Legalize It!

The costs of criminalizing marijuana are far greater than any cost society would bear if it were legal. The medical costs, economic costs (in the way of lost taxes and tariffs), and the cost of enforcing marijuana laws are all due to its criminalization. Prohibition of marijuana stimulates crime, diverts resources that could be used to deal with violent criminals, and by its nature, criminalization threatens individual civil liberties and destroys the social fabric of poor neighborhoods. Because the greatest societal costs of marijuana come from its prohibition, we must legalize pot at the federal level.
The prohibition of marijuana is the result of paternalism run amok. Originally banned by Congress in 1937, with no medical or scientific testimony supporting the ban, marijuana has not been demonstrated to be more harmful than alcohol, tobacco or pornography, for that matter. In fact, while many individuals have died as a result of enforcement of the prohibition against marijuana, evidence of deaths due to marijuana use is practically non-existent (Nadelmann, 1989; Christiansen, 2010).  The ostensible purpose of anti-pot laws is the paternalistic mantra of preventing harm to oneself and others.  Yet, the only “victim” of marijuana use is consensual, in fact desires to engage in the activity, and is in no danger of harm from the use of pot.  The potential that a marijuana user may be harmed as a direct consequence of enforcement of the prohibition, on the other hand is much greater. A pot user could be forcibly arrested, jailed, fined, and in the wrong circumstances injured or killed.  Prohibition mandates the use of physical force against people engaging in what is, basically, a nonviolent, consensual act involving only the user.      

Moreover, prohibition has obviously failed. Marijuana use has not ceased. In fact, American teenagers use marijuana at a greater rate than teenagers in Europe. When compared to the Netherlands, for example, with its rather lax drug laws, “twice as many residents of the United States have experimented with… illicit drugs” (Husak, 2002, p. 159). In fact, marijuana is the third most popular recreational drug used in America today, after alcohol and tobacco (Duncan, 2009).  Prohibitionists argue that marijuana use causes societal harm in the way of drug related violence and the creation of a “black market” for pot. Yet, they fail to separate the harm caused by marijuana, per se, from the harm that is caused because pot use has been criminalized. For example, if a person smokes marijuana in California today, prohibition would not have prevented any of the harmful consequences to him or her—consequences that would occur even if marijuana was decriminalized, taxed and overseen by the Food and Drug Administration.  There is no harm or cost to society from such use, regardless of legality.  However, if the same person is arrested and subjected to criminal court processes, all the costs and financial burdens borne by the individual and society are harm due to prohibition of marijuana.  Christiansen notes that

“A disconnect also exists between marijuana policy and some of the government's own research regarding the detrimental effects on users themselves. There is no evidence marijuana causes any more harm to its users than many other legal drugs. In some ways marijuana may even be less harmful” (2010, p. 233).

Studies have shown that marijuana is less addictive than either alcohol or tobacco (Duncan, 2009).

Such paternalistic disregard of the consequences of prohibition, as opposed to marijuana per se, further results in the trampling of individual liberties. The fervor with which authorities pursue their anti-marijuana agendas has caused resulted in the disregard of what are typically considered fundamental rights. If a person is believed to have smoked pot, he or she may be subjected to urine tests, strip searches, civil forfeiture of personal property, school locker searches (without probable cause), car searches, or even detention.  Such governmental trespasses into the realm of personal liberties are a direct consequence of the prohibition of marijuana. Decriminalizing pot would serve to lift these burdens on our human rights.

It’s been noted that because marijuana offenses are usually hidden from police view, and there are rarely complaining witnesses, law enforcement personnel must invade the private lives of persons they merely suspect of drug use (Witsosky, 1987).  Wisotsky goes on to say that drug prohibition

“is producing a politicallegal context in which drug enforcement constitutes an exception to the principle that laws must comport 'with the deepest notions of what is fair and just.' In drug enforcement, most anything goes…” (Witsosky, 1987, pp. 925-26).

Often, any evidence to prove guilt in the context of a marijuana violation is not obtained until law enforcement officials have already intruded on an individual’s liberties.  Thus, the rights and privacy of many innocent people are violated because of marijuana prohibition. 

When a person’s rights are violated by being forced to not engage in activities he or she desires to engage in, the individual experiences a loss of control over his or her own life.  The individual’s own judgment has been replaced by that of others.  Further, because the individual does not value the judgment with which his own has been replaced, he or she has been displaced from “the realm of action and [put] into mere motion" (Rothbard, 1981, p. 93).

Marijuana prohibition, by wresting judgment from individuals and substituting it with that of the state, thus reduces individual responsibility.  While it may be commonplace to assert that with freedom comes responsibility, it is the inverse that is true:  responsibility requires liberty.  Without the freedom to use one’s judgment to make decisions, one cannot be expected to act responsibly, since one can’t be responsible for things outside his or her control. By co-opting individual judgment, as the government does in punishing marijuana use, it takes responsibility away from the individual by way of reducing the time and energy spent in dealing with the aspect of life now controlled by the government (Rothbard, 1981). 

