Beyond The Wall

Message from the Editor

If you would like to send a donation to Tom so that he can buy stamps, paper, and pens - they are always appreciated. He can only receive money orders, and the address must be specific:

Charles "Tom" Brown, #140237, Barchey Blue - D2-E5, P.O. Box 3200, Buckeye, AZ 85326

....and by all means, if you would like to write to him, please do. He is a wonderful correspondent, and meeting new friends is a Godsend to him during these years of imprisonment. It's my idea about the donations - not his, so feel free to write regardless.

Thank you!

Kathleen, Editor

Send Tom A Birthday Greeting!

5-12-06

Editor’s Note: Later this month, Tom will have a birthday (May 25). If you enjoy reading his essays and the BLOG site, it would be great to send him a birthday card and let him know you are out here and benefit from his wit and wisdom.

You can write to Tom at anytime, for he welcomes and appreciates letters and cards.

His address is:

Charles “Tom” Brown

#140237

ASPC – Lewis

Barchey Blue – D2-E-5

P.O. Box 3200

Buckeye, AZ 85326

In a time when we watch people who have REALLY committed crimes against others, such as the upper management crew from ENRON, it is disgusting to know that these people will get minimum sentences after bilking investors and states of billions of dollars. Yet, Tom, whose mistake was judgment – not criminal intent – has received a horrific sentence of 17 years because of false testimony and inaccurate figures presented to a judge without benefit of jury trial…all because of extremely poor legal representation.   

Tom understands Karma, and recognizes that there is more to this than meets the eye. Yet, I know this prolonged imprisonment is difficult – especially since he was stripped of everything, including social security. At his age – now in his seventies – this is a very hard pill to swallow. What will he have to come out to when he will be beyond retirement age, yet have his life’s savings and social security taken from him? On top of the punitive sentence meted out, everything is gone.

Tom has now been in prison for almost eight years. All his requests for new trial or parole have been summarily dismissed. He has no money to hire counsel, or to defend himself, so he is a forgotten one. However, he has the gift of his insights, and the willingness to share his wisdom with the rest of us.  We are better for the sharing, and we can let him know that he is not forgotten. Please consider sending a card to acknowledge him and let him know you have benefited from reading his work. It’s a simple thing for us to do – but a very big thing for him.

Thanks for reading Tom’s BLOG.

Editor, Kathleen

Article from Prosper Online Magazine

This article is not written by Tom, nor about him personally, but is about a new opportunity for prisoners that can help so many of the incarcerated find meaningful lives after. We know from reading Tom's letters that there is very little in the prison system that is geared towards making successes out of failures - just a parking space for a long sentence without much to help make the necessary change in life when the prison doors are opened.

Prison Entrepreneurs

Pros Work With Cons

By David M. Drucker

Former Northern California venture capitalist Catherine Rohr, on a mission to use her skills for the social good, has discovered a surprising pool of entrepreneurial talent in the last place most would ever think to look: prison.   
     Not long after a chance tour of a Texas prison which she admits she approached as a “zoo tour,” Rohr chucked her job as a San Francisco VC to found the Prison Entrepreneurship Program.
     The nonprofit corporation, using Fortune 500-type business executives as volunteer mentors, harnesses the entrepreneurial skills inmates had demonstrated while running the successful, albeit illegal, enterprises that landed them in prison and teaches them how to put those abilities to use running legitimate businesses.   
     The hope is to increase their chances of success once they get out of jail.   

Street Smart for Good   
“Prisoners usually don’t end up in prison because they’re lazy,” Rohr says. “They may not be the best educated; but talk about street smarts. They’re driven, passionate and very charming. All of these are traits they share with business executives.”   
     With husband Steven, Rohr recently moved to Houston where the first full-fledged franchise of PEP is now up and running. It operates strictly on private contributions not taxpayer dollars. The plan is to go national as quickly as fund-raising efforts allow.   
     PEP also has a formal partnership with California’s Prison Industry Authority, one of the few programs the state prison system has that teaches inmates practical skills they can use on the outside once released or paroled.   
     PIA General Manager Matt Powers is a former Sacramento deputy police chief. Powers says he knows firsthand the effects paroled prisoners have on local communities statewide (90 percent of paroled and released inmates return to the community from which they were arrested.) 
     Manufacturing everything from office furniture and supplies, to prescription eyeglasses, to the custom parts that outfit vehicles for the California Highway Patrol, PIA’s participating prisoners get the same kind of training offered at vocational schools on the outside, complete with professional certifications for service and manufacturing jobs in at least nine different industries.   
     At any given time, PIA employs around 6,000 prisoners at factories located in 22 prisons throughout the state. According to PIA officials, the program is funded solely by the approximately $150 million in revenue earned annually through the sale of products and services that cover around 65 separate industries. The PIA does not rely on any appropriations from the Legislature to function.   
     And because of pressure exerted by state lawmakers, PIA is in the process of making sure its prices are competitive with those of private companies, something that until recently was not always the case. PIA-employed inmates are paid 30 cents to 95 cents per hour, with court-ordered restitution payments deducted from their wages.   

