The Fortune News: Winter/Spring 2005

"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." Dostoevski - The House of the Deaad

FortuneN News WINTER/SPRING 2005

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EDITOR

More and more attention has been paid in criminal justice circles to the aging of the prison population in the United States. According to the Department of Justice, our prisons and jails are housing twice the number of elderly prisoners than they were just ten years ago. While this trend cannot be disputed, the solutions to the dilemma are certainly up for debate.

For many people, it's a simple matter of economics: the cost of housing an elderly prisoner is nearly three times that of a younger one. The incarcerated tend to age at a faster rate than their peers on the outside - those behind bars are considered senior citizens at 55 - and contemporary prisons were not constructed with the reality that they may one day serve as de facto nursing homes. As a result, over-burdened state budgets are left with millions of dollars of additional costs per year.

For others, it's the statistics that make the most sense. Most justice organizations acknowledge a sharp decrease in criminal activity among people as they get older. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, only 1% of all serious crimes are committed by people over the age of 60. Generally, as people age they become less dangerous.

Nearly everyone interested in progressive reform agrees: the rational choice, the sensible thing to do, is to release prisoners of a certain age into their neighborhoods of origin where they can live out the last years of their lives among friends and family. Community safety would not be compromised and states would save hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly.

Except corrections policy in the United States is rarely rational or sensible.

Punishment and penal law is all too often fueled by moral outrage and a desire for revenge. Witness the ramifications of New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws, which can put a nonviolent, first-time offender behind bars for the rest of his or her life, depending on the weight or class of narcotic s/he was carrying at the time of arrest. California's Three Strikes Law operates in a similar fashion; many offenders' "third strike," the crime that sends them to prison for life, is often something relatively minor like petty theft or drug possession. These prisoners, caught by an politicians looking to get tough on crime, will likely cost the government billions of dollars in the next decade.

The media plays a large role in our understanding of older prisoners. Ron Levine, whose photographs are showcased throughout this issue, has captured the essence of this population in the way few others have. What started out as a relatively straightforward project - visit a prison and photograph elderly inmates - has spiraled into multiple projects, including a documentary scheduled to air this fall on BRAVO. His work has been instrumental in putting a face on this population, and awareness of the issue will only increase in time.

And, of course, there are the words of the older inmates themselves, which I've tried to include here as much as possible. Many offer their own experience as a sort of cautionary tale to younger inmates: you don't want the life that they have. Others offer advice on how to push through reform, as their decades behind bars have taught them that education and other vital services are often subject to cultural zeitgeist or a warden's whim.

The important thing to do now is to listen, and then work for change.

Kristen Kidder Editor

Fortune News is the publication of The Fortune Society, a not-ffor-p profit community-b based organization dedicated to educating the public about prisons, criminal justice issues, and the root causes of crime, and to helping former prisoners and atrisk youth break the cycle of crime and incarceration through a broad range of services.

PRESIDENT/CEO: JoAnne Page, Esq. EDITOR-IIN-C CHIEF: Kristen Kidder EDITORIAL MANAGER: Brian Robinson FORTUNE NEWS EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Carl Johnson Jr., Stephan Likosky, Nora McCarthy, Anthony Papa, Brian Robinson, Edmond Taylor CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS: Arkee Chaney, Loraine Farney, Robert Gonzales, Miguel Ortiz PHOTOGRAPHS: Barry Campbell, Andrew Garn, Kristen Kidder, Ron Levine, Brian Robinson PRINTING AdSpace Ink 40 West 37th Street New York, NY 10018 EDITORIAL OFFICES 53 West 23rd Street New York, NY 10010 Telephone: 212.691.7554 Facsimile: 212.255.4948 Email: kkidder@fortunesociety.org Web: www.fortunesociety.org EDITOR’S NOTE: The opinions expressed in signed articles published by Fortune News do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of Fortune News or The Fortune Society, but are the sole responsibility of the author.

The Editors of Fortune News reserve the right to alter the punctuation, grammar, length and style of all submissions. The decision to publish manuscripts resides solely with the editors.

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Copyright 2005. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Andrew Garn www.andrewgarn.com Cover photograph by Ron Levine www.prisonersofage.com

AGING IN PRISON 2

From the Editor

4

From the President/CEO

5

Letters to the Editor

7

Around the Nation

Victor Hamilton Photograph by Ron Levine

Eugene Alexander Dey

8

The Elderly, The Infected and The Quagmire

Nick Easley

9

Unauthorized Movement

D.C. Winch

10

Life Sentence: Older Inmates Color US Prisons “Prison Moon” by Jorge Antonio Renaud

Lori Farney

12

Growing Old Behind Bars: One Woman’s Experience

Derrick Corley

13

Derrick’s View: Can You Hear Me Now? “Trapped” by Tevan Wilson

Kenneth Gutierrez

14

Aging Out of Crime: Geriatric Facilities in the US

Kentrell Liddell, M.D. Chad Frye

15

Death with Dignity: Corrections and Hospice Care

16

Live and Learn and Pass It On

19

The Prison Diaries: Summer Days

Jeffrey D. Jinks

“Paper Napkins” by #636416

Eric Appleton

20

Eye on Fortune

22

PEN America 2005 Prison Writing Award Winners

25

Oral Histories: Extraordinary Stories, Ordinary People

26

Media Reviews

A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT/CEO We are witnessing the aging of our prison population. As sentences get longer and life without parole becomes more and more popular, we are seeing an increasing number of older men and women living behind bars well beyond the time when they pose any significant risk to anybody and well beyond any reasonable punishment for their acts. This issue of Fortune News focuses on these men and women. In my editorial, I want to focus on the policy decisions and values that keep them locked up.

Todd Clear spoke at a conference many years ago and said some words that I will never forget. He said that America has an addiction to punishment. At Fortune, we live with the issues of addiction. Some three-quarters of our clients have long addiction histories, as do the majority of our staff. An active addict uses his or drugs for the pleasure of the moment and then has to deal with the bitter conseJoAnne Page, Esq. quences when the drugs wear off. Punishment is the quick fix in our country: it brings the joy of vengeance and the political benefits of looking as though one has done something about crime. And then, when the quick fix is over, the bitter long-term consequences remain.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the long-term incarceration of the elderly, at extraordinary human and economic cost. When the three strikes law was first proposed in California, I appeared on CNN to argue against its adoption.

Appearing on the other side of the issue was Mark Klass, whose daughter had been murdered by a third time offender. I told him that the law that he was supporting for use in extraordinary circumstances would end up being used to keep repeat offenders behind bars for life even if their third offense was for something relatively minor. My prediction came true: three strikes has been used as the basis for sentences of life without parole in cases where the third crime was as ordinary as the theft of property with no physical injury. And the Supreme Court has upheld such savagely disproportionate sentencing.

Derek Bell called this law "three strikes and you're bankrupt." He was referring to the impact on taxpayers, and California continues to prove him right. But there is a different kind of bankruptcy that I see as I look at the older men and women whom I know personally who may never be released to freedom. I see a different kind of bankruptcy as I watch older people come to Fortune for help upon release from prison with most of their lives lost behind bars. It is a bankruptcy of mercy and forgiveness that seems to be escalating in our country as the barriers against those who have served time continue to grow. With a record, it's harder to get a job, find housing or receive a college education. The barriers are escalating as the number of people released is growing and as the length of time served continues to grow as well.

When does the punishment stop and the healing and reclaiming begin? For older prisoners...those facing life without parole, those suffering from Alzheimer's, those with life-threatening illnesses, the answer may well be never.

There is a picture that most Americans have about who is in prison. It is fostered by the media. I remember being a guest on one of Geraldo Rivera's talk shows when the topic was whether parole should be abolished. His guests, other than myself, were all grieving people whose loved ones had been killed by serial killers. That is the picture that Americans hold in their minds when they look at proposed laws such as three strikes. And yet, some 60 percent of those serving time are there for nonviolent offenses. California has sentenced more people to natural life in prison for marijuana offenses than for murder, rape and robbery combined.

The overwhelming majority of those aging behind prison bars are there for nonviolent offenses. Many of those convicted of violent offenses currently pose no real risk of violence at all. They say that every cell in the human body changes in seven years. I believe deeply in people's ability to change, no matter what they have done in their past. As David Rothenberg, Fortune's founder, has said, "A person is more than the worst thing he ever did." We should look carefully at those aging behind bars and see who could be released to the community without undue risk and at enormous savings in human suffering and in dollars spent for incarceration that simply is not necessary anymore to achieve justice or community safety.

4 | Fortune News | Summer 2005

Letters to the Editor Alternatives to Incarceration Dear Editor, This is the first time I really sat down to read your magazine and I think that it's a very positive and informative newsletter. However, the letter from David Bradford in the Winter/Spring 2005 issue caught my attention. [Mr. Bradford's letter expressed the opinion that some inmates' desire for prison reform may stem from "lifer" mentalities and not a real desire for change. - Ed.] Mr. Bradford didn't take into account the opinions of poor inmates who could not afford a lawyer, people who are in jail because of one mistake, or drug offenders with disproportionately long sentences. Most of us don't want an easier prison, we want a better prison. A prison with programs, less overcrowding, respect between inmates, staff and officers and - most importantly - livable conditions.

For instance, my cell window hasn't had a screen in over a year. Every summer night before I go to sleep I have to kill ten bugs of at least four different species (no exaggeration!) Not wanting to be woken up every morning full of mosquito bites doesn't make me a career criminal; it makes me a human being.

John Sanchez Bordentown, NJ

Dear Editor, I’m not a subscriber to your magazine. However, I recently had the pleasure and opportunity to read your most recent issue. I found it to be interesting and informa-

tive. Every paragraph had an important message to convey and I enjoyed it from beginning to end. It’s inspiring and motivating to read about those who have done positive things and made something of their lives.

I did notice that the majority of your stories are about the eastern states. The struggle is the same from coast to coast. There is much more going on internally - within every state and federal prison - that your readers should be made aware of. Convicts throughout the country should shed light on these abuses. The system oppresses us with the preconditioned idea that we are too dumb and too ignorant to challenge the status quo.

Readers, let your voices be heard. I’m not a writer by any means, but why should that be a deterrent when the important thing is to get our point across?

now all about punishment. It is far better to be a murderer or a bank robber or a drug dealer than it is to be in prison for a sex crime.

Everyone hates the sex offender and they are seen as the lowest and most heinous of all convicts.

Sex offenders are marked by the 21st century's version of the scarlet letter, the sex offender registry. Who welcomes a released sex offender as a neighbor or will give a sex offender a job or a chance at all? Where on the Internet is there a murderer's registry? A huge double standard exists.

A sex offense should first be treated as a mental illness and then as a crime. If a person was sentenced to a mental health facility instead of a state prison this would help and could end up saving many. Locking people up for long amounts of time does not solve the whole problem, as we can plainly see.

Frank Serrano Crescent City, CA

Barry Hendricks Westville, IN

Dear Editor, Thank you very much for your magazine and for caring about those of us who find ourselves caught up in the American justice system.

Your Winter/Spring 2005 issue was very interesting reading about the alternatives to incarceration. But I feel as if you left something out. I read nothing about sex offenders and the alternatives offered to them. It is most important that they have access to these programs prison time alone is often not enough to reform people.

Currently, all sex offenders who are sentenced to prison time in Indiana are not required to have any counseling or any sort of psychological treatment. They are not monitored or observed. They are simply housed with others awaiting a release date. It is

Fortune’s 2004 Art Show Dear Editor, I submitted a painting to The Fortune Society's 2004 art show and I have a unique story that I would like to share.

I have been out of contact with my family for many years.

In fact, I haven't seen or talked to my sister or stepfather in two decades and I was closer to both of them than anyone else in my family.

I believe in the power of prayer and for years I have prayed for my family and their welfare. Then one morning, about a week ago, I received two letters in the mail - one from my sister and one from my stepfather! I could barely keep the tears back until I got back to my bunk.

How did this happen?

My sister is an art collector (which I didn't know) and she was looking online for information on a piece of art she has. While looking, she came across The Fortune Society's website, opened it up and saw my painting with my name on it. After some searching, she was able to locate my address through the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The rest is history.

This is truly a modern day miracle. There are thousands of websites for art and thousands of artists as well. I know that this was not a coincidence. I want to thank The Fortune Society for being a beacon in the darkness that reunited my family. If it wasn't for your website and the fact that I submitted a painting to your annual contest, I may have never found my family.

Louis Schoening Rosharon, TX Dear Editor, I want to thank you all for your time and efforts to help people like me. Just being a part of the 2004 Art Show was a thrill for me, so when I received your letter that my painting had sold at auction I was in shock and unable to put any words to the joys you brought me.

My family has faded away and no longer offers support of any kind. So the money from the sale of my work was deeply needed and appreciated. It will give me the ability to support myself. That is a good thing not only because I will have toothpaste and other stuff, but I will also get to have some selfworth and self-respect. What you have done for me will last a very long time and affects the quality of my life very deeply. I cannot thank you enough for that.

David Crowder Huntsville, TX The 2005 Art Show will be online October 15th! www.fortunesociety.or

Fortune News | Summer 2005 | 5

Letters to the Editor Prison Conditions Dear Editor, Recently there was a story in the news media about a 65-year-old inmate by the name of Junior Allen, who was just released from a North Carolina prison after serving 35-years for stealing a black & white television set.

