In November, Charles Platt wrote a piece for Boing Boing about his zero-gravity flight experience. This month, he submitted this gripping account of his visit with his friend, who is serving a lengthy prison sentence for murder. It's one of the best articles I've read this year.









Life on the Inside



by Charles Platt





The man by the metal detector looks like somebody's

benevolent uncle. White-haired, folksy and jovial, he could

be in a TV commercial selling hearing aids. You'd never

guess he controls access to a concrete-walled correctional

facility.

Getting into this Texas prison is turning out to be more

difficult than I expected. First I had to submit a written

application with a photocopy of my driver's license,

for a background check. After I was approved, I had to

establish the date of my arrival, and when I drove out here

this morning my car was subjected to some truly amazing

security theater, as one humorless uniformed guard stared

solemnly at all the stuff in the trunk while another peered

under the hood at the engine.

Finally I was allowed to park in the visitor lot, after

which I walked into a little fortified bunker at one corner

of a huge perimeter fence topped with coils upon coils of

razor wire. This is where I am now, with white-haired Mr.

Friendly asking me—in the nicest possible way—to

empty my pockets. Since inmates are not allowed to possess

money, I'm not allowed to carry any in—with the

exception of two rolls of quarters, which I was advised that

I actually should bring with me, for purposes that I do not

yet understand.

I'm here to visit a prisoner named Son Tran, who

joined a Vietnamese gang in Houston when he was thirteen and

was convicted of two gang-related homicides four years later,

although he has raised some questions about

the validity of his confession.

After sitting in shackles on death row for several years he

found himself suddenly reprieved, as the U. S. Supreme Court

decided that kids who committed their crimes when they were

under eighteen should not be given the death penalty.

Forced by the feds to spare a life, the Texas criminal justice

system did the next-best thing: It sentenced Son to forty

years before he can be eligible for parole. He now spends his

days providing unpaid labor, sewing underwear for a garment

manufacturer that has contracted with the prison system.

Forget about third-world sweatshops; some of the most

lucrative ones are staffed by felons here in America.

Probably to most people, forty years would seem a fair

punishment for a former gang member convicted of homicide.

Most people might also feel that keeping such an individual

locked up is a sensible precaution to protect the rest of us.

In this text, I will explain why I disagree with both of

these propositions. As Exhibit A I'll offer a personal

statement by Son Tran, which I have formatted as a PDF file.

You can view it by clicking

this link. I think it's a remarkable piece of work,

especially considering that he was brought up speaking

Vietnamese at home, and never finished high school.



Across the Free-Fire Zone

Today will be my first opportunity to see my inmate

pen-pal face to face. I've never spoken to him, because

at the time of my visit, Texas still doesn't permit any of

its prisoners to communicate with the outside world by

telephone. I found his name on a web site dedicated to

establishing communication with inmates via that most archaic

system, the U. S. Postal Service, and I've been

swapping letters with him for more than a year since then.

Mr. Friendly is now waving me through the metal detector,

beaming at me and telling me to “have a nice

day,” without any perceptible irony. Presumably this

cheerful old geezer was chosen for his gatekeeper role to

discourage any suspicion that a correctional system might

have a dark side.

After I emerge from the metal detector I pick up my two

rolls of quarters and proceed to a kiosk enclosed in

bullet-proof plastic, which makes the woman on the inside look as if

she's peering at me from under water. I slide my

driver's license through a tiny slit, and she waves me

forward, through a remote-controlled door.

I find myself in a holding area the size of an elevator.

The door closes behind me, and I have some difficulty

controlling my reflexive claustrophobia. But, the license

checks out okay, and she returns it to me through another

slit before opening a second, inner door, allowing me to

proceed into the prison.

Now I walk along a section of asphalt path across a

free-fire zone between the outer fence of the prison and the inner

fence. Two guard towers are strategically placed to overlook

this arid moat, and I have no doubt that men with

loaded rifles are watching me with more than casual interest.

Probably it would not be a good idea to stray from the path,

here.

I pass through a gate that clangs behind me, and I

continue across a grassy area toward the central building of

the prison—which closely resembles a modern high

school, although maybe I should say that high schools, these

days, closely resemble modern prisons. Vaguely I wonder when

the American school system embraced the slit-windowed

concrete-box motif, and why. But then I am inside the main building

and I find myself in a spacious lobby, where another official

takes my driver's license, and keeps it, giving me a

slip of paper in return.

This I take with me to another armored cubicle, where I

present it through another slit to another out-of-focus

figure behind bulletproof plastic. I advance into another

elevator-sized holding area. The door closes behind me,

another door opens ahead of me—and here, finally, I am

in the visitor area.