Not Stuck in Folsom   
With state lawmakers’ new focus on reducing the heavy recidivism of parolees, PIA officials are looking forward to when PEP can begin teaching prisoners how to start businesses, possibly using the practical manufacturing and distribution skills they have learned at one of PIA’s multiple factories statewide as the basis for self-employment. Once PEP has raised the necessary funds, it will begin training future entrepreneurs incarcerated in San Quentin, with plans to expand to Folsom next.   
     If these former prisoners can find a job, they will be much less likely to commit new crimes and end up back in prison, which is why Powers feels so strongly about his work at PIA and why he partnered with PEP. 
     “I’d rather have these people be taxpayers, not tax consumers, when they get out,” Powers adds. 
     “I’m still learning how important the program is to me,” says Robert Aikens of Houston. Aikens spent 15 1/2 years in prison for armed robbery before getting out in July 2003. Soon after his release, he started REALS Landscaping, specializing in decorative shrubbery and stonework.   
     Without PEP, says Aikens, he wouldn’t know how to put his knowledge of landscaping to work in a revenue-generating business. The program taught him how to manage cash flow, adhere to the various state and federal tax laws and manage employees, which at present consist of himself, his wife and two kids when they’re not in school.   
     Aikens calls it “learning how to operate a business from the neck up.”   
     The benefits to prisoners are obvious (PEP works with low- and medium-security prisoners only, although some trainees are in prison for committing violent acts, including murder.) Each inmate is assigned a mentor, usually a highly successful entrepreneur or business executive. The mentors help prisoners write business plans and teach them how to run their proposed businesses. In some cases, the program even pitches enterprises dreamed up by newly released or paroled inmates to VCs for investment. 
     In most cases, says Rohr, it’s the first time anyone has ever provided positive encouragement and instruction to the individuals participating in PEP. Yet it’s often the volunteer executives who benefit just as much, if not more, from the program. Many of the manicured, white-collar executives can’t get enough of PEP.   

Macho Execs in Tears   
Though Rohr allows them to quit at any time no questions asked, she says the participating executives love going to prison and imparting their skill sets to the inmates. In some cases, they have been reduced to tears upon seeing their trainee progress and succeed, though Rohr is quick to point out that the program appeals to the macho nature of a successful executive, which she’s happy to take advantage of.   
     “This program is pretty addicting; (executives) love to come back,” Rohr says.   
     Mark Carr of Houston is CEO of Christian Brothers Auto Parts, a national chain of consumer auto-parts stores. In Aikens, his trainee, he sees someone similar to himself: a man without a formal education, but with street smarts and business sense, who needs someone with know-how to mold his raw talent.   
     Carr describes the prisoners in PEP as creative and brilliant men who have been using their skills for evil instead of good. His work as a mentor allows him to redirect that energy into something positive.   
     “I’m just a street-smart guy who knows how to add and subtract. I’m creative; I looked at a business that had a need and made it big,” he says. “When I speak to these guys, some are brilliant, they’re incredibly creative. Some of these guys are running 15 (drug dealers) on the street.”   
     Aikens describes Carr as someone who doesn’t want any credit: “He was actually really there for me in word and in deed.”

• Prison Entrepreneurship Program

For new readers to this blog, please go back to the beginning to read the inspirational progression of the journey of this amazing soul, Tom Brown. You will be filled with new hope and appreciation for your own journey as you learn from Tom's insights during this enforced monastic experience called prison.

~Editor

11-14-05

From the editor:

I have been putting Tom's past letters and articles on the Blog almost every  day since I started it. However, as you can see by the dates of his letters, we're coming close to the end of the daily missives. In a few weeks there will not be enough to post each day - so I'm asking any of the readers who have received letters from him to please post them if you think they have value to others. There is a section for comments after each letter or article on this BLOG, and it would be very helpful if some of you who have been in contact with Tom through the years would share his perspective as he's written to you, or share personal stories of how he has influenced your life and helped you in ways tangible or otherwise.

I've written to Tom and asked for more articles so we can keep up the flow - and hopefully he'll have the time and inclination to write more. In the meantime some of his articles are being featured on www.planetlightworker.com in the free section, so please visit that website and click on his column so they will make him a permanent columnist. All online magazines choose who stays and who goes based on the number of hits they get to a particular column - so let's keep Tom's work out in the universe to help uplift, inspire and bring a chuckle to others. He's a shining example of blessings amidst adversity.

Thanks so much for your continued readership!

Coming Soon!!

An Article about Tom Brown will be featured on www.planetlightworker.com in the September issue with three or four of his articles also profiled. He will be a guest columnist for that online magazine through December, and then there will be an evaluation to see how his column does as far as readership. If it's high, he will be asked to continue, so PLEASE jot down the website and visit it after Sept. 1st...find his articles, and click on them.

Also, a very special treat is coming. I've suggested that Tom write to the BLOG through me as though he is here, and he has sent the first BLOG entry. I will be putting that on coinciding with the Sept. 1st column release, so that more people can read and respond.

I think you will find Tom's BLOG entries and contributions to Things That Matter and Church of the Laugh very heartwarming and/or humorous, depending on which section he is posting to. If you don't know what those sections are, read back to editor's comments about 3 weeks ago to see what I'm talking about.

Tom is very appreciative of ALL the readers and of the letters many of you are sending to him. You can find his mailing address in the ABOUT section under interests if you wish to correspond.

Thanks for dropping by!                                                                            ~Editor, Kathleen