Motorcade to Miranda

April 4, 2023 by J. Nelson

I don’t know any Secret Service agents, do you? So I wonder: Are Trump’s protectors scratching their heads here, or are they constipated by commitment, courage, and back-up plans?

On the drive over from Trump Tower, were any lost in the mind-expansion of checking corners for blind spots vs. bail bondsmen?

During the arraignment itself, in that crowded corridor and beyond, was a kaleidoscope of Law & Order characters among the jailers, journalists, U.S. Marshals, FBI, Trump staffers, lawyers, indicted officeholders, real estate groupies, and celebrity gossipers. So many doors, so many suits and ties! How were they able to tell the cops from the crooks or the Bozo’s from the Serpicos?

What did their earpieces confirm, that Agent Larry had just cracked, stripping off his suit like a Chippendale to sing atop one of the bulletproof Escalades?

And all that standing around time! Were agents eavesdropping on slouchy beat cops, lipreading for lunch ideas? Did Hernandez show up sportin’ floods again? Best thousand-yard stare anyone? Was Trump’s close knit group of operatives ostracized by ordinary officers?

Between the badges, body armor, and batons, who coveted whose utility belts? Was there insecurity among the tactically secure? How were female personnel able to withstand this gravity crushing, time-bending black hole of mansplaining?

What sabotaged the straightfaced? In this patriotastic vortex of professional protectors, how did the jokers keep from messing with their workmates? Who elbowed their neighbor when the Lieutenant gave in and scratched his balls? Who sneezed when the former President walked by? Who wondered if their, a-hem, secret “service” smelled as badly as they feared?

Were there convos on contradictions among Trump’s bullet-catchers? Would any admit to being curious about consequences for the rich and well-connected?

As each who swore an oath to “protect and defend” stood by their professional honor and obligations, how many feared an impending end to what inspired their pledge?

Finally, with all that heavyweight allegiance to law and order, what were their excuses for any lack of curiosity?

All images:

Nursing Covid-19 in Prison

January 11, 2021 by J. Nelson

Couldn’t care less about “criminal scum”? Then how about one of your heroes – of the frontline healthcare variety?

Among the key findings in a September 2020 report from The Council on Criminal Justice is that COVID-19 infection rates for inmates are four times higher than for the general public. Mortality rates are double. As of last summer, prisons in America accounted for 19 of the top 20 clusters of confirmed Coronavirus cases in the United States.

For real time California numbers, check out the Los Angeles Times’ Coronavirus tracker, currently providing updates of cumulative cases, new cases, and deaths by day.

As one who envisions the redirection of adult offenders rather than the mere recycling of them, I urge you to absorb the statistics, detention hotspots, and death counts while imagining the heart and hope that is suspended amidst the ongoing disqualification of those in custody.

The world is a place where nothing is guaranteed, clearly. But since prison is a smaller, simpler microcosm of society, the loss of goal-oriented trajectories, guidance, and rewards in custody is intensified. For many prisoners and detainees with hampered coping skills and emotional and self-management challenges, there are little or no real diversions as exist elsewhere. Coronavirus kills these aspirational programs even quicker than people as infection safeguards are enacted.

Adding insult to injury is what I call bonus justice, by which the incarcerated are treated as eligible for additional hardship and dismay just because, “You’re here, aren’t you?”

But maybe you see the incarcerated as “criminal scum,” and these things don’t offend your humanity. Fine. How ’bout healthcare workers? You like frontline heroes? Think they’re worth something? Then let’s talk about a prison nurse, one who’s been a friend of mine for years.

This particular nurse earned her credentials with the tenacity and dedication of an astronaut in training. I remember her long hours and that pain-in-the-ass car in which her commute was endured. I was surprised when she announced just over a year ago that she’d accepted a nursing position in a men’s prison, and I admire her for putting need above judgment.

At present, my friend is facing the risk of COVID-19 transmission every single day, and she does so in an atmosphere of fiercely elevated environmental, personal, and psychological vigilance. The emotional and cognitive burden she carries would simply snap many of the rest of us — and that’s without Coronavirus-related fears. Prison is a minefield of rules to remember, and protocols are substituted as abruptly as security requires. Sure, my friend can leave each night, but she’s no less subjected to the righteousness of an amped-up military chain-of-command than are the badges and bad guys. How “at home” could she be with barbed wire, gate buzzers and barking men in her head?

Additionally, as citizens, we use our values and principles to judge each other, with courtesy and manners acting as referees. On the prison yard, philosophies and integrity just square off. In the aftermath, it’s up to whoever’s left standing to pester someone behind a fortified walk-up window for a band-aid. Meanwhile the dread and the aggressive energy of gang ideation never lets up. The cartoonish yet unfunny macho posturing is woven into her work-language, as are minute-to-minute suspicions and charity-killing levels of bureaucracy.

On an average day, this is just some of what my nurse friend has to shake off during her (long) drives home. Now she has the danger of bringing COVID home with her, too. How many of these tensions have morphed, I wonder, into corrosive strains of their own by the time she pulls into the driveway?

There have been 139 reported Coronavirus deaths among prison staff, but since testing information is sporadic and not all states release info on prison employees tested for COVID-19 – these critical frontline workers are forced to speculate, trade rumors, and hope they’re being given the straight story. In that way, at least, they’re just like inmates they serve.

