Before I continue, there are a few fears I'd like to lay to rest. I'm not sure if they're my fears or your fears, but I want to address them anyway. This isn't in response to anything in particular, either; it's just that I've been meaning to say a few words about the topic and I may as well do so now.
I mentioned briefly in my introduction that I take responsibility for my crimes. I sometimes wonder whether or not this blog is in keeping with that idea; it certainly isn't intended as a shrugging of such. I'm curious what the 'traditional' response to a blog like mine would be. I must admit that I'm not quite sure what my responsibilities are - I can imagine complicity with my sentence and a vague promise to "do good" should suffice (neither have any impact on my release), although I am left with the impression that no one particularly cares what I do so long as I don't break the law, which goes the same for anyone anyway.
I did mention that most prisoners shouldn't really be in prison, so let me elaborate on that a bit as well. Since becoming incarcerated I've learned that Colorado, in particular, is very tough on crime compared to other states. In fact, most petty criminals in here have plans to move to a different state after their release. I suppose this is a type of deterrent, but it has some goofy results. For instance, I met a man in here who is serving 24 years for stealing a lawnmower from Home Depot. His name is Martin Mahoney; his DOC number is 61998. I mean, really guys. How does this happen? You're paying over $750,000 on him over the course of his incarceration, for a lawnmower.
I asked around and found out there's a such thing as "aggravated" sentence; apparently Martin had a history of stealing stuff. It doesn't make much sense to me, though; no lawn mower can be worth 24 years of a human being's life. Is this how American's think? I've noticed there isn't much of a respect for human life in this country (to use my personal experience in public school, the military, and the private business sector as a basis for observation); after all, there are people serving less time for shooting at its citizens. 1
Who came up with aggravated sentencing anyway? How does it make sense to incarcerate a repeat criminal even more? I mean, if we're going to subscribe to the idea of people as "lost causes," why not just kill our offenders like they do in China? 2 Are normal sentencing ranges not sufficient? And what does "sufficient" even refer to -- punishment, rehabilitation, 'preventative maintenance'? Clearly his previous incarcerations did nothing to improve his life or elevate his status in the community. Few people want to rob, and usually turn to it out of necessity. But all this side-tracking is forgetting the point. A man was sentenced to 24 years for stealing a lawnmower. We're really not so different from Saudi Arabia or North Korea after all, are we? That such a thing can even happen is an affront to human dignity, to say nothing of the freedom for which America purportedly stands. I don't think he even got away with the lawnmower. As I recall, he was apprehended before getting away. Presumably someone has since purchased the lawnmower.
It's as if this country is actively contriving reasons to incarcerate people for longer periods of time. A paranoid feeling exists in inmate communities; I don't subscribe to it although I can understand its sentiment that rising conflicts of interest have led to a culture of pro-incarceration in the judicial system. Isolated incidents of corruption have been found to exist 3, but has the problem really become endemic, as so many of our incarcerated citizens think? It's an extremely difficult pill to swallow.
The 99% - the 'chaff' I mentioned in my previous entry - accounts for people like the lawnmower man who do not present an immediate danger to society and are severely over-incarcerated. These are people who could be on ISP, probation, in community corrections, in house arrest, or who could be working on paying off a fine to the city or merely paying court- ordered restitution, this instead of prison sentence rather than in addition to. The status quo is not only a costly tactic, but one which merely delays its problems. Did you know that violations of parole, probation, community sentence, etc. have an automatic prison sentence of six months? Why not just add a ten day 'penalty' or something? It costs taxpayers $15,000 every time a person on parole drinks a beer or smokes a joint and gets caught. Need I even go into the danger of illegalizing trivial things? When the punishment for being two hours late and for assaulting someone are the same? How can we expect ex-cons to respect the law?