While prohibition of marijuana has deprived many individuals of a choice, it has provided an opportunity to others:  drug dealers. Many poor, under-educated youth in inner cities today turn to selling marijuana, and other drugs, out of economic necessity, which in turn, invites violence and other crime into their communities. As Duncan notes,

“Given the costs associated with prohibition and the meager results obtained thus far, there is ample evidence to conclude that we are wasting our money…. Drug policy in general, and marijuana policy in particular, falls most harshly and most unfairly on racial minorities and the poor. Prohibition is not only ineffective, but highly inequitable as well” (2009, p. 1721).

If marijuana were decriminalized, corner pot dealers would no longer be needed. Much of the billions of dollars spent every year on enforcement, coupled with the potential for tax revenue from legal pot sales, could be diverted back into education and development projects in the neighborhoods that were tainted by prohibition-related crime.

Over the years, the government has wasted billions of dollars on marijuana prohibition. The costs and effects of prohibition on society due to the paternalistic usurpation of individual judgment far outweigh the harm done by marijuana per se.   Marijuana prohibition has resulted in deprivation of personal liberties, loss of individual responsibility, crime, and community harm.  It’s time we stop wasting taxpayer money on prohibition of marijuana and trust U.S. citizens to be responsible adults.

References

Christiansen, M. (2010).  “A great schism: social norms and marijuana prohibition.”  Harvard Law and Policy Review, Vol. 4, p. 229.

Duncan, C. (2009). “The need for change:  an economic analysis of marijuana policy.”  Connecticut Law Review, Vol. 41, p. 1701.

Husak, D. (2002).  Legalize this!: the case for decriminalizing drugs.  New York: Verso.

Nadelmann, E. (1989). "Drug prohibition in the United States: costs, consequences, and alternatives." Science, Vol. 245, no. 4921.

Rothbard, M. (1981).  “Frank S. Meyer: the fusionist as libertarian manqué.”  Freedom and virtue, the conservative/libertarian debate. Carey, G. (ed. 1984).

Wisotsky, S. (1987). “Crackdown: the emerging ‘drug

exception’ to the bill of rights.” Hastings Law Journal, Vol. 38, p. 889.

WTF America? Why?!

I haven’t written anything here for a while. I think about it most every day, but things get in my mental way: I’m doing other work; second-guessing myself; worried about the relevance of this blog to my life and to you all. And so I just haven’t.

It’s been more than three years since I left FPC Duluth. I was only there for 13 months out of my 47 years. Not a day passes that I don’t think about my short time there, but names and specific memories are fading a bit (I’ve got a lot of it written down somewhere…). This must be greatly magnified for my friends who were there a lot longer than I was.

So, as a blog discussing my experiences there, this site is becoming harder and harder to write.

On the other hand, from the perspective of what I learned, promised myself and the effects of the experience on my daily life, I think I may still have a few things to say. This week, especially.

The mass shooting in San Bernardino was some sort of last straw for me; just one tragedy too many (although, isn’t every tragedy one too many)? I’m on supervised release for a few months still, so every 30 days or so, I have to attest that I did not possess or “control” any firearms. Then, for the rest of my life, it will be illegal for me to own a gun.

I have never owned a gun; never wanted to. When I was a kid, I fired a .22 caliber rifle at cans or boards a few times but never at a living target. I don’t think I’ve ever even held a handgun.

My frustration is that, when it comes to guns, I am not the problem. Yet, the federal government has a vested interest in monitoring my non-ownership of a firearm. Meanwhile, legally-purchased and carried guns are used everyday to kill people in the United States.

Like climate change deniers, gun fanatics and their lobbyists are imperiling my children, and I am outraged.

The statistics speak for themselves, no matter how you spin them. We have more, routine, daily gun deaths than any other developed nation on the planet. Way more. Period.

Sadly, the most horrific ones are not the dramatic rampages like San Bernardino or Sandy Hook. To me the most awful incidents are those demonstrating ordinary gun-owners’ utter disregard for human life. How many more kids need to be accidentally shot or killed in their own homes by their parents’ guns? How many more Waffle House servers need to be slain for asking a customer not to smoke?

Guns are so commonplace that they’re left around the house, between sofa cushions, in purses for children to find and kill themselves. Why wouldn’t it be second nature to kill somebody who interrupts your Winston and waffle? It’s your Constitutional right… right?

No. It’s not. And don’t even start. I have a law degree and practiced as a lawyer for 15 years. I know what the Second Amendment says;  it doesn’t fucking say that! Oh, and to all you supposed ‘Muricans who are stockpiling weapons in case the government comes for you? That’s treason, you seditious idiots.

Could San Bernardino or Sandy Hook have been prevented? Who knows, maybe not. But it sure could have been made much more difficult. The weapons and ammunition used in the San Bernardino massacre were legally purchased! How can anyone logically argue that preventing private citizens from owning assault rifles would not have impeded this or any other tragedy involving automatic or semi-automatic weapons?

