will likely live under it someday as prison inmates (and cheap labor).

This is a savvy, if scary, move on the part of GEO Group, the nation’s second largest private prison administrator and a company that cites crime reduction and marijuana decriminalization as threats. Becoming the largest and most profitable firm of its ilk will require deeper and more diversified investment, and what better place to start than by linking your name to a beloved American pastime? The general public may not yet comprehend how much of a prison nation we’ve become, but this sure is a smart, preemptive way to get ‘em comfy with the GEO brand, isn’t it? Welcome to Rollerball.

But let’s dig a little deeper into our benevolent new sports fans. Under GEO Group guard towers, the unhealthy are weeded out (in some cases, through death-by-denial-of-medication), while the rest are divided up into groups based on age, mental acuity, obedience and yes, ethnicity to serve as worker bees. For whom? Why, for companies to whom GEO Group has contracted this labor (for a profit) and for sister firms owned by the same group of investors – who of course are looking, above all, to make a profit.

This characteristic of the private prison world is already very much a reality in America, though for many it’s a fact that has stayed buried in the social subconscious. Until now, we had yet to see the industry take a step so boldly into our living rooms, our televisions, our sports. Talk about supporting the contention that prison is no longer for “those” (read: other) people! Think about how often, during televised football games, the name of the company that owns the rights to the stadium is mentioned – such positive advertising! Even better, law-abiding, tuition-paying parents, FAU athletes, and students will bear the name of their corporate sponsor with pride, now that it’s been conflated with allegiance to the school itself.

Let’s reverse this trend of money first, justice maybe. Send a message to GEO Group that they can’t use schools and athletes to get you more comfortable with the idea of labor camps replacing successful re-entry programs, and tycoons replacing wardens. Sign the petition, keep up with the latest developments, and for God’s sake, stay out of the sort of trouble that might get you locked up – especially in a corporate prison.

Uh, Kids for Cash anyone?

Reusable Irony

January 12, 2013 by J. Nelson

For just a dollar, Starbucks patrons can now wait in line with newly purchased, reusable coffee cups. Never mind that the plastic lids and cups are identical in appearance to their disposable predecessors: buyers will be able to personalize them, so a related micro-industry of reusable coffee cup ornamentation will no doubt arise before you’re done reading this.

But because this reusable Starbucks tumbler is a visual match to a highly recognizable symbol of the downtrodden –an over-the-counter coffee cup– I’m looking forward to watching it make its way from the hands of the homeless and into the hands of the privileged. I’m talkin’ about skinny-pants and cool moms, coming in off the street and waving their empty cups at strangers, just like those they ignore on the sidewalk. The irony is cruel, exquisite, and reusable.
Read more

Summed up in 60 Seconds

October 22, 2012 by J. Nelson

Eugene Jarecki’s deconstruction of the War on Drugs in his documentary, The House I Live In, initially pissed off the white, dreadlocked pothead sitting in front of me at the theater. I think he and his friends expected to pump their fists with other persecuted weed smokers (a.k.a. privileged Caucasian stoners who got suspended from school once), so he was less than stoked to be hit with a message of personal responsibility instead.

It wasn’t long, though, before The House I Live In turned his grumbling to rapt attention: the movie was thoroughly compelling. And I DON’T LIKE PRISON GUARDS, ‘ya feel me? Yet I fell in love with the turnkey at the center of this story.

Racial hierarchies and the economics of incarceration are the two strongest arguments for seeing the film – and for recommending it to others. From fantastical sentencing to deplorable healthcare and the prison-for-proft lobby, we can no longer rely on local or state governments to know what to do with us if we break the law. At the same time, we live in an age where our laws are like tuna nets. Decisions about our criminal courts are driven by the needs of our jails, and our jails are being built to accommodate increasing desperation in our economy. Recidivism, it turns out, is highly profitable, and thus essential to the incarceration industry. Read more

Sandusky the Football

August 13, 2012 by J. Nelson

Jerry Sandusky is by far the most notorious pedophile of modern times. Though we’re only now learning that he may have used the U.S. Postal Service to seduce his victims with gifts and travel, the capacity and scope of such emerging details isn’t surprising. Likewise, reactions to an ongoing investigation into whether Sandusky shared child porn via the Internet range from revulsion to indifference. Some call it flogging a dead horse, especially now that Sandusky has been convicted and incarcerated. Others, myself included, believe this will be the most important development of all: the opportunity to expose his (newly alleged) accomplices and their reach.

If the NCAA, the athletic association that punished Pennsylvania State University for what it called “an unprecedented failure of institutional integrity,” can affirm that the school held the esteem of its football program higher than “the values of human decency,” the government has no excuse not to follow every conceivable evidentiary offshoot and kill what it finds. Read more

Because “Warnings are Ineffective”

July 27, 2012 by J. Nelson

If you’re not familiar with ’em, Buckyballs are magnetized BBs packaged with instructions and shape-making challenges. They’re weirdly hypnotic, s0 we leave ours on the bar to see who makes what during idle chatter ’round the kitchen; they’re a hit with friends and guests. This week the Federal government issued a stop-sale order for Buckyballs ’cause too many parents fail to pay attention to what their kids put in their mouths and too few know the difference between kiddie toys and adult brain teasers.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) called Buckyballs a serious “ingestion hazard” and convinced 10 retailers, including Amazon.com, to stop selling them (the manufacturer has refused to voluntarily withdraw the product from the market). I say, kudos to manufacturer Maxfield & Oberton: idiot parenting’s the real hazard here. Yet we’re left with a panel of stiffs in Washington again protecting us from ourselves.

Why have Americans been surrendering their sense of personal responsibility at such a disturbing rate? Soon we’ll all end up a bunch of trained seals with our heads tilted back, lolling from side to side and waitin’ for someone to drop a fish into our mouths. Read more