The recent publication of “Measures Meant to Make North Carolina Prisons Safer are Doing the Opposite”, on Scalawagmagazine.org, has raised questions among readers. Formerly titled, “Under the Guise of Safety and Security”, the article was a “big picture” created from a collection of newspaper articles, university reports, books on capital punishment, and personal experience. From these sources I was better able to understand a series of events that led to the end of therapeutic programs on death row, and how violent incidents in prison can cause overreactions by prison officials.
               
To my readers: I welcome all feedback because good writing does not happen in a vacuum; communication is an important part of the creative process.
 
Some points of clarification by paragraph, and concerns that were brought to my attention . . .
 
Paragraph 2: “ . . . death row staff wore somber black ribbons in Callahan’s honor.” Some staff wore these ribbons and some staff had “hard accusatory looks” twisting their faces. The description was not a stereotype of every staff member, rather, a conveyance of the general mood of many people working on death row. Some staff conducted business as usual, unaffected by incidents outside of Central Prison. My descriptions may seem to sensationalize but, several significant and traumatic events occurred throughout NC’s penal system and toning down the language to make it more mundane would have been disingenuous.
 
Paragraph 3: “ . . . the state’s wrath would impact every prison; a murdered guard was a license for punitive reprisals throughout the penal system.” This is neither an exaggeration nor an attempt to garner sympathy for prisoners. It’s a statement of fact and a major point in this article; in bureaucratic systems policy violations elicit over reactive responses. This applies to prisons and virtually every other government entity. Punitive reprisals in prison take the form of “tightening up”, a strict adherence to the rules and elimination of minor liberties. This often leads to a deterioration in communication between staff and prisoners, greater distrust, and animosity.
 
Paragraph 6: “Brutal cell extractions, beatings out of camera view, and prisoners pushed down flights of steps . . .” These incidents, according to friends who have spent time on Unit One, continued even after cameras were installed. The officers responsible are a small group and not representative of all officers who work at CP. Sometimes these assaults are unprovoked, at other times they may be reprisals against prisoners who spit, “gas” (a mixture of urine and feces sprayed from a bottle), or otherwise try to injure staff. On its face, retaliation seems justified if someone spits at or on you, but the majority of prisoners who do such a thing in solitary confinement are mentally ill and beyond reason. As natural an inclination as a violent response maybe for staff they should be above doing so. I’m aware it’s easier said than done, but this is exactly what de-escalation training teaches and why it is necessary on Unit One and Unit Six. You don’t beat or otherwise abuse restrained prisoners – justified or not. This is the burden and responsibility of authority.
 
Paragraph 13: “ . . . our interaction and communication with unit staff increased and improved.” Interaction with correctional officers on death row is different from any other unit. In the general sense the day to day routine seldom changes, leaving “relationships” to vary with each person. The end of Dr. Kuhns’ programs reduced the frequency with which many of us are around staff or have cause to talk with them. Juehrs discouraged both movement on the unit and communication with staff, preferring them to further isolate us.
Paragraph 16: “ . . . a faction of staff at CP resented the programs and attention on death row. They despised the idea that any inmate should be treated as an equal . . “ To be clear, most staff really liked the therapeutic programs on death row. It made their jobs easier and broke up the monotony of each week. It’s unfortunate some made their displeasure and dislike of the programs known by actively undermining them. The idea that any death row prisoners were treated as anything other than convicted murderers really bothered some staff. I recognize that no prisoner will be considered the “equal” of prison staff in terms of status, but this does not preclude humanity and that was exactly the lesson Dr. Kuhns tried to each everyone.
 
Paragraph 19: “Juehrs initiated an internal investigation of Dr. Kuhns . . “ The complete findings of the investigation were never made known to any of us. Our questions to the FCC (Facility Control Committee) on Unit One, a board that determines a prisoner’s security status, were ignored. At no time did any prison official attempt to inform me why I was being held in solitary confinement only that I was “under 45 day investigation”. My brief conversation with Juehrs after my release from Unit One was the only time I was provided information by staff about the investigation. Coupled with what I could glean from volunteers who had been kicked out of the prison, it wasn’t too difficult to figure out what happened. If there is any failing in the facts presented in this article, it is due to the lack of transparency and evidence from the investigatory process
 