Last week, on the day after Thanksgiving, Americans legally bought more than 150,000 firearms. In one day! Most countries have standing armies with fewer weapons.

And still the gun lobby continues to insist that a proliferation of firearms does not contribute to gun deaths in the United States. Still with that “people kill people” bullshit. Well, you know what? If someone walked into the Inland Service Center with a knife – or even a machete or chainsaw – I guarantee there would be far fewer casualties than there were yesterday.

Gun laws need to be changed, and they need to be changed now. Assault weapons and most handguns should be banned outright. Laws for misuse of or negligence with regard to firearms should be strengthened. Shooters may not be deterrable but everyday idiots can be.

Until then, we can have this argument again when the next shooting happens tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day…

I know that I have just waded into an intractable issue; that I’m not changing anybody’s mind or even probably doing anything beyond angering the “cold, dead hand” set. But this is my blog, so fuck you.

Valentine's Day: 2/14 in 2-1-4

This is a a re-post from previous Valentine's Days. Why re-invent the wheel, right?

Valentines Day is a big deal at prison camp. My room -- 214, ironically -- was no exception. For guys like Mush, from L.A., but with "lady friends" from all over, it was an especially big deal. After the Super Bowl (another big event in prison camp) Mush spent almost every waking hour from the minute the Giants walked off the field, leaving the stunned Patriots and osteoporotic Madonna behind, until just hours before mail went out Valentines Day morning cranking out cards.

Some inmates wanted more "typical" portraits for Valentines Day.

He had books of poetry, he had old cards and letters that he'd written to use as templates, he hired people to make cards for him. He was a card writing machine. And he wasn't just doing it for himself. There were plenty of word-weary guys in Unit 209 who came to Mush for help with their Valentines Day mojo.

One evening, about a week before Valentines Day, I was in my usual spot... My chair, pushed against the wall, under the window at the foot of my bunk -- technically, I guess, it was the foot of Fons' rack, since he had the lower bunk, but his chair was alongside his mattress; I got the end spot near my locker.  I was drawing a heart on a card for my kids.

That's when it happened. Mush looked up, stood and came over to see what I was doing. "You're good," he said. I thanked him.

"Jonas, you think you could draw a big dick inside this card?" I looked at him. I looked at the card.

"Yep. Sure." I sent Mush down the hall to borrow some colored pencils from Dent. When he came back, I sat down at the desk and half an hour later, he was the proud owner of a penciled penis. He was quite happy with the outcome.

He took it down the hall and showed a handful of the people he was writing for. I practically had a line out the door. Over the next week, I cranked out nearly a hundred cards for more than a dozen guys. They were decorated with hearts, genitals, flowers and every sexual position that my clients and I could brainstorm. Some would come up to me and ask for exactly what they'd seen on another card. Others, though, would look at all the other cards and say they wanted something completely different: a one-off that I wold promise not to repeat for anyone else.

In spite of all the cards I worked on, I myself only received one valentine while I was at FPC Duluth. But I gained something much larger than Hallmark Holiday gratification could ever give me.

By the time Mush came to me and asked me to sketch that skin flute, I'd been at FPC Duluth four months. It'd taken that long for me to find my hustle, my incarceration calling: I was a prison pornographer.

"Did You Tell 'Em About the Skits...?"

Yes. In prison camp, we had to compose original skits -- and perform them. Three to five times a week. I shit you not.

Granted, it wasn't everybody. Just the 150-or-so of us in the RDAP unit. 

For many, it was a nightmare. But for a select few of us, it was a juicy opportunity for subversion; and for another handful of talented performers, it was their long-awaited star turn. I was one of the go-to writers in the unit; even if it wasn't my "Upbeat Group"'s turn on stage, I was sought out as a mercenary who could whip out a quick, 5-minute skit incorporating a little humor, a few RDAP principles (gratitude, humility, etc.) and do so in an hour or less. A few stamps, a couple packs of ramen or a snickers bar, and I was your huckleberry. As it were.

Even in FPC Duluth, where I was reminded every day to practice humility, it was tough to quell my creative ego. Many days, I cringed to see my not-so-carefully crafted words mangled by amateurish deliveries. Eventually, I learned: I figured out who the really good performers were I therefore saved my best stuff for the divas who wanted a vehicle -- or for my own group. I specialized in Seussian-style rhymes wherein I could drop the names of staff, inmates and counselors, walking the line a bit, but never quite crossing it. Inside jokes; double entendres that couldn't be proved. I had fun. I was good. But I was by no means the best; nor the most entertaining.

It probably shouldn't be surprising to find deviant -- or devious -- minds in prison camp. But I was outright flabbergasted to encounter some of the humorists I met there. They were devious and witty and literate -- and willing to use their talents in the pursuit of poking the institutional bear: something I was willing to toy with, but, for the most part, not actually do in light of the relatively-little time I was actually going to spend at FPC Duluth.