This story attracted widespread attention mainly because, while other inmates convicted of murder, rape & child molestations were being released, Junior Allen remained in prison for 35 years.

But hey, isn't this the same form of extreme punishment being practiced here in California under the Three Strikes Law? There are well over 4,000 men and women sitting in California prisons with life sentences for stealing aspirin or for minor drug possession, all under the guise that they are dangerous criminals. Our Governor, in the name of business as usual, went on television last November and deceived the public into voting "no" on Proposition 66, which would have brought about needed reform to an unjust/unfair law, not to mention the sky-rocketing cost of warehousing non-violent offenders in state prisons. But Schwarzenegger said that 26,000 murderers, rapists and child molesters would be released under the Proposition; in actuality 57% of the men and women serving life sentences are non-violent offenders. Most are drug and alcohol abusers who have received no treatment and have repeatedly been sent to prison for addictionrelated offenses. Most have never committed a violent crime in their life.

What has happened in North Carolina with 65-yearold Junior Allen is happening right here in California, but on

a much larger scale.

Everyone else is being paroled and released, but the 4,000 non-violent offenders under California's Three Strikes Law will remain in prison until they have served at least 25 years of a life sentence.

Californians have much more in common with North Carolina than they realize, and should work towards reforming this law. Otherwise there will be 4,000 more 65year-olds like Junior Allen in the next 25 years.

have a legitimate problem.

I have to take a violence program to satisfy Parole Board requirements, but I can't do that while I'm in SHU. As prisoners, we forfeit a lot of our rights when we come to prison. However, the few rights that we do retain are grossly violated every day. Especially if you have a medical condition when you need help you can't get it from anywhere.

Larry D. Wallace Represa, CA

Editor's Note: In 2004, a judge in Massachusetts granted relief to a prisoner with Shy Bladder Syndrome who spent 30 days in solitary confinement for failing to produce a urine sample in the time allotted.

Dear Editor, I am writing to you to make your readers aware of the inadequacies of the medical and mental health departments here in New York's Department of Corrections.

I suffer from paruresis (commonly referred to as Shy Bladder Syndrome.)

Essentially, I'm not able to urinate while I am being watched or when an officer is standing near or behind me.

I have been fighting this for ten years now, but it's all gone for naught. I have written to physicians in every facility I've been to - most say that they have never heard of the disorder. And because some psychologists say that paruresis is a form of social phobic disorder they don't treat it as a medical problem.

Since November of 1995 I have had approximately thirty or more urine tests for which I have never given a sample. (I just received yet another on July 9th.) Because of my inability to comply with the tests, I have spent almost thirteen years in the Special Housing Unit (SHU). I have nothing to hide and have offered to give blood instead of urine to show that I'm drug free, but my request has been denied. No one wants to concede the fact that I

6 | Fortune News | Summer 2005

Joseph Brammer Malone, New York

Dear Editor, I'm sure you receive many letters about prison conditions across the country, but I feel it is time to shed some light on a forgotten part of the criminal justice system - the "transfer facility." These units were built to relieve the backlog of inmates waiting in the county jails, but there is nothing temporary about them so far I've been held here for two years out of a five year sentence. But while I'm in transfer limbo, I don't have the same privileges or rights as other inmates in traditional facilities.

I live in a bunk bed in an open cell with 49 other inmates. My bed is my only personal space. I sleep less than 1 foot from another inmate, with no partition or divider between us. The showers and toilets are visible from almost any place in the cell and female officers are allowed in at any time.

Because of the close quarters, we are not allowed to purchase personal items such as a radio, clock, fan, hot

pot, or even a chess set.

We don't have access to a library so I can't check out books. Our educational opportunities are limited to correspondence courses, to be paid for at our own expense. We are not paid for the work we do around the prison, so if your family can't afford to send you the funds you're out of luck.

It gets worse. During "lock downs" I am restricted to my bunk. That means that I am not allowed to shower except on scheduled days. I must stay on my bunk, sweating and dirty and only receive clean sheets after seven days. In fact, because inmates who act up are sent to "the cooler" - indeed a better place to be during the summer months - I have seen people disobey just to get some relief in July or August.

The state continues to say that because we are in "transfer" we are not part of the institutional division. This is their excuse for the denial of these rights and privileges.

But I was sentenced to five years in the institutional division; maybe this qualifies as an illegal holding?

Ross Vyn Valigura Beeville, TX

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AROUND THE NATION The News that Affects Your World date criminal justice news,, visit www..fortunesociety..org For up-tto-d

IOWA GOVERNOR RESTORES VOTING RIGHTS In early June Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa announced plans to restore voting rights for all felons who have completed their sentences, ending what advocates for voting rights had called one of the most restrictive disenfranchisement laws in the country.

The Governor's order, which was signed on July 4, made an estimated 80,000 ex-felons eligible to vote.

Advocates hope that the order, which comes after a similar restoration of voting rights in Nebraska, will encourage other states with similarly restrictive laws to broaden voting privileges for ex-felons.

Nationally, about 4.7 million people are ineligible to vote because of felony convictions, about 500,000 of them war veterans, according to the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit organization that promotes alternatives to incarceration. About 1.4 million are black men.

President Bush and other politicians have emphasized the importance of smoothing prisoners' re-entry into society, and advocates say granting ex-felons the right to vote is an important part of encouraging them to be law-abiding citizens.

Every state but Maine and Vermont prohibits felons from voting for some period after their convictions, but the states vary in how and when they restore voting privileges.

According to the Right to Vote Campaign, which works to reverse laws preventing felons from voting, 14 states automatically restore voting rights to felons after they are released from prison; four states restore rights after ex-felons complete parole; and 18 states do so after they complete their prison sentence, parole and probation.

Before the passage of this law, Iowa was one of five states - the others are Kentucky, Alabama, Florida and Virginia - that deny a vote to anyone convicted of a felony or an aggravated misdemeanor.

Source: New York Times, June 5, 2005

In his speech to a conference of the National Center for Victims of Crime in June, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales called for federal judges to adhere to guidelines that set mandatory minimum prison sentences, saying there is evidence of growing disparity in jail terms since a landmark Supreme Court ruling. Gonzales also said judges should retain their discretion in imposing harsher prison terms than those set out in sentencing guidelines.

Sentencing guidelines for federal prisoners have been in place for nearly two decades. But the Supreme Court in January said making the guidelines mandatory violated a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial because they call for judges to make factual decisions that could add to prison time, such as the amount of drugs involved in a crime.

Under the ruling, the guidelines now are only advisory.

As a result, federal judges are free to sentence convicted criminals as they see fit, but they may be subject to reversal if appeals courts find them "unreasonable."

Gonzales said that since the court ruling, he has seen "a drift toward lesser sentences," while prosecutors have reported that defendants are less willing to cooperate without the threat of certain prison terms.

Of 14,572 sentences imposed between the Jan. 12 ruling and May 5, there were 1,659 -- or 11.4 percent -- that did not comply with the guidelines, according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Of those cases, 201 sentences were heavier than those suggested by the guidelines.

Current legislation in Congress would set mandatory minimums for many types of crime, because of concern over leniency.

Source: Washington Post, June 20, 2005

OFFICIALS SAY THAT TIME IS RIGHT FOR PRISON REFORM

Seven high-security federal prisons will be getting lethal electrified fences in a $10 million project intended to reduce the number of perimeter guards needed.

The 12-foot-high "stun-lethal" fences, similar to ones used at some state prisons, can be set to deliver a shock if touched once, and a fatal jolt if touched a second time.

The fences are slated for two prisons in Coleman, Florida, and prisons in Tucson Arizone; Terre Haute, Indiana; Hazelton, WestVirginia; Pine Knot, Kentucky; and Pollock, Louisiana.

U.S. prison officials say a wide political consensus is developing that could lead to positive prison reform and reduce recidivism.

The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prison met in Newark, N.Y. in late July, the second of four public meetings for the 21-member panel, which is seeking to identify problems with U.S. prisons and solutions to those problems. The panel will meet in November and January, although sites have not been announced.

Sentencing Project Assistant Director Marc Mauer told The Washington Post, "There's a growing liberal-conservative consensus that it's in everyone's interest that we provide resources in prison that decrease the chances of recidivism."

Mauer said a decade ago, "there was what we can only characterize as hysteria around crime." That was a period when states were passing tough sentence guidelines for cases involving repeat offenders.

Falling crime rates and tight state budgets set the stage for prison reform, Michael Jacobson, a former New York City correction director, told the Post.

There are some 2.2 million people incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails and 5 million are on probation or parole.

Source: Associated Press, July 12, 2006

Source: Washington Post, July 26, 2005

PRISONS TO GET LETHAL FENCES

Fortune News | Summer 2005 | 7

AGING IN PRISON

The Elderly, The Infected and The Quagmire

BY EUGENE ALEXANDER DEY “How you doing, Pops?" a fellow inmate recently asked, unmistakable concern in his voice.

"I'm just fine, youngster," Pops replied, in obvious pain, as he shuffled back to his cell. This is how he makes his way around, painfully and slowly, as he shuffles to and fro. The fact that Pops, 72, is housed at the California Correctional Center in Susanville and not in a prison hospital where doctors and nurses are close by, is indicative of what ails a prison medical system about to go under federal receivership.

Pops, a kind old man most barely notice, is a murderer. But in his advanced age he's become a caricature of a criminal. The only real threat he poses to society is the financial burden the state chooses to bear by keeping him in prison well into the twilight of his life.

A Medical Quagmire The California Department of Corrections (CDC) is the largest prison system in the country. With a $7 billion budget, the CDC currently spends $1.1 billion a year trying to meet the medical needs of 165,000 prisoners.

Despite this monumental medical expenditure, California's prison system is a beleaguered agency whose health care services are about to be placed under federal oversight due to gross incompetence.

"The reports are abominable, they are damning‌(portraying) a system so broken that it is an actual threat to inmates, to the staff that work there, to the public," said state Senate

Majority Leader, Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, in regards to a report detailing at least 34 "avoidable" deaths.

Other reports suggest the death toll is much higher.

Justice Thelton Henderson of the United States District Court, who oversees an ongoing prison medical lawsuit in Plata v. Davis, said in late May, "I can see myself appointing a receivership to stop 60-some people a year from dying."

California's prison medical system is in disarray. Elderly inmates like Pops, and those with life-threatening diseases, are receiving the worst correctional medical care in the country.

It's almost unimaginable in a state as wealthy as California," said Donald Spector of the Prison Law Office. "How can a system that spends $1.1 billion be so bad?"

Currently, the CDC houses 6,000 inmates over the age of 55, the demographic considered elderly. Further, the Legislative Analysts Office (LAO) estimates elderly prisoners are outpacing the rest of the prison population. By the year 2022, the LAO estimates the CDC will hold 30,000 geriatric prisoners.

Compounding this issue is the fact that the Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has hit epidemic proportions among the incarcerated. This deadly liver disease is currently carried by at least one-third of the prison population. Treatment for HCV is very expensive and requires competent gastroenterologists, not general practitioners.

Most of the state's current medical problems are being blamed on the CDC's incom-

News 2005 | Fortune Fortune News | Summer Spring2005 2003 8 8|8 | Fortune News | Summer

petent doctors, archaic record keeping and staff shortages. An August 2004 report on CDC's medical staff determined that 58 of the 302 doctors employed had actions taken against their licenses by the Medical Board. A correctional medical license carries with it a much lower standard than those issued to care for the general population. Michael Puisis, an expert appointed to study the CDC's medial problems, testified that at least 150 more doctors are needed to adequately treat inmates, in addition to replacing onequarter of the current physicians due to their substandard performance. In early June, Judge Henderson accelerated the hearings, in an effort to "move quickly" on the matter.

A New Approach Since California has some of the most Draconian sentencing mandates in the country, the state spends huge sums of money on inmates like Pops, who are basically remnants of their former selves. Studies show age is one of the best indicators of recidivism. While younger offenders recidivate in huge numbers, once an inmate hits 30, the rates begin to decrease significantly. New York, for example, has an overall recidivism rate of 48%. The rates drop to 21% for those aged 50 to 60, and plummets to 7.4% for those over 65.

Since it costs two to three times more to incarcerate older inmates, implementing alternatives to incarceration for this demographic is not only cost-effective, but socially responsible. Jonathan

Turley, a professor at George Washington Law School, founded Project for Older Prisoners (POPS) in 1989 to address the nation's aging prison population. POPS is a volunteer program that advocates for the release of geriatric prisoners who no longer pose a threat to society. The program operates in five states-Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, and Virginia-and the District of Columbia. To date, the program has secured the release of almost 100 inmates without a single act of recidivism on the part of those released.

Every state in the nation would benefit from similar programs.

Under the current system, U.S. prison health care comes with a First World price, yet is delivered at Third World quality. All the while, inmates like Pops continue to be housed in mainline institutions designed for warehousing, punishment, and the heavy-hand of justice - the worst case scenario for elderly and sickly inmates. Thus, until true reform actually manifests, the CDC will remain stuck in the correctional Dark Ages - killing its captives through systemic incompetence.

EUGENE ALEXANDER DEY is currently serving a 26-years-tolife sentence for a drug offense at the California Correctional Center in Susanville. He is a college-educated writer and inmate-activist.

Cartoon by Robert Gonzales

It wasn't until I stepped off the bus that I realized how tired I felt.

In fact, I was exhausted.

