Tom speaks in this current letter of prison incarceration in this country. He also brings up his own sentence and asks for help from those who have followed the BLOG or know him from the past. He will be up for review by the Clemency Board in October of this year for earlier parole from his extremely punitive sentence. I will include a sample letter that anyone interested in helping Tom can copy. It will be in the next BLOG installment. If you are so moved, please write to the Board to help this worthy individual continue the good work he is doing...only this time as a free individual.
Thanks....Kathleen, Editor
8-23-2005
I have just read some facts and would like to get up on my soap box and vent a little if you will indulge me. This information comes from the Prison Activist Resource Center (www.prisonactivists.org).
1. One out of four prisoners in the world is locked up in the U.S.A. That is two million out of a worldwide prisoner population of eight million. The incarceration rate in the U.S. is the highest in the world.
2. Every year an inmate spends in prison costs taxpayers an average of $22,000. As prisoners get older, the cost of keeping them in prison rises to an average of $69,000 per year for those over fifty-five.
3. The prison system is not filled with violent and dangerous people; the majority are being sent to prison for drug charges and acts which involve no violence whatsoever.
4. Locking up more people for longer periods of time DOES NOT reduce crime rates. Academic research has shown little or no correlation between crime rates and prison populations.
5. Conditions in U.S. prisons have been repeatedly condemned by groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for violating the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the treatment of prisoners.
Those facts speak for themselves – loudly and clearly. I would add a couple of lines from an article I wrote several years ago called “Just-Us”.
“The system metes out ‘just-us’ based on class distinctions, wealth, and power…Perversion of justice in favor of a prison mindset is a cancer that is the antithesis for a compassionate, just society…Less costly, more effective pro-social alternatives for dealings with criminal behaviors e3xist, but until society becomes accountable for its own problems, we’re destined to remain in the dark ages.”
Sometimes it just feels good to vent a little bit, doesn’t it? I’ll now step down from my soapbox.
This is where I am in all of this – I was sentenced on 11/6/98 and my release date is 12/16/11 as it now stands.
Legally, I have gone as far as I can go without legal help. I believe that the strongest point in my case is the fact that an audit that was done after I was sentenced proves that I was sentenced under false figures and false testimony.
My best hope seems to be from the parole board (also known as Arizona Board of Executive Clemency), although they have already denied me three times. The last time was April 27th when they said there would be another hearing (by phone) in six months (this October). If they approve it, it would either be for an immediate parole (very unlikely) or they would parole me to the second sentence which would shorten my time by several years.
It might help me to get a favorable decision if some of the BLOG readers who have followed my story would write to the Board. What do you think? I’ll enclose a sample format for that purpose. Thanks so much for anything you can do.
On another subject, many of the fellows have a lot of sorrow about their past actions and it really bothers them. I have put together something that might help them (and the BLOG readers, too) to feel better about it all. It’s the story of “The Leaky Bucket”, and I’ll enclose a copy for you. Its theme is that it’s okay to leak, to make mistakes, for “it’s in the ‘cracks’ of our lives that the light shines through.”
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