HARD TIME VIRGINIA Vol 7 No 2 Summer '22

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an occasional newsletter by and for incarcerated Virginians

Some Background on the Earned Sentence Credit Bill

In 2020 during a special session, a bipartisan group of legislators devised legislation to incentivize those with nonviolent crimes to improve themselves for an earlier release. In order to give Virginia Department of Corrections time to update its databases and prepare, Gov. Northam amended the bill so that it wouldn’t take effect until July 1, 2022.        

Then came the Virginia elections in the fall of 2021 and there was a change in the political makeup of the House of Delegates and every top political office, including that of governor. Before the law could even take effect members of the House of Delegates entered bills to either exclude more people from the original bill or to repeal the bill entirely. These bills passed in the House, but didn’t even make it out of the Senate committees. In the normal legislative process this should have been the end of the story for this legislative session.

After the 2022 General Assembly adjourned, final steps were taken to bring home those who had worked for two years to improve themselves, stay out of trouble and earn an earlier release. Those who were eligible were notified and given a release date. Family and friends made plans to help their loved ones come home. Home plans were approved, jobs were found, applications for driver’s licenses were filled out. Weddings were planned, reunions set up, and fathers and grandparents were in joyous anticipation of seeing children after many years or for the first time.

About 500 of those set to be released have what are called mixed charges. They have completed their sentences for violent offenses that did not qualify for the ESC bill but were also serving consecutive sentences for nonviolent offenses that did qualify. Members of the House of Delegates persuaded the governor to use a nonconventional way to block legislation by entering a budget amendment that would exclude those with these mixed charges. 

Sen. Mark Obenshain urged the Senate to deny early release to people who had worked in good faith to earn it, trusting the legislation would honor the promises made in 2020. As Sen. Boysko pointed out, “We cannot create a system of reform if the people we govern cannot trust the laws we have set in place.” Sen. Obenshain’s repeated claim that “murderers and rapists” would be given reduced sentences is completely false. They have served their full sentence for the crimes which are not eligible for the ESC bill. But as Sen. Morrissey pointed out, Obenshain’s statements are “a great soundbite and a great commercial, but (it’s) not what they are doing.”

The news of the cruel reality that they are not coming home has quickly being spread through the facilities and to loved ones. They feel anger, disbelief and betrayal by a system they trusted to honor the commitments made to them. They kept their end of the bargain. They did everything required of them so they could come home just a little earlier to their loved ones. Sadly, the Virginia legislature has sacrificed its honor for the benefit of a political soundbite.

This op ed piece by Debra Turner, a member of the Valley Justice Coalition in Harrisonburg, appeared in both the Roanoke Times and the Daily News-Record.

In Spite Of Parole Board Chair’s Promises, Parole Release Numbers In 2022 Remain Disappointingly Low

January: Regular Grants 4, Geriatric Grants 4, Dual Grants 4, Total: 12

February: Regular Grants 3, Geriatric Grants 0, Dual Grants 0, Total: 3

March: Regular Grants 0, Geriatric Grants 0, Dual Grants 0, Total: 0

April: Regular Grants 1, Geriatric Grants 1, Dual Grants 0, Total: 2

May: Regular Grants 1, Geriatric Grants 0, Dual Grants 0, Total: 1

June: Regular Grants 8, Geriatric Grants 4, Dual Grants 3, Total: 15

This brings the total number of parole releases this year to 33, with June reflecting the highest number of grants by the new Parole Board. Also, for the first time reasons for granting release are included in each case, but there remain many other incarcerated persons who have served just as much, if not more, time in prison and who have met the same criteria, such as having exceptional records of institutional adjustment, having good community support, being infraction free for decades, completing all correctional programs, having low risk assessments, stable release plans, no opposition to release and being no risk to public safety. Augusta Correctional Center still remains the lowest releases all year long of the (290) parole eligible offender's housed in this prison facility.                                                                              - Jonathan White, ACC, and Harvey Yoder

An Insider Reflects On Dormitory Incarceration

Open dormitory living for long periods of time can be traumatic for those used to living in a cell type of structure. It is one thing to be in a dormitory for only a few months, but year after year it is not a positive rehabilitation step. It is hard enough dealing with one other man looking in your face day in and day out, but a room of sixty people stacked on top of one another and having less space between bunks than in dog kennels is a mental and psychological challenge. 