Paragraph 21: “Lt. Soucier, who conducted the investigation, received a promotion to the hospital unit manager and created such a hostile work environment for Dr. Kuhns that he ultimately left CP . . .” From the moment Dr. Kuhns worked at CP to the day he departed it was a hostile environment. Any time you attempt to alter the status quo of a world where power is measured in your impact on policy, there’s going to be resistance. Lassiter gave Kuhns the chance to implement his programs and Joyner allowed them to flourish. When these administrators moved on the status quo – punishment not rehabilitation – reasserted itself. That Kuhns was forced to work under Soucier added insult to injury and likely awakened him to the fact he was fighting a losing battle by himself. Maybe there will be a day when more administrators are interested in progressing North Carolina’s prison system with rehabilitative programs like Dr. Kuhns implemented, but that day has yet to arrive.
 
True reform in the penal system requires communicating and understanding the needs of both prison staff and the incarcerated population. What is not helpful, and makes true change a pipe dream, are entrenched attitudes about one group or another. With this in mind I will always strive to understand my environment and the varying perspectives of people in it, encouraging dialogue about those differences in any way I can.

Even though I have a First Amendment right to write whatever comes to mind, as a prisoner this does not mean I’m free to write without consequence. Prisons have policies, but they also have numerous unwritten rules. I know and hear about fascinating insider stories all the time, but writing them is risky business. As was demonstrated to me last year, any prisoner can be put “in the hole” under investigation for an indefinite period of time, however illegitimate the reason. Prison officials need only to declare it a matter of safety and security.
                With that said it’s important to remember this blog and any page containing my writing walks a careful line between facts as they occur in Central Prison and my opinion. I generally lean toward fact and logic in my writing to minimize any problems with “the man”. Unfortunately, anything I say can be used against me. It makes editorializing tricky, but not impossible. That is the writer’s challenge after all – persuading the largest audience and rebutting the opposition. Effective communication from a prison cell isn’t supposed to be easy.
                I was on the phone with Fr. Jude (a priest and friend who has visited me since Mule’s execution in ’05) when it happened.
                “LOCKDOWN! LOCKDOWN! EVERYBODY LOCKDOWN NOW!” The voice screamed over the intercom, anxious and panicky, but authoritative all the same. I hung up the phone after telling Jude I’d call him another time and went to my cell.
                Locking in our cells on death row usually happens at certain times of the day for “count” (when staff count everyone in the prison), tornado and fire drills, and whenever maintenance comes on the block to fix something. Sometimes an incident will occur that requires everyone on a particular block to lock down, such as the rare fight or once when E. Boogie hanged himself. If the entire unit was ordered to lockdown something serious happened.
                We could see it on the faces of staff who came through the block hours later, that look that says “oh crap”. One of them finally let slip there had been a stabbing. We ended up with more information from the local news. Lt. Brent Soucier, CP hospital unit manager, feared and loathed former head of Internal Affairs, was stabbed and beaten by two general population prisoners. The attack sent shock waves through CP, which had not experienced a serious violent incident involving prison brass in my two decades on death row.
                In the days following the attack rumors about Soucier’s condition changed with each person. He lost an eye. He was stabbed in the throat. Several bones in his face were shattered. All the media reported was that Soucier remained hospitalized in serious but stable condition.
                The two prisoners who attacked Soucier were also “briefly hospitalized”. One was immediately transferred to a prison in Western North Carolina, whereas the younger of the two went to CP’s hospital. Rumors drifted back to Unit 3 (death row is a building isolated from the rest of the prison, but we get prison news from guys in the chow hall, in passing through the tunnel, in the hole and on the mental health unit) that the younger attacker was so severely beaten by Soucier’s cronies he suffered brain damage. They beat him with batons for nearly five minutes before other guards arrived and stopped it. Of course no newspaper will report the reciprocal attack unless the prisoner dies.
                In the weeks after the attack on Soucier, the tension between staff and the inmate population reached a point similar to executions. Fresh in everyone’s mind were the guards killed at Bertie and Pasquotank Correctional Institutions in 2017. Though Soucier would recover it was lost on no one he was prison brass and an attack on the administration signaled a dangerous turn in the NC penal system. The looks of animosity guards now level at prisoners moving through the tunnel to and from the chow hall or hospital say it all.
                I can’t help but wonder if security conscious prison officials will bother to look beyond the immediate causes of the attack. The violence in NC prisons is a direct result of a fundamentally flawed system of “corrections”, a term that is itself a misnomer. No effort is made to positively impact behavior of prisoners. No psychotherapeutic programs exist to curtail conflict or otherwise inform those who engage in violent acts that it hurts the entire community. Solutions exist, but prison officials, legislators and the law enforcement organizations that blindly call for greater punishments refuse to see them. The penal system isn’t merely broken, it is backward; and coercion of the inmate population has left a body of evidence impossible to ignore.

