They’re making millions of dollars off federal prisoners and state prisoners across the country through prison industries. That’s facts.
D: Very true. Most prisoners, when they come to prison, come with the mindset that they want to get themselves together, and I think a lot of people miss that right there. Even the ones that are labeled violent–and when I hear people say “violent,” we have to be careful with that term. Because a lot of times people are using this term “violent,” and we’re seeing politicians saying “well, we’re not going to be supporting violent offenders.” It’s a new theme now, where we just promote policies [that benefit] non-violent offenders. And that kind of sickens me because, at the end of the day, who determines what’s violent? Who determines what’s a violent offender? To me, that’s a bunch of people making up these laws, and they determine what’s violent and what is not. And a lot of times people have non-violent offenses and these are straight up violent offenses in my eyes. You know, so I’m very careful with that term non-violent versus violent offenders.
The people that they want to categorize and label as violent offenders for the most part, these brothers and the women that come into prison, they come in with the mindset that they want to do the right thing. I think the minute they enter through those gates, and the minute they begin to observe their surroundings, they begin to recognize immediately, that any change they wanted to do, they don’t need to do it, because they’re going to be perceived a certain way and they’re going to be handled a certain way, you know, and it’s going to be a lose-lose situation for them. And people have to really understand that humans are entering through these gates and becoming prisoners, and in the process of that, the environment back here is making it worse. It is creating something in these prisoners that is a lot worse than when they came in for a lot of these guys and women.
Because, once again, they may have done some terrible things out there, but for the most part, when they start going through and they recognize the days ahead of them, they want to change, they want to do something different. Hell, I know I was about that when I came in here until I went through the reception and evaluation center, and saw it wasn’t going to work out that way.
That is another reason why some people want to group up. Some people want family back here as well. I like to call them street formations [as opposed to using the term gang]. A lot of times, people need someone that can look out and care for their best interests, too. Not just in the protection role, but also somebody that gives a damn, because the system is so cold. So when you’re sitting back here, and you’re drinking, you’re smoking, you’re dabbing, you’re talking about your loved ones with your homeboy there, that’s a different feeling versus when you can get outside that cell and you’re looking at the prison itself, and the environment itself, which is a cold place.
So everybody looks for some sense of comfort, some sense of love, which is another reason I think the prison system eliminating our contacts, our family ties, is really detrimental to prisoners re-entering society successfully, but that’s another subject.
S: Let me do a quick rebuttal on what he said on the non-violent versus violent offenders, because I like what he said. Out there in society, when they’re talking about what people are incarcerated for–like if somebody is convicted for murder–that’s considered to be a violent offense. But that could’ve been a first time offense. And then he comes to prison, he’s been in prison for fifteen years, and he ain’t never had another violent offense on his record, he ain’t never had a violent offense in prison, he’s not involved in any violent activity [on the inside], so why is he still considered to be a violent person? Just because he’s got a violent charge on his record, that don’t mean that he’s indulging in violent activities. Because sometimes, the people in prison that have non-violent charges, sometimes they’re the ones involved in violent activities back here.
Jared: Lee Correctional Facility is named after the county, Lee County. And that county is named after Robert E. Lee. So you have a Confederate General and a former slave owner and you have a facility that is in his name, that really, as you all have mentioned, really carries on that same tradition into 2018. To what degree do you think this registers with prisoners? What does it mean to prisoners that make that connection?
D: And when did Lee open up, 1994?
Jared: Yeah in that era.[1] And just to give a little more context, the county was first named Lee County in the 1890’s after Reconstruction had ended.
S: My only response to that is that the prisoners, who were probably from the Bishopville area who may have had that information through the educational system, or conscious prisoners who read and research things–those prisoners might be aware of that, but for the vast majority of prisoners, that don’t have any significance to them because most of them are not aware of that.
D: I would have to second that. I don’t think prisoners for the most part have any awareness of that. Matter of fact, to be honest with you, as much reading as I have done, as much cultural reading as I have done, I was very ignorant of that up until very recently, up until the last several weeks. I just learned this information.
As far as the effect, I can tell you for me, personally, it says something about progress and where we were at mentally. When this prison came about, I think between ‘92 and ‘94, for you to still name a prison after that during that time period… Although, don’t get it wrong, we all know a prison is nothing more than a modern day plantation. So we understand that fact, so really it’s quite fitting. But still, it would seem you wouldn’t want to name one of your state institutions after this right here. It seems like someone would raise their hand and say, “No.”