It is different when those type of facilities are used as work release units where everyone gets to go to a job setting or road gang to perform a meaningful labor task. But lagging around in a confined dormitory breeds violence and unwanted trouble, not to mention that it is the quickest way to spread diseases with airborne transmissions. That's how TB infected the entire population at Southampton during the years that the dormitory housing was added to the general population, and it resulted in an increase in rapes and violent attacks. Also, folks with poor mental intellects have a serious lack of understanding of how to cope, and weak ones get raped in the dark of night when floor officer's fail to make their rounds to conduct bed checks. 

These are not just fear stories of prison life. This is a real fact of life witnessed and documented. Many men in prison have mental issues that the state refuses to address when dumping men or women in dormitory settings.                                                                       - Jonathan White, ACC

"There Is A Knocking At Our Door"

"I was a stranger and you welcomed me."

"There is a knocking at our door.

sound of the homeless of the world.

voice of the frightened refugee,

cry of the children in the cold,

asking the least that is their right, 

safety and shelter for the night."

Words: Shirley Erena Murray

© 1992 Hope Publishing Company, www.hopepublishing.com.

All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I found these words of the hymn, "Here to the House of God We Come," in our church's new Voices Together hymnal, to be sung to the tune KHAO I DANG, the name of a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand.

Due to the devastation of famine and wars and other forms of violence and persecution, the plight of some 26 million refugees around the world has become one of the greatest human disasters of all time.

The Hebrew Torah devotes more attention to our need to welcome foreigners and aliens than almost any other single concern, and in one of Jesus's final addresses he makes it clear that we cannot truly honor and welcome God without receiving those in need whom God cares about. 

In a recent Christian Century article "Deliverer and Refugee" by Zac Koons, the writer reflects on Mark Chagall's epic painting Exodus in which a crucified Jesus is accompanying Moses leading Israel's flight from Egypt. Rather than our being a part of their journey toward the Red Sea Chagall has the refugees heading toward us, as if we ourselves represented the Red Sea.

So are we aligned with the world's oppressors or with the oppressed? Do we represent an unwelcoming wall or will we allow God to transform us into an increasingly hospitable and welcoming place of refuge, remembering that we and our ancestors were also once foreigners and strangers?

You can help my making a generous donation to the Sharing Our Surplus Campaign, a part of the annual Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale effort. Its SOS Campaign raises money specifically for Mennonite Central Committee refugee relief aid.

Is Fuel Too Cheap, Transportation Too Plentiful?

The lower 1960 photo of the late Betty Byler and her three children, members of our congregation, was taken along highway 42 across the street from the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community. The top photo was taken recently at the same location, now a busy five-lane thoroughfare bustling with traffic.

Do we have a transportation shortage or is our increased demand for convenience and for consumer products from all over the world resulting in too many vehicles on too many streets and highways? 

Counting service and company owned cars and trucks, we now have more licensed vehicles in the US (nearly 284 million) than we have licensed drivers (just over 238 million). With their mostly fossil fuel powered engines, along with those of over 8 million registered motorcycles, our vehicles are the source of more greenhouse gasses contributing to climate change than any other sector of our economy except for the nation's power generating plants.

So it could be argued that the price of gasoline and diesel fuel is actually too low, resulting in too many drivers driving too many miles and choosing too many fuel guzzling vehicles. Our increasingly common oversized pickups, for example, are rarely found in countries where fuel is more expensive and/or taxed more heavily.