Though I had gone to bed the night before at my usual time, I felt as though I hadn't slept in days. Even worse, I didn't know if I would be able to sleep again. Back at Eureka College there was no razor wire; there were no concrete walls, no steel bars.

This private institution holds fewer students than most small high schools. I had left all of the vivid images of the Pontiac Correctional Institution behind, but somehow they were still enclosing me.

The stench of prison is strange, like a cross between a nursing home and a large factory. Thick, dull concrete enveloped the building, infiltrating every interior wall. I was greeted by a cacophony of sound during my visit cells slamming, heavy doors being shut, and even the sound of voices. Nothing could escape the walls. After a while it was hard to tell if what I was hearing were new noises or reverberations from old anguish.

The caged men stared at our group as we explored the cellblock, their eyes following our every movement. The words they shouted were indistinguishable; I wasn't sure whether to disregard them as negative and degrading, or try to listen to decipher possible knowledge they were attempting to impart. The chaos prevented me from comprehending the day's events; I am not yet sure if this psychic block stems from feelings of reluctance or a desire for reflection.

Entering the prison was like crossing the border into a foreign country. My classmates and I had to relinquish our licenses, be patted down, and then stand against the wall as we waited

was like looking into the window of an empty house.

Nothing was there. They showed no emotion, they didn't even react to our presence. The only movement came from one man on his EASLEY hands and knees. He was meticulously scrubbing his cell floor, making sure he daily, monotonous life, I was even cleaned the bars. Other pure excitement. cells were littered with food Despite his silence, old and stains that I don't want man's neighbors continued to think about. Yet, here was their chorus of rants. "Don't this one man cleaning the cell be scared to look at me. I he will live in for the rest of won't hurtcha," one said. his life.

Another yelled, "This isn't the Growing up, I was told zoo, ya know! I am not an that prison was unfair to animal in a cage! Stop lookthose of us trying to make an ing at me! Don't look in my honest living. After all, incarcage!" As we were rushed cerated individuals have no out the door I looked back to responsibility. They see food three square being flung Growing up, I receive meals a day, have from the was told that access to television upper floors and recreation to where we prison life was sometimes they are were just unfair to those even able to work standing.

We got out of us trying to towards a college education - all paid for just in time, make an by the tax dollars of it seemed. hardworking people.

As we honest living.

After visiting the stood petriPontiac Correctional fied, I started to wonder Center, I agree that prison is about this man's words. He unfair, but not to tax payers. was right, he was in a cage.

As a society, we strip from I had seen many zoos that prisoners all of the trappings were much cleaner than this of humanity simply by placing prison. But who were the them in a cage like animals. animals here? These men We put people in had committed crimes and prison because we are were justly paying for them. scared of them. We think But here I was, observing they are not like us. We them in the worst state of would rather kill an escaping their humanity, for purposes prisoner than allow him to of "exposure" and "educastep foot into "our world." tion." Does that intention Although politicians and make me more civilized? advocates alike are starting to As our tour made its way call for a change to the systo "lifer's holding," images of tem, we are not willing to huge monsters popped into help people reform. my mind. Everyone and That night I had a difficult everything was silent. For time sleeping. I got out of the first time that day, I could bed and cleaned my room. hear my footsteps on the

UNAUTHORIZED Movement

BY NICK for our guide. All around us there were signs that depicted men crouching and covering their heads accompanied by the words "If you hear a gunshot, stay where you are."

Before we entered the building, the guide explained that he must radio to the tower to avoid the suspicion of "unauthorized movement." I couldn't stop thinking about all the snipers stationed above us.

"Single file line. Everyone please stay against the wall," our tour guide bellowed as we walked into the cellblock.

At the first sign of our presence, a barrage of voices came hurdling at us with insults, jokes, questions, and commands. Some of us responded by laughing, others were trying to avoid eyecontact, and still others were simply frozen solid against the wall.

I slowly began to make out one voice amid the cacophony. "Look at me!" it screamed. "Will somebody please, just look at me!" My eyes wandered two stories above and were met by a shirtless prisoner, his arms flailing in the air, yelling at the top of his lungs. He was an almost elderly, balding man, weighing no more than one hundred pounds, screaming for our attention as an elementary student screams for his mother on the first day of school. When our eyes met, he stopped. He didn't say a word, but he smiled and didn't scream anymore.

This man wanted to be noticed. Perhaps all through his life he was looked over, passed up, and regarded as insignificant. He only wanted me to look at him. In his

hard concrete floor. In these cells were silent men. They were the quietest people we had seen and, therefore, some of the most frightening.

I looked into their eyes and it

NICK EASLEY is a student at Eureka College in Eureka, Illinois.

His recent tour of the Pontiac Correctional Center, a nearby maximum security state prison, was a requirement of a course titled "Introduction to Criminal Justice."

Fortune News | Summer 2005 | 9

AGING IN PRISON

LIFE SENTENCE: Older Inmates Color U.S. Prisons with Shades of Gray BY: D.C. WINCH “My prison is becoming an old folks home” -- Warden, Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana

in 1995 -- for the first time -more inmates died than were paroled. To cope with such a change, a new generation of specialized geriatric prison facilities has been established in Texas, Florida, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Alabama, North Carolina, as well as in parts of Canada.

Hidden Costs Grow

“I’m not a threat to nobody. That’s practically impossible. What am I going to do? I’m an old man; it only goes downhill from here.”

-- Elderly Inmate in North Carolina

The fact that the United States' prison population has soared in recent decades is widely known. Less attention has been focused, however, on the even more rapid growth of the over-55 age population of prisoners.

Elderly prisoners are a booming part of the prison population throughout the U.S. today. From massive, hardtime Southern prisons to lowsecurity facilities in the North, penal geriatric wards full of "old cons" are rapidly proliferating.

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the average age of inmates in U.S. facilities in the mid-1990s was 37. Out of approximately 1 million inmates nationally, there were just 50,000 prisoners over the age of 50.

That demographic represented a steady 5 to 7 percent of the total inmate population.

However, as the U.S. prisoner population surged early in the next decade towards 2 million and beyond, a qualitative change occurred: the percentage of older prisoners jumped to 20 percent of the total population. Now the Census Bureau projects that, by the year 2030, fully one third of U.S. prisoners will be more than 55 years old.

Longer Lifespans The effect of longer sentences and "3-strike" laws, which mandate life sentences for third offenses, will almost

certainly keep this number growing. Such laws deny judges and juries the right to adjust sentences. This can mean that a 45-year-old convicted murderer or rapist will likely spent his entire 30-year sentence in prison, with no possibility of parole. A person in that situation will spend 20 years over-55 - a senior prisoner - set for release only at age 75. If it is his third conviction, even lesser crimes will become a virtual "life sentence." And since the number of convictions is increasing, longer sentences will undoubtedly cause a wave of aging prisoners pushing through the system.

It would be easy to point to harsher U.S. sentencing trends as the sole cause of this trend, but the experience of other countries suggests its roots are more complex.

In Canada, for example, despite a drastically lower rate of imprisonment, the same aging trend is clear. A report by the Federal Correctional Service in 1995 noted that the growth in the number of older prison inmates nationally was almost ten times that of younger offenders.

Worth noting is the steadily higher average age of the population in rich countries like the U.S. and Canada, a trend mostly attributed to longer lifespans.

When the Roosevelt adminis-

10 | Fortune News | Summer 2005

tration introduced Social Security in 1937, the average American died at age 63. As a result, most people did not live long enough to gain the right to retirement benefits at 65, and few lived many years collecting these benefits.

Today, by contrast, the average U.S. citizen lives long enough to receive a full decade of Social Security benefits. And, with the better medical care and nutrition of the baby-boom generation, the average retirement period may rise closer to twenty years.

The age of 55 has been gradually accepted as the starting point for defining "older" prisoners. This is in part because prisoners' lives are rougher than those of the general population. Poorer nutrition and far higher rates of tobacco use and alcohol abuse are followed in prisoners' lives by the high stress of penitentiary regimes that feature inactivity and little exercise, along with unbalanced high-starch, cannedfood diets. These factors combine to reduce life expectancy significantly.

Specialists agree that prisoners appear to age 7 to 10 years faster than their "normal" chronological age would suggest.

This wave of older prisoners with their special needs has begun to overwhelm traditional facilities like the Angola state maximum security facility in Louisiana where

The new geriatric prisons in which some older prisoners live in are different from the ones inhabited by their younger counterparts.

Changes are being forced on the prison administrations by the different needs of older prisoners - these men and women have less tolerance for stress and trouble, declining physical skills and mobility and rising medical needs.

In calling for adjustments for older prisoners, the New York State Office on Aging notes: "Prison health care is based on an antiquated sickcall system originally conceived to treat common illnesses like flu. It is not designed to serve the large number of prisoners who are chronically, acutely, or terminally ill. There are signs that the system is overloaded.

Triage is performed by whatever personnel are available that day, including correctional officers who have no medical training." Or as convict Otis Wyatt, 78, put it, as he slammed the medical service of the Hamilton, Alabama, Institute for the Aged and Infirm for its poor treatment of chronic pain in his leg: "They don't give you nothin' more than Tylenol . . . You could be dead before the doctor would see you."

Older prisoners also bring a whole new range of complaints and legal grievances to bear, like the McCain Correctional Hospital inmate in North Carolina whose appeal was based on his inability to wear his hearing

aid in court: "I couldn't make should be treated in hospitalout a word," he protests, like wards. There, they would recalling his bizarrely soundbe much freer to come and less trial. As a result, courts go. It is far less expensive, and correctional systems are and a much better use of being forced for the first time detention space at a time to systematically consider when convictions are soaring, issues relating to geriatric to release prisoners when care: providing special diets, they pass the "criminal round-the-clock menopause" nursing care, age that crimiIt is still hard to altering facilities, nologists have and restructuring tried to define. champion institutional activThe the image of older ities.

Sentencing prisoners as a public Project, a prisThe cost of issue. Old men keeping older oner advocacy prisoners behind behind bars don’t and justice bars is, by all resonate with the group, pointed accounts, very out that tradipublic. high. An average tionally 66% of inmate costs taxpersons arrestpayers upwards ed are under of $20,000 a year to keep in age 30. It concludes that prison. Meanwhile, a geriatric since crime rates for most prisoner, with all the complex offenses drop sharply after medical facilities and personal age 30, 3-strikes laws will care that become necessary, result in imprisoning a group costs closer to $60,000 a of offenders for life who might year. The figure of "three be more appropriately sentimes the cost" of regular tenced to shorter terms of prisoners is emerging as the imprisonment until they 'age reference for the price of out' of criminal activity. housing elderly prisoners.

Reasonable people may wonder: What threat is posed Public Perceptions of Older by a doddering old man?

Prisoners They urge states and the federal government to look It is still hard to champion the ahead and adopt early release image of older prisoners as a programs for chronically ill public issue. Old men behind older prisoners, as well as bars don't resonate with the open more specialized wards public; they don't fit any of for sick and chronic-care pristhe stereotypes traditionally oners. portrayed by Hollywood For two decades, rising movie stars who do every public anger at crime in kind of somersault to escape America has dovetailed with from Sing Sing or Alcatraz to political discourse calling for regain freedom. Nor do they longer and harsher sentences. fit the movie jailhouse image The issue of older prisoners, of angry men who clang their however, promises a "paracups on bars, raising hell and digm shift," in which clearly seething with resentment. harmless convicts are wareMen in their 50s, 60s and housed at great expense to 70s who are imprisoned -the taxpayer, with no ceiling in hospitalized, really -- often do sight for these costs. evoke sympathy, even pity, in The door is wide open for a way that younger prisoners the proposal of better solucannot. Public appeals on tions. their behalf could highlight D.C. Winch wrote the introductheir new needs. Prison tory essay for Prisoners of Age. reformers argue that frail For more information, visit older prisoners like Otis Wyatt

PRISON MOON*

Four a.m. work duty and I begin My solitary trudge from outer compound to main building. A shivering guard, chilled in his lonely outpost, strip searches me until content that my inconsequential nudity poses no threat and then whispers the secret code that allows me admittance into the open quarter-mile walkway.

I chuff my way into another day as ice glints on the razor wire and the rifles note my numbed passage, silent but for my huffs and scuffle on the cracked, slippery sidewalk.

A new moon, veiled in wispy fog and beringed in glory, hangs over the prison, its gaudy glow taunting the halogen spotlights.

The moon's creamy pull upsets some liquid equilibrium within me and like tides, wolves and all manner of madmen, I surrender.

The lunar deliriums grip me and I howl - once, then again, and surely somewhere an unbound sleeper stirs, disturbed by the certainty that under the bony luminescence of a grinning moon penitence is dying a giddy death.

I shake myself sane and as the echoes hang in the frigid air I explain to the wild-eyed guard that convicts, like all animals under the leash must bay at the beauty beyond them.

Jorge Antonio Renaud *Prison Moon recently won first place in the poetry category of PEN America’s 2004-2005 Prison Writing Contest. For a complete list of winners and honorable mentions, please visit www.pen.org.

Fortune News Fortune News | | Summer Summer 2005 2005 | 11 11 11

G rowing Old Behind Bars: One Woman’s Experience BY: LORI FARNEY

On a late Friday afternoon, Anna Jones sits with two of her grandchildren, one of whom she is meeting for the first time.

