by Larry Lawton
I tell them, “A metal detector won’t find a wooden handle, so you’re good. Once you have your knife attached to a handle you can defend yourself. That knife saved my life. I was on the yard and a guy I had an earlier argument with wanted to stab me. I had my knife and because I had a knife I held off the guy long enough for the guard in the tower to sound the alarm and draw down with a rifle and announce for everyone to get down.’
I emphasize to them that life in prison is all about survival. I say, “You will do what you have to do to survive.”
Young people need to know that prison is not a vacation or a rite of passage on the way to being some big-shot criminal.
Part Two: What Prison is REALLY Like
The second part of my program is the truth about prison. I begin by having the class read an article about what happened to me in Edgefield prison. It’s an eye-opener. I then read a strong letter from a friend of mine in a federal penitentiary who is doing a life sentence. I had him write to the kids on what prison is like and how you can get trapped in a system that’s broken. In the letter the man describes how his best friend told on him, and he was convicted for conspiracy to sell drugs. No actual act occurred, but he went to trial and got a life sentence. It’s a raw letter, and I read it verbatim. You can hear a pin drop when I’m reading the letter.
I then go to the PowerPoint and go over all the aspects of prison life including death, rape, drugs, gangs, fighting, and work. It’s hard to know when discussing one of those grim topics hits home. When I was speaking at Lehman High School in the Bronx to 700 kids, it seemed like the topic drugs really hit home. When I talk to upper-middle class kids, the topic that makes them squirm is work. Yes, work. For them money is often no object, and they are shocked when I tell them how in prison I was making $5.25 cents a month. Yes, a month. They seem to think that isn’t possible. It is. I used to buy twenty-one Ramen noodle soups that cost a quarter each. I explain how I went from being a millionaire jewel robber to buying cheap soup to stay full. I explain how you crush up the Ramen noodles and eat them raw and then drink water so the noodles expand in your stomach and you aren’t hungry.
I talk about the dangers of prison life, how I never slept past 6 a.m. when the guards cracked the doors. The guards, called Turnkeys, open the doors one by one manually with a key at 6 a.m. If you’re smart, you will be up and ready to go when the doors are cracked. I once saw a guy sleep in, when three other guys he must have had a beef with went into his cell and stabbed him.
With regards to showers: I tell them if there’s tension in the air, you never go to the shower alone. I don’t mean you go into the shower together. I mean you and your buddy go to the shower with boots on. One guy goes in and starts showering. If he sees a threat coming he will knock on the wall, and the guy in the shower gets his boots on and gets his shank ready.
I told them how I once watched a newbie go to the shower, get stabbed, fall, and cover the drain cover. His blood was running down the tier.
In Atlanta I saw a guy get stabbed for cutting in the chow line. It was a real wake up call. You get stabbed for cutting in line? Jesus.
I go on to explain how all these prison TV shows don’t show the whole truth. Yes, they show some horror stories and crazy people. What they won’t show is what happens when the camera’s off. They don’t show a guard who’s had a bad day with his wife, come in and take it out on a guy who is handcuffed and defenseless. I’m not knocking all guards or even suggesting that the majority are bad. What I am saying is they’re human beings, and human beings do stupid things. Just because a guy has a uniform doesn’t mean he’s right. It doesn’t mean he’s a great guy. You read about cops abusing people all the time. To me what’s sad is that you never read about a guard abusing an inmate. Do you really believe no abuses by guards are taking place? Of course they are. That’s because the abuse is pushed under the rug. Who cares? It’s only an inmate.
A country is judged on how it treats its elderly, infirmed, and incarcerated. Sadly, in this country we are failing on a lot of those fronts. It can be changed; we only have to want to change it.
*
Here’s a stat that will shock you. One out of ten juvenile inmates is sexually abused by guards. Read this report by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics:
Shocking Report Reveals Epidemic of Sexual Abuse in Juvenile Prisons.
A new report says more than one out of every 10 child prisoners in state custody are molested or raped. February 17, 2010. And nearly all of the time it’s by the guards!!! Top of Form
An unprecedented report released last month by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) has revealed some disturbing statistics about sexual abuse in U.S. juvenile detention facilities. Twelve percent of youth held in such facilities say that they have been sexually abused over the course of one year. Or, to put it another way, more than 1 in 10 of young people under state supervision are molested and/or raped. Nearly all of these incidents involve a staff member (about 85 percent), while the rest involve another incarcerated youth.
According to the study, male prisoners were more likely than females to report sexual activity with facility staff, but less likely than females to report forced sexual activity with other youth. Surprisingly, a whopping 95 percent of all youth reporting staff sexual misconduct said they had been victimized by female staff members. In the most troubling facilities, between 20 and 30 percent of incarcerated youth reported abuse.