Wheels was one example of an exceptional prison camp humorist. Wheels had served a lot of time -- more than five years -- by the time I even showed up. A fellow -041er (Minnesotan), Wheels had started his bit with several months in a county-jail federal holding facility and then transfered to a low-security facility in Milan, Michigan, where he played tennis with Sam Waksal. He claimed that they transferred him so far from home because he fought them so hard at trial. Given what I've read and what I've heard from friends, he's probably right.  

He had a lot of pent up rage over his situation, but was also funny as hell. Plus he'd served long enough to feel pretty bulletproof about anything he might want to say. Wheels was our Kafka. The problem was he couldn't find a delivery system for his avant-garde, absurdist humor. Until Bob showed  up on the unit.

With Bob, Wheels had the perfect collaborator. The shit he though up was, on its own, subversively funny in a "Young Ones" sort of way. Often it made no sense at all; and yet even then, because of its nonsensical nature, was hilarious. Moreover, Bob was fearless on the stage -- even if it meant having to do some sort of punitive public apology; being remediated (losing some of the time off earned from participating in the RDAP program or getting thrown off the unit all together) -- which meant that Wheels had an actor to deliver his lines.

In one of his most memorable works, Wheels had an inmate stand at the podium reciting "Metamorphosis" by Wallace Stevens:

Yillow, yillow, yillow,
Old worm, my pretty quirk,
How the wind spells out
Sep – tem – ber….

Summer is in bones.
Cock-robin’s at Caracas.
Make o, make o, make o,
Oto – otu – bre.

And the rude leaves fall.
The rain falls. The sky
Falls and lies with worms.
The street lamps

Are those that have been hanged.
Dangling in an illogical
To and to and fro
Fro Niz – nil – imbo.

During the recital, Bob was backstage, playing the sound effect of a whining mosquito over the sound system, while using a length of twine to drag an empty box slowly across the stage behind the podium. At the same time, two other inmates acted out an argument behind the curtains.

It was ridiculous. Absurd. It made no sense. Much like the BoP.

Thanksgiving in Prison Camp: 2011 Journal Entry

Rainy and foggy today -- watching the beacon at the Duluth airport's tower sweep across the bottom of the mist bank before hitting my window at its regular second-or-so interval. The first count this morning was interesting -- or funny, I guess: once again Frazier was messing with the count. 

Bravo (the faux-hawked bleached-blond lieutenant) and Gunther were doing the count. Just as they came into the building and announced "Count!" Frazier decided to vacuum his rug. He ignored all the shouts at him from up and down the hall until Bravo sent Mush -- my roomie -- to tell him to knock it off. Apparently the Lieutenant and the head of the Education Department (Gunther) suffer from some sort of arithmetical deficiency because they had to count us two more times -- the last round going room to room with the bed book, matching up faces with names -- before they could get their individual counts to coincide and clear the unit.

This had me concerned because Julie and the kids were coming for Thanksgiving. I had expected them before the count, but with the thick fog they hadn't arrived. So I waited on the edge of my bunk until count was cleared and they started calling for visits again. I was among the first called, hustled out of the building and a quarter mile or so through the chill wet mist to the visitor center.

This was my third visit wth them but my first Thanksgiving at FPC Duluth. It was more tense than usual because it was fraught with all sorts of holiday stress. They needed to get back for dinner, were concerned that I was missing the camp holiday meal and were insistent that I eat something with them out of the vending machine to at least have some semblance of a family holiday meal. I, on the other hand, showed up tense and on edge because of my visit-anticipation, the waiting, the lateness and my general malaise about being in prison on a major family holiday. I was overwhelmed and edgy and sad and anxious and didn't want them to spend Thanksgiving in a prison camp visitng room; but I didn't want them to leave either. All was well with the kids, but the visit ended in some unsatisfying bickering between Julie and me, of which I was the instigator.

I walked back through the fog, hollow, depressed and lonely. I immediately wrote a letter of apology to Julie, but it did little to assuage my angsty feelings. I arrived at FPC Duluth in September; in October, I received divorce papers -- I'd known they were coming, but after 16 years of marriage and 18 in a relationship, it was still a kick in the nuts; and now I was seeing my soon-to-be-X on my best-loved holiday in a prison camp. It was a triple-stacked shit sandwich and I'd taken a big bite.

That night, as I lay in my bunk -- upper, next to the window -- the fog still hanging over the camp and the airport next door, I caught sight of a green runway beacon in the distance. I'd just finished rereading The Great Gatsby, and my mind immediately seized upon the novel's oft-quoted last lines:

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning — So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

It didn't necessarily make me feel better, but as I looked at the light, I felt more at peace. I understood that the past is the past; and that I could not reclaim it, could not sail against the current, that close to the wind. I needed to ease up the sheets and fall off, turning my bow more toward the future. 

After that night, that airport beacon became my "green light" and represented departure, the future and tacit permission to move on, to proceed through the crossroads I'd reached in my life. I still look back over my shoulder more often than not, but now I am moving with the current. And my course is easier for it.