The Social Scene



Now I am seriously disoriented. After all the layers of

security, this is the ultimate anticlimax. I have entered a

large room like a cafeteria, where families are sitting at

dining tables. Kids are running around, chasing each other

and laughing. The low-security prisoners are allowed to sit

alongside their estranged relatives, hanging out and eating

sandwiches.

The convicts are utterly

unlike the thugs you see in Hollywood prison movies.

They're everyday guys in their twenties, looking no

different from people you might expect to see working at the

paint counter in Home Depot or servicing cars at Jiffy Lube.

Over the years I have encountered some genuinely violent

people—the kind who radiate an aura of menace which

anyone with any sense will interpret as a clear warning to

stay away. Those dark vibes are absent here, and after a

moment's thought, I realize why: Drive-by shooters and

serial killers constitute only a small percentage of the

prison population. Drug offenders, these days, are the

largest subset. Thus, most of the men I am looking at

probably made the mistake of trying to earn a little cash on

the side by selling herbal or pharmaceutical products from

which the government, in its wisdom, feels we should be

protected.

Son Tran, of course, is imprisoned for a much more serious

reason, and cannot mingle with visitors. There's a

long, enclosed section for such “violent” types,

who have to communicate via telephone handsets from behind

more panels of bulletproof plastic. To me it's ironic

that the prison has invested in such an elaborate system of

protection, because I'm not sure who scares me more:

The inmates, or the system that put them here. Call me

paranoid (and indeed, many people have), but

the many arms of law enforcement have broadened and

strengthened their powers to an extent which would have

seemed unbelievable just a decade ago.

The list of ominous indicators is long and getting longer,

including warrantless wiretaps, innocent people killed or

traumatized during no-knock drug busts based on bogus

tipoffs, random traffic stops in search of drivers who have

had two beers and will be hauled straight to jail,

search-and-seizure of laptops by immigration officers, suspension

of constitutional rights for anyone suspected of

“terrorist acts,” tasering of citizens who ask

why they're being arrested, harassment of tourists

taking photographs in public places, grandmothers fined tens

of thousands of dollars because kids used their

computers for file sharing, seventeen-year-old boys jailed

for having sex with sixteen-year-old girlfriends, men

stigmatized for life as “sex criminals” because

they urinated in public, photo-radar systems that can

track vehicle movements by using character recognition of

license plates, naive wives of drug dealers imprisoned for

years as “couriers,” and revival of the archaic offense

of criminal libel, raising the risk of prison time if you

post a little too carelessly on Craig's List. I used to

view law enforcement as a source of protection; today I

tend to see it more as an instrument of intimidation.

Among the adult population of the United States, 1 person

out of every 100 is now behind bars. Thus the unweighted odds

of going to jail are greater than the odds of being a

crime victim. Of course I am aware of the counter-argument:

“If you don't break any laws, you'll have

nothing to worry about.” Tell that to Governor George

Ryan of Illinois, where DNA evidence exonerated so many

people who had been placed erroneously on death row, he

felt obliged to commute the sentences of the remaining 163

inmates awaiting execution.

No doubt the prison that I am visiting harbors some truly

unpleasant characters whom I would not want to encounter

while walking alone on a dark city street. But I don't

believe that Son Tran is one of them.



Gas-Station Sandwiches







I sit on a plastic chair and wait for the prison

authorities to allow Son to come here to converse with me.

Finally he appears behind the bulletproof window, grinning

happily, as if this is the highlight of his week—and

who knows, maybe it is.





I ask him why he wanted me to bring two rolls of quarters,

and he explains that I can buy food from vending machines in

the visitor area. So, I go to the machines, which dispense

what I call “gas-station sandwiches”: skimpy

slices of Wonder Bread containing a minimum filling of tuna

salad or ham and cheese. I buy a few and surrender them to a

corrections officer, who places them in a paper sack and

passes them through a small hatch to the restricted area

behind the bulletproof plastic. In this way, I buy lunch for

my inmate friend. I'm suitably sobered by the idea that

the sandwiches constitute a treat compared to the regular

prison diet. For one such as myself, accustomed to whole

grains, organic greens, tofu, and other health-conscious

vegetarian staples, eating nothing but prison food for forty

years might be the single most awful aspect of being locked

up.

Son devours his rations with enthusiasm, and we chat,

through the telephone handset, in the same awkward style of a

visitor chatting with a patient in a hospital. How are

things? How are you doing? Have you seen your family lately?

All topics seem trivial compared with the big and basic fact

that I am free and he is not, but I can't think of much

to say about this. When he was taken off death row, he lost

his court-appointed lawyer who was managing his appeal, and

he lacks the resources to get a new attorney. In any event,

he can't talk about his case with me because the

connection may be monitored, and our conversation won't

be protected by attorney-client privilege.