Since the murder of five North Carolina prison guards in 2017 there has been intense scrutiny on prison security; specious thinking that ignores long-standing causes of violence. Poor training and overly aggressive, revenge-minded guards increase hostilities with prisoners with nothing to lose. Mentally ill prisoners are perceived as malingerers and allowed to kill themselves. A lack of incentivized sentences and rehabilitative programs leave idle prisoners to grow increasingly agitated. Under these circumstances, violence is inevitable. Although prison security is essential to public safety, it fails to address the causes of violence and recidivism; prison officials ignore the necessity of rehabilitative programs at their peril.
 
                Media sensationalism cultivates the misperception that casualties in corrections is a new trend in violence rather than a boiling point. Sound bytes and quotes from outraged politicians make it seem like they were ignorant of the growing crisis or the human element at stake. Diverted funds, excessively punitive laws, and inflexible sentences come at a cost. Political obliviousness is especially disingenuous when the News and Observer and local television stations regularly report on the corruption and dysfunction of North Carolina’s prison system. One would think, instead of taking NCDPS officials at their word, there would be more of a public reckoning.
 
                The NC General Assembly shows little interest in changing the culture of corrections. When House bills intended to impact prisons are presented, only those that align with tough-on-crime rhetoric seem to pass. HB 969 makes it a felony to masturbate in view of a prison guard. The law criminalizes normal sexual urges in an environment devoid of privacy and fails to account for mentally ill offenders in solitary confinement.
 
                Tough laws like HB969 further punish incapacitated offenders, compounding already lengthy sentences and overcrowded prisons. Officer training and recruitment encourages the same “us against them” mentality consuming America. The “new” ideas featured by the Prison Reform Advisory Board are old methods used by former wardens. Their cronyism often facilitated the problems plaguing NC prisons by leaving in place staff responsible for egregious abuses against prisoners.
 
                Incapacitation, punishment and rehabilitation are essential components of incarceration and when one is ignored in favor of others it undermines the criminal justice system. Society generally believes that criminals deserve what they get. The problem with this view is that it warps the purpose of correctional institutions. While a prison sentence is the punishment, one’s treatment in prison should be reformative. Instead, legislators, NCDPS officials, and prison administrators use “just desserts” to guide their policy decisions. As a result, prisoners are denigrated and many in the public accept our systemic abuse as a necessary evil of confinement. The flaw in treating prisoners like enslaved enemies who deserve no help is that most will earn release and bring what they experience back into the community.
 
                Just as accountability and reformation are the responsibility of prisoners, prison officials must create an environment where that is possible. Rehabilitation is the responsibility of prisoner, guard, and prison officials alike. Punishment and incapacitation alone create violent human warehouses that post a constant threat to public safety. The culture of corrections must evolve into one where offenders are educated, officers encourage accountability and ethical conduct, and prison administrators foster a learning environment that incentivizes good behavior.
 
                Solving prison violence means implementing programs that work in other states. California’s Senate passed the 2014 California College Promise Grant, which funds community college degree programs in 34 of its 35 prisons. Although a small step, the availability of higher ed and the senate’s investment in incarcerated citizens (it is also available to low income citizens) advances the fact prison reform is an attainable goal. Legislative support of rehabilitation is acknowledgement of the direct link between corrections, reentry, and public safety. New York and Texas also support extensive higher education and rehabilitative programming. Together, America’s three largest state prison systems embrace rehabilitation without seeming to coddle prisoners.
 
