Transcription
How much time is enough?
11/12/14: 4:30pm: Listening to: My Curse; By: Killswitch Engage
It's been a little bit since my last post. With my mom's cancer & my life just falling apart around me, there hasn't been much to say. I was reading the Phila Daily newspaper & came across a story. I've seen a lot of murderers. But you know what I haven't seen in all of those convicted murderers? I have met hundreds & I have never met one who is wealthy, & I do know that there are some wealthy ones but I have never met one. Every week on the local news I see women & men kill their kinds. Maybe 5 out of 10 get a lot of time, out of that 5, 1 or 2 get life. But I read this story & this is a story of a wealthy man who bought his way out of a life sentence. He beat his wife to death with a piece of exercise equipment, staged the scene, pretended it was a burglary gone wrong & the prosecution offered him a deal of 5-10 years.
PA prisons are so overcrowded & the state has begun closing schools, cutting the education budget, just so they can build more prisons. What PA should be doing is trying to stop this pattern of violence & crime before it even begins. Philadelphia alone has over 1.5 million residents, & I'm told that's the latest population for a city in PA. But they continue to close more schools but they hire more cops. Pennsylvania is not fixing the problem. It's like in prison. When you get hurt or sick or have a disease or whatever the cause for you to go to the medical dept., they don't fix the problem. They only treat the symptoms. They'll tell you, unless your problem is life threatening or it stops you from doing daily routines, then you will not be treated. They will only treat the symptoms. I know a guy who has a hernia, the LPN told him he has to actually be in worse shape for them to approve surgery to fix the hernia. Pennsylvania is not fixing the problems.
What kind of governor is Wolf going to be? Will he be "tough on crime" or will he try to have programs & people to help? Will schools be re-opened or will more close? 2 more state prisons are slated to be opened next year. That's over 5,000 more beds. The PA D.O.C. claims they are doing to close down SCI Graterford but we all know they won't. Those 2 prisons cost 5-600 million bucks to build. That money could have went into reopening schools. Helping kids stay off the street corners, out of gangs, away from trouble. When you pack 40+ kids into a classroom, the class, the teaching becomes less effective. Kids who need help won't get it from just 1 teacher in a class of that size.
A friend of mine named Bobby has been here 40 years. I don't know his crime but he does have a life sentence. In 40 years Bobby got married, had a family, his wife moved to this area to be closer to him so she could visit every week. Bobby has never been in trouble, never had a misconduct (that's when they write on you if you do something wrong) & Bobby has held a steady job in here for 35 years. He makes 42c per hour working. He is in his late 60's. Today he just filled in his clemency papers in the law library. I told him that if anyone deserved, he does. He is a model prisoner & will help anyone, staff or prisoner, with a problem if he can help. He's an old man who wants to die at home with his family. In my 11 years here, I have never even heard the man curse. But Pennsylvania doesn't normally give clemency to prisoners. It's almost always denied. So instead of giving someone like Bobby a chance, they would rather be tough on crime (they what they say) & keep him here until he dies. Bobby costs the taxpayers about $65,000 per year to keep him here. Wouldn't that money be better used helping kids not turn into who Bobby was 40 years ago?
If PA is so tough on crime, why did the District Attorney's Office offer this man a plea deal of 5-10 years for beating his wife to death & then trying to cover up the crime? They're tough on the poor but not the rich, & sadly Bobby is not rich & since he doesn't have millions of dollars, he'll probably be denied clemency. Well I'll be praying for Bobby to be able to go home & be with his wife & children & watch his grandchildren grow up.
It was recently pointed out to me that I don't do paragraphs, I tend to run on & on making my writings 1 huge paragraph. I apologize for this & I will try to do better.
On a final note, I might be transferred to another prison this week. The PA D.O.C. staff, not all but a lot, they treat mentally ill prisoners very badly, an& after many lawsuits, they are being forced to do better, to treat them better. So many mentally ill prisoners from other prisons are being sent here & a lot of prisoners from here are being send to other prisons. So with my mom fighting cancer, now I have another headache to worry about. I really don't want to be sent even further from my family. I really don't get many visits anymore as it is but being 6+ hours from home, I would get even less.
Well I guess that's all for this week. Take care, get ready for winter, & I hope everyone has a happy holiday season. I'll be 38 in 7 more days. It's been a very long 17 years. God bless, ciao.
[Newspaper clipping, Tagline: Civil case vs. killer prof proceeds, Slain wife's family ready to jump all over his assets. Imagine depicts a middle-aged man in a jacket handcuffed and being escorted by police]
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Replies (6)
I agree with you that more focus should be placed on prevention as opposed to just treatment, in terms of crime and health. It is interesting that you notice a link between poverty and getting a life sentence for murder charges - I wonder if this too is a case of a failure of prevention - a failure to prevent a risk factor (poverty) from leading to a destructive life path.
No doubt, there needs to be a better focus on prevention. Philadelphia is not representative of the remainder of the state. Many districts in the state are doing quite well. Philly is not, but that's largely due to administrative mis-management. The city was on a good path when Rendell was in office, mayor street tossed it all in the trash.
Too many people are in the prisons for stuff that really should not happen. Minor drug crimes, simple assault, white collar stuff... There has to be a better option. Murderes, child molesters, rapists and the like, well... They belong there.
Poverty, or lack of income does not automatically mean prison. Poor or absent parenting is a more likely cause for crime in the lower incomes, paradoxically, those issues can be linked to poverty. If a mom has to work three jobs to make ends meet, how can she be there for her kids.
its sad, because when someone has spent the majority of their adult life behind bars, how will they function in society? Someone of that age will be hard pressed to find any employment, and will immediately be in need of social services for their existence, or end up homeless. I think the lack of any safety net after prison is why recidivism is so high.
Vicious circle of life. Screw up enough to get put into the penal system, and for most... That's it.
Since he has been in office, and after the debacle Bush left, the stock market is up to nearly 18,000, unemployment is the lowest it's been since before Bush, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while not over (really, they never will be) have most of our troops home, and the economy is actually quite strong.
What, exactly do you propse be done for the poor? There have been extended unemployment benefits to get through the bad years of no jobs, minimum wage increases (I hate the term minimum wage, it is degrading) are being pushed across the country, a plan was just put out by the President to essentially guarantee everyone has a chance for at minimum community college, and so much more. This is a president who has been fought over every issue by the republicans even when it is in their own interest.
I think prison is a corporation unto itself, and i cannot find fault with what you say. Its an industry that feeds itself financially, and that may not change. However... With the recent push for legalization of marijuana, I think a lot of petty nonsense will stop, and there may be a reduction in the number of people incarcerated. Even in Philadelphia now, if you are caught with small amounts, what used to mean a probable stint at greaterford now means a simple ticket.
The 65 year old man in prison. No, I would not agree with giving him a chance. If he is in for life, that's where he should stay. After 35 years, if he were let out, and at that age, he would have nothing to contribute to society, and would in fact be more of a drain on already strained resources. 1980 and 2015 are VASTLY different worlds, and I doubt he would be able to function without some sort of a safety net.
It is murder in both cases, yes. Both cases were violent. Both were from an outsiders viewpoint looking in, a crime of the moment, and not pre-meditated.
The similarities end there.
The individual in the article tried to cover up the crime, but left it at that. No attempt was made to dispose of the body, no robbery was committed afterward. Most importantly, no previous history of continual run ins with the law were present.
Could he afford a better lawyer than a public defender. Yes. Would that lawyer try harder than a public defender... Definitely. So in that aspect, someone who is poor would be at a disadvantage. However, being poor is not an instant life sentence. Extenuating circumstances such as violence in the courtroom to the point of being shackled may very well color a judge (and jury) opinion of what sentence should be meted out. In some cases, there is simply no possible chance of a person being rehabilitated.
I think eventually though.. Justice will come for him. Look at OJ Simpson. Eventually, he was nabbed for something, and while he got away with murder, in the end... He is still locked up, and will probably die in prison. I think that will ultimately be the case for the man in the article.