Tom Matlack wants drugs and prison to become a part of every American’s life. He’s not as crazy as you think.
What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings…
Because Grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things
—U2, “Grace”
I have a Google alert for my name that lets me know when someone writes something about me. Sometimes it’s a nice surprise—someone saying that I’m actually a decent human being—but a lot of the time I get links to someone criticizing some crazy post I have written. I just like to keep track…not that I respond all that often anymore; it’s more a really silly way to keep score. And I admit to getting some kind of sick pleasure by stirring the muck. Pissing people off is perhaps the highest form of flattery.
On August 24th, I got quite a start. I got an email with a Google alert link to a guy with my same name and his mug shot. Apparently this Thomas Matlack was booked just after midnight the night before. He had long hair and a soul patch. The guy’s eyes looked bloodshot and very sad. He was arrested in Casselberry, Florida—which is the interior of the state, about parallel with Cape Canaveral.
“Just a coincidence,” I told myself, deleting the email as fast as I could. But those sad eyes have haunted me ever since. I’ve spent enough time visiting prisons to be scared to death of having to stay in one. And my fear of prisons and the very thin line between those of us on the outside and those stuck inside has made me think very hard about what a rational prison policy might be in this country. I am convinced that I didn’t end up in prison not because of some superior moral fiber than my namesake, but by the sheer luck of birth.
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If there is a problem of economic inequality in our country—and when guys like Warren Buffett start signing up to pay more taxes to stave off food riots, most people would have to agree there is—prison policy plays a pivotal role. With 5 percent of the world’s population, we Americans house a quarter of the world’s prisoners. Our incarceration rate is unmatched the world over. No other country has close to 2.3 million inmates.
As a part of an “American Exception” series exploring the U.S. criminal justice system, New York Times reporter Adam Liptak goes to great length to show how “criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences.”
But its not just a moral issue; it’s a economic one. Prison is the driving force behind the acceleration of poverty in our country. Bruce Western of Harvard and Becky Pettit of the University of Washington showed in a recent study just how poverty sends people to prison—at least under current law—and prison, in turn, ruins any ability for that person—and very often that person’s children—to escape poverty. “It’s a vicious feedback loop that is affecting an ever-greater percentage of the adult population and shredding part of the fabric of 21st-century American society,” noted Sasha Abramsky in her Slate piece, “Toxic Persons.”
And, of course, it’s inherently racist. In 1980, one in 10 black high school dropouts was incarcerated. By 2008, that number was 37 percent. Western and Pettit calculate that 68 percent of African-American male high school dropouts born from 1975 to 1979 will spend time. Of the 2.3 million inmates, well over a million are minorities. The percentage of African Americans in this country is 12.6 percent.
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My niece is a senior at an elite college this year. She grew up in New Jersey and went to public school. She was a good student. I never heard about her getting into trouble. She doted on her younger brother and was quite involved in theater. She didn’t get into a good college because of any privileged upbringing; in fact, her father never went to college. No, she just worked hard and stayed out of trouble.
This particular niece happened to go to the same college I did, so I have been particularly interested in the periodic reports over the course of her college experience. There was the semester abroad where she met a new boyfriend, the shows she acted in, the psychology classes. But she has kept coming back, again and again, to a particular group of people, a group that fundamentally changed her.
Because she is an aspiring actress, I expected to hear about Matt Weiner, the creator of Mad Men; or Michael Bay, the famous producer of Transformers and a billion other films; or even Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. While all of these alums have been on campus, I didn’t hear about it from her.
What I heard about was a yearlong course in which my niece went into a maximum-security prison to work with the female inmates to adapt Shakespeare and then Dante to the women’s own life stories. My niece and her classmates worked with the inmates to take their plays and bring them to the stage. The inmates performed inside for their peers and their families. Then the students performed the same plays back at school for their classmates. Both performances were transformational for all involved—the inmates, students, and audience members alike.
So my question is pretty simple. What if every elite college (meaning an undergraduate university where enrollment is selective) made a course involving intense interaction between students and inmates mandatory? If there are two education systems in our country—one ending up in prison and the other with a fancy diploma—that would go a long way toward bridging the gap. If kids these days are anything like my niece—who reported to me that “the professor wasn’t even all that great, it was the inmates that I learned everything from”—they will get it.