                To be effective, prison must be a transformative experience, but without parole-eligible sentences and higher education this becomes less likely. Public, legislative and judicial understanding of prison must reject the policies of mass incarcerations. Public safety requires a conscious decision to rehabilitate people in prison and treat them as investments in the community. Until this becomes the culture of confinement, prison will remain a violent place, one that puts everybody in danger.

At Central Prison most prisoners cycle through a position working in the kitchen. Washing pots and pans, cleaning surfaces, preparing food, serving food on the line, and cooking, but only if you know how. Since there is no longer a cooking program at CP only those with prior experience get to cook, though this hardly makes the food better. Every once in a while somebody will be put in the baker position and do a great job; biscuits are fluffy, cakes soft and coated with icing, and cornbread not too sweet. Good bakers are rare and do not last long; they get their choice of whatever prison in the state they want to live in because good bakers are a high commodity.
                Bakers, like cooks, are paid $1 a day. Every other position earns 40-60 cents a day. Before the NC Sentencing Commission changed the law in 1994, incentive wage jobs came with gain time – time off of a prisoner’s sentence. Anyone charged with a crime after 1994 does not have access to good time (good behavior), gain time (work and school), and parole. Life without parole was implemented, and de facto life sentences became common. Federal and state funding for higher education ended, so did many other programs like the cooking school at Central Prison.
                The food at CP did not begin to get bad until several years later, when the then NC Division of Prisons decided too much money was spent on food, the old school kitchen stewards retired, and an influx of new prisoners with life sentences filled all of the kitchen positions. The wages are the only thing that remained the same: bakers and cooks are paid the most, everyone else 40-60 cents a day.
                Regular guards without cooking experience took the place of kitchen stewards, monitoring the making and doling out of food. There were too few of them to stop the black market of sugar, bacon and contraband passed out of the window where trays are received in the dish room. The guards could occasionally be bribed or were lazy enough only to pretend they cared. They knew the prisoners worked because they wanted to avoid solitary confinement. There are no other incentives. No gain time or better wages.
                There are other jobs at Central Prison – hallway and cell block janitors, clothes house workers, maintenance assistants, canteen operators, and hospital janitors. The more technical or hazardous positions – canteen operators, maintenance assistants, hospital janitors and clothes house workers earn $1 a day; every other job at CP pays 40-60 cents a day.
                It’s bad enough the NC Sentencing Commission eliminated parole and the ability for prisoners to earn time off of their sentences; but, when you try to live off a dollar a day or less in prison it makes for a miserable existence. Stamps costs more than the lowest wage. A local phone call costs nearly twice as much as the highest wage. Toiletry items and writing materials cost money too. Imagine being given life without parole, you don’t have friends or family after twenty years, no way to appeal your sentence, and nothing left to lose. What if it wasn’t LWOP? Maybe just 20-25 year and no reason to believe life will get better?
                It is no secret the food prepared in the kitchen sucks because the guys who prepare it don’t care. They have no reason to care when it’s easy to fix their own food and mix slop for everybody else. It’s not as if they are being rehabilitated anymore; in fact, with guards standing over them like plantation straw bosses it’s easy to see how a bad day often becomes much, much worse.
                Kenneth Lassiter, Director of NC prisons, made an appearance on WRAL’s Sunday morning news program “On the Record” (3-18-18). Along with the director of SEANC (State Employees Association of North Carolina), Lassiter spoke of the problems facing NC prisons as he answered questions from news anchor David Crabtree and Laura Leslie. The discussion focused on what changes will be made in NC prisons to address staffing shortages, undertraining, and general safety and security of every facility. There was a cursory question about the cause of 2017’s violence in NC prisons, to which Lassiter, made an equally cursory response about “idle minds in prison and no programs lead to violent problems . . “ (not an exact quote, but pretty close; feel free to google the broadcast for more information).
                Lassiter’s comment about “idle minds” glossed over some extremely pertinent information that directly impacts public safety.

1. Not every prisoner spends the rest of his or her life in prison. A majority will return to the free world after so many years of forced labor, and will have little to show for their time.
2. The lack of higher education and rehabilitative programs breed “idle minds”. The work done in prison is not a marketable skill to employers on the outside, unless you’re talking about absolute obedience to authority. Idle minds released from prison recidivate.
3. There are no incentives in North Carolina’s penal system, only coercive measures. There are no rewards for good behavior or doing the right thing. There is no give or leniency in the system, only a crumbling idea of what rehabilitation and human decency used to look like in prison. Now there is only despair and hatred for people who give you plenty of the stick without the benefit of a carrot.