Please don't construe all this ranting as a belief that I don't deserve some kind of penalty, or that Lady X and Mr. Y don't deserve a surety that I won't be a danger to them in the future. While I doubt that they would want one from me personally (and probably wouldn't believe it if they had one), you'll learn more about my situation as I detail it, and then, I suppose, you can make up your own mind about my sentence, and about what justice means to you personally. But there are a few more aspects to my responsibility I'd like you to consider, and they are more personal and emotional, if not more complicated.
I would consider it morally 'wrong' to profit from, say, a book about my crimes (to my knowledge it is illegal to do so), so I'm posting my story here, for free. That was part of my idea; you get to learn the whole story, while I suffer the embarrassment of being 'exposed', along with any other unforeseen repercussions. For instance, I think I could possibly anger some people. It's audacious, after all, for a convict to up-and-post his first-hand experiences on such a public platform, and I may even unintentionally provoke "the wrong person" - whoever he or she might be - into retaliating against my person in some way. I spoke with many friends and family about it before I began; even with some inmates (many of whom don't know what blogs are and failed to grasp the concept), and consensus is in favor of the idea. More importantly to me, my family thinks it's a good idea.
So, what if my blog becomes popular? Or perhaps less-than-popular; say, a readership of 1,000-10,000 people. That's quite a network. Would it be immoral to collect advertising revenue? What if I started a fund for victims similar to Lady X and Mr. Y? What if someone desired to use samples of my writing for commercial use or scholastic use? What if someone wanted to pay me to write a column? Where would my 'responsibilities' lie then? I believe all of those things could happen. In fact, I would like them to, someday. But how would Lady X or Mr. Y feel about that? Does that matter?
I hesitate to assume anything about either of them; they don't strike me as particularly forgiving or forgetting individuals. I don't think they know the truth about what my mind was going through during the time my crimes were committed either; but again, I don't suspect they care. In fact, they'd probably rather I fell off the surface of the earth altogether - a death sentence in effect. I killed myself for them once and survived, so perhaps they can rest knowing that, in some universe out there, I did in fact die for my crimes and can never trouble them again.
(In this area my perception is a bit blurry - there is a belief, or perhaps merely a thought-experiment, floating around out there that no one really dies, but continues living in those few universes in which they didn't die for whatever reason. This continues until every human being that has ever existed lives on in that single universe in which they survived the universe itself... somehow. Can they interact with one another after that? Maybe in one of the universes they can. My perception here is blurry because I'm not so sure that I did survive, and also since my perceptive distortions were strongest in the hours preceding my 'death'. I received some intriguing answers to some very alluring questions.)
Anyway, they got what they wanted - a long incarceration period and money. I sincerely wish them the best and hope they can get over any terror I caused them. I don't seek forgiveness either, since that could open the door for reconciliation, validating the perceptions I had during my psychotic break in the first place. You'll understand more what I mean by that near the end of my story. I am masking their identities and painting them in as honest a light as I can. What more can I really do for them? Nothing; it'd be inappropriate for me to even consider doing anything more.
I intend to become successful in life; I feel everyone should, particularly ex-convicts (after all, the more successful they are; the less likely they are to break the law again). I hope no one has any problems with that. My responsibilities may not be precisely clear to me, but I know failure is not among them.
As an aside; it's much more difficult to write these entries in a timely manner than I anticipated. One would think that, being in prison, I would have nothing but time to think about how to best relay my tale, and all the more time to write it out, but that's not really true. I apologize for my delays. I told you that I would write something every week or two and now I've been going at a pace of roughly one entry or so per month, if that. This was not my intent. I am working on a much larger entry: a backdrop against which I hope things will make more sense, and am satisfying my own standards for narration. Speaking of, I hope you will over-look the small typographical errors - they are an inevitable result of my second-hand blogging process. Thank you for your interest, by the way! I have been sent your comments and I appreciate them. The other inmates cannot quite conceive what I am doing. Well, some of them. I feel very fortunate. I'll see you in my next entry period.
1. News article: Pueblo Chieftain column, reproduced above.
2. Hyperbole - obviously I don't believe this to be a genuine solution.
3. News article: The Trouble With Private Prisons, reproduced above.