With her new grandson bouncing on her knee, the look of love and happiness on Anna’s face is unmistakable. But this joyous occasion will be short lived. Soon visiting hours will be over and Anna will walk with a heavy heart back to her cell, but not before she must strip off all of her clothes and hand them to a prison guard less than half her age.

Back in her cell, Anna will pull out a box of pictures and letters sent to her from her children and grandchildren.

These will have to be put away when Anna is done looking at them; they cannot be left out or displayed. "Why can't a woman who has lost valuable years with her family display pictures of them in her room," she thinks to herself? This is just one of the prison rules that seems cruel and senseless to Anna.

Anna Jones is a 56 year old woman who has been incarcerated for almost 15 years. She long ago lost her freedom and her right to privacy, but with advancing age, Anna is beginning to experience new losses. For instance, her health has slowly worsened over time. Like many older adults who have been incarcerated for Drawing by Loraine Farney several years, Anna has "overaged" and she appears and feels a decade older than she actually is. She suffers from several chronic illnesses including diabetes and high blood pressure. And, like many older prisoners, Anna has little faith in the prison's health care system and a growing fear of developing a life threatening condition while incarcerated. Anna will tell you how other older female are inmates treated. As she recently confided, "I have seen a woman having a heart attack being ignored. And I have seen a woman having a stroke be left to lie on the ground while the medical personnel walked to the woman and smoked and joked as they walked."

Anna is experiencing other losses. She is losing her peers. Recently, another older inmate that Anna had befriended passed away after a heart surgery. She also knows that her best friend and roommate of the past ten years will be released from prison soon. Anna has cherished the years spent with a roommate who is close to her in age. As she explains, "We have shared all the joys and pains of prison life." These experiences have included menopause-an event that male-dominated prison systems have been ill prepared to help women deal with. (The everyday difficulties faced by aging women in prison sometimes make it difficult to discern whether problems are the result of menopause or everyday life.) Anna and her roommate have also shared the bittersweet task of grandparenting behind bars. They've spent hundreds of hours together crocheting baby and children's clothing for birthdays and holidays.

As Anna loses peers her own age, a painful reality becomes harder to avoid: ageism is alive and well within the prison walls as it is in the free world. But as Anna asserts, "In prison, there is no escape from those who are disrespectful and negatively opinionated." And she states that when altercations arise between older and younger prisoners, "The first thing they harp on is your age." Anna will smile when she tells you, "These younger women, they just don't think they will ever get old. They don't realize how quickly it happens in here."

There are a sundry of inconveniences facing older 12 | Fortune News | Summer 2005

incarcerated women that one may not even be able to imagine.

Anna could enlighten you. She could tell you how some older women who do not have access to tweezers or depilatories have taken to shaving their faces. She could tell you how women with thinning hair or baldness have no means to hide these conditions, even when they have outside visitors. She could tell you about older women pulling out their own teeth.

She could tell you that moisturizers sufficient for older women's skin are unavailable. Or, she could simply tell you that, often, an older incarcerated woman can't get a comfortable bra, a good night's sleep, or a good source of fiber. But, don't be surprised if Anna tells you a joke or two, too. She is amazingly good humored and witty-even in her bleak surroundings.

In the end, the lives of women growing old behind bars become more subtly and overtly punishing as years of incarceration pass. It is quite possible that these years become more devastating than they were intended to be.

The proportion of older female offenders is growing in our nation. An encouraging possibility exists. Perhaps this burgeoning group will achieve a larger voice and social presence.

Perhaps greater attention and concern will be paid to the needs of older women in prison. Will we listen? Are we listening now?

LORI FARNEY has interviewed several incarcerated women over 50 years of age. After the completion of her Masters Degree in Sociology, Farney intends to pursue a Law Degree and become an advocate for women aging in prison.

INCARCERATED MOTHERS NEEDED! Interrupted Life: Incarcerated Mothers in the United States” is a Ford Foundation-supported exhibition that includes six installation pieces. The exhibition is currently in production and will begin touring community venues in 2006. The show aims to stimulate new discussions about the criminal justice system and its impacts, particularly on women, in the United States.

The “centerpiece” of the exhibition will be made out of thousands of white 4”x6” cards. Incarcerated and detained women are invited to make cards expressing the themes “what mothering means to me” or “this is what gets in my way as I try to mother my children.” (These sentence starters are for ideas.

The words don’t go on the card.) Feel free to draw, write, collage or use the cards in any other way you choose to express yourself. However, the cards must be used horizontally like this: Use any materials you have - colored pencils, crayons, pens, etc. (But please avoid using regular pencils and light strokes.)

These cards have to speak loudly. The stronger and more visible, the better. You can make one card or you can make many. Send cards to: Rickie Solinger WAKEUP/Arts 6 Spies Road New Paltz, NY 12561 Examples of finished cards can be found on page 27.

Derrick’s View Young, dumb and perhaps a

me. I have more aches and pains now than I did when I little bit crazy, I came into the was younger, but so far the prison system in 1971. I was most annoying aspect of my 22-years-old. Looking back, aging is losing my hearing.

I remember sneering at the To make matters worse, I old-timers, ridiculing them for have Tinnitus (a constant, coming back to prison time loud ringing) in both ears. It after time, finally growing old is difficult for me to underand grey behind prison walls. stand speech in the presence "That isn't going to be me," I of background noise, and the told myself and anyone else prison environment is who would listen. But there extremely noisy. came a time in my life when I Any prisoner who has looked into the mirror and, been in the system for awhile seeing grey in my whiskers (and who knows what kind of and hair, realized that I had, medical attention they can indeed, turned myself into expect to receive if they get one of those old-timers. seriously sick or injured) fears I'm 56-years-old and getting hurt or sick while have, to date, spent more doing time. Rather than tell than thirty of them in prison. horror stories of things that I That's more than half my life. have seen throughout my I have been blessed with a prison years, I prefer to use strong, healthy body and the example of difficulties I everyone but my wife tells me have had in trying to get that I look ten to fifteen years proper treatment in relation to younger than I am. I do not my hearing disability. This is, feel my age yet, but I certainly after all, my own personal feel it trying to creep up on aging horror show behind prison walls.

When I first complained about TRAPPED my Tinnitus, the audiologist As time escapes me employed by the and steel bars bend me Department of cold bricks detain me Correctional Services (DOCS) in the physical, recommended leaving my mental to wander free, that I try a Tinnitus yet trapped in a familiar place "masker," and he that only I can see, fitted me with as it was designed by me. such a unit. He then noted in my But, as I stand waiting medical records to be expelled by time that he gave me a disease, corrosion and infection "masker" and was restrain my mind. doing this to see if Trapped beneath a light it would help allecasting a shadow off to my side, viate my Tinnitus.

But it didn't help, my shadow as I fight to stand fast and being suspiyet I slip and slide. cious that he didThere’s no escape to find n't properly adjust when I open my eyes it (the doctor as I lay, trapped made no adjustment to the device in my own demise. at all), I wrote the company that

Tevan Wilson

Can You Hear Me Now?

BY DERRICK CORLEY made the unit to find out if it required adjustment for my particular Tinnitus sounds.

Their response was to tell me that the unit was not a Tinnitus "masker," and had nothing to do with Tinnitus it was nothing but a hearing aid made in Japan!

After suffering hearing loss in both ears, I was fitted with two "programmable" hearing aids; however, the audiologist did not "program" them so that I would benefit from their use. Indeed, all they did was make the prison background noise louder, making it even more difficult for me to understand speech! Eventually I figured out that I was better off without them, and so I have stopped wearing hearing aids. I function as best I can without them and my daily life is a communication horror. I only expect it to get worse as I continue to age.

DOCS Directive 2612 pertains to the policy and procedure established so that sensorial disabled prisoners receive the treatment and services they need. In order to qualify as impaired, a prisoner's hearing is tested by the audiologist and he or she must have a hearing loss score that falls within the parameters of "disabled." In my experience, the prison audiologist does not record the true test results of those he examines. The scores are frequently understated so that a prisoner does not qualify for treatment and services.

After I complained of the lack of treatment services, I

was removed from a special unit they have at this facility for the sensorial disabled and the DOCS replaced me with someone who did not have this disability. Not surprisingly, I received no help when I voiced my displeasure at these matters. I then sent a detailed written complaint, supported by extensive documentation, which clearly demonstrated that the audiologist lied and falsified my medical records. The response from DOCS was: "There is no reason to question [the audiologist's] testing methods nor his professionalism and his recommendations for the accommodations with which you are currently being provided stand as indicated in your grievance responses."

I never wanted to grow old in prison, but here I am.

It's my fault that I'm where I'm at, but that doesn't make it okay for the prison system to treat its aged and disabled as it does. Isn't it about time for society to take a good look at its failure of a prison system? The system does nothing but waste lives and taxpayer dollars - the recidivism rate attests to that.

Perhaps when the cost of "warehousing" the aged prisoner becomes of real concern, the system will try something different - rehabilitation. Even I can see that the rehabilitation of young prisoners keeps them from becoming old prisoners.

Derrick Corley is a New York State prisoner. His column appears regularly in the Fortune News.

Fortune News | Summer 2005 | 13

AGING OUT OF CRIME: Geriatric Facilities in the United States

BY KENNETH GUTIERREZ PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF RON LEVINE

Earl Brunson, age 80

It is no secret that the United States prison population is rapidly aging. In his 2003 report to the Senate Subcommittee on Aging and Long Term Care, Jonathon Turley, a law professor at Georgetown University and founder of the Project for Older Prisoners (POPS), testified that, "In the last 20 years, the population of older prisoners has grown by 750%." And all that's just for starters. Forecasts show the trend will only accelerate for the foreseeable future. Yet, according to Ronald H. Aday, author of Aging Prisoners: Crisis in American Corrections, "most correctional agencies have neither anticipated nor responded to the challenge of the increase in long-term inmate populations."

This lack of planning has left America's correctional institutions facing a dilemma.

Keeping older prisoners locked up is expensive. The average cost of housing an inmate over 60 is $70,000 a year, or about three times the average cost for prisoners overall. It's been estimated that, by 2023, California's projected 50,000 elderly inmates will cost the state $4 billion a year to house. And that's just one state.

The solution to this quagmire cannot be found in simply withholding medical care to inmates. In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court in Estelle v.

Gamble decided that having custody of a prisoner's body imposes a duty to provide medical care. (This has ironi-

cally--though logically--resulted in prisoners being the only segment of the population with a constitutional guarantee to taxpayer-funded medical care.) Furthermore, while the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prohibits discrimination against disabled inmates, a report by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections has concluded that "virtually all of the correctional institutions that exist today were created to meet the needs of a young, healthy, and aggressive inmate population. They do not meet the basic and special needs of older inmates."

The biological and economic reality of long-term incarceration has left our nation's correctional system with two basic options: They can build geriatric prisons, where costs are cut due to the reduced need for security, the centralization of medical resources, and the minimization of injuries achieved by installing special features, or they can start letting harmless old people go free.

GERIATRIC FACILITES The fact that it's cheaper and easier to build one prison with ramps than to install them in all existing buildings has resulted in a large number of states opting to segregate their elderly inmates in special facilities. According to the National Institute of Correction, 23 out of the 50 states already provide services for elderly inmate care.

And the number is growing.

Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Wyoming have reported that they are in various stages

14 | Fortune News| Winter/Spring | Summer 20052005 14 Fortune News 2005

of planning new facilities, expanding old ones or initiating new policies and programs for the elderly prison population. Yet some of these new institutions are not only designed to accommodate the special needs of this population, they also appear to be laboratories for new theories of correction and rehabilitation.

Take, for example, Ohio's Hocking Correctional Facility.

This medium-security facility houses 450 inmates, threefourths of them aged 50 or older. According to Aday, inmates at Hocking 'thrive" in an environment which emphasizes education, vocational training, and physical fitness. The institution features a three-tiered aerobic exercise program and the Action, Communication & Tolerance program which, according to their web site, "assists the inmates in taking responsibility for their actions and understanding the impact of their crime, not only on themselves and their victims, but also on their families and the community as well." Educational opportunities at include a college level course in business management and culinary arts training.

But not all states can boast of such an enlightened approach to geriatric corrections. Even though the San Antonio Express-News described Texas's Estelle Unit geriatric wing as offering "luxurious prison accommodations" (translation: air conditioning in summer and heating in winter) an article in the Austin American-Statesman reported that, "In July of 1997, the Department [of Health] inspected the dialysis

Edith May Sanders, age 81

office at the Estelle prison unit near Huntsville. The department's list of deficiencies ran 99 pages. Conditions at the Estelle dialysis unit were so bad the Department of Health closed the facility."

Similarly, the conditions at Florida's geriatric prisons have inspired an entire web site dedicated to their criticism. Making the Walls Transparent (www.angelfire. com/fl3/starke/) accuses the Florida Department of Corrections of "simply changing the criteria of individual institutions and declaring them 'over 50' facilities without making the necessary changes in staff, housing, medical, food service, classification, and work assignments." An internal report published on the site by the Florida's own Correctional Medical Authority seems to lend credence to these accusations, stating: "Correctional staff's lack of training in recognizing the medical and mental health conditions of elderly inmates often exacerbates problems."

SECOND THOUGHTS As geriatric prisons become an increasingly common sight across our nation, more and more people are realizing the absurdity of the policies that made such institutions necessary. As John Blackmore, a senior associate at the Criminal Justice Institute told the Christian Science Monitor, "It's obvious to prison operators and anyone who goes inside that some considerable

Kenneth Gutierrez is a frequent contributor to the Fortune News.

portion of [aging prisoners] could and should easily be out of there."