Here are some comparisons of average gas prices per gallon in other parts of the world as of May 2022. The average cost per gallon in the US was $4.79, compared to $6.49 in Canada, $8.17 in Norway, and $11.20 in the UK.

Without question our personal health and that of the planet would be enhanced if we walked and biked more and drove our two-ton passenger vehicles less, especially when occupied by only one or two persons, and if we were to:

1. Car pool regularly with friends and neighbors to work, worship, shop, etc.

2. Limit shopping trips to once or twice a week.

3. Use available public transportation (currently free in our town) as much as possible.

4. Travel more by rail and bus and less by plane, RV's and/or other private passenger vehicles.

5. Offer free "Uber" transportation to people who need it.

6. Partner with others to share electric vehicles.

7. Walk instead of drive to work out at nearby wellness centers.

8. Your suggestions?

Jewish Wisdom On Health and Healing

Our house church is focusing on physical and emotional healing in our August meetings. I found this gem from the Apocrypha in Willard Swartley's 2012 book, "Health, Healing and the Church's Mission," one of the resources we are using for our study:

Honor physicians for their services,

    for the Lord created them,

for their gift of healing comes from the Most High,

    and they are rewarded by the king.

The skill of physicians makes them distinguished,

    and in the presence of the great they are admired.

The Lord created medicines out of the earth,

    and the sensible will not despise them…

And he gave skill to human beings

    that he might be glorified in his marvelous works.

By them the physician heals and takes away pain;

    the pharmacist makes a mixture from them.

God’s works will never be finished,

    and from him health spreads over all the earth.

My child, when you are ill, do not delay,

    but pray to the Lord, and he will heal you.

Give up your faults and direct your hands rightly,

    and cleanse your heart from all sin.

Offer a sweet-smelling sacrifice and a memorial portion of choice flour,

    and pour oil on your offering, as much as you can afford

Then give physicians their place, for the Lord created them;

    do not let them leave you, for you need them.

There may come a time when recovery lies in the hands of physicians,

    for they, too, pray to the Lord

that he grant them success in diagnosis

    and in healing, for the sake of preserving life.

Those who sin against their Maker

    will be defiant toward the physician.

 Sirach 38:1-15 (NRSV)

Guest Post: A Great Hammer And Roof Story

Tabitha Hammer with Pat Martin by the amazing
 Paper Mulberry Tree outside Tabitha's house, 
now blessed with a brand new new roof.

I post the following piece by my friend Earl Martin with his kind permission. He is a founding member of a local group of volunteers known as the Carpenters Guild:

Over a month ago, Louise Jennings of Kingsway Prison Ministries contacted Harvey Yoder to see if he knew of someone who might help a woman patch the roof of her leaky house. Harvey contacted the Carpenters Guild and the wheels started turning.

The Guild has been a gathering of folks in the Harrisonburg area who for the last twenty years have been volunteering to help out in home repair for persons needing a hand. Often doing their work on Fridays, anywhere from three to 20 carpenters, plumbers, electricians, handy-hands, generalists and well-wishers would find themselves tearing out and rebuilding walls for a Latino couple, building a wheel-chair ramp for Paul Longacre or rebuilding the White House (now Vine and Fig) and their front porch. Not every month saw a project, but presumably there were at least six per year over the past twenty years, so likely well over 100 projects.

The Guild deliberately did not keep track of the projects. So there is no record. No, the intent was to lend a hand without bureaucracy, without troublesome “vetting” of each project, without attention or fanfare. Just an opportunity for some hammer-swingin folks to work together for a day!

So when the call came to help out the woman with her leaky roof came, it seemed like the perfect project for the Guild. “This kind of project is the very reason the Guild was formed.” 

Where is this project? Well, it's out beyond Elkton in the beautiful, hilly boonies. And who is this woman? When we pulled in one evening over a month ago to assess the project, we were met by a fast-talking, fast-chuckling firecracker of a woman named Tabitha Hammer. Tabitha explained that her house had been built by her grandfather, and built well. Alas, the roof has been leaking for years, forcing her son to live elsewhere rather than in his wet bedroom.

We climbed her ladder, homemade with an assemblage of boards, onto her low-pitched roof. (Less than two-twelve slope.) But Tabitha had arranged a variety of plastic sheeting here and there over the roof to prevent some of the rain from falling into her kitchen. Tabitha also had purchased 26 bundles of three-tab shingles and a half dozen sheets of three-quarter inch plywood to repair her roof. But she had no way of getting those remedies installed.

We told her we would see if we could help. Back home, we contacted members of the Guild for their counsel on what to do. Tim and others advised installing Ice and Water Shield over the whole roof because of the low slope. We contacted John Weaver about helping to install the shingles. He immediately said, “I'll do it!” Wow, what a spontaneous, beautiful commitment!

We set a date for the Guild to show up to remove the two (or three or four) layers of shingles on the roof. Probably bad timing, given summer vacations and people's earlier commitments, but Wick Fary showed up and soon we were attacking the old shingles, only to discover large areas of the roof where the one by six sheathing boards were totally rotted out. Well, that's what the ¾ inch plywood was for!

So lots of patching. At first we thought we would never get this roof ready for shingles. But then a newbie, Andrew Troyer–Ed's nephew--shows up and Wick phones his son Dylan who also shows up as did Miguel–bless their hearts–so by 5 pm three-fourth of the roof was stripped, patched and covered in Ice and Water Shield. Tabitha had provided a generous lunch and lots of cold drinks!

So four days later, we take another stab at the project, this time with added help from Ben and Russ. And most delightfully, the help of Chuck Kisling, a friend of Tabitha's and a true man of the fields and the hills. Chuck worked harder than any of us. When we had finished stripping, patching, and Ice Shielding the rest of the roof, and replacing most of the fascia, Chuck decided he would do a little extra, up to the peak.

The next day, John Weaver showed up to get an early start before the rain. By noontime, he had that nearly ten-square roof shingled and ridge capped. A miracle! With Chuck by his side, doing whatever he could.

That evening Chuck texted, naming with special thanks each of the folks who had come to help. He also said, “I hope we also keep in touch an if u have anything come up… an u think u may need a hand tex me call me an I'll do what I can the best I can for u or who ever it may be.”

A few days later, he texted again, “jus letting ya know other nite when we had rain not 1 drop of rain made it inside the house that was a pretty nice sign of relief finally. THANK TO ALL WHO MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR A INSIDE FLOOR TO BE DRY FOR THE 1ST TIME IN 25 YEARS ...”

And today, a big box from Amazon arrived at the door containing a large Gift Basket with specialty snack foods, with a note enclosed which I took for all who helped out with the roof, indeed, all who have given a hand with the Guild over the past, many years:

“A Gift for You. Thank you for being a generous soul and a beautiful spirit in a

world that could use a million more people just like you. Thank you so much for

everything. You're the best and you're appreciated more than you know."

                                                                        - From Tabitha Hammer

Volunteer John Weaver at work on the roof repair project.

Note: If any readers of this blog would be interested in occasionally volunteering with the Carpenters Guild (all levels of skills are welcome), please contact Earl Martin at patearl@aol.com.

"One Day Someone Should Start a Religion Based on the Teachings of Jesus"

The Mount of the Beatitudes, northwest of the Sea of Galilee.

Today's blog title comes from a tongue in cheek "tweet from God" I ran across recently, the point being that Jesus's role as a greater-than-Moses Prophet, or Teacher, is often underplayed in current Christian circles. This is in contrast to most  church leaders in the first and second centuries, to St. Francis of Assisi of the 13th century, and to later reformers like Menno Simons, who once once wrote, “Jesus is the perfect teacher, and his sacrifice is the perfect sacrifice.”

