Sabotage

A guy with a parole in his pocket gets caught with spud juice.  (Happens more often than you would think.)  His “friends” tried to talk him into closing his brewery, but he told them that he needed to stack up coffee bags since he was going to Detroit Reentry Center (DRC) for a residential substance abuse program and he needed to be able to buy heroin while he was there.  His friend’s comment was I guess he didn’t really want to go home.

Guys on parole are sent back to prison for violating the terms of their parole because of drinking or drugs all the time.  Equally as often it is something else like staying out after curfew, missing work or meetings with their PO or having police contact because they got into a fight or were out joy-riding.  This happened to a guy I know, and the observation of another parolee was “I guess he didn’t serve enough time.”

Whether in prison or on parole some guys have their eyes on the wrong prize.  Instead of focusing on gaining and keeping their freedom they are seeking other things.  You’d thing they would know better than to play with fire, but it’s obvious that they didn’t learn their lesson from being burned the first time.  For some it takes a long time to figure out what is truly important.  There is statistical proof that people age out of crime.  People in their forties and fifties are significantly less likely to commit crimes than people in their teens and twenties.  Prison has a revolving door for those who continue to commit minor felonies and receive sentences from 2-5 years in length.  Three strike laws were enacted to address these habitual offenders by increasing the length of their sentences in the hope that they would learn their lesson. 

According to recidivism rates those who committed major crimes such as murder or rape and served long sentences are less likely to reoffend and return to prison than those who committed crimes like domestic abuse or selling small quantities of drugs who received shorter sentences.  You never hear of someone who spent two 10 to 20-year sentences in prison going back with a third sentence which is basically a life sentence.  So, it is true that with age comes wisdom.  Even the most stubborn, hard-headed, strong-willed outlaw learns that if they stay in the game too long there are only two options, either be carried out in a pine box or hauled off in handcuffs.  The older they get the better retirement looks.

For those in prison eagerly looking forward to their parole there is another form of sabotage that happens.  Sometimes other people in prison, who may have years to go before they will even be considered for parole or have already been denied parole will try to get someone else’s parole revoked.  You might say that misery loves company.  There are those in prison who would go out of their way to do this for any number of reasons.  They could be bored, racist, malicious, vindictive, or simply sadistic by getting pleasure from causing pain to another person.  For this very reason I know a guy who didn’t tell anyone in prison that he got his parole, let alone his parole date.  The morning he paroled, he got up early, dressed in his street clothes, packed his stuff, and went to the officer’s station.  He didn’t say a word to anyone.

In prison kite writing is a way of life for some.  Kites are notes written to the administration.  There is a mailbox in every housing unit, and it is easy to write the warden or unit counselor.  Most do this by signing someone else’s name in order to remain anonymous.  They make allegations about another individual which may or may not be true, but sufficiently provocative to draw the reaction of staff.  This is known as “dry snitching.”  It is a passive aggressive tactic that works well enough that it’s not going away any time soon.  Claim that someone is threating you, that so-n-so is doing such-n-such, or that your bunkie has a cellphone, shank, drugs, or other serious contraband, then sit back and wait for the show to start.  Nothing can ruin your day like being called off the yard to see the Inspector to answer questions about an allegation that you sexually assaulted another inmate.

Getting a Class I Misconduct after receiving your parole and prior to release will result in the loss of your parole and earn you a 12 to 24-month flop.  It might even raise your security level or get you rode off the compound.  At the very least you will have your property tossed like a fruit salad, be forced to prove your innocence, and lose sleep trying to figure out who wrote the kite.  In a place where you are guilty until proven innocent the threat is real, and you need to constantly watch your back. 

I had a cubemate that started stealing from me the last month prior to my parole.  I had started to sell off my possessions that I wasn’t going to take home.  Prison is not like death, you can take your personal property with you, but why would you?  I would come back to the cube after work and find something small missing like my earbuds.  We both knew that I wouldn’t do anything about it and risk my parole, so every couple of days something else would turn up missing.  Then this guy who didn’t have anything was able to get a black market TV.  I’m sure my other cubemates knew what was going on, but nobody said anything.  On the morning I left prison I slipped under his bed and used my padlock to secure the TV’s power cord to the bed.  This would force him to cut the cord in order to move the TV.  There were a number of sweeps through the housing unit at that time looking for TV’s that weren’t on the inmate’s property card and securing the TV to his bunk would make it impossible for him to hide it.  I hope that there is a special place in hell for prison thieves.

Of course, it is those that sabotage themselves like in my opening example that is the primary problem.  Prison isn’t about rehabilitation.  Programs like the Phase I and Phase II substance abuse classes that are required for those whose crime involved alcohol or drugs or for individuals who have a history of substance abuse, but from what I’ve seem most people treat the class like a joke.  For more serious cases there are residential treatment programs where more in-depth programming and counseling is available. With the demand for bed space in these programs there tends to be a mentality on the part of those running these programs to simply push the inmates through so that many of the participants come out unchanged.  Change doesn’t happen unless the individual wants to and for many going to prison wasn’t hitting rock-bottom yet.  Intellectual arguments, reciting facts and figures, or telling horror stories about others isn’t enough to persuade many who are happy in their addictions to want to change.  They have learned to say the right things to convince the powers that be that they have changed.  They get their long-awaited paroles but can’t fly straight long enough to get out or complete their parole.  In the end the only person they have fooled is themselves.