We talk about current events, and everyday life with other

prisoners (most of whom he feels are harmless), and about the

pencil drawings that he has been creating. Since Texas

prisoners are not permitted to earn money or possess money,

donations for them are placed in an Inmate Trust Fund

account, from which the balance may be applied to purchases from the prison

commissary. And since #2 pencils are the only drawing

implement stocked by the commissary, Son Tran's

opportunities for self expression are limited.

Still, he has been creating painstaking portraits, which

he has sent to me as gifts from time to time, leaving me

wondering what to do with them. If I try to sell them on his

behalf I'll place him in a risky position, since he is

not allowed to indulge in anything that could be considered a

business activity. If he violates this regulation, he may be

punished by losing his opportunity to further his education.

In other words, if a Texas prisoner tries to make himself

useful by selling something that he has made, the system may

respond by preventing him from educating himself.



Money, Fear, and Politics



I guess I'm beginning to sound like a bleeding

heart, here; but this is not entirely accurate. Let us

suppose, for a moment, that Son Tran was guilty of the crime

of which he was convicted. I fully accept that homicide should entail the

most serious consequences. The question is, what exactly

should those consequences be? From a strictly rational point

of view, does incarceration for forty years make good sense,

or would something else be better?

Let's start with the concept of deterrence.

I'll ignore the death penalty, since the Supreme Court

has already eliminated it for people under 18. Thus, we are

left with incarceration. Has any study ever proved that

the prospect of forty years without parole is a better

deterrent than, say, thirty years, or even twenty

years? It seems utterly implausible to me that the actions of

a teenager in an inner-city gang will be affected by such a

distinction. In fact I don't believe that deterrence is

either the effect or the purpose of the long, mandatory

sentences that have become endemic in the United States

during the past two decades.

It's important to understand just how extreme the

situation is. We now incarcerate a larger proportion of our citizens,

and a larger absolute number of them, than any

other nation in the world. The United States has less than 5

percent of the global population yet has almost one-quarter

of all the world's prisoners. (Source: New York Times,

April 23, 2008.) The Land of the Free has become the land of

the confined.











Now here's the interesting part. From 1925 through

1975, the American incarceration rate remained around 110

prisoners per 100,000 population, not far from the current

world median of approximately 125. (Source: New York Times,

as above.) What happened since then? How could the rate

increase by a factor of 7 during just three decades?

I can suggest an answer in three words: Money, fear,

and politics.

Money is an issue because the United States is one of the

few nations that can afford to build enough prisons and keep millions of

people locked up. Most other nations are unwilling or unable

to spend so much money unproductively.

As for fear and politics:

Back when Ronald Reagan was the Governor of California,

growing discontent among conservatives encouraged the state

to lead a movement toward tougher sentencing. When Reagan

reached the White House in 1981, with his wife promoting the

“war on drugs” and chanting “Just say

no!” with her vapid grin, conservatives gained the

power to encourage changes on a national level.

This trend reached its culmination in 1988, as

Reagan's reign was ending and Republican presidential

candidate George H. W. Bush was looking for an edge over

Michael Dukakis, his Democratic opponent. Bush's

campaign manager, Lee Atwater, and his media consultant,

Roger Ailes, found their opportunity in the story of a

convicted murderer in Dukakis's home state of

Massachusetts who had served 12 years in jail before being

released on a weekend furlough, at which point he proceeded

to commit a particularly unpleasant rape and other associated

crimes.

Atwater and Ailes believed that one disturbing incident of

this type, involving a heavy-set black rapist, would matter

far more to voters than any reasoned debate about policy

issues. It would capture the imagination, regardless of

statistics showing that the event was a rarity or even a

singularity. They didn't seem to care whether the

furlough policy had been a good thing or a bad thing. They

simply knew that Dukakis had been in favor of it

while he was governor, and it could smear him as damagingly

as possible.

After the story was circulated via The Reader's

Digest, Bush started hammering away relentlessly at Dukakis

for being “soft on crime.” This issue became

probably the biggest factor enabling him to win the election.

For more information about the propagandists who facilitated

the rise of the Bush dynasty (leading by extension to the

rise of Bush Junior) you can check the Wikipedia page for

Willie Horton, the rapist who was at the center

of the controversy. It makes depressing reading.

Many other politicians were quick to notice Bush's

successful exploitation of public anxiety, and followed a

similar strategy, calling for harsher penalties while

denouncing their opponents for being less punitive than they

were. In other words, they followed the ancient practice of

whipping up fear while simultaneously promising to alleviate

it.