 
I will give Mr. Lassiter credit in one thing. At least he deigned to mention “idle minds” in prison. He is aware there is more to the problem of prison safety than calling for the National Guard (Rep. Bob Steinburg) and executing people who have been sentenced to death (Rep. Bob Steinburg) so other prisoners will get the message North Carolina is tough on crime.  I have to wonder though, do any of the prison officials and legislators on the North Carolina Prisons Commission know what it’s like to work for 40 cents a day? To be told at the end of an eight hour shift you’ve got to work overtime for free; to be forced to work or get punished?
My guess is they don’t, and neither does the general public when they call for harsher laws and more punishment. By now it should be obvious to the public, as it is to Kenneth Lassiter, that violence in prison primarily comes from a lack of incentive.
 
3-18-18  On the Record
http://www.wral.com/news/local/video/17423783/

Beyond the penal lexicon, what does it mean to “serve life”? The writing in drama project on North Carolina’s death row resulted in the production of a 90 minute stage play demonstrating what it means to serve life in prison and how this journey begins in childhood. More than that, Serving Life collected stories written by men who society has discarded and sentenced to death. Stories that are emblematic of development interrupted. Whether it entailed absent or abusive parents, poor neighborhoods lacking positive role models, or mental illness and inadequate education, these and other factors create the school-to-prison pipeline. There were a number of needs that were never met.
                Psychologist Abraham Maslow posited a theory of development called the Hierarchy of Needs. He explained that whenever a person’s needs are denied regression toward poor behavior results. Once basic needs are met, progression in character and personality occur. Most people spend their lives trying to meet needs on every level of the hierarchy, with only the most successful reaching the pinnacle of self-actualization.
                7. Self-actualization: the realization of potential
                6. Aesthetic needs: order and beauty
                5. Cognitive needs: knowledge and understanding
                4. Self-esteem needs: achievement and gaining of recognition
                3. Belongingness and love needs: affiliation and acceptance
                2. Safety and security needs: long-term survival and stability
                1. Physiological needs: hunger, thirst, sex
 
                The incarcerated populace was especially inefficient at fulfilling their needs in the free world and, as much as many would hate to admit, require the structure and order of prison to satisfy the two most basic levels of the hierarchy—physiological, safety and security needs. Over time affiliation and acceptance occurs, and through programs achievement, knowledge and understanding are reached. Order is a natural byproduct of most institutional settings, but recognizing it as a necessary element of one’s balance as a human being is difficult.
                Death row’s production of Serving Life was the culmination of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs fulfilled. In writing and acting in this play each participant recognized the missing stages of their development, overcame and met whatever needs had caused their individual regression and progressed toward a realization of human potential.
                Maslow identified a number of traits characteristic of self-actualizing people:
 
--Clear, efficient perception of reality and comfortable relations with it.
--Spontaneity, simplicity and naturalness
--Problem centering—having something outside of themselves they “must” do as a mission.
--Detachment and the need for privacy
--Autonomy, independence of culture and environment
--Continued freshness of appreciation
--Mystical and peak experiences
--Feelings of kinship and identification with the human race
--Strong friendships, but limited in number
--Democratic character structure; balance between polarities in personality
--Ethical discrimination between good and evil
--Philosophical, unhostile sense of humor
 
                Our performance of Serving Life required a great deal of perseverance and team work to complete. Had this effort at problem centering—something outside of ourselves we “had” to do as a mission—failed, maximum human potential couldn’t have been reached. Also necessary was an appreciation for the opportunity to engage in this unheard of event on death row. Write a play and act in it? A few years ago the idea would’ve been comical.
                More than anything, being granted the chance to tell the story of development interrupted to approximately two hundred people in three viewings was a phenomenal experience incomparable to anything else. Serving Life fulfilled needs we didn’t know existed, but it also became the ultimate platform upon which the realization of our fullest potential became possible. If other prisoners were granted the same opportunity to meet every level in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs it stands to reason that prison could become a place where human potential is maximized rather than squandered.