“The nurses are so behind because there are soo many medical emergencies,”

UPDATE:

Los Angeles Times front page – January 13th, 2021:
“The nurses are so behind because there are soo many medical emergencies…”

Smart Prerelease Instruction: Inmates Helping Inmates

May 4, 2017 by J. Nelson

The double-edged-sword of getting out of prison.

For those of us who follow incarceration and reentry issues, the inmate-created, inmate-run, prerelease program in Cumberland, Maryland, that was just approved by the Federal Bureau of Prisons will be something to keep an eye on.

Ideally, Young Men Incorporated (YMI), as the program is known, will prove that switching from curriculum enforcement to the much more coercive power of wisdom and teachable moments is the right way to reinvent prisoner reentry methodology.

Hitting your release date and getting out is a trip. Individual results may vary, but when it comes to civilian employees, frontline custody personnel, and prison administrators, soon-to-parole inmates often face disparagement and placating attitudes. The way some Badges see it, you’re still a criminal, soon to be protected by rights that weren’t there a couple of weeks ago. More than a few are just waitin’ for you to act special, by which I mean individual. Read more

LA Riots as Seen from Maximum Security Prison

April 29, 2017 by J. Nelson

You’d think someone would have covered what it was like to experience the LA riots behind bars in the past 25 years. Something. Anything. But nope.

Then again, with Netflix’s Orange is the New Black ranking just below LA LA Land in grounded reality, such coverage probably would have been twisted into the taffy of a Broadway musical anyway.

So while a mention would’ve been interesting, I have my own view…

Prison Escape Powerball

January 29, 2016 by J. Nelson

Welcome to Apocalypse Hoosegow 10, the Lotto jackpot of potential prison escape movies (and the impossibly straight faces of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department).

Man, this story has got it all – and it ends in the parking lot of novelty grocery store, Whole Foods.

Killer convicts chipping their way through steel and concrete – check! Laughably low estimates of escaped prisoner capabilities – check! Brutal cellblock battle to distract guards – check! Cougar-teacher helping misunderstood love interest – check! Tied together bed sheets and socks and stuff – check! Months in the making, mistake-free master plan – check! Violent terror-inmates on the loose in conservative county – check! FBI dudes elbowing local badge bumblers outta the way – check! Adam-12-era hoosegow gettin’ last laugh on OC budget dorks – check! Incredibly straight-faced cop brass asking for public help in catching penis-severing Muslim blowtorch monster – check! check! check!

Ooh, and don’t forget: District Attorney’s office infighting – check! Unauthorized D.A. office statements made public – check! Open criticism – check! Gorilla-goons scratching their heads at escape hole – check! Magic gnats flying out of inmates mouths like in The Green Mile – ok, not that, but Range Rover-driving, Islamophobic blondes blessed with new hero – checkity check! Read more

De-institutionalization (and your Tax Dollars)

January 16, 2016 by J. Nelson

Some see de-institutionalization as prison reform’s black hole. We neither think about nor understand it much, until we see how much it can swallow.

Yet redirecting, rather than just recycling, offenders begins and ends with the most common form of second chance behavioral therapy of all: showing individuals the potential in themselves they can’t yet see. I’m certainly a product of it, and there are countless other second chance cases even more deserving of the right mentor than I was.

In such an inexcusably crowded prison system as California’s, wringing Yard life from offenders can devour solar systems of resources, and profoundly institutionalized individuals are difficult people to be around on a good day. So for both plucky and grizzled corrections professionals working with offenders and parolees, resolve and past re-entry successes are crucial. So, too, are faith and funding – or at least the delivery of funds previously promised. Read more

2015 EXCUSE OF THE YEAR

December 31, 2015 by J. Nelson

2015 was a rough year, especially for those who believe in the absolutism of beat cops and badges, or that the bootstraps of hardworking Americans can’t possibly snap. This was a difficult year for innocent bystanders, or anyone thinking they were safe. But it was, and remains, the most challenging yet for those convinced that guns are God-given.

At first I thought I’d go with the excuse offered by Subway Jared and his lawyers who, prior to his prison sentence for child-ruining, blamed his Subway diet for his pervert crimes. Essentially, these morally challenged morons claimed that, had Jared “received help,” he wouldn’t have “traded a horrible food addiction for a horrible sex addiction.” Subway Jared is about to find out Where Excuses Go to Die. Read more

Capitalizing on Inmate Firefighters

October 18, 2015 by J. Nelson

There’s no excuse for inmate firefighters becoming pawns of prison reform.

Inmate firefighters: it’s an odd term, isn’t it? “Firefighter” is a badge of honor, while “inmate” is a brand. Yet these particular convicted criminals are routinely sent on 16-mile marches to square off with raging wildfires for 24 hours at a time, carrying the mark of offenders while performing duties as honorable as they come. For about $2 an hour.

These men (and women) are typically housed in a more congenial, campus-like setting. They eat better than their counterparts who are still behind prison walls, and they’re addressed more cordially by both frontline custody personnel and the civilian training staffers who oversee their participation in California’s esteemed Conservation Camp program.

Most of these folks were convicted of non-violent crimes. But violent offenders have also swung picks and wielded shovels for the California Department of Forest and Fire Protection (CalFire) for decades, and a proposal to expand their participation was recently submitted by California corrections officials. Good thing it was withdrawn almost as soon as it was made public, as the plan could have been a disaster.