 

Your Tax Dollars At Work...

Check out this video from the Brave New Foundation that describes how private companies are profiting from the U.S. Prison system. Your tax dollars are the source of their profits.

Am I Losing It? Does It Matter?

I was in prison camp for a grand total of 56 weeks -- just shy of 13 months. I saw my kids every few weeks, and a steady flow of family and friends made the trip for visiting days. I have had jobs that I hated more than my routine at FPC Duluth.  It was the not going home at night that was the problem.  I would rather do my 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. routine at federal prison camp than be stuck in cube with a 3-foot tether attached to my head, helping whiny lawyers who don't want to do their own work, as long as I could leave at the end of the day.

I was lucky -- I knew it then, and I know it now. But I worry.

As much as I missed my kids, and in spite of getting divorced from my wife of 16 years, my time in prison camp was enlightening and a game changer. I got in shape, I achieved a lot of clarity about what my life is and what I want it to look like, and the stuff that is actually the most important -- my kids, experiences, making uncomfortable decisions -- all crystallized for me in a way that I believe some people never get to see.  I honestly think that I may live longer, getting that year -- and then some -- back because of the experience.

But now, almost a year later, I find myself in traffic, stressed, sweating the small stuff, worrying about bills and jobs and time... things that a year ago I knew were inconsequential to the actual quality of real life. I still know it and am able to talk myself down. But I worry.

What if I get caught up in the everyday stress, all over again, blink, and then I'm 60. I will have wasted 15 years after spending a whole year realizing that life is precious. Too precious to waste being angry because the douchebag in front of me is driving too slow (doesn't change the fact that he's a DB; I just don't have to be worked up about it).

That kind of answers the questions I get asked about this blog. Why embrace the experience? Why keep picking the scab? I especially get these questions from my friends -- and I made some real, true friends (another of life's surprises!) -- who were in Duluth with me. Practically everybody I met was there longer than I was. I was a part-timer, white-on-white tourist at the camp. My right to complain about much of anything was pretty inhibited. So they wonder why I won't let go when I was barely there.

But I think it's because I realized early on in my sentence that I was still alive. That each day I woke up in the morning was a day in my life... and I was not going to get it back if I didn't spend it in a way that contributed to the quality of my life. No matter where I was. So, I kept busy. I walked, wrote, drew; I took classes, I thought. Near the end of my time at FPC Duluth, as anxious as I was to leave, I experienced pangs of panic... I was worried that I didn't have enough time to finish a number of projects that I undertaken. I literally thought, on occasion, "I need more time..."

Thoughts such as those occurred to me because I had come to realize that a year off with little worry -- my children have a great mother, and I knew that they were well cared for -- is a gift. I flippantly began referring to my post-prison camp life as Trent 2.0. In time, I began to take the moniker seriously, as I believed that a permanent change was necessary and a new version imminent. And upon my release into the halfway house, it was true.

But real life began to set in.

Working jobs on someone else's schedule, carving my entire schedule around my children's, jumping through hoops thrown at me by various institutions from U.S. Probation to Normandale Community College has weighed on me. It has threatened to return my life to its former state: a routine.

Fortunately, I am still self-aware enough and took good enough notes to remember the experience. A year away from my kids is too much. Living as a slave to the modern American economy of consumption is not necessary. It's a trap... one that squeezes tighter the harder you resist. Rather, you have to be willing to relax and simply let go. Unhinge yourself from the societal constraints that make you feel stressed and find what makes you happy and do it. Because you and I are going to die. Soon. Too soon. And I want to spend as little of my time left on this earth in a cubicle as possible. I choose instead to roll on the ground with Sam and Sarah, walk in the water and find a palm tree with a sunset.

So, when I find myself not driving with Aloha, and becoming increasingly angry at the slow-moving douchebag off my bow, I think of Walt Whitman. Old WW has so much to say on the way to live our lives. I find some of his transcendentalist messages so powerful that I felt compelled to read the following to a theater of 150 semi-befuddled, fellow federal prisoners:

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
 Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. 

To their credit, I think they got it -- although I was called into an office by BoP staff and told that I would need to "dumb it down" in the future -- most men I met saw their sentence as a life-changing experience.

So, I may be losing it a little bit. And it does matter. Because I know that I have to contribute a verse. It may be imperfect, poorly executed and sloppy. But it will be my verse, and I will die better knowing that I tried a little harder to write it due to the experiences I've encountered.

Top 5 Most Surprising and Cool Things Prisoners Get to Have in Prison

While some county jails may be as depicted in the photo accompanying this post, prisons are not necessarily as spartan as they are depicted in the popular media. Inmates at both the state and federal levels have access to many things that -- to me, as both a citizen and inmate -- were surprising. Below is an article from Top5.com that lists the five things I am most surprised about.



The United States incarcerates more people than any other country on the planet. Such a large prison population represents a serious market for companies that supply correctional facilities' commissaries, such as St. Louis-based Keefe Group. Between inmates' basic rights to certain comfort items and contractors lobbying to get more products into facilities, prisoners have access to a surprising array of amenities.

