MJ-Way

I would remember him for his honesty. I would remember him for his strength, but most of all, I would remember him for his one saying that I can not forget to this day. In the face of calamity, uncertainty, and fear which could occur daily in this prison setting he would say, “we will approach this like fools on the horizon.” I could see him using that philosophy on almost every decision I saw him make on the workings of this prison and how it would be managed under his tutelage. He was not a man who was afraid to make a decision. I had seen many in leadership positions who refused to make the difficult ones. He was not one.

He made several of them on how I would run my program, who would get the produce from the school garden, and how tools would be accounted for. He told me he wasn’t a fan of flowers, and asked that I not landscape anything by the level four housing units. He also asked that I not landscape the walkway leading to the school . He was fearful that my students would be accosted when there was prisoner movement on that walk way. He felt that prisons needed to look like prisons, (all concrete) but that I had carried out the wardens wishes well by landscaping it so abundantly. “Your a good soldier, and teacher,” he would go on to say later. I took it as a compliment coming from him. He had war wounds.

His last decision that effected my program was how prisoner movement would be carried out in the prison. He did not want level four and level two prisoners having direct contact with each other even in just passing. What he proposed and did was make a walk way through the garden next to the school building. I would lose having the only access to the garden in an area that was prohibited by all accept for my students, tutors, and our teachers. Out of Bounds signs were distributed between the walk way and the garden. Later those signs would mean nothing to a jailed population wanting their way, and the produce.

Because the new walkway cut through the garden I was given permission to establish a garden in another restricted space behind one of the housing units. I didn’t move on that immediately. It would take some planning. Now I would have to establish a border between the walk way and the garden. Something that would not be that appealing to be stolen but could have benefits to the community as well. I decided that in the first year the sidewalk was installed we would plant a perimeter of green cover crop along side it. I started with winter rye, used clover and buckwheat. The clover and buckwheat attracted thousands of bees a natural repellant. Anyone trying to access the garden from the side walk and ignoring the signs, would have to take the chance of being stung. It was an effective deterrent. At least, in the first year.

On our Wardens last day of work he stopped by to talk with me. He thanked me for implementing the horticulture program here, and felt I went beyond his expectations. I just thanked him for his support. Without it, the program would not have been successful. I questioned him on if and when our acting Deputy Warