Speaking Truth to Power

Prisoner Advocacy: Compassion, Love, Truth, Voice

By Edna P. Dixon

October 27, 2024

On Thursday morning, Oct. 26, 2023, I received a very disturbing phone call from Steven, one of the long-timers I’ve had the privilege to know and advocate for during the past 10 years.

For the past year, Steven has been under the control of a halfway house preparing for his final release from prison after serving his full sentence meted out by the federal courts. For months he has looked forward to getting his ankle monitor off at 6 am on Oct. 31, reporting to his parole officer, and getting on with the rest of his life. He has a stable home, a loving wife, a supportive family, and a job where he is accepted as a responsible and productive human being.

But after 37 years in captivity, deep inside Steven is still unable to fully believe he will ever be free. So this morning he asked his wife, Janice, to check the inmate locator… first time all was a go for next Tuesday. He has already met with his parole officer who totally understands his situation and appreciates the challenges he has already overcome. Steven feels good that his PO will be professional, fair and supportive. Then a few minutes later, they check the inmate locator again and it now it says his outdate is Nov. 21^st. What? He has no good time for them to take away. How can these bureaucrats arbitrarily add time to a sentence set down by the court? What is their motive for being so punitive? I know this is long and I don’t mean to rant, I just want to make this whole situation known. Please read on.

Now It has been my honor to stand with this kind, talented and very intelligent man through the final 3 years of his 37 years in federal prison. I encouraged him to undertake the healing process of writing out his personal story and in turn posted each chapter on my blog. He took the challenge beginning with day one of his broken life, through years of deep addiction to hard drugs leading inevitably to crimes, prison and the loss of everything and everyone he loved. Steven would be the first to say prison for him was the ONLY answer! So he wrote a chapter every week telling about his spiritual journey while in prison as well as his accomplishments as a musician and more than 20 years as a sober, highly reliable and respected employee of UNICOR Prison Industries. (aka slave labor) https://journeysofthespirit.blog/long-road-home/.

During the year prior to his release to a HWH on Aug 31, 2022 we wrote every day and I did my best to help him as he worked through a mountain of questions, fears and anxieties about every aspect of returning to a world that has totally changed. He was as prepared, I believe, as anyone could be to make the adjustments and find success as penniless and friendless, he started life over at age 62. Steven had a goal and deep desire to make amends for the wrongs he had done by helping others avoid the mistakes he had made.

Once he arrived at the HWH, he continued to write about his journey. Though fraught with anxieties, he began to learn the basics – like how to use a cell phone – not from the aloof and even hostile staff at the HWH, but from other inmates. He enrolled in college and figured out how to navigate the city bus system. Sometimes he would make a panic call, needing reassurances when feeling out of place among crowds of young students and other uncertainties, but he found a world of caring staff and teachers who helped him gain confidence and eventually even to find his first job. He did good!

Despite his severe anxieties, as well as insulin-dependent diabetes and other painful physical disabilities, Steven managed to make steady progress. He knew he needed psychological counselling, but when he asked for it, the staff at the HWH over reacted and called the CEO of their parent company to come. He never received any kind of counseling, only more stress heaped upon him because of basic incompetence and lack of support on the part of the staff.

Eventually he reached the point where he could advance to supervised release and needed to seek subsidized housing. This was another stress that might have done him in but for outside friends and family who helped him along the way. For example, how in heck is a person in his situation supposed to get in any kind of housing – subsidized or not – when they have to pay a full month’s rent deposit up front…not to mention the fact that he had no way to provide even basic furnishings. Oh, yes… they don’t unless someone is willing and able to help them, which fortunately, Steven had. In the meantime, he had reunited with his wife. Janice moved heaven and earth to be there for him and make his little apartment into a cozy home.  

From this point, Steven very aptly tells of his own first job experience in this latest chapter he wrote in his ongoing story: https://journeysofthespirit.blog/2023/08/19/victory-tragedy-life/

But even as things began to come together, Steven’s job at the homeless shelter did not work out. It seems nepotism ruled as job qualifications go and he was resented by others less qualified for an upcoming opening as a case manager, so these co-workers set out to make his life miserable. He did the smart thing and walked away. Within a week Steven had a new job in a professionally-run business with a supportive and friendly working environment.

As all this was unfolding Steven was still plagued by anxiety and pain until finally he talked to a doctor about it. Yes, she could prescribe drugs with unacceptable side effects, but the support that would help him the most was a controlled dose of medical cannabis. This is perfectly legal in his state, and even under federal law. So now legally registered with an ID card stating this fact, he is able to function well with only minimum doses to control his anxiety and pain. He also now has an ESA (emotional support animal) to help with his PTSD and anxieties. But of course, the BOP doesn’t give a rat’s ass about his accomplishments or his wellness.

On two occasions, his weekly UA has shown a slight blip over the acceptable level for cannabis. The first time, as punishment, the BOP took away all the good time he had accrued, moving his outdate out to October 31st. This second time, as I said earlier, he had no more good time, so they simply tagged on 21 days to his outdate just 5 days before his planned release. And even worse, no one even bothered to notify him or his parole officer.

I must say that my experiences in dealing with the FBOP has totally destroyed all respect for this corrupt institution. When you get right down to the bottom line, despite all the flowery official rhetoric spun out for public consumption, the goal and purpose of the FBOP is to HOUSE, PUNISH and EXPLOIT lawbreakers for profit. The idea that our prison system is meant to rehabilitate and prepare broken people to return more whole to society is a farce and a sick joke.

We all know what injustices have been brought down upon thousands of people simply because the federal government cannot see fit to fully legalize marijuana…and every savvy person knows why too. This is a man who spent 37 years in captivity. He came home to a world that had become worse than when he went inside. Despite years of working for the federal government for pennies on the dollar, he had no social security benefits to rely on. Yet amidst all his apprehensions and roadblocks, he managed to do well with zero help from the Bureau of Prisons.

And now, in fact the bureaucrats want to punish him for taking a prescribed medication from a doctor licensed and qualified to prescribe in these certain instances, when the BOP could not or would not provide even the simplest of medications. The fact is, the BOP failed to provide his prescribed medicines on 7 different occasions while in the HWH. Four of these involved insulin! In one particularly egregious situation the BOP failed to provide him with insulin for 4 whole days. This landed him in the hospital emergency room from the back of an ambulance with deep brain trauma due to a fall when he went unconscious immediately after receiving his first restart dose of insulin. One would think the nurse at the HWH would have known the proper precautions in this situation.

Fact is, as Steven’s experience illustrates, the BOP has little interest in any prisoner’s rehabilitation or successful transition. The time for real top to bottom reform is long past. The BOP bureaucracy acts with impunity, answering to no one. Therefore it must be forced by strong outside oversight, hopefully with some teeth in it, to stop behaving in a criminal manner, stop the waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars, and to rethink its priorities and goals. epd