“Welcome Back, to that Same Old Place that You Laughed About – John Sebastian”

Part One of a series of articles looking at Prison Reform

“Welcome Back, to that Same Old Place that You Laughed About – John Sebastian”
After having been convicted of 1 count of mail fraud, I left prison three times. On May 29, 2008, I left the Satellite Camp at Otisville; On July 17, 2008, I signed out of the Brooklyn Federal Halfway House; and on November 1, 2008, at the direction of my PO I cut the band on my electronic monitoring device. Each time I resolved to communicate to the world what was so very wrong with the system I saw operating behind those gates and to work hard to fix it. For what it is worth, it was the first time in my life I was on a mission not for personal success but to change the world. One obvious contradiction, is that I am gearing up to tell you, the reader, how barbaric, wasteful and cruel, I think the American Penal System has become while at the same time admitting that I learned (and in many ways gained) a tremendous amount from the experience.

Crime, Conviction, Prosecution and Imprisonment are all fundamentally about failure. For me it was a failure to be able to support a wife and three children. In 2000, my income and my assets took a precipitous fall. I had not attended to and did not value a support network. I was not involved in my community. Charity work was for ladies who lunch and donations for showoffs at Black Tie events. I drifted from my friends. Between work and family, I just could not find time. For myself and many Urban Professionals, my self worth was my work and checkbook. When that evaporated, so did my self esteem and happiness. I desperately tried to hang on to my lifestyle and a chance to recapture my wealth. I stole money from a partnership, I controlled. I wanted to pay it back but I was not authorized under the terms of the Partnership to do what I did.

Needless to say, like many others, I was caught. I lost my home, wife, children and went to Prison. I happened at a glacial, excruciating pace. I went to live with my parents. I began seeing a psychologist at SUNY Stony Brook. (It was free). I needed to prepare for my incarceration. I was scared. How was prison going to change me? Would I be safe? What could I do for the people I let down? What was I going to do with the rest of my life? I resolved to study and get healthy. I love math and I had too long comforted my feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness with food.

My parents drove me to prison on January 9, 2007. I mailed five books (all math and physics) to myself from the post office at Otisville. I was given the standard issue cavity search. There is no way to have this done and maintain any dignity. I was not allowed to bring in legal papers that I should have been allowed to bring in. You learn quickly that many in the administration want to create the illusion that they are bound by no rules at all. You are told repeatedly that you are property and that you have no rights. I can not count the number of times in the first week, “You go in alone, and you come out alone.” It was January and the average temperature was in the teens. I was given only boat shoes. They are the consistency of hotel slippers in January in the Adirondacks. I was in constant pain from a childhood lawnmower injury to my foot. I was given no blanket and just a cotton sheet. I had no toothpaste, no razor, and no shampoo. A guard came by to rattle the cell I was filling out paperwork in. It was designed to be as terrifying as possible.

I went to the camp and started to meet my fellow inmates. They were largely poor, uneducated and guilty of supplying the same drugs (marijuana and cocaine) that I knew that the police, prosecutors and judges had used in college, if not now. I say this as someone who has never used any of it. I was lucky enough to be appointed the GED “teacher.” There was no full time education staff for “the Camp.” I was horrified that grown men could not add, subtract, multiply and divide, or for that matter read (in either English or Spanish). As my terror began to diminish and I took greater notice of my surroundings, I saw that most of the time was spent by inmates playing cards or watching TV. There was no functioning library. No computers or access to the internet. All post secondary education had ended on 1995 with the passage of the Zimmer Amendment.

We were limited to five books and depending on which guard was enforcing the rules no where to read them. The baffling conditions resulted from a fundamental assumption that we were unredeemable. In her excellent book, Cruel and Unusual: The Culture of Punishment in America, Dr. Anne-Marie Cusac, explains that this debate over what to do with prisoners is old as the prison system itself. I was not aware of her book then, or the large body of work that many authors had done on the prison system, including Todd Clear, Jeremy Travis, Margret Leland Smith, Dan Nagin, Alfred Blumstien, Jeff Mellow, John Rawls and Michael Picault and many others of which I am still ignorant.

I just could not stand the idea of wasting so much time and money. I organized a tutoring program and classes. I did what I could to humanize the place. I tutored anyone who was interested in Mathematics and Reading. I never felt that I was unredeemable and I don’t believe that most of the people I served with were either. I could not believe both the casual cruelty and corruption that many, not all, of the guards and administration displayed. One of my students, Steven Dejesus, a diabetic, was killed by medical neglect. We were told that we could never “associate” with each other again or we would be incarcerated for violating the terms of our Supervised Release (The Federal Version of Parole).

Well after a few false starts, I am already at double the length of the essay I was asked for, I made it to Exodus. I found a community of formerly incarcerated individuals trying to make their way back. I was better educated but now poorer than most. They helped me get clothes and a job. They connected me with volunteer opportunities. I found ways to get involved politically. I am involved with the Prison Education Initiative, the Drop the Rock Campaign, The Coalition for Fair Criminal Justice Policies, The Prison Action Network, the National Action Network and the Abyssinian Baptist Church Prisoner Life Coaching Project. I later took a job with Exodus as a job developer helping to connect other formerly incarcerated individuals with employment. I was able to get a second job as a Research Assistant and Statistics Tutor at CUNY John Jay. I have helped over 40 ex-offenders get jobs during this economic crisis.

In April, I was accepted to the PhD program in Criminal Justice at CUNY John Jay. I want to expand the opportunities for people to regain their lives and reserve prison for only the most dangerous amongst us. The criminal justice system offers society an opportunity to interrupt anti-social and self-destructive behavior. We can do that without being cruel. If we are smart, we can also save a tremendous number of lives and a fortune of money.

- Evan Missula