I think that also tells me, as a Black man, how conditioned a lot of Black people are around in these southern areas as well. Because I’m sure that they knew what the Lee County name stood for, what the name represented. The ones that voted in this particular institution in that area, the ones that were saying it would hold this name, they knew, and they didn’t say anything.
This is the type of mindset we’re dealing with in the state of South Carolina today, which is why I’m constantly reminding people we have the highest rate as it relates to racial disparities in the nation. We are in the top six or seven states as far as racial disparities as it relates to sentencing and imprisonment rates in the nation. I think we’re only like 20-30 percent of the population in South Carolina[2] and over 60-something percent of the prison population.[3]
They did a recent study not too long ago that told us that Black people specifically were being automatically over-sentenced by judges. It said if you were Black, you were 50 times more likely to get jail time for a minor offense versus if you were any other race. If you were compared to white defendants, you were over 70 percent more likely to be sentenced to longer sentences, based on your race.[4] Everybody knows the color of the state of South Carolina when you walk into the prison system. I think all of this is an indicator of the nature of the beast that we are dealing with.
And I have to note that, even when South Carolina was going through their Reconstruction phase, all of these same Blacks that were a part of the Reconstruction phase were eventually thrown out of power, and that’s because there was a compromise between the North and the South. And we have to always remember that right there. That’s when we get back to 1865, that’s when we get back to the 13th Amendment, that constitutional amendment and the compromise that was reached across the table. The power dynamics in the South has never changed. And I think we’re seeing the rottenness of it in today’s times. That’s why I think we’re seeing these extreme responses, these extreme reactions in the prison systems throughout these southern states.
S: Every time prisoners do strive to organize, to come together to make things better for themselves, the administration really doesn’t give you much support or they attack you. For example, one of my comrades, he recently had been released from prison over the last year or so. He was housed at Lee County at one point and he was a coordinator on the compound.
He was able to organize over 150 members every week to come together positively, sit down and have discussions, and things of that nature. Whenever there would be any type of altercations or whatever, they would try to talk over things first and most often if they couldn’t, then they would handle it like men and knuckle it up. But there wasn’t so much knives, and people getting killed or stabbed up. All of that was calmed down for a while. So you had the STG (Security Threat Group) supervisor from headquarters and he got with the warden at that time, and they called him to a conference and they wanted him to explain to them how is it that you could have Crips, Bloods, Muslims, etc., in the same room every week and there’s never any violence going on? The [STG] told [the warden] that [the prisoners] were up to something, that’s how they felt. And what did they do to [the prisoner coordinating the program]? They shipped him to another institution.
When they moved him to another institution, they started to do things on the Lee County yard from a program perspective. To make a long story short, [the coordinator] was eventually sent home. While he went home, now you had other things popping off at other yards, who didn’t have these types of positive things going on. They moved these guys around, piled all these guys up on one yard, all on one side, waited for one thing to happen. Boom! You get the worst thing that happened in the last 25 years. That was strategically implemented.
D: Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that’s very important to note that, back to Lee County very briefly, that all of this right here is not by accident. None of it is by accident. That’s the sad part about it.
S: Yeah, they were used as lab rats. One more thing with regards to laws and stuff like that: a lot of times in South Carolina, people get convicted unjustly. And whenever somebody discovers that–and it’s something that affects a lot of prisoners–and they put it into the courthouse and they pass a law or something on it, and they know they’ve done a lot of wrong to a lot of people, but what they’ll do is they’ll slide a word in it so that [it doesn’t take effect] retroactively. Because if they had to [implement it] retroactively, they’d have to let a lot of people go, because they convicted a lot of people unjustly. They’ve been doing that for the longest.
To be continued…look for Part V of the interviews soon.
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[1] It opened up in 1993 according to SCDC http://www.doc.sc.gov/institutions/lee.html
[2] 27.5% according to the most recent US Census https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/SC/PST045216
[3] Black people represent 62% of the prison population in South Carolina, despite representing roughly 28% of the state population.
[4] This may not be the study D is referencing, but here is a study that talks about disparities in sentencing in South Carolina and other states: http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/The-Color-of-Justice-Racial-and-Ethnic-Disparity-in-State-Prisons.pdf
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