5 Food Selection

At every level of incarceration, from federal prison to county jail, inmates with enough money "on their books" can eschew facility food for fare purchased through the commissary. While most of the selections consist of mundane junk food like chips and candy, or staples such as peanut butter and Ramen noodles, some of the food available in prison commissaries is downright surprising. Sriracha sauce and yellowfin tuna in Thai chili sauce, anyone? Or perhaps you're in the mood for pizza tonight. Just pick up a pizza kit with crusts and sauce, add a little white meat chicken, some cheese, olives, jalapeño peppers... and kick it up with the onion you pocketed from the kitchen: Prison pizza paradise!

4 Video Game Consoles

Inmates in states like Maryland and Wisconsin can purchase video game consoles—which they can hook up to their personal flat-screen TVs—and lose themselves in a virtual reality that is considerably different from the reality in which they're living. Game choices are typically limited to nonviolent, non-explicit titles. Facilities will also cap the number of individual games an inmate can have in his possession.

3 Typewriters

A typewriter is a surprising inmate amenity not only because prisoners in many non-federal facilities can have one but also because such an anachronistic machine is still available for purchase—anywhere. Courts have held that inmates must be allowed access to typewriters in order to create legal documents. However, the image of an inmate in her cell, hunched over a Smith-Corona, clacking away like a '40s newspaper reporter, is a startling one.... 

Keep Reading at Top5.com.

Federal Prison Economics 101: Currency

No money coming in from the outside? FRP payment (restitution, fines, etc.) taking up all of your prison paycheck? There are other ways to make a living in prison. You just need to get yourself a hustle and put your full faith into the credit that backs the almighty postage stamp.

In Federal Prison, Stamps Are Money

When I was at FPC Duluth, the value of a 1st class "forever" stamp was pegged at 30 cents. You may have paid 45 cents for it at the commissary, but on the 'pound it was worth 30 cents. On occasion, if there was a shortage of stamps on the compound (i.e., demand exceeded supply), the price of stamps would creep up toward actual value.

Such inflationary periods only really affected stamps bought in "books" of 20. Sometimes, they actually were a book of stamps like the ones you might purchase at the post office (or in our case, the commissary). More often, a book was a cut-up collection of mismatched, well-worn stamps, often from different vintages, usually held together with tiny, black rubber bands that guys who wore braids would otherwise use to keep their hair tight. A store-bought -- or "flat" -- book, was even more valuable during inflationary periods than a regular book.

Stamp Inflation

On the FPC Duluth compound, and I'm sure the same is true at other facilities, stamps were in circulation like dollar bills circulate on the streets. A lot of them were older, many had been on the compound for years. New stamps were always being added by people who would buy them from the commissary or otherwise acquire them from the outside -- although sending in stamps through the mail or delivering them to inmates in any other way is against institution rules, they still came in illicitly. But, at the same time, stamps were removed from circulation on just as regular a basis.

Inmates mail letters, or send out art or crafts that they made. In some cases, the stamps in circulation were so old that they actually weren't "forever" stamps, and therefore valueless. Such stamps were usually passed off to new inmates before they got wise to their inability to use them and just held onto them until the next bus of eager-but-naive campers arrived on the compound. Occasionally, a more scrupulous inmate would come across a soft, faded 33¢ Purple Heart stamp and just throw it away.

 Regardless of how the stamps enter and exit circulation on the compound, there is a continual ebb and flow of supply. For the most part, this works. That is, until a more macro-level event comes along to mess up everything.

Inflationary Events

On the compound, several predictable, inflationary events occur throughout the year. Mind you, such events don't increase the purchasing power of stamps, just the cost of obtaining them if you actually need the physical stamps. During football season, stamps become scarce on the weekends as bookies and pool organizers hold onto bets and take the "stickers" out of circulation. So if you need to mail a letter or pay somebody that requires "cash" you should plan accordingly. Otherwise, you may be paying $8 for a flat book on Sunday that you could've had for $6 if you bought it on Wednesday.

Stamps are damn near impossible to come by in the days leading up to the Super Bowl. The NCAA Tournament also puts some inflationary pressure on the cost of stamps. As inconvenient as such times are, you can always plan ahead. Moreover, you know that by Monday or Tuesday, everyone will be paid out and you can go back to the normal pricing.

It's the unpredictable "market mover" events that cause more serious problems on the compound... we'll get to those in the next post.

Aging prisoners' costs put systems nationwide in a bind

(Kevin Johnson and H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY  10:37 a.m. EDT July 11, 2013)
Link to Original Story on USA Today website.

ANGOLA, La. — For decades, the Louisiana State Penitentiary has taken great pride in its vast farming operations, as well as its reputation as one of the toughest lockups in America. The crops and cattle raised by prisoners on the remote 18,000 acres ringed by razor wire have long gone to feed Angola's 5,000 inmates, with enough left over to stock the novelty hot sauce and jelly products sold in the prison museum.