These stunning figures have come to light thanks to a provision within the National Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) of 2003, which included a mandate to produce such a study. Officially dubbed the National Survey of Youth in Custody (NSYC), the report limited its data to incidents occurring in the previous 12 months, or since the youth’s admission to the facility if he or she had been in custody for fewer than 12 months. While nearly 93,000 people are held in a juvenile detention center on any given day in the U.S., the survey does not represent those held for a short time, those held in small facilities, or young people who are held in adult facilities. This survey includes responses from nearly 200 juvenile facilities, with an estimated total of 10,000 interviews with youth.
Jamie Fellner, senior counsel with Human Rights Watch, said that having a comprehensive report like this one is crucial to grasping a horrific problem.
“(The high rate of abuse) is symptomatic of a detention system that does not serve the rehabilitative purpose for which it is designed,” said Fellner. “States put the youth there, and (the youth) don’t come with any political or social clout. So who pays attention to them? No one but their families, if that.” Fellner added that the reported rates of sexual abuse are much higher in juvenile facilities than adult prisons, which she attributed to the fact that kids are less likely to be able defend themselves.
A notoriously difficult problem to gauge, the NSYC struggles against the tendency of some youth to not report abuse they’ve experienced, even when they are promised anonymity. At the same time, some youth make false or inflated claims, or may not have a clear understanding of what is being asked of them. Fellner said it’s her hunch that even the high reported numbers undercount the actual rate of abuse. “If one in three kids are being abused at one facility, why in the world would they go to officials of the facility that’s abusing them, that hasn’t helped them, to report it?” Fellner asked.
But David, who teaches at a Michigan detention facility -- and who asked that his real name not be used in this article -- said that he was surprised at the high rate of abuse revealed by the NSYC. “I know there’s a lot of individual sexual activity between youth, but most of it is what you’d probably call consensual, unless you want to get into age stuff,” David said.
He added that he is, however, familiar with one youth “grooming” another -- that is, latching onto them and setting them up for a sexual encounter. David has also noticed that “some female staff th
at really like to flirt with the boys,” a phenomenon that he described as “really pathetic.”
“If I had to go with my gut feeling about how often (abuse) happens, I’d say it’s way less (than the report indicates),” David said. “You do have to wonder how kids define sexual activity when asked about it.”
The BJS survey, which collected responses using a touch-screen laptop and audio feed in a private setting, used different questionnaires for youth of different ages. Ninety-eight percent of the interviews were conducted in English; 2 percent were in Spanish.
The surveys for older youth read:
By sexual contact, we mean sexual intercourse, oral sex, anal sex or any other touching or rubbing of someone else’s private parts in a sexual way. By private parts, we mean any part of the body that would be covered by a bathing suit. …
... Sexual contacts can happen to boys as well as girls. People who try to have sexual contact with young people are not always strangers but can be someone they know well like a youth, a staff member, teacher, counselor, or minister. People who try to have sexual contact with young people aren’t always men or boys -- they can also be women or girls. And sometimes people try to make young people have sexual contact even if the young person doesn’t want to do it.
Among the questions in the same survey were:
-- Have you rubbed another person’s penis with your hand or has someone rubbed your penis with their hand?
-- Have you rubbed another person’s vagina with your hand?
-- Have you had any other kind of sexual contact with someone at this facility? … What kind of sexual contact was that?
While it isn’t strictly physical, and not clearly measured by the NSYC, David notes that staff at the detention facility he works at has a tendency to make graphic comments and gay jokes around the incarcerated youth.
“When around kids, a lot of (staff) say really crude things, a lot of stuff that really pushes the line, and there’s not a lot of consequences that I’ve seen,” he said.
Martin, who teaches at the same detention facility as David and also asked that his name not be used, echoed the notion of sexually aggressive language creating a hostile environment.
“There’s a lot of talk, a lot of the word ‘faggot,’” Martin said. “In our place, we have a lot of very disgusting jokes told by staff to the kids.”
Martin added that in his 16 years of employment with this facility, he only heard of one complaint between about sex between a staff member and a youth, who was 16 years old. There was a trial, and the staff was found not guilty.
In another story from Martin, one youth was released from the facility when he turned 21; a short time later, he married a staff member, a female teacher.
“It was legal, technically, but it begs the question if they messed around before he got out,” Martin said.
He added that the uneven dynamic between the two is troubling.
“A locked-up person can never be consensual with a worker, who has power over them,” Martin said.
It is a crime for staff to have sex with inmates in all 50 states, but such cases are rarely pursued in criminal court, according to The New York Times Book Review.
Whether this first effort to collect comprehensive data on the persistence of sexual abuse of youth undercounts or overcounts the reality, Martin makes the matter plain: “One incident is too many.”
The dizzying numbers collected by the NSYC are poised to galvanize a comprehensive response that makes facilities safer. So what, exactly, is to be done?
If Fellner had it her way, much fewer kids would be put into detention centers in the first place.
“There should be a tighter screen on who gets removed from their community,” she said, adding that most of the incarcerated youth are nonviolent offenders. In fact, only 34 percent of youth in detention are confined for violent crimes (a number that doesn’t count those charged as adults and serving time in prison).
