Today I received an e-mail message from Michael Sweig, a legal studies professor from Roosevelt University in Chicago. As a legal studies professor, Michael Sweig teaches business students in a business school who are getting business degrees about law. Professor Sweig has given me the troubling news that more than 60 million people in our country have a criminal record. Since all people with criminal records face employment barriers and discrimination, Professor Sweig is launching the (People with Criminal Records) PCR Lobby and The PCR Institute to support legislative lobbying, research, and other work to meet the needs of people with criminal records.
I look forward to supporting this group in every way that is appropriate. Whenever I’m released from prison, I intend to build a career speaking, teaching, and writing about all that I’ve seen and learned as a long-term prisoner. I will need assistance in building a national brand, and I’m hopeful that Professor Sweig and the organizations he leads can help. Certainly, I will need a lot of it.
It’s also essential that I help myself, and this morning I resumed work on chapter five of my new manuscript, Earning Freedom. I began writing at 3:04 this morning and by the time I concluded my work at 3:45 this afternoon, I wrote through page 202. I look forward to continuing the writing early tomorrow morning.
I broke to exercise at 6:00 this morning. As usual, I ran 10 miles. This eagerness to resume my writing, coupled with temperatures that exceed 90 degrees by 8:00 a.m., convinces me to forgo my pushup routine. My running tally is now at 1,946 miles over the past 220 days without a break.
I met an interesting new prisoner here at Taft Camp. His name is Dane, and he’s beginning a relatively brief sentence for a white collar crime. Like many white collar prisoners, Dane did not know anything about the prison system and was reluctant to discuss his substance abuse history with the individual who prepared his presentence investigation report. That decision nearly rendered him ineligible to participate in the RDAP Program, a program that could result in a one-year reduction of Dane’s term in prison.
I’m hopeful that other offenders learn more about this system before they come in. Once prisoners live inside these boundaries, they’ll receive little guidance of use – at least that has been my experience.
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