Politicians are reaching similar conclusions across party lines. After touring the 60-bed geriatric center at the W. J. Estelle Prison in Huntsville, Texas, State Senator John Whitmire (DHouston), chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, told the San Antonio Express-News, "When you go over and see a 72-yearold worn-out guy who can't sit up in bed, why in the world is he stuck in one of our maximum-security prisons? It doesn't enhance public safety." Similarly, Pennsylvania State Senator Stewart J. Greenleaf (RMontgomery), the chairman of a legislative task force studying alternatives for geriatric prisoners, told the Philadelphia Inquirer: "Many of them [older prisoners] no longer pose a threat to reoffend, so ‌ we can be smart while still being tough."

Though there's been no obvious sea change in America's attitudes towards crime and punishment, the utter illogic of spending the most money on keeping the least dangerous segment of the prison population behind bars has begun to force a shift in policy. "The tide is turning," said Marc Mauer, assistant director of the Sentencing Project, told the San Antonio Express-News.

And not a moment too soon. Modern penitentiaries were conceived as a method of isolating and rehabilitating offenders. Yet the concept of punishment has insinuated itself back into our system, seemingly leaving us with the worst of all possible worlds, one where punishments last thirty years. For the tens of thousands of Americans aging behind bars, time itself has become the punishment.

This is an outcome that was never intended.

DEATH WITH DIGNITY: As the cost of caring for aging inmates continues to skyrocket, more and more states are creating alternatives for prisoners who are in the poorest health. One prominent example can be found within the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

Through recent legislation, the state ensured that from now on, the end-of-life experience for terminally ill prisoners will be marked by compassion and reflection rather than neglect.

The Mississippi Department of Corrections is working to provide qualifying prisoners with end of life care by modeling successful programs across the country. "In 2003, members of our correctional and medical staff had the privilege of visiting prison hospice program in Angola, Louisiana,� said Medical Director Ken Liddell. “ We were greatly impressed with the knowledge, skills and caring attitudes exhibited by hospice staff, and perhaps more importantly, the trust exhibited by the inmate volunteers who participate in and value the program." The state hopes to create a similar program using these ideals.

Working towards a goal of hospice care for these terminally ill prisoners, the state of Mississippi recently passed a new code (Sec. 47-7-4) allowing Conditional Medical Release (CMR) for inmates who fit the following criteria: (1)The offender has served at least one year of his/her sentence; (2)The offender has not committed a sex crime; (3)The illness is a permanent physical medical condition with no perceived possibility of recovery; (4)Further incarceration will serve no rehabilitative purposes; (5)The state would incur unreasonable expenses as a result of continued incarceration.

Corrections and Hospice Care

BY: Kentrell Liddell, M.D. AND

Chad Frye Community Relations Director, We Care Hospice

Since the inception of the CMR program, eight Mississippi prisoners have been released, with three more scheduled to go home in the near future. Area hospices serve the prisoner during re-entry, either from their home or a state facility. One such organization, We Care Hospice of coastal Mississippi, is working to ensure that these programs continue to be successful.

We Care Hospice serves a variety of patients with such terminal diseases as cancer, end-stage lung disease, endstage heart disease, stroke/coma, end-stage liver disease, HIV/AIDS and endstage alzheimers disease, among others. Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance pays for most hospice patients, although no patient is ever turned away for inability to pay. In addition to providing pain management and nursing services, the hospice also provides spiritual support, counseling, full-time social workers and bereavement for up to 13 months for families of deceased individuals.

"We Care Hospice is very excited about the Mississippi Department of Corrections' plans to provide premier hospice care for terminally-ill inmates," says Donna Coleman, Clinical Patient Coordinator. "Inmates, like any other segment of the population, deserve the best palliative care and support at the end of their lives."

While the Mississippi Department of Corrections has used and will continue to use hospices like We Care

Hospice, some suffering prisoners do not qualify for Conditional Medical Release.

Dr. Liddell and the state are working towards in-prison opportunities to provide the care these prisoners deserve.

One of the first steps in this process will be training fellow inmates to volunteer within the hospice program.

Currently, volunteers at hospices work to provide friendship and assistance with everyday activities.

Though in its early stages, in-patient opportunities and hospice care for Mississippi inmates has a bright future.

"We will continue moving our agency toward this goal. We are confident in the reality of an exceptional prison hospice program being established in our state," Liddell said. But Mississippi is just one example of the innovations beginning across the county.

Several prison systems in the United States have begun to build exceptional hospice programs, which include chapels and an extensive network of prisoner volunteers.

It is the hope of many prison advocates that these services will become universal, ensuring that U.S. prisoners no longer have to die alone.

To contact the Mississippi Department of Corrections Office of Medical Compliance, phone 601-359-5162 or visit www.mdoc.state.ms.us.

To contact We Care Hospice, phone 228-474-2030 or visit www.wecarehospice.com

Fortune News | Summer 2005 | 15

and

PASS IT ON...

Observations from Prison Old-T Timers RIGHTS? WHAT RIGHTS?

BY David G. Hoffman, a prisoner in Texas

"This is a court of law, young man," said Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a turn of the 20th Century jurist, "not a court of justice." No one knows this better than we who sit in prison cells across America. Whether you "did it" or not - you're in prison now - and you're likely a victim of the system in some way. But all is not lost, we can fight and we can win. The key is taking initiative and learning how.

Remember: nobody owes us anything. If our rights are worth having they are worth fighting for. We're prisoners, but we shouldn't be content to be doormats for the American criminal justice system. Like all citizens of this country, we have rights that are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. It's our obligation - through legal channels - to demand that the system recognize and accommodate them.

I graduated from Blackstone Career Institute in 2003 with a Legal Assistant/Paralegal Certificate. I highly recommend this course to anyone - prisoner and free citizen alike who wants to learn about America's legal system. It covers criminal, civil, business and constitutional law. Still, I realize all prisoners can't afford this course. I couldn't have but for some dear friends.

There are, however, more economical ways of educating yourself about the law.

Here are two of my favorites: The Jailhouse Lawyer's Handbook 4th Edition, a stepby-step guide to bringing a Cartoon by Miguel Ortiz federal lawsuit 16 | Fortune News | Summer 2005

to challenge violations of your rights in prison, and is published by the Center for Constitutional Rights. Another handy resource is the Prison & Jail Accountability Project's Prisoner Resource Guide, published by the ACLU of Texas. Although compiled specifically for Texas prisoners, it has good general information for incarcerated individuals all across the country.

Prison litigation is hard work, but with a little study it's not impossible to fight and win. As John Mortimer says in Clinging to the Wreckage, "the law seems like a sort of maze through which a client must be led to safety, a collection of reefs, rocks, and underwater hazards through which he or she must be piloted." We don't have pilots for the maze. So, get off those bunks and education yourselves. You can't whine about rights if you're not willing to fight for them.

SERVING TIME IN AMERICA: Some Insights for You

BY Jerry H. Wood, a 64-year-old prisoner in Pennsylvania

In a nutshell, here is what you, as an inmate, can do for prison reform: support the advocacy groups. They are making progress. There are more prison advocacy groups today than ever before in history. They are staffed by men and women (often volunteers) who are your unsung heroes. Law professors, bar associations, civil rights activists - these individuals are taking a second look at what is really happening. You need to support this movement however you can.

Make sacrifices. Give up a few bags of chips or some juices. Use state soap, wear issued shoes and boots (put your sneaker money to good use), give up that cable for a few months, cut back on costly jacked-up phone bills. Do your share. There is hope. Join the team and invest what you can in your future.

Photo by Ron Levine

LIVE AND LEARN

PASSING IT ON

BY Alden Redfield, a prisoner in Missouri

I've been able to participate in a few programs since I've been incarcerated and every one has given me good ideas, clever concepts and wise sayings and insights. Over and over I hear inmates ask, "How do we get rid of false pride, self-pity, practices of secrecy, lying and isolation?" The answer is simple: we have to change our perceptions, correct our thinking patterns, and build good habits instead of bad ones. One of the most effective ways of doing this is to communicate with the outside world. Tell your story. Share what you've learned with others.

Here are five suggestions for doing so: 1. Give talks. In prison or later on the streets, you can be a "program presenter." Take part in Toastmaster speeches, or speak to groups to which you belong, like the NAACP or in church.

2. Write articles on recovery, change and growth. Send them to the Fortune News or any other newsletters you read.

Some inmates' families or groups even have websites which present prisoner's writings to the public.

3. Get on a public forum. This may seem easier said than done while in prison, but my cellmate Michael had a newspa per column for 5 years. Another friend repeatedly talks on a Midwestern radio call-in program. Three men I've met were interviewed at different times by various TV news programs and broadcast nationally. It can be done.

4. Write a book or draw cartoons, compose poems or songs. If you have a talent in some field, use it. Perhaps it will take years to get a book published, but by using the Internet (with the help from outside friends) you will be able to make it available to the public.

5. Let people see how you act. Your actions will speak louder than words and may be more believable.

But if I could only offer you one piece of advice, it would be this: you're more than the worst thing that you've ever done. Now spend each day trying to make yourself better.

RESOURCES * The Jailhouse Lawyer's Handbook: How to Bring a Federal Lawsuit to Challenge Violations of Your Rights in Prison.

This Handbook is a resource for prisoners who wish to file a Section 1983 lawsuit in federal court regarding poor conditions in prison and/or abuse by prison staff. It also contains limited information about legal research and the American legal system. The Handbook is available for free to anyone: prisoners, lawyers, families, friends, activists and others.

To receive a copy in the mail, please contact:

National Lawyers Guild 143 Madison Avenue, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10016

*Prison & Jail Accountability Project (PJAP) PJAP monitors prison and jail conditions and fights to open the prison system to public scrutiny, with the ultimate goal of replacing judicial oversight with effective citizen oversight. At the same time, PJAP recognizes that sometimes lawsuits are necessary to safeguard prisoners' rights, and therefore helps prisoners and lawyers as resources permit. For a copy of their Prisoners Resource Guide, please write:

PJAP P.O. Box 3629 Austin, Texas, 78764 *Blackstone Career Institute

*Prison Legal News (PLN) PLN is an independent, 48 page magazine which has published monthly since 1990 and which reports on the human rights of prisoners primarily in United States detention facilities but also of prisoners around the world. Subscriptions are $18/yr for prisoners, 25/yr for non-incarcerated individuals, and $60/yr for lawyers, government agencies and corporations. Subscription requests (along with the appropriate check or money order) are accepted at:

Prison Legal News 2400 NW 80th Street #148 Seattle, WA 98117-4449 *The Fortune News The Fortune News has served as a mouthpiece for the prison community for nearly forty years. This publication accepts articles from prisoners across the country on a variety of topics. Submissions can be sent to:

The Fortune Society/Fortune News 53 W. 23rd Street New York, NY 10010

Blackstone offers a Legal Assistant/Paralegal certificate for those interested in home study. This program has provided legal training since 1890, and has the distinction of being the nation's first and oldest distance education training school. For information, please write:

Blackstone Career Institute 218 Main Street, P.O. Box 899 Emmaus, PA 18049-0899 *American Friends Service Committee The American Friends Service Committee carries out service, development, social justice, and peace programs throughout the world. One of their publications, "Survival in Solitary" is an excellent manual written by and for prisoners in control units. $2 (Available free of charge to people in prison.)

Mail your order to: AFSC, Literature Resources Unit 1501 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102 Fortune NewsNews 17 Fortune News | |Winter/Spring 2005| 17 Summer Fortune | Spring2005 2003 17

YOUR NEXT ISSUE OF FORTUNE NEWS WILL BE YOUR LAST. For this year, anyway.

Everyday, The Fortune Society works to make the criminal justice system more humane and effective. Through our direct service and advocacy work, we help prisioners and ex-prisoners improve their lives, giving them hope for a better future.

We take this responsibility seriously, and are especially proud of the work we do through the Fortune News.

However, limitations in our budget have required that we cut our 2005 publishing schedule from four issues to three. The Fortune News relies on donor support for production. By reducing the number of issues printed this year, we can continue to provide the journal free to inmates all across the country.

Your financial support helps us make our work possible.

We hope you will use the enclosed envelope to make a contribution to The Fortune Society.

Planned Giving Bequests and other planned gifts are an excellent way for caring individuals to continue to make a difference once they are gone. Planned gifts are an important part of Fortune’s fundraising efforts and we have developed a program - The Legacy Circle - for those who have notified us of their intention to make a planned gift.

If you would like more information about how to make a bequest or other planned gift, or want to notify Fortune of your intention to make a planned gift and join The Legacy Circle, please contact our Development Office by either calling (212) 691-7554 ext. 526, emailing brobinson@fortunesociety.org, or utilizing the enclosed reply envelope.

18 | Fortune News | Summer 2005

THE PRISON DIARIES

Summer Days BY: JEFFREY D. JINKS

Being incarcerated doesn't

Cookout days start out early in the morning for me, leave much room to feel because the first smells to humanized. In just a short greet my cell are those of the period of time, the prison big barrel-shaped grills being environment can easily make fired up and pre-heated. The a man forget he's a man. food is wonderful: grilled The constant structure in our hamburger patties and hot lives, the lack of movement dogs with watermelon quarand female companionship, ters and corn on the cob. If the inability to provide for our you know the right people, families, the strict schedules you can get a couple pieces that permit showering only at of smuggled cheese to throw certain times all contribute to on your burger. (One year this feeling. the menu was However, those of even altered us doing time For those few little slightly to include behind the walls moments when I am both barbequed in the Indiana chicken and ribs.)