Then, what if we went one step further in this line of thinking? What if we made these same privileged students attending a selective four-year college commit to two years of national service post graduation? This would include classroom teaching, but also tutoring, mentoring, working at boys’ and girls’ clubs, being Big Brothers and Big Sisters, and even supporting police in the most dangerous areas. Target those areas of our country with the highest rates of poverty and incarceration (same thing, obviously).
I have two teenage kids. I am not very excited about the idea of either one setting off to fight for our country, though if that was their choice I would, of course, be proud of their service and courage. But I would be particularly proud of them if they set off to save our country on the ground in some poor community where most of the men are making a living in the drug trade and ending up in prison. To my way of thinking, that is way more important than tracking down the bad guys who happen to be sitting on strategic oil reserves a world away.
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So here’s my most controversial but most important idea: Let’s make it impossible to make money selling drugs in the ghetto by decriminalizing them all. Let’s put drugs in the CVS rather than the projects.
I was discussing this idea over dinner recently with a good friend who happens to be a great mom and social worker. She disagreed strongly, pointing out how addictive cocaine and heroin are. “We don’t want to make them available to our kids,” she said after I had gone through a long-winded explanation of how I would auction off licenses to corporations, just like the FCC has done for years with the airwaves. “Drugs like that change your brain chemistry and are addictive immediately.”
Here’s the thing: Those drugs are available on every street corner in housing projects across the country. Sure, affluent moms would prefer not to have them available at the local pharmacy. And they may have a point, in theory. Hard drugs are addictive and dangerous, not just in their impact on body chemistry but on families and communities. But then, there are millions of moms whose kids have to walk past crack houses and drug dealers every morning on the way to school. Even more troubling, those moms are raising their kids alone because the fathers are in prison…and they basically have to hope to hit the lottery, lest their own sons follow their dads to the same fate.
As Julio Medina, at one time the head of the largest drug gang in the South Bronx and a man who was sentenced to life in Sing Sing by the Federal Task Force on Drugs, told me, “The family business was drugs…I was really good at it. I just never knew I had a choice. I felt the need to take care of my family since my dad was not around.”
Sure, we may not want drugs in the leafy suburbs. But to say that kids shouldn’t be exposed to coke and heroin is to ignore the reality faced by the growing underclass. Being out of sight to the privileged does not mean it isn’t rotting our country from the inside out.
Prohibition did not work with booze, and it isn’t going to work with drugs either. Prohibition led to the growth of the mob, and our drug policy has led to a fundamental fracture in our society. Legal booze and cigarettes kill many more people than any narcotic in our country—yet by legalizing, taxing, and educating, we have successfully taken the criminals out of the process, generating huge tax revenue that we have used to educate the populace on the dangers of smoking and drinking.
Fighting the war on drugs by attempting to stem the tide of supply from Mexico and throwing everybody in the supply chain here in the States in prison is not working. Drugs, prison, education, and poverty are inextricably linked, and that complexity of issues goes to the very heart of the failing economy and is a true threat to national security.
Maybe I am crazy, but I would rather have the drugs out of the shadows and brought into the light where we can see it. I’d rather have legal producers of narcotics dragging small-time drug dealers into court for infringing on their economic rights rather than perpetuating the downward spiral of our poorest people—particularly minorities—by locking them up for drug-related crimes.
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So if college students become engaged with inmate populations and work in the most at-risk communities as part of a national service program, and we legalize drugs to get them out of the streets, what do we do with the 2.3 million inmates we currently have? How do we think about violent crime going forward?
Half a million people in the United States are imprisoned on drug-related charges. That’s ten times more than in 1980. It’s hard to estimate how many of the remaining 1.8 million inmates are incarcerated for more serious violent crimes committed as part of the hand-to-hand combat associated with the black-market drug supply chain or, in fact, because addiction made violence and property crime the only means to get a fix. There are certainly murderers and bank robbers who just commit crimes because they have evil intents completely unrelated to drugs—but I would argue that at least half of the current inmate population is in some way related to our drug policy, with its ripple effect on poverty, social structure, unemployment, the economy, and national security down the road.
So my vote would be to separate violent criminals from those who are charged only with non-violent drug crimes, are addicts, or suffer from mental illness. Rather than keeping addicts locked up, focus on treating them. Keep the laws on rape and murder and violent assault as they are—and strengthen them if you want. But separate issues of law and order from a war on drugs that hasn’t worked. Locking up a large proportion of poor minority men in our country does far more damage than good.
