Prison Journal: Day 7,984
June 19, 2009
I woke early this morning to continue writing an article about visiting for change.org. When I returned to my cubicle for the 5:00 AM census count, I heard an NPR news report that financier R. Allen Stanford had been taken into federal custody. He was indicted for several fraud charges alleging that he orchestrated a massive Ponzi scheme through his company, Stanford Financial. He was due in court this morning.
I know exactly what Stanford is going through as a federal prisoner. He is confined to a federal detention center, which means he has been issued coarse clothing, a bed roll, and he is going out of his mind with all the noise in that concrete shell of a building to which he is confined. Since Stanford’s indictment suggests that his fraud is second only to Bernard Madoff’s, with billions of dollars in losses, I suspect he still has access to resources for a team of lawyers.
If so, Stanford may be spending several hours of each day in a tight, austere room that prison administrators reserve for legal visits. Regardless of how long he can sit with the lawyers, he still has to return each day to the madness of his prison cell.
I suspect that he is spending a lot of time pacing, counting his steps, or counting the concrete blocks that make up his cell, or counting the days since his troubles began. He is trying to occupy his mind, and he is wondering whether he can muster the strength to remain sane through what all probability would suggest a prison term of multiple decades. Many challenges await him, mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual.
The public denials and refusal to accept responsibility will aggravate Stanford’s sentence if a jury ultimately convicts him. By then, he will have burned through many millions in legal fees and feel the force of both the system and envious prisoners working against him. He thinks he is fighting for his life, but the scorched earth legal defense that he is adopting, I suspect, will only aggravate the severity of the sanction he ultimately receives. The government appears to have a strong case against him, and I expect that in years to come, when appeals have been exhausted, when the sentence’s finality hits home, Stanford will regret his refusal to accept responsibility early, his lack of cooperation, and his missed opportunity to express remorse. Thousands of days in prison await him, and I know the pounding such a term brings to a man’s psyche.
As I approach my eight thousandth day in prison, I feel grateful for the blessings I’ve received, and compassionate for others who are about to begin the journey. I’m thankful that I have a loving, devoted wife, and opportunities to interact with the world. This morning I enjoyed an abbreviated run of only three miles, and followed the run with 200 push ups. Then I spent the day visiting with Carole. In the evening I read more from a memoir of a man who was abducted by Russia’s KGB. My running tally now stands at 1,663 miles over the past 189 days.
Friday, 19 June 2009
Prison Journal: Day 7,886
March 13, 2009
This morning I felt heavy with sadness when I woke. After all of the days, weeks, months, and years I have served, I am totally adjusted to prison. If I set my mind to focus exclusively on my writing, exercise, and reading, I easily could coast through the remaining three to four years that I’m scheduled to serve. I could serve those thousand-plus days in an isolated cell without a whimper; I could serve them in a high-security penitentiary with rape and murder always a holler away. The time in confinement no longer affects my prison adjustment. I’m well conditioned to cope with prison.
The strategy that guides and empowers me is to set clearly defined goals that I control. One goal, for example, is to write every day. Another is to exercise every day. As long as I work toward the goals I set, I obliterate some of the control that outside forces have over my life. My key, or the essential component to my feeling of empowerment, comes with my setting a purpose toward which I can stay in constant pursuit. The only time I fall into an emotional trap, or pit, is when I surrender some of that control. It is why I know that I will struggle with sadness all day.
I am sad because I will not visit with Carole today. She is my oxygen because I allow myself the pleasure of loving her, and because God has blessed me with her love. Rather than focusing on the 1,000 days of confinement ahead, I live my life from one visiting day to the next. I have trained myself to live as if I’m swimming beneath the current, and the Friday visits with Carole represent my single opportunity to come up for air. Today I will not have any air.
The reason we’re not visiting today is because Carole is scheduled to work. Had I told her that I needed her, I know that she would have come. As a nurse, however, she has a responsibility and I wanted her to honor it; I could cope with the sadness. I could erase it completely, but doing so would require me to live without love. I prefer to accept the life that comes with our marriage, and sometimes that means inviting sadness. In time, I remind myself, prison will end and we’ll be together. For now I must focus on holding my breath and making it through to the next visiting day.