Ironically, some non-Christians like Mahatma Ghandi in the past century have more fully appreciated Jesus’s words and have tried to live by them. Ghandi read some part of the "Sermon on the Mount" (Matthew 5, 6 and 7), on an almost daily basis, and marveled at why so many Christians seemingly ignored it, or saw Jesus’s teachings as impractical and impossible. He once famously said,“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” This was in the context of an India that was then ruled with an oppressive iron hand by a supposedly Christian Great Britain.

According to Matthew 5, 6, and 7, Jesus clearly envisioned a worldwide God-movement in which there would be unconditional love shown to neighbor and stranger alike, even enemies, where generous sharing replaced the hoarding of possession, and where the love of money was replaced by a love of justice and compassion for all.

In his last words to his followers, spoken from what is almost surely the same place, the Mount of the Beatitudes, Jesus gave what is known as the Great Commission to his followers, urging them to  recruit disciples of people of all nations, teaching them all to observe all of the things he had taught them.

What a difference it would have made if even half of all baptized Christians, now numbering some 2.4 billion of the 7.8 billion of the earth's inhabitants, had been consistently trained to share instead of hoard possessions, do good for enemies instead of exacting revenge, live lives of sexual faithfulness instead of infidelity and promiscuity, and practiced consistent truth-telling instead of defending and promoting blatant lies and falsehoods? What a peaceful, safe, sustainable and just world that could have created. 

Meanwhile, our families and faith communities can strive to commit to become, by the grace of God, little colonies of heaven on earth, communities of shalom where there is "not a needy person among them." 

In one of Richard Rohr’s recent Daily Meditations he writes of Christians:

Our religion is not working well: suffering, fear, violence, injustice, greed, and meaninglessness still abound. This is not even close to the reign of God that Jesus taught. And we must be frank: in their behavior and impact upon the world, Christians are not much different than other people. Many Christians are not highly transformed people; instead, they tend to reflect their own culture more than they operate as any kind of leaven within it...We must rediscover what St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) called the “marrow of the Gospel.” It’s time to rebuild from the bottom up. If the foundation is not solid and sure, everything we try to build on top of it is weak and ineffective. 

May God help us do just that.

Beware Of False Dichotomies

In our attempts to arrive at right answers, we often ask the
wrong questions. Here are just a few examples:

1. Which is more important, one's work or one's marriage? It's not unusual for spouses to complain about partners caring more about their work than about the relationship, given factors like the sheer number of hours devoted to their jobs. So there can of course be a valid basis for some complaint, but it can also be an example of a false choice, in that both work and marriage are of vital importance. To work hard and to work well is essential to both one's wellbeing and to that of the community, and the income generated and life satisfaction gained can help enrich and sustain one's marriage and provide a good example to our children of how to invest appropriate time and give adequate attention to each.

2. Which should come first, our family or our congregation? In rearing our own three children, we found ourselves forever indebted to the good church people who invited our family into their hearts and homes, took an interest in our children and made a positive impact on us all. We could not have done it without them. In short, we came to realize that it does take a whole village, or a whole congregation to help sustain a good marriage and raise a whole and healthy family. So this is another example of what should not be an either-or question, or a "which is more important" question.

3. Which should have priority, preserving the lives of the unborn or of the already born? Most of us are both pro-life and pro-peace at some level. When it comes to the former, no "pro choice" people I know would ever support infanticide as a means of population control, most are appalled at the idea of partial birth abortions, and many believe a mother’s womb should be a safe place where life is protected and treated with respect at all stages of development. And when it comes to the already born, few would favor stoning as an acceptable sentence for a crime, encourage duels as a way of settling disputes, or condone having SWAT teams bomb whole neighborhoods to rid them of crime. Where people most often differ is in just how they demonstrate their desire for peace and their respect for human life.

The list could go on and on, as in, Should we advocate for stricter gun laws or support the Second Amendment? Should we focus on helping people with their spiritual needs or their physical needs? Should we seek change through legislation or through bringing about individual changes in people's hearts and behaviors?

These may all be examples of asking the wrong questions, or of framing them in an unhelpful way.