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I’m still thinking about the other Tom Matlack. He’s a few years older than I am and a few inches shorter. I don’t know what he did or what happened to him, but those haunting eyes are like looking in the mirror to me. Every time I go into a prison, I am overcome with fear. I think that the guys inside must be monsters. Seeing the bars and the cells only heightens my terror.
And then I sit down. Someone offers me a cup of coffee. A hand rests on my shoulder in a sign of welcome. I tell my story, and he tells his. He weeps, and I weep too. And I realize just how much we are the same, these supposed monsters and me.
There’s just one difference: I get to leave.
Hardcore 🙂 If I was president I’d just pardon everyone already in prison or jail. You know, before the CIA shots me. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I… Read more »
Tom, I like that you think about controversial subjects and aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo. I also believe that you are not a hardened ideologue but are following a path of understanding much like the rest of us. If you’re going to mention the racial disparity in prison population then you should also mention the gender disparities which are even more pronounced. Whites receive the lowest average sentence of 32.1 months. In sharp contrast, Hispanics receive a sentence of 54.1 months and blacks receive 64.1 months, which are 68.5 percent and 99.6 percent larger than the average sentence… Read more »
Oh, and by the way, if you really want to advocate something that will help the poor, especially the black poor, why don’t you get behind cutting legal immigration way down and eliminating illegal immigration? You know, something that would really work? Eliminate the Liberal policies that actually cause the problems Liberals whine about.
Tom Matlack Tom Matlack Tom Matlack – hope this comes up on your Google Search. You’re a typical Liberal ignoramous. Read this by someone who has a serious article on the subject, and get an education:
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_2_criminal_justice_system.html
I think rather than decriminalization, we should get rid of mandatory sentencing and racketeering laws. Decriminalization wouldn’t solve the problem of drugs and what they do to people. Mandatory sentencing makes it impossible for judges to use their wisdom – justice without mercy is tyranny. The only way to get out of a sentence is to tell on someone else; this turns out to be easier for the big bosses than the little people who didn’t do much. Then they get prosecuted for the full value of a crime when they weren’t involved in it all. Throw in for-profit prisons… Read more »
I have seen the US drug wars and the West African blood diamond funded wars. They have the same causes and same solutions. Legalizing drugs would cut down on drug dealer’s profits but would likely enable even more drug use, which wouldn’t be good. Furthermore, the crime would simply shift to something else. The drug trade is a symptom of problem but not the problem itself. It can’t hurt to work with inmates but, the horse is out of the barn already. From what I know from the the drug wars in the US and West African wars, people end… Read more »
Is this a site for and about men’s issues, or is it a spin-off of the Huffington Post, disguised as “male centric”? Do we really need yet another leftist blog?
Left? Right? Who cares? This “left-right” paradigm is only useful for name-calling. Besides, most inmates do happen to be male, no? So it does have to do with the theme of learning to be a good man. Understanding the world around you and looking for ways to improvement is all part of being a good man.
A lot of thinking went into this piece; it really shows how much thought and ideas churned in your mind to have come up such detailed solutions to these ever growing problems and further backed up by factual information. This is one example of many, how I really love and appreciate that GMP tackles a wide spectrum of topics and how boldly you guys go where few lack the courage, tenacity and passion; to bring serious issues to the forefront and tell it like it is. Good on you all! The problems you’ve outlined are systemic, and the effects are… Read more »
I love this article, Tom. Good for you! Thank you.
Tom, your idea of having college students, like your niece, develop projects that would bring them behind prison walls is outstanding—no, not to punish young people pursuing an elite education, but to put them in touch with a reality few people in our country comprehend. Whether it would be producing theater or helping improve reading/writing skills, the idea of getting course credit for becoming immersed in the inmate world is as solid—and perhaps unattainable—as legalizing drugs.