State Prison have eating and reminisc The guards open ing, I can just briefly a chance to up the whole escape from this drop my guard, recreation yard to dreadful existence loosen up and feel us and allow sevthree times a like a human again.. eral different year. It's a wink inmate bands to of time, really, but play. The men in it means everything. the bands practice all year I'm talking about our round just to come out on Memorial Day, July Fourth, the stage to display their taland Labor Day cookouts. ents. I once had a cellmate These days - three out of who was in a rock band and every 365 - have really helped he was always talking about make my time tolerable. It's the new songs they wrote, or like Christmas for a small how they were able to have a child, but my Christmas really productive practice sescomes three times a year. sion, or how they achieved These days are ours, the conthe sound that they had really victs', for the most part. We been looking for. I imagine run on a holiday schedule; that these cookout days are there is no school, minimum even more special to these work, and only the necessary men than they are for me -shops are open. Interestingly quite a lot of sweat, blood enough, the cookouts are and practice is invested in never on the actual holiday, their tri-yearly performances. as that would interfere too The day before cookout greatly with the guard's plans day a corrections officer will with their friends and families, come by each man's cell and so we usually have our celegive him one little raffle ticket. bration about two weeks (It may be red, green, gray, or later. This year we had the blue - having an assortment Memorial Day cookout on of colors prevents counterJune 10th; I am not sure feits.) This ticket is your when we will have the July admittance into the recreation Fourth cookout, but we have gate and, in essence, the been ticket to a meal on the grill. re-assured that it will eventuThe staff has devised a fairly ally happen. foolproof system to eliminate

line buckers and doubleuppers with cameras and radios. Because of the stringent security the guards employ during these cookouts, I have seen one of these raffles and admittance tickets go for five dollars and two rolled cigarettes.

Personally, you couldn't give me fifty dollars and a pound of tobacco for my ticket to this little window of freedom. After those bars roll and I go stand in line to receive my picnic plate of goodies, the conversation invariably strays to a time

when we were all free and hanging out with friends and family. Those memories transport all of us out from behind these walls for a brief snippet of time. After receiving our meals we find a little corner patch of grass out in the softball field as far away from the guards as possible.

For those few little moments when I am eating and reminiscing, I can just briefly drop my guard, loosen up and feel like a human again.

The Prison Diaries is a re-occuring column that describes the day-today realities of life on the inside.

PAPER NAPKINS Unfoldin’ the paper napkin she wiped the table clean Buffin’ at imaginary spots until the table took a sheen Before layin’ the menu out opened wide and fingerin’ every price While continuin’ to polish at the very same time a spoon...a fork...a knife...

Then with a nod to the waitress standin’ by she ordered a slice of lemon pie and a cup of coffee, NOT TOO HOT with cream and sugar packets And if no bother, she added Please, another paper napkin.

Which she folded and slid into her shoe when she thought no one was aware to patch the hold within her sole she could not have repaired.

And after finishin’ the sweet repast savorin’ every crumb unto the last She gathered her bag up from the floor and with a glance ‘round the diner arose and hurried out the door Leavin’ the unpaid bill behind her.

And in her haste to be away as she rushed along the street she sped through puddles spottin’ the pavement soaking the napkin she’d just #636416* replaced. *Name withheld at the request of the author.

Fortune News | Summer 2005 | 19

EYE ON F Staff Recognition, Program STAFF RECOGNITION Yolanda Morales

In April 2003, when her five-year sentence for drug conspiracy ended, Yolanda Morales came straight to The Fortune Society.

While still in prison, she requested and received a letter of Reasonable Assurance (RA) from Fortune. RA letters offer to provide re-entry services to prisoners who come to Fortune after they are released and parole officers see them as a sign that a releasee is making an effort to link to services that will help them transition back to their communities. In the letter, Yolanda read about all the services Fortune provided and wanted to see if it was real. To her surprise, she found that the letter was true.

She immediately enrolled in Fortune's Career Yolanda Morales is at home in her office.

Development program.

After completing the workshop she began volunteering in Fortune's Alternatives to Incarceration program and working as a telemarketer at another company. She desperately wanted to get back into counseling and she wanted to work at Fortune. Before her life went off track, she had been a counselor. She had earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Long Island University and had taken classes towards a Masters degree at Columbia University.

After eight months she secured a counselor's position at Fortune. Four months later, she was promoted to supervise counselors in a new pre-treatment program. Now Yolanda helps to prepare former prisoners for substance abuse treatment, and she mentors and supervises other counselors doing similar work. Her talent and hard work have made Fortune's new pre-treatment program a success. Nancy Lopez, her supervisor, says that "Yolanda's dedication and commitment to her staff and clients is remarkable."

Yolanda is also taking part in a number of important projects outside of Fortune. She helped plan and produce "A Summit for Formerly Incarcerated Women," where she spoke about Women in Transition. Yolanda is also a New York State Delegate for Dress for Success, a group that empowers and trains people to find and keep employment. She was recently honored for her work at a Dress for Success luncheon.

Keynote speaker, Patti Labelle, was so moved by Yolanda's story that she offered to sing any song she wanted. When Yolanda requested "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," Ms. Labelle, true to her word, performed a beautiful rendition.

Yolanda is excited by her work at The Fortune Society and her other interests. Seeing clients grow inspires her to continue her own journey. She is also determined to go back and complete her Masters in Social Work degree that she started all those years ago.

20 | Fortune News | Summer 2005

CITY GOVERNMENT COMES TO FORTUNE

August was a hot month here at The Fortune Society (and not just because of the soaring temperatures and stifling humidity!)

With New York City primaries just around the corner, we took the opportunity to invite candidates from all across the ballot and political ideology - to visit our offices and speak to staff and clients. These events are part of our newly launched Speaker's Forum, an initiative of the David Rothenberg Center for Public Education, which aims to educate the public about The Fortune Society and criminal justice issues and ultimately have an impact on criminal justice policy.

Four of our most recent visitors included Fernando Ferrer, Democratic candidate for Mayor of New York, Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder, former State Supreme Court Judge, currently running for Manhattan District Attorney, and Assemblyman Scott Stringer and Councilman Bill Perkins, both candidates for Manhattan Borough President. Each of these politicians took time out of their busy campaign schedules to meet with staff and clients, informing them about the issues and addressing any questions they might have.

These discussions were particularly noteworthy for David Rothenberg, Fortune's founder. "It's important to invite politicians to our offices because it lets our clients know that their lives and opinions matter," he says. "We work with a population that is ignored and dismissed by society; people are full of misconceptions about what former prisoners are like. When the candidates visit they are impressed with our client's passion for politics and the sophistication of Fernando Ferrer with David Rothenberg the questions that are asked. I think they expect us to just be concerned about prison, but we address the full spectrum of issues that concern our population, namely housing, health care, and education."

Although some of our clients are currently disenfranchised because of their involvement in the criminal justice system, everyone recognized the importance of opening up a dialogue with government officials. "I can't vote but my cousin can," one client remarked. "I'm here today because I want to make sure that the city pays attention to the issues that are important to my family."

The primary elections in New York City are scheduled for Tuesday, September 13th. The general elections will be held on November 8th.

Pictures from the candidtates visits are displayed on the following page.

FORTUNE Profiles, Exceptional Clients

Stringer addresses Fortune clients

Judge Synder talks one-on-one with a client

Bill Perkins visit Fortune staff offices

Photographs by Barry Campbell, Kristen Kidder and Brian Robinson

DAVID ROTHENBERG TALKS WITH PABLO, FORTUNE ACADEMY RESIDENT Pablo served twenty-six consecutive years in prison; he was released from the system earlier this year at the age of sixty-two.

David Rothenberg, founder of The Fortune Society, spoke with Pablo about specific issues facing older inmates in the New York State penitentiary.

Fortune News: Do older inmates stick together while in prison?

Pablo: Prison is a community within a community, not surprisingly divided by racial and ethnic backgrounds. The old timers tend to hang together, but with people of their own race or ethnic group.

FN: What kind of influences do older prisoners have on younger or newer inmates?

P: Well, there are positive and negative influences. In my case, I tried to help younger guys by encouraging them to get involved in educational programs or therapy. But not too many older guys try to have an impact. The negative influences are strong. For example, if a prison-wise drug dealer has to move his product around, he doesn't want to take chances. So he'll get a younger, more vulnerable guy to take the risks for him, someone who wants or needs recognition.

FN: Are there any special health needs for older inmates?

P: It's difficult to get the care you need. Older inmates, like people on the street, have liver ailments, high cholesterol, and elevated blood pressure. The last facility I was in had over eight hundred inmates and only one doctor. I bled internally for thirteen days with a stomach ulcer. The Catholic Deacon had to take me to a civilian hospital for treatment. I was shackled and handcuffed in the civilian hospital while being treated.

FN: In your experience, do you think that older inmates (men over sixty) sentenced to twenty or more years have their release dates pushed up to reduce prison crowding?

P: Definitely on a case-by-case basis, after considering their crime and what they have done to better themselves while in

prison. The system does not prepare you for coming out.

They have televisions all over the place and weight rooms - the sort of activities that pacify inmates and keep them under control. But little is done to get them ready to come out.

FN: What steps should be taken for an old-ttimer coming out after spending many years behind bars?

P: Like most prisoners in re-entry, the first ninety days are crucial. Elderly former prisoners should be sent to a place like the Fortune Academy to get adjusted and to help them prepare for that transition to civilian life. Elderly inmates must have a place to stay. The old guys rarely have anyone left on the outside and they are sent to a shelter. That is a guarantee they will be back in prison in thirty days.

FN: What has changed in New York prisons since you first went in, during the late 1970s?

P: I entered prison in 1979. At that time, I had an opportunity for education and was able to take college classes. Those opportunities no longer exist. The system doesn't even insist that inmates earn a GED or high school diploma. We are creating a generation of hard core criminals.

FN: What about visits, mail and contact with relatives for the older guys?

P: I was very fortunate. My two daughters, my stepson and my sisters all stayed in touch with me through my twenty-six years of incarceration. But I watched other guys who were not as lucky. After three years, most inmates lose everyone wives, relatives, friends. After a while, loved ones on the outside either die or move on with their lives. Almost any inmate who does a lot of time comes out to no one.

Fortune News | Summer 2005 | 21

PEN America Center 2005 Prison Writing Contest Winning Manuscripts Live! - From Texas Death Row! Non-Fiction Winner By: Christopher Best Livingston, Texas

I just got off work. I hate my job. I never want to go back, but it's not an option. I can't quit and I can't get fired. I'm a Texas prisoner and I work on death row.

I'm what Texas calls a Support Service Inmate. In plain talk, I'm a stateapproved janitor. The guys on death row used to clean up their own place, but after an escape and a hostage-taking incident the condemned stay locked down. They bring in a few of us short-timers from GP, general population. (I'm not proud to say I'm doing a few years for beating up my ex for cheating.)

You may know that, as governor, President Bush signed 147 death warrants, more than any American since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976. No one need wonder where the culture of depravity and love of death surrounding Abu Ghraib comes from. It was born in Texas, where O. Lane McCotter was the Texas prison director back when inmates were forced to perch on empty, overturned vegetable tins for hours on end, like the hooded, wire-dangling Iraqi at McCotter's Abu Ghraib.

Every day I confront blood and its consequences. The names herein have been

changed to protect the living and the dead. As a worker on death row I am a member of the death society.

Our local death society is a building full of folks waiting to move on to the next stage of their lives: death. Methods of coping range from quiet meditation to anti-death penalty activism, from writing to appeals to a Higher Law. There is ministry. There is gang activity. There is every shade of selfish and generous motivations and acts.

Hector, for example, arrived on death row in 1999.

The only things in his cell were a mattress and pillow, sheathed in hard, crinkly Texas Department of Criminal Justice mattress factory blue plastic, a couple of stained sheets and an even blacker pillowcase, a small and virtually useless cell towel, a partial roll of toilet paper and a prickly wool blanket. At that time, death row inhabitants worked the jobs. One of them was sweeping the run when he came to Hector's cell.

"Whadda they call ya, newboot?"

Hector told him and the worker stepped back from his cell door so he could be seen from all three tiers. He hollered to everyone, "New man here!" An hour later the worker returned, saying nothing this time but clandestinely

22 || Fortune Fortune News 2005 22 News | Winter/Spring | Summer 2005

sweeping a brown paper bag into Hector's cell. Hector guardedly opened the bag and peered in. He found stamps, envelopes, a notepad, pen, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, a toothbrush, a Dolly Madison pastry, a can of Big Red soda and a pack of Ramen noodles.

"That was the last thing I expected," Hector told me.

"They did that for a stranger."

He continued, "What did I find in that sack? I found care. I found kindness, love, compassion and humanity."

Hector told me this story as he finished adding his small contribution to a new paper bag. He tossed it to the floor, to be swept into the house of the newest member of the death society.

TDCJ's guards are reluctant members of the death society. Most do a good job.

A few do a "nothing" job.