In addition, Fellner would like to see zero tolerance for staff misconduct, as well as other common-sense practices outlined in the PREA report on sexual abuse in U.S. prisons and detention centers. The report outlines practical standards, including screening inmates for their vulnerability to abuse; hiring practices; medical and mental health services; and external audits.
The recommended standards, established by eight commissioners over five years of extensive research, was submitted to Attorney General Eric Holder last June. Holder has until June 23, 2010 to issue a final version of the national standards.
U.S District Judge Reggie B. Walton, the commission chair, addressed how a broader culture change must happen alongside facility improvements if people -- both adults and youth -- can depend upon being physically safe when they are incarcerated.
“… (T)here is an attitude of indifference on the part of a lot of people who feel that just because somebody has committed a crime and they’re incarcerated that it’s appropriate for them to be abused while they’re in detention,” said Walton at the press conference that issued the proposed standards.
Fellner, who served on the PREA commission, said that an attitude change among those in charge of detention facilities is crucial.
“People connected to juvenile facilities need to understand that detention isn’t intended to be just punitive, but rehabilitative,” she said.
It is a notion that calls back to the mission put forth by the first juvenile court in the world, created in Chicago in 1899 by Jane Addams and Hull House, which was intended to act in the best interests of the children before them, serving as “a kind and just parent.”
“It’s not a question of we don’t know what to do (about abuse of youth),” Fellner said. «It›s a question of political will.»
*
The judicial system and prison system are broken, and complaining rarely gets you anywhere. Instead I have devoted my life to trying to keep kids and young adults out of prison. As I said earlier, prisons are needed. I don’t want a murderer or rapist living next to me. But as a society we incarcerate way too many non-violent drug offenders. That is sad because those people need treatment, not an education on how to be a better criminal.
When I explain what prison is really like, I let them know that there are more drugs in prison than on the streets. They look at me like I’m crazy. It’s the truth. On a cell block with one hundred guys, there might be three or four drug dealers selling pot, cocaine, heroin, acid, etc. In a typical neighborhood on the streets you might have to drive a few miles to get your drugs. In prison you walk down two cells and can usually get whatever you want.
Teens and young adults need to hear the truth. Hell, everyone needs to hear the truth. I’ll say it again: the system is broke and needs some serious fixing.
Continuing in Part Two, What Prison is REALLY Like, I tell those in the program the truth about abuses, rotten food, and the mayhem that goes on in the prisons when the cameras are off. Let’s face it, if the camera crews for TV shows tried to show the whole truth, do you think the Federal Bureau of Prison would let them in? Do you think any state prison facility would let a camera crew in uncensored? Of course not! Do you think they’d show the guy with no legs who was in a cell across from me and how they let him defecate on himself and how they didn’t feed him? The guards had to go in there with masks over their faces. This is the stuff that happens in Third World countries – it shouldn’t be happening in American. Some people will say, “Well, they deserve it.” I just laugh. Imagine if that was one of your family members. This statement is the truest of all: but for the grace of God, go I.
Part Three: What Will You Lose
Part three of the Reality Check Program hits the kids and adults in the heart. I explain what I lost in a way that strikes home. It’s in this part of the program that I see some kids and adults cry. I lay my soul on the line every t
ime I do the program, and I show pictures of my own kids at a young age. I lost them, and I want kids and adults to see what they will lose. I missed the best years of my son Larry Jr.’s and daughter Ashley’s lives. That’s hard to swallow. I caused it and I have to accept complete responsibility for it. It’s not about anything monetarily. That’s all bullshit, and they see it here in this part.
One day in late 2008 I was sitting in my small, upstairs office when I get a call from Karolena Declercq, a woman who had heard about me through another person I helped. She said she was in the area and wanted a few minutes of my time.
“Sure,” I said, “Come on up. I’ll be here for a few more hours.”
She must have been real close, because within ten minutes she was knocking on my door.
Karolena was a woman in her early forties, and she began to tell me the story about her son getting shot in the head in Cocoa, Florida. What a sad story. Karolena went on to say that after many years of struggling with the death of her son, she had heard about what I do, and would I like to use the pictures and story in my program?
Ms. Declercq is a strong Christian woman who is an RN and runs assisted living facilities. She had been carrying around the pictures of her son’s death for years. Karolena felt God had directed her to me. She handed me the pictures, and I was shocked. Her son had been shot in the head and was left a bloody corpse sitting in his car.
I have seen a lot of death in my life, but to see these pictures was an eye-opener even for me. My first thought was, Kids need to see these pictures. My next thought was, At what age do I show these pictures?
I decided they were inappropriate for teens, so I held onto the pictures for a long time until I developed the adult program. There would be no reason I shouldn’t show the pictures to adults heading in the wrong direction fast. They need a wake-up call, and this was it. I worked on a delivery of the message for the program.