And if not every post-secondary program, at least the those that centre around law-making, policing and a number of social sciences. That way, by providing firsthand knowledge of the social issues impacting the country, your future lawmakers will act more prudently in addressing the issues surrounding crime and poverty. While I don’t live in the U.S., my country is quickly going the way of the police-state. This Crime & Punishment standard fails to solve the problem (NB: I am aware that there are many facets to crime, and some aren’t solveable). Why not put funding into solving the root causes… Read more »
Bemoaning how many prisoners we have in this country and then comparing it to the rest of the world is a little misleading. Yes crime is lower in other parts of the world and there are less inmates? But part of the reason for that is the punishments for crimes are that much more harsh. Canings, cutting off the hands of thieves and death for crimes that would be misdemeanors here will certainly cut down on the crime rate and the number of people in jail. But let me ask you this…where would you rather live? Here or there. I… Read more »
I’d just like to point out that incarcerating people does NOT cure their addictions, and has been proven to turn people INTO addicts at an alarming rate. Prison culture has a lot of drugs in it, and the rehabilitation options nationwide are not that great. Also, the recidivism (return) rate in most prisons ranges from 60-80%, if I recall my figures from sociology class properly. Not only that, but former prisoners have such a black mark on their record that they are often unable to find legit employment once released from prison. Prison is not the answer to the drug… Read more »
Also– there is a certain portion of the population who are just addicts. That is the way they will always be. Criminalizing BECAUSE of them makes NO SENSE. They will get their hands on stuff no matter WHAT, so we should be making decisions that ameliorate the overall impact of their addictions on society– and prison is NOT the answer that has proven to be effective. And finally– people who say they don’t get how poor people broke the rules have clearly never lived in deep poverty. Below a certain income bracket, the whole of society becomes a trap just… Read more »
How would legalization of drugs increase treatment options? Are you assuming the government taxes the drugs and the revenue generated from those taxes pays for the treatment? If so that’s a pretty awful cycle you’re creating. But if that’s not what you’re suggesting, please tell me how we’re going to get more money in a recession to increase addiction treatment programs. We’re broke. Money is being cut from these programs, not added. Yet you seem to gloss right over this. And no, I’ve never been “desperately” poor. I’m not sure what qualifies someone as desperately poor, but I am in… Read more »
The legalization of drugs, taken out of its context, would NOT increase treatment options– you’re right. But legalization is a step in a society-wide shift towards policies of enlightened self-interest instead of the crime and punishment paradigm. The more people know about the factors that go into addiction and crime, the more effective treatments and social policies will become. (When people were informed that smoking cigarettes kills you, over time society produced help for people to quit.) This is an organic process and as I am not a politician, nor ever desire to BE one, I have no idea how… Read more »
I spent ten years living life a few hours away from eviction. All that was needed was one days lost pay and I was done. I lived and worked in a poor neighborhood. Men routinely asked why I didn’t take a sugar daddy or turn a couple tricks. I spent my time at work serving plates of food to people but only ate once every couple days. If it weren’t for the fact that I grew up middle class, I think the prostitution solution would have been the road I took. However, my privileged upbringing gave me a sense of… Read more »
I don’t think harsh punishments are why other countries have smaller prison populations. For the record, I’m against decriminalization because I don’t think it would work. The US has a hugely bigger percentage of people in prison compared to any other country, including places that are very liberal. It’s because we have mandatory sentencing for drug offenses. So a judge can’t look at a case and decide that someone wasn’t the ringleader and should get a shorter sentence. Then the law is set up so that if the ringleader was selling $50,000 worth of drugs, everyone involved in any way… Read more »
Actually, very few prisons offer any kind of educational opportunities. The Clinton crime bill in the 90’s did away with almost all GED and higher ed in prisons and made inmates ineligible for grants or other educational funding. Another way to keep the undercaste securely in their place.
I would consider legalizing above decriminalizing drugs so as to be able to manage and address addiction issues at the local level. Savings taken from prison systems should be diverted to local management centers that dispense, monitor, and assist users. Likewise for prostitution – most, very big portion, of street prostitutes are drug users. Giving them resources to manage their habit would be a good thing. It should also help some young men steer clear of the gang lifestyle. They are not much different than prostitutes chasing money and drugs, even though they are often painted as villains of the… Read more »
I’m with you Tom on the decriminalization of drug-related crimes for all the reasons you mention (unless of course they escalate into or entail the violent crimes we both want punished as usual). But this photo really grabbed me because until I got into the piece I flashed on the possibility that it might actually be you at some low, physically transmogrified point in your life. Yikes!
An eye-catcher with your name at the top certainly, and a thoughtful piece.
Thanks Mark. Imagine how I felt when I saw that picture with my name attached?!?