Some guards do all they can to humanize death row and beat back death's descent with small favors. Maybe it takes the form of a piece of Texas pecan pie.

Cigarettes were outlawed several years ago, but some of the guys who get real close to their execution dates have a last smoke or two. The best guards avoid the pettiness of the bureaucracy.

Most convicts on death row understand the guards have to make a living. A few men hate everyone in gray, almost as a

matter of revolutionary principle. It's a sick kind of hate that also extends to society, America and all symbols of freedom. The vast majority of these guys are guilty as sin and the vileness of their crimes manifests itself in a bitterness toward anything human.

Some of the guys appreciate that the guards are their only glimpse of free society: What did you watch on TV last night? Did Guns 'n Roses ever release that album? Did your kid pass his math test?

What does that new low-carb beer taste like? Every answer or response plied from the keepers is an affirmation of everyone's humanity. It's reciprocal. It's vital.

The more I work here, the more my barriers toward America's forsaken come down. On days when I am the only human a death row prisoner interacts with, it affects me as well as him. He understands that my time with him is short, so he'll often cram as much conversation as possible into mere minutes. It's not that he's in a hurry to die; he's in a hurry to live to the fullest.

He won't just tell you his life story, he'll plead it. He desperately seeks some understanding. If I give him that,

Cartoon by Arkee Chaney

then the whole world has done the same.

Forty-seven days before his execution date, Reece shares his being. "I've thought many a night about what happens after death," he begins, like many before him. "I can't help but feel there is consciousness after death, but I don't know exactly what's waiting for me. What you don't know can be scary. It's been giving me some wild dreams," I've heard this, too, I was thinking. Then Reece departed from the script.

"You know, nothing compares to the fear, and the hurt, when I look in my Daddy's eyes." I look at Reece--something I normally avoid in these sessions. His bottom lip is shivering. His eyes are teary and he turns away from me.

"I got a peace about dying," he says. "I really do." It occurs to me that I am listening to Reece's last meaningful words. He turns to me again, eyes wiped.

"My Daddy visits a lot more than he used to. We're close. Tight--is that what they say nowadays?" He laughs faintly. "This is my third execution date they've set. Whenever it happens, I spend countless hours reliving that look in my Daddy's eyes."

There's an unseen force squeezing the life out of Reece, ironically when he is in his most intensely human condition. He's struggling, but the pain is overtaking him. He blurts out, "I'm so sorry I killed those people. I didn't even think about their own family, but if I did, I wouldn't have done it!"

Reece is overcome by remorse and grief. There is nothing I can do. He knows it. I walk away.

MASCARA Fiction Winner

BY Terrance D. Robinson Napanoch, NY

When the cell door opened I was deep in a comfortable sleep. My eyes opened on instinct alone. There could only be one of several reasons for this blasphemous intrusion: a property, medical or library pass, cell search, new cell-mate, or my door was opened by mistake.

Facing the wall, I lay there with the anticipation of a game show contestant poised to discover which it would be. An electric dial tone came over the intercom and I waited to hear my name. Instead, the amplified voice announced that we would be coming out for recreation and showers in ten minutes. Perhaps my door was opened by mistake after all. I debated on whether or not I even wanted to go out for rec. I was knackered after having spent the previous night reading a collection of sci-fi stories. That venture had lasted clear until four in the morning. When you have yet to be assigned a cellmate you can read for as long as you please and just sleep off the exhaustion the next day. I peeked at the door. Should I bother to shut it or let the tier officer do his job? Decisions, decisions!

Regardless, I knew there was no way I could just lay there without knowing for sure what was going on.

I fitfully pulled myself from under the sheets, shivering when a bit of cold air touched my bare skin. I was clad only in a pair of boxer briefs. I reached into the compartment under the bunk, randomly searching for something to put on. Once upon a time, a metal dresser filled this compartment, but the Administration removed them

after it was discovered that some of the inmates were playing pin-the-tail on their enemies. It was a pain in the ass at first. However, they were kind enough to leave our lockers and desk intact.

So, being human, we adapted.

Having cleaned myself up and donning a pair of socks, sweat-pants, and red T-shirt that boasted GOYA ECI 2000 SOCCER CHAMPS in white iron-on lettering that was beginning to flake away like dandruff, I stepped into a pair of shower shoes that had seen better days (probably at the hands of an eight-yearold peasant in China.) I dragged on towards the door, slid it fully open, peeking out into the hall. Sam, the laundry man, was sitting before the washer and dryer reading a Tom Clancy novel, his lips moving soundlessly over the words. His mug sat neglected on the washer, a silent advertisement for Maxwell House coffee (good to the last drop). Sam's pale and bony legs were crossed so tightly, I couldn't help squirming with discomfort.

"Any idea why they popped my door?" I asked.

The old man started at my voice, sitting rigid in his seat, his head spinning like a dis-oriented beacon. His eyes landed on me and he visibly relaxed.

"The war's over, mate." I put on a smug smile.

"You scared the hell outa' me, English!" he scolded.

The state specs made him look bug-eyed and ridiculous.

He squinted at me. "What're you doin' out anyway? Your laundry day's Monday."

"Talk to the Man," I said, pointing to the control bubble

where the guards who were supposed to be guarding us lounged behind the thick glass like prostitutes.

Sam moved his mouth in a way I've come to associate with People of Age. He looked like a housefly examining a turd for corn bits. Then he turned and made his way towards the bubble. He waved his equally pale and bony arms to try and get the guard's attention, the novel in his hand resembling a large brick. It's a good thing the old man's life wasn't in danger because they never batted an eye his way. He kept this up until he either came to his senses or his arms were about to pop off. His skinny arms dropped and he vanished into the foyer and out of sight.

"Hey, cell three! 'Mere for a minute!" Someone down the hall was calling for me.

There is always that one person who just sits by his door, waiting to coax some poor soul to play errand boy.

Fetch me hot water. Get this.

Get that. Pass this to cell such-and-such. Who cares if it's two time zones away?

And it didn't matter that the entire housing unit would be coming out in under seven minutes; it didn't matter at all.

I ignored him.

"Hey, cell three!" He called again. "It won't take long!"

Yeah, yeah! Just the next two days or so!

I was about to step back into the safety of the cell when I saw Sam returning, accompanied by an ear-toear Cheshire Cat grin that exposed his remaining coffeestained teeth.

"What's up, Lewis Carroll?" I asked.

"You're getting' a new cellie," he said, standing too close. "After three weeks, you were due for one."

"Yeah, and it's still too soon," I cranked.

CONTINUED ON PAGE

24

Fortune News | Summer Fortune News | Winter/ Spring 2005 2005 | 2323 23

MASCARA 23 No matter how institutionalized you are, there is a part of you that panics whenever you get a new cell-mate. It's enough to drive you mad! So much anxiety! Was the guy an asshole? Could you hear him sleeping in Burma? Does he hear voices that command him to wake in the middle of the night and parade naked round the cell? Getting a new cell-mate is like CONTINUED ON PAGE 24 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 21 a demented parody of The Price is Right: Charlie, tell him what he's won!

To quote Forrest Gump: "You never know what you're going to get."

"Any idea who it is?" I asked, silently pleading with the Fates to let it be Halle Berry or Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Sam was stuck on GRIN. He leant against the wall, folding his bony arms, revealing a tattoo of Smurfette performing an act I don't recall ever seeing in the original cartoon series. "He's from lockup," he answered.

"Oh, that's just great, isn't it?"

Fates be damned!

To understand the issue at hand here, an illustration: Let's say Sam and I are neighbors in a middle-class suburb. We're both standing at the dividing fence having a neighborly chat in the garden.

Perhaps we're dressed in shorts that shame our wives and make our children puke every time we're near. Our conversation would likely go as follows: SAM: "I heard you're getting a new neighbor."

ME: "Really? What's he like?"

SAM: "He just got out of prison!"

Lock-up is the prison within the prison. Anyone coming from lock-up is sure to be trouble. They're welcomed in much the same CONTINUED FROM PAGE

way society embraces exfelons. There is fear, anxiety, prejudice, loathing, and apprehension - to name a few. It's a "there goes the neighborhood" mentality prevalent in all cultures and social classes.

"Why was he in lock-up?"

I asked.

"Beats me, English," he replied, shrugging. If at all possible, his grin widened.

"That's what you get for scaring old men."

I shooed him away and slipped back into the cell.

It was my own fault really.

Three weeks without a cellmate is a record, by prison standards. I had more than enough time to find a suitable cell-mate. Those I did inquire about were happily planted with their current arrangements or couldn't move until they had committed six months to a cell (institution rules - God help you if you and your cell-mate didn't get on.) I had no intentions of asking any of the hoppers to accommodate me with their loud boom-boxes and endless supply of gangsta rap. With very few options available, I let nature take her course.

And she did; all over me.

***** I'm an Equal Opportunity Prisoner. I can get along with just about anyone, provided they aren't idiots. We all know the idiots. The idiots harbor absolutely no regard for anyone but themselves. They're the ones who swipe your parking space when you aren't watching. In prison they're just as callous. And you never want to be cursed to have to live with one!

After three weeks with Aaron, it was evident that he definitely was not an idiot. In fact, he was one of the more respectful and unselfish cellmates I've encountered.

Such cell-mates are hard to

24 News | |Winter/Spring Summer 2005 24 || Fortune Fortune News 2005

come by and you instinctively try and hold on to them as long as possible.

Unfortunately rumors about Aaron floated round the prison like rabid dust motes.

Harsh and demeaning rumors. The gossip made me furious, but Aaron took this all in stride. He said he was used to it, that he dealt with ignorance all his life. He assured me that he's heard every homophobic term known to Merriam Webster.

Sometimes I had to build upon his quiet acceptance just to keep myself in check.

***** My table card expertise is limited to Uno and Old Maid.

So Aaron taught me how to play two-hand solitaire. We sat with the desk between us, me on my bunk, him in the chair. It was 9:30pm and most everyone else was the day room. Aaron and I opted to stay in and watch a documentary about Lawrence of Arabia on PBS. We ended up skipping the show and playing cards instead, the tallies left silent and forgotten.

We submerged ourselves in the quiet little chats cellmates often engage in from time to time: home, family, politics, school. The longer we talked, the more respect for him I gained. "…get out of here and go to college," he was saying.

"What's your major?"

He shrugged. "I don't know yet. Probably something with computers." A silence settled between us as he put down a two of diamonds.

I broke in. "I'm curious.

Why were you on lock-up? I don't picture you as the sort who enjoys breaking people off at the knees." Aaron's giggle manifested itself. He pressed his fingers to his mouth like a snickering princess. He quieted himself.

"I used to be on the medical tier in five," he explained.

"But, I was moved to make

room for 'someone who needs it'." He formed quotations with his fingers. His countenance fell slightly as his hands sunk to the desk.

"The guy they put me in the cell with…." He paused.

"Stop looking that way! It's not what you think!"

I had made an exaggerated motion of wiping sweat from my brow with the back of my hand. "Whew!"

A hint of a smile from Aaron. He explained, "All this guy could talk about was faggot-this and faggot-that." He placed a four of hearts under a five of clubs, took a sip from his Pepsi. "I just got tired of hearing it!"

"So you dotted his eyes?"

"Nothing that dramatic," he laughed. "I just refused to lock in with him. I told the tier officer what was going on. She basically said…"

"Deal with it or take a ticket for refusing housing," I finished for him. "I've been there before. Not fun."

He nodded, pulling a sliver of hair behind his ear.

"They put me in the strip cell." Aaron hugged himself at the memory. "It was freezing! They took everything except my socks. They wouldn't even give me a blanket to keep warm with."

"And we're the criminals."

Aaron nodded his agreement before sipping at his soda.

Every once in a while, some poor inmates gets caught in the cross-hairs of the Administration, drawing sympathy from some of the meanest of felons. We don't like to see inmates suffer at the hands of the Administration, who hide behind their power. Even if the victim happens to be an enemy, we take his side.

Sure, we'd love to rip off the twerp's head and play kickball with it, but we don't want to see anything bad happen to him. It's a love-hate relationship.

Much like family.

ORAL HISTORIES: Extraordinary Stories, Ordinary Lives BY: Eric Appleton Narratives Courtesy of John Robinson and Willard Wilk In February and March of 2005, the Fortune Society Education Unit conducted an oral history project with the intention of documenting the life histories of the people who come through our doors. Facilitated by Professor Gerry Albarelli from The New School and Sarah Lawrence College, this most recent series of oral history recording sessions were followed up by a memoir writing class for clients.

Hundreds of stories were collected on hours and hours of tape during this process. Staff and clients shared tales of youth, work, sickness, struggle and hope. The narratives that follow, reprinted with the permission of their authors, are just two example of the memories and diverse life histories that were shared.

JOHN ROBINSON’S STORY:

I was born April 7, 1944, Brooklyn, New York. I never had a chance to meet my father so I was raised by a stepfather. My younger years I spent in a hospital most of the time. I had rheumatic fever, so I was in and out of the hospital. I was skinny coming up, you know, a lot of people used to pick on me because I wouldn't fight back. A lot of people thought it was because of my illness, but I was a timid guy.

I didn't have a lot of fight in me. I was more like the peacemaker. I tried to stop a lot of fights. You know, a lot of times I got hurt behind it. People thought I was scared because I wouldn't fight back. For a long time I didn't fight and my cousins used to pick on me.

Well, I had a cousin a couple years older than I was.