Aging, sick and disabled prisoners are seriously limiting the numbers that can be deployed to tend the land.

Of the 1,000 who typically work the fields, Cain said he's lucky if 600 to 700 are physically able to do the job. After all, a third of all inmates are older than 50, and many are so debilitated that the state spends north of $100,000 per inmate to care for them. "This place was not built to accommodate people like this," Cain said. "I'm telling you, we're really feeling it."

So are the rest of America's vast, aging prison populations. The fiscal, legal, social and political challenges of housing this country's graying inmates have arrived with full force at precisely the time when states, and the federal government, are looking to rein in spending. A problem swelling for decades has become "a national epidemic," according to a 2012 report by the American Civil Liberties Union. Yet efforts to address an issue that will only worsen with time have largely floundered, ensuring that even incapacitated inmates ridden with tumors or paralyzed by Parkinson's disease live their last days in prison hospitals.

The enormous medical costs required to maintain this status quo will inevitably sap money from other areas of government that affect residents who will never set foot near these penitentiaries. Nearly a quarter-million inmates in state and federal prisons — enough to fill the Rose Bowl nearly three times — are classified as "elderly" or "aging," according to the ACLU report. The designation applies to inmates age 50 and older whose aging process, according to the National Institute of Corrections, is often accelerated by general poor health before entering prison and the stress of confinement once there.

At least 15% of the prisoners in 20 states are 50 or older, according to the ACLU report. In West Virginia, 20% were at least 50. The costs of confining such prisoners are about double — $68,270 per year — the $34,135 annual cost for the average younger inmate. Although at least 15 states and the District of Columbia have some provision for the early release of geriatric inmates, a 2010 study by the Vera Institute of Justice funded by the Pew Center on the States found that authorities rarely used the exceptions because of "political considerations" related to public safety policy and a lengthy review process. To accommodate the number of aging and disabled, Connecticut officials won approval in March to begin transferring some offenders to a privately run nursing home. Last month, California prison officials announced the dedication of an $839 million complex in Stockton to provide "mental health and medical services to the state's sickest inmate patients." California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Jeffrey Callison said the first of the 1,722 inmate-patients will begin arriving this month.

The facilities are the result of a lengthy legal fight in the federal courts over the quality of health care in the state's 33 prisons. The changes were prompted by lawsuits, filed more than a decade ago, alleging substandard medical and mental health treatment. Secretary of Corrections and Rehabilitation Jeff Beard said in a statement that the 54-building complex on 200 acres helps show that "we are serious about the health and well-being of inmates entrusted to us.'' Groups advocating for reductions in prisons said the facility represented a failure of state officials to address its problems years ago. "If the state had taken common sense steps to parole the elderly, the terminally ill, the medically disabled, would this prison hospital have been built?" said Mary Sutton, a spokeswoman for Critical Resistance.

A HIGH NATIONAL PRIORITY
Each year, the Justice Department's inspector general ranks the agency's "top management challenges." And each year since 2006, the federal prison system's growing and aging prison population has ranked among such urgent priorities as safeguarding national security and enhancing the nation's cyber-security defenses. "Housing a continually growing and aging population of federal inmates and detainees is consuming an ever-larger portion of the department's budget," the inspector general's 2012 report said, adding that the burden is "making safe and secure incarceration increasingly difficult to provide and threatening to force significant budgetary and programmatic cuts to other (Justice) components in the near future." Since 2006, the number of inmates has grown nearly 14% to about 220,000. Of all the corrections systems in the nation, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons houses the third-largest number of offenders who are 50 or older, according to numbers compiled by the ACLU. "We are on an unsustainable path here," Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz said in an interview with USA TODAY.

In April, Horowitz highlighted that concern in a scathing review of the federal system, concluding that the program allowing for the early release of offenders with terminal illnesses or other debilitating conditions was so "poorly managed" that some inmates languished and died before their release requests were acted on by prison authorities. Inmates who qualify for discharge under the program could be released to the care of family members at home or in facilities where some would probably qualify for public assistance. But of 208 cases reviewed by the inspector general from 2006 to 2011 in which inmate requests for so-called compassionate release had been approved by lower-level Bureau of Prisons officials, 28 offenders died while awaiting final action. In one case, an inmate's request in 2006 for early release was denied even though the offender had suffered a massive stroke and was in a "near vegetative state."

The inmate, serving a life sentence for cocaine and heroin distribution, required a feeding tube, bathing, bed-pan and repositioning every two hours to avoid bed sores. Though he had "no hope for recovery," Justice officials rejected a recommendation for early release because his life expectancy could not be determined. The inmate remains in prison. Though his condition has improved somewhat, the entire right side of his body is paralyzed, and medical authorities say he cannot speak and "needs total assistance with his activities of daily living." In addition, Horowitz's report determined that the BOP did not track the costs related to caring for aging and sick inmates who may be eligible for release. "You would think you would want to know what the potential cost savings (related to the early release of ill inmates) would be," Horowitz said. The cost information that the agency did track showed that the BOP paid $28,893 per year to house the average inmate, while it cost $57,962 per year for each inmate housed at one of its medical centers. Costs at the BOP medical centers increased 38% from 2006 to 2011. By the end of last year, 7,464 inmates were in federal prison medical facilities. Under provisions for required spending reductions within the federal government, known as sequestration, $1.6 billion was cut from the budget of the Justice Department, which manages the BOP.