This is a simplification of a complicated national trend, but I

believe it does help to explain how the general U. S. prison

population increased by a

factor of 7. Many conservatives see no problem in this, since

long sentences have been accompanied by a reduction in

violent crime. On the other hand, in Canada, violent crime

went into a similar decline without a massive increase in the

prison population; and in some states (notably, New York) the

crime rate didn't go back up even after authorities

relaxed their previous punitive policies.

Therefore the linkage between longer prison terms and a

lessened crime rate remains a matter for debate. One

conclusion, however, is indisputable: Tough sentencing does

reassure anxious voters.



Adjusting the Consequence to Fit the Crime



Let's suppose that protecting the general public is

the fundamental issue. The question then becomes: How much

protection is enough? Logically, to reduce the risk to zero, all violent

offenders should be imprisoned for life or executed. Since

this may be unethical and is certainly unaffordable, we have

to find a reasonable compromise, balancing the risk that a

released criminal may repeat his crime against the social

advantage of enabling the majority of prisoners to resume

productive lives.

Traditionally, the parole system is supposed to serve this

purpose by assessing each prisoner on a case-by-case basis to

determine which ones are safe for release. Parole can be

especially appropriate for juvenile offenders who may have

been immature or unduly influenced by their peers.

This gets me back to the case of Son Tran. Imagine

yourself aged thirteen, feeling angry and estranged from your

fellow students because you're Vietnamese-American.

Imagine that you are approached by some older kids who are

themselves Vietnamese. They invite you to join their club,

and for the first time in your short life, you are freed from

your feelings of alienation. You find acceptance.

Of course, there's a price to pay. It's like

joining the army: You go through a process of indoctrination

and desensitization, during which you bond with your

comrades-in-arms and learn to obey orders.

The scenario that I'm outlining does not excuse the

crime. It merely suggests that someone who was not yet an

adult, and became infatuated with gang culture at a very

impressionable age, should not be judged as harshly as, for

example, a serial killer who has committed multiple

crimes over ten or fifteen years. After a decade in prison,

the serial killer may still represent a severe risk to the

general public while the younger man may not, and a system

that refuses to take this into account wastes human potential

and wastes our money. Even when the state reaps some income

on the side by forcing prisoners to do menial work for no

pay, incarceration remains an expensive proposition.

There is of course the point of view that punishment should

be administered for its own sake; that criminals

should be made to suffer. This bothers

me, because aside from deterrence (already discussed above) I

see no social benefit from punishment. Very often, it seems to be

simply an outlet for revenge, and revenge is not a very

highly evolved impulse. It receives mixed reviews in the New

Testament, does not ennoble anyone, and certainly

doesn't enrich anyone. I prefer the concept of

restitution, requiring the guilty party to earn money to

compensate a victim or his family. That at least is

useful—and, incidentally, may still serve as some

deterrent.

I also refuse to give up on the idea of rehabilitation,

because I know people who have successfully decided not to

repeat past mistakes. Prisons are properly referred to as

“correctional facilities,” implying that they

should be capable of correcting bad behavior. If

there's a chance to redeem someone rather than execute

him or take away his liberty for half of his life,

wouldn't that be a more constructive option?

Most of all, I am dispirited by the simple-mindedness of

imprisonment as a social tool. Our remedies for most social

problems have evolved over the past couple-thousand years; people

who are mentally ill, for instance, receive medical treatment

instead of just being shut away in lunatic asylums.

But the ritual of incarcerating criminals survives basically

unchanged. Really, we need a smarter and

more creative alternative that doesn't cost so much.

If it can also be less destructive of human lives, so

much the better.



Contact Info



One thing on which everyone can agree, regardless of their

political orientation, is that prison is a depressing place.

Based on my experience in Texas, merely visiting it is

extremely depressing, even when the facility is modern and

relatively humane.

As I leave the barbed-wire fences behind me I feel the

same kind of sadness that I experience when someone dies.

It's a similar situation: A loss of human value which I

am powerless to prevent. That's why I continue to send

letters to Son Tran from time to time.

Other prisoners have suffered greater injustices, other

prisons impose harsher conditions, other nations subject

their prisoners to crueler treatment, and millions of

people—drug offenders, especially—are incarcerated for

reasons that make no sense to me at all. Son Tran just

happens to be the guy I know, and so, he's the one I am

telling you about. If his life story interests you, you can

write to him yourself, while remembering that he has to buy

postage stamps, envelopes, and paper from the commissary to

reply to you, and therefore, even very small donations are

appreciated. The trouble is, you cannot send money to him

directly. It will be returned by the authorities, and will

rouse suspicions that he is soliciting assistance, which he is not.

Here's what you can do, if you are interested. Send

me a blank email at this account that I have set up:

sontranfund@gmail.com.

In return I'll tell you how to

write to him and how to make a small donation if you so wish.

Your email address will not be used for any other purpose.

—Charles Platt