I began writing at 3:00. By 7:00 I had completed four blog articles and I put my writing gear away. Producers from Good Morning America had contacted Carole yesterday with regard to my work. They were compiling content for the Bernard Madoff story and had found my work as a useful resource. A producer contacted Carole to determine whether I could be of service. As a prisoner, administrators control my access to the media. Since I could not be a timely source, the producers asked Carole whether she could help. She put the producer in touch with Joe Reddick, a friend I made in a previous prison where we both were confined. The producer sent a car and driver so Joe could make an in-studio appearance to consult on how Madoff would serve his time.
As I watched Joe appear on the morning news segment, I felt proud of Carole for the role she played in coordinating the effort. Our work is becoming a national resource in a specific niche, and I feel blessed to work together with my wife to create these opportunities. After the show I went out to run five miles, bringing my total to 830 miles over the past 91 days. In the afternoon I wrote three additional blog articles, then I spent two more hours proofing the manuscript on which I’ve been working. I was lying on my rack by 6:00, and asleep by 6:30 p.m..
Friday, 13 March 2009
Prison Journal: Day 7,885
March 12, 2009
Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 counts of fraud related charges today. The white-collar criminal had admitted to federal officers that he was the mastermind to a Ponzi scheme that swindled $50 billion from investors over the past several decades. Despite the magnitude of the crime, the justice system had allowed Madoff to enjoy the opulence of his Manhattan penthouse for the past several months. That life of luxury for Madoff ended today.
Had Madoff been an “ordinary” American, like the thousands of men with whom I served time over the past 21 years, the government would have insisted upon his confinement much sooner. Despite the educational background, the professional credentials, and the level of trust Madoff held, the government did not use a higher standard in judging him. Rather, Madoff was given more consideration than people who were charged with less spectacular crimes.
Madoff is 70-years-old, and it seems likely that the amounts of loss his crimes cause will result in his serving the rest of his life in prison. News reports have been announcing a potential sentence of more than 100 years, though I suspect the sentence he receives will be less than the 45 years I serve. Whatever sentence he receives, the natural lifespan of man will make it unlikely that he will live long enough to complete the term.
Since I expect him to receive a sentence of 20 years or more, Madoff will serve his time in either a low-security prison or a medium-security prison. I suspect administrators will send him to FCI Ft. Dix or to FCI Otisville. Either prison will have an abundance of men who serve sentences that are far more severe than Madoff’s. I am hopeful that his notoriety will bring attention to what I perceive as injustice in our prison system.
I feel opposed to our concept of measuring justice by the number of calendar pages that turn. Long-term imprisonment may be appropriate for some offenders, but this system ought to offer opportunities for men to work toward reconciling with society. Perhaps an offender like Madoff committed crimes so egregious that society will not accept his redemption. Many offenders, however, languish in prison for far too long. Celebrity prisoners like Madoff may bring attention to their plight.
I woke at 2:30 this morning to being my work of writing about this culture of confinement. Although I enjoy the time alone, and find some therapy in writing words on paper, sometimes I feel as if I’m yelling from deep within a vast forest. No one hears me. Thankfully, I had Carole to publish these daily musings. In time, I will make use of this documentation. If nothing else, I look forward to sitting beside my wife and discussing how I was think of her on this early morning in prison.
I had a lot of work to complete today. By the evening I had written seven blog articles plus a letter for Carole. I ran 10 miles in the morning, lifting my tally to 825 miles over the past 90 days. I helped a friend with a legal letter he had to write, and I proofed some of the typeset pages on the manuscript I began ghostwriting last Thanksgiving. It’s nearly ready. In the evening, just before bed, I learned that producers from Good Morning America called Carole and expressed interest in my work. That was encouraging, as it offered a measure of validation. Perhaps someone was listening.
Thursday, 12 March 2009
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