The cuts so threatened the operations of the BOP that Attorney General Eric Holder authorized the transfer of $150 million in other funds in March to avoid the furloughs of thousands of staffers.
$100,000 PER INMATE
Of the more than 5,000 prisoners housed at Angola, 34% are at least 50 or older. Among the 10 age groups tracked by prison officials, the largest number of offenders in any one category — 859 — are 55 to 64 years old. Assistant Warden Cathy Fontenot said the prison houses about 130 offenders whose annual medical costs exceed $100,000 per inmate. The costs are associated with treating some of the same and most serious conditions that exist in the free world: cancer, HIV, hemophilia, liver disease and chronic renal failure. Some of the sickest and oldest of Angola's residents are housed in the prison hospice unit where the staff includes fellow inmates who provide the constant care required. Jimmy Johnston, 71, serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, has bone cancer and occupies one of the beds in the large, busy open ward. A resident of Angola since his conviction in 1978, Johnston has been treated for tumors on his spine and head. He has endured chemotherapy and radiation treatments. His prognosis is not good. "I probably will be buried here in a few years," Johnston said, referring to the cemetery on the prison grounds. Nearby, Ernest Wadlington, 88, a convicted sex offender, could barely speak.

Louisiana State Penitentiary inmate Ernest Wadlington, 88, was bedridden and served out his sentence in the prison nursing ward until he died Jan. 29.(Photo: H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY)

Wadlington was completely bedridden; his condition had gradually worsened after his Parkinson's disease diagnosis in 2008. Asked whether he expected to die at Angola, Wadlington expressed faint hope that his family could secure his early release so he could spend his last days at home. "I have a place at the Abbeville cemetery," he said, referring to his Louisiana hometown. Cathy Duhon, one of Wadlington's three daughters, said the family had tried to secure her father's release "several times" as his condition worsened. "He represented no harm to anyone but himself,'' Duhon said, adding that they had planned to place him in a nursing facility near the family's Abbeville home. "He required constant care. We told them (prison officials), 'Let us take him home, because he is costing the state prison system more than if we were allowed to care for him.' '' Duhon said the family sought the help of attorney Ricky LaFleur. Wadlington did not survive the effort. He died Jan. 29 at Angola, a few days after the family's last visit. "It was never a question of whether he did or didn't do it (the crime)," Duhon said. "It should have been about making sure that the people who needed to be in prison are in prison."

Federal Prison Economics 101: The Basics

The federal prison economy pretty much reflects the way things work in the real world. Except that it's just that: a reflection. Everything's a little blurred around the edges and illusory. On the other hand, there's nothing quite like a little time in prison to make you realize just how much a fiat currency -- like the US dollar -- is based on faith and cooperation to begin with. A little rocking of the boat and all hell breaks loose.

The prison economy has two distinct bases: "outside" finance and "inside" finance. In this post, we'll take a look at the former. I'll follow up with a look at the inside economics of prison camp in my next entry.

Where Does It Start?
The prison economy has to start somewhere, and for all intents and purposes, it begins with our family and friends. You all "put money on our books" -- i.e., make a deposit in our Bureau of Prisons (BoP) inmate trust account -- by sending a money order or wiring funds to the BoP lockbox facility in Des Moines. After it's processed, the funds are then available to us:  for use at the commissary; to purchase educational or craft materials; to downloand songs for MP3 players; for medical or dental co-pays; or, in large chunks, to make payments toward fines, criminal restitution and child support. Most importantly, for many, the funds were used to pay for phone calls and email minutes.

The other source of income that inmates receive is from prison "jobs". In some cases, where a facility has a Unicor operation -- a manufacturing arm of the BoP that makes chairs, desks, file cabinets, bed frames, plastic spoons, etc., to be used in government agencies like the BoP itself -- inmates can make several hundred dollars per month. Where I was, FPC Duluth, anyone earning more than $30 per month for his job (about 30 hours per week) was "prison rich". I made around $18 per month cleaning the bathrooms in our dorm. 

That being said, it's not like we really had to work very hard; nor did we exactly have bills to worry about. The wages we earned were simply a little extra to spend on the email terminals and a subject about which to piss and moan -- probably, the most popular prison camp pasttime.

For most, camp wages are not a major source of income. At camp, the majority of US dollars comes in from friends and family. Others, however, don't use -- or need -- US dollars to make a living in federal prison. They rely, instead, on the facility's "inside" economy, which a future post will examine a little more closely.