He used to just punch on me and tell me hit him back. I wouldn't do it. So he would hit me real, real hard. You know how somebody hits you really hard trying to make you punch him back? I never would do that. Then one day we went to the park with another one of our cousins. It's called Marcus Garvey Park on the east side. They have a bell tower in there and my two cousins took me to the bell tower and hung me up in the bell tower and left me there by myself until somebody came and got me down.

They tied me up on the rope, you know, on the bell tower. The bell tower has a spiral staircase. Well, there's a spot right there where they can tie you up with a rope and just leave you there and nobody will see you because you'll be hidden behind the bell. And they left me there for about three or four hours until somebody came up and turned me loose.

I think I might have been about eleven years old.

These two cousins were always hitting me and doing things to me, you know, tying me up and taking me somewhere and then just leaving me there by myself and I had to find my own way back home. That made a lot of difference in my life. That's when I became a survivor. And I started fighting.

First fight I had I started crying. I went home crying and my stepfather told me if I didn't go out and beat that guy, he was going to whip my ass. So I went out. That was my first taste of blood.

Well, I went out and fought the guy again. When I fought him the second time I beat him -- I beat him more out of

fear than anything else because I was scared of my stepfather.

I was like six-foot-one and I only weighed a hundred and sixtyone pounds. But my stepfather weighted two hundred and something pounds, you know, about two ten, two fifteen. But when he drank, that's when you would see all the evilness come out of him.

After a while I noticed how the alcohol was starting to take control of him. He'd yell at my sisters, yell at me, yell at my mother. He struck my sisters a couple of times, but he used to always beat on me saying that I was no good, that I was bad. That's when he told me that he didn't care about me because I wasn't his son anyway. I was about fourteen when he did that. And it kind of made me feel that I wasn't wanted.

Well, one day I came in the house and he and my mother were arguing, and it was the first time I ever saw him strike my mother. I was fourteen years old. And when he struck my mother, I hit him and told him, "Don't ever put your hands on my mother again." When he went in the back, I knew what he was going to get because we lived on the ground floor. He used to have a thirty-eight snub nose that he kept between the mattress and the box spring. And I knew he was going to get it and my mother was trying to get me out of the house because she knew he was going to shoot me. I finally got out of the house and was running down the block when he shot behind me. He didn't hit me, but he just shot behind me, you know, and told my mother that he never wanted me back in his house again as long as I lived because I had struck him.

WILLARD WILK’S STORY

I was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1961. I lived with my mom in Tivoli Gardens in the parish of western Kingston until I was twelve. At that time, due to our financial difficulty, I thought it would be best to live with my dad and stepmother over in Matthews Lane. I was my mother's eleventh child. There were times when I wanted certain things and my mom could not afford them. My father worked for the Jamaica Railway Corporation and he would work all week and be home on weekends; he would give my mother ten dollars to support the six of us. It was very difficult in those days and ten dollars could not support six kids with food and clothing and so forth.

So I decided I would live with my dad. It would be much more economical.

My father lived in a PNP stronghold, that's the People's National Party. And my Mother lived in a JLP stronghold. That's the Jamaica Labor Party. Those times were political and you could not live in one community and go to school in another community. By living with my father in Matthews Lane and going to school in Tivoli Gardens, I was accused of living in a PNP stronghold and going to school as a spy for the PNP. One evening around 6 o'clock, after I finished training for soccer, I thought, "Let me stop by my mom's and get something to eat so that by the time I reach my father's home my stomach would be full." I remember very clearly this day --it is something I will never forget in my life-- thirteen of my classmates accosted me and started talking to me. They asked me where I live and I told them and they said, "Why are you coming to this school? Are you a spy or something?" I said, "My mother and brothers live the entire time in Tivoli Gardens."

CONTINUED ON PAGE 27

Eventually they caught me and I was cornered and I decided to Fortune News | Summer 2005 | 25

EX LIBRIS

FORTUNE MEDIA REVIEWS Prisoners of Age Director: Stan Feingold Produced by Eyes Project Entertainment Group Canada, 2004, 48min

The subjects of Ron Levine's photographs do not have pretty faces. One has a gold front tooth and pock-marked skin. One has a fringe of white hair and a missing front tooth. Another has loose skin, thin gray hair and puffy bags under his eyes. All of them have eyes full of loss and too much experience.

Over the last several years, Levine took a series of portraits of elderly prisoners for a book and exhibition. An established photographer, Levine likes to photograph people whose lives are very different from his own. His camera, he says, is like a visa to get inside foreign lifestyles.

With this intention in mind, he visited geriatric prisons, where he photographed inmates and talked to them about their lives. Director Stan Feingold filmed the process of this project, in a moving documentary called Prisoners of Age. At a prison in Alabama and one in Canada, we watch Levine taking his portraits-the inmates pose, Levine clicks the shutter-and we see the finished product, the portraits. And although the subjects' faces aren't pretty, the photographs are suffused with a certain beauty, humanity and dignity.

If their faces aren't pretty, neither are their life stories.

As Levine snaps his pictures, he also talks to the men and hears their stories. Most of them have committed unspeakable crimes, largely

sex crimes and homicide. A particularly haunting story comes from Victor Hamilton, a white man who killed his lover with a hammer and gun in a drug-fueled altercation.

As he tells his story, the screen fills with impressionistic images, dramatized flashbacks: a small house, a hand with a razor organizing cocaine into lines. Hamilton has a bird-like face with pale blue eyes, thin lips, and an intense expression.

Tormented by remorse, he explains that he can never get closure because his victim is dead. He also simply misses the woman that he killed, a person he calls his soul mate.

Hamilton, who was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, will spend the rest of his days in a geriatric prison in Alabama, the Hamilton Institute for the Aged and Infirm. As Levine says, it's essentially "a nursing home with barbed wires around it." Indeed, it is far from the gritty, noisy, testosterone-soaked environment of the stereotypical prison.

There is almost a serenity in the scenes in the yard outside the squat brick building.

This mood is due in part to the filmmaker's artistic choices. Twangy blues music provides the soundtrack, and the shots are drenched in the southern light. But also, the pace is naturally slower for aged men, especially in the Deep South.

Levine's art director, Michael Wou, notes that the photographs are walking a fine line. "We don't want to demonize them," he says, "but we don't want to glorify them." They succeed brilliantly in striking this delicate balance. The photographs

26 News | |Spring 26 | Fortune Fortune News Summer 2003 2005

enable the inmates to express their humanity without romanticizing them. In most of the portraits, the men stare levelly into the camera, with dignity. They are not glamorous, but looking at the portraits, it is hard to argue that they should be forgotten, left to rot in prison.

The stories they tell walk the same fine line. They have been heavily shaped by their crimes, to some extent defined by them. In the film, they are identified by their names and their crimes, and most of their conversation centers on why they are in prison: the reasons, the consequences. But they are not reduced to their mistakes.

They also express their hopes and fears, their regrets and their anger-at themselves and, sometimes, the criminal justice system.

Victor Hamilton, while acknowledging the horror of his crime and accepting full responsibility, objects to his sentence. He believes it's a waste of taxpayer money for him to languish in prison. As we learn, it's much more expensive to keep an old inmate incarcerated than a young one, because of the extensive medical costs involved. The film touches on such policy-related issues, noting that the population of elderly prisoners will continue to grow unless we change our policies.

The second part of the film takes place at a prison in Ontario, which houses almost six hundred inmates-a tiny penitentiary by American standards, but the largest in our neighbor to the north.

Again, we hear heart-breaking stories from men who made horrific mistakes, causing both themselves and their

victims' families endless pain.

(Not all of these men are elderly, however, some are middle-aged.) Frequently drugs and alcohol play an instrumental role in these accounts. As one tattoo-covered man with a ponytail says, "Why would I want to drink? Last time I drank, two people ended up dead and I'm doing life. Why would I want that?"

Rather than making pronouncements, the film leaves the judgments to the audience. It shows us these men and tells us their stories, but does not tell us what to think.

Despite the revulsion we must feel at their past actions, it is impossible not to sympathize with the prisoners and lament the waste of their lives.

Robert Braxton, age 63, is doing time for a sex crime.

"When you get old, man, you start thinking about deep things," he says, "because you know you're getting near that time. I hope that one day I'll be able to get out of here and do the right thing, before I leave this earth."

With understated, wistful longing, he adds, "I sure hope so." A darkness passes briefly over his face. He knows he very well might die in prison.

Rebecca Tuhus-D Dubrow Prisoners of Age was broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 2004. It is scheduled to air on BRAVO TV in October 2005. For more information, visit www.prisonersofage.com.

Life After Life: A Story of Rage and Redemption BY: Evans D. Hopkins Published by Free Press, 2005

Evans Hopkins is both a former Black Panther and a former prisoner, but those two labels in no way encompass his life story. In this gripping autobiography, Hopkins goes beyond the standard discussion of prison conditions that we’ve come to expect from this genre of memoir, giving the reader a moving glimpse of a life lost and found.

Hopkins was born in Danville, Virginia, one of eleven children, in an era heavily influenced by Jim Crow segregation. Raised to believe in the value of education, as a teenager Hopkins threw himself into the Civil Rights Movement, becoming a member of the Black Panther Party at sixteen. He moved to Oakland shortly therefore to write for the organization’s newspaper.

It is in the telling of this history where Life After Life begins to defy expectations, crossing literary borders into first-person activist history.

Through his position on the paper, Hopkins was privy to the internal dealings of the Black Panthers: their philosophies, opposition to authority, and eventual decline.

Hopkins left the group in 1974, but the ideology of the movement would color the way he viewed the rest of his life. As he reflects on his homecoming, “My mission of changing the system, with the Party, was suddenly gone. I had no idea what to do now, no idea that it would take half my life to recover from this total disillusionment.

Only one idea held some sort of hope of salvation for me then: Make your way home, see your family, find a way to

regroup - and continue the struggle.”

But Hopkins return to Virginia as a self-described “quintessential angry young black man” was not as prosperous as he hoped. Convicted of armed robbery, he would spend the next two decades of his life in state prisons. It was there that the second chapter of his life began.

Although Hopkins had been writing about civil rights for years, it wasn’t until he was sent to prison with a life sentence that he finally found his voice. In the tradition of many incarcerated artists, he first began writing to escape the loneliness and desolation of his surroundings, waking up hours before his neighbors so that he could enjoy a moment of calm in the cellblock. His articles, calling attention to social injustices, found a national audience on the outside with his publication of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia’s Chair” in the Washington Post and an additional piece in The New Yorker. He was finally paroled in 1997.

Like many prison authors, Hopkins spends a lot of his time reflecting on the role of art in his rehabilitation and release: “Had my past writing been fueled only by my rage against injustice? Or had there been a supreme kernel of love for humanity - and for art - that had kept me going for sixteen years?” He ultimately decides that it is the latter.

Life After Life is an important book; one that will be of interest to both the criminal justice community and students of the American civil rights movement. It’s a unifying work; much like Hopkins himself.

ORAL HISTORIES 25 So they remark to me that my father is a bad man. He is a PNP and so it was like I was spying for the group on Matthews Lane. I remember one of them saying, "Let's take him over to the cemetery." And when they said that, I knew exactly what they meant so I decided to run for it with my training bag on my back.

Eventually they caught me and I was cornered and I decided to put up a fight because they said I was going go with them and if they took me over there, they were going to kill me. So I put up a fight. Some used knives and some used stones and they began cutting me up and I used my bag to save myself. The first cut started at my head and came down into my face. The second was on my other cheek and then one in my side and a bigger one in the center of my stomach.

After this happened I saw this lady, she knew my mother. Her name was Shirley and she came to my aid. She came up and said, "Are you going to kill him and leave him there? Can't you see he's only a kid, what can he do?" One of them turned to her and said, "No, he is a spy." She said, "What are you doing? He used to live down there." And they said, "No, he is a PNP." She said, "No, his mother lived down there and his father moved to Matthews Lane, that's why."

Eventually they dispersed and she took me to her home and her father took me to the hospital on his bicycle. I remember I spent two weeks in the hospital. My father came looking for me and he said when he saw me like this, he could not believe it. I remember he was going to get even with those who did it but then again, they were kids. My mother came one day to the hospital and she said I wasn't to worry, she was going to take care of it. One by one, all of them were apprehended by the police and they were either killed by them or by the friends of my father.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE

Fortune’s Oral History Project is inspired by StoryCorps, a national project to instruct and inspire people to record each others' stories in sound. For more information on this program, or to locate a StoryCorps booth in your area, visit www.storycorps.net

INTERRUPTED LIFE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12 The following are some examples of cards already submitted to the “Interrupted Life: Incarcerated Mothers in the United States” exhibition. For information on how to contribute to this project can be found on page 12.

Kristen Kidder Fortune | Spring2005 2003 | 27 27 Fortune NewsNews | Summer

IN THE FALL ISSUE:

CRYSTAL METH Newsweek Magazine recently named the substance “America’s Most Dangerous Drug.” Once confined to rural areas and the West Coast, methamphetamine is spreading across social, cultural and economic lines.

As a result, the drug has become a top priority of America’s criminal justice system.

What role has crystal meth addiction played in the rise (in some communities) of robberies, domestic violence and disease transmission?

What should be done to combat “meth mouth” in prisons?

How can we help the children of addicts and others vulnerable to addiction?

Please send us your stories, articles or artwork.

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