“We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it – and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again – and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.”

--Mark Twain                                    

To the kind people who commented on the NC death row monologues and life maps presented by the Hidden Voices at Guilford College and Vanderbilt Divinity School:

Thank you for acknowledging our humanity. It means a great deal to us and eases some of the burden that is a death sentence. Your feelings of disgust, anger, frustration and shame over the way our criminal justice system works are both understood and fully relatable. That you recognize the troubling path of America’s school-to-prison pipeline, and the need to end it, bodes well for future generations. I was personally moved by your messages of hope and it’s good to know we are reaching people. However, we cannot be satisfied by hoping the system will eventually right itself or suddenly stop sending children to prison. Real change begins with individual action.

Many of the questions asked at the Revisioning Justice in America conference are issues I’ve given a lot of thought during my incarceration. Some of them have answers and it is those I want to share with you.

1.       How can the state of North Carolina, its agents and officials, treat other human beings so miserably?

Imagine the state government is an animal that hasn’t quite evolved . . . It was just last year a group of African American women were grudgingly awarded compensation for their sterilization in the 60s. If this isn’t an indication of how far behind NC is, then consider also the recent voting restrictions that brought national criticism. If minority citizens in the free world struggle for equal protection and the right to vote – what chance do we have? Prisoners have always been thought of as second class citizens. We are the civil dead. The brutality and oppression that occurs is a natural byproduct of a penal system that literally interprets the 13th Amendment’s exception for slavery.

2.       What enables you to survive?

A willingness to learn. My survival is dependent upon understanding the elements of the criminal justice and penal systems. Ignorance of the law really isn’t an excuse – at this stage, when the stakes are your life, they make no exceptions for people who don’t know any better. Also, you often hear “the system is broken”, but what does that really mean? It’s only broken to the people victimized by it, for everyone else justice has been served. Besides prison is an intermingling of several flawed systems – mental health, education, state government and federal oversight. As infuriating and saddening as it can be I gain the will to fight from such knowledge. It helps to understand few people in prison are here of their own volition – most were failed by people who could have helped and did not, or they were pushed, prodded and corralled from a very early age until failure wasn’t a choice but an inevitability. I write about these not-so-hidden connections as a way of expressing my opinion and shouting my continued existence to the people who would discard me as a matter of course.

3.       How do you share your wisdom?

For my own part, I try to share my wisdom by example; thinking, speaking and living in a way that creates success and hoping others take note. When I first got to death row I was really naïve. An old man, who later became a good friend, told me there are plenty of stupid book-smart people. It took maturity to understand what he meant. All the learning in the world can’t account for the wisdom necessary to wield it. Sharing wisdom is easy, getting people to listen is another matter entirely. Fortunately, I was ravenous for the right kind of wisdom and finally at a point in life where I was capable of listening. As for sharing wisdom from death row to the rest of the world, it matters who is hearing the message. Young children on the cusp of adolescence, juveniles who think they know everything, adults who blindly support politicians and vote without understanding the issues, community leaders, public officials, judges and legislators.

4.       What can a person who grew up privileged, do to relate to you? How do we create proximity between the classes?

Don’t confuse privilege with right. Freedom, family, life, education, health and wealth are privileges not afforded to everyone. The sooner you remember not to take these things for granted the better off you’ll be. Once incarcerated you discover that all the things you believed were rights are nothing of the sort. To relate you need only imagine losing everything you have – even your identity—in a moment of stupidity, rage, greed or jealousy. It’s that easy. Proximity between the classes begins with the acceptance we are all human beings who want our basic needs fulfilled. Once that happens then and only then can proximity between the classes be a reality.

5.       What do you want people on the outside who are fighting against mass incarceration to know?

Remember you’re fighting against a cultural belief that says it’s okay to devalue people who have been convicted of a crime. Keep in mind the main premise of that belief justifies severe punishment as the only way to reduce crime. A tough-on-crime attitude doesn’t have to mean more laws and longer prison terms. There must be an effort made to habilitate people who lack the requisite skills to survive in society, and rehabilitate offenders who didn’t understand those lessons the first time around. If you really want to end mass incarceration it must be through education – especially the general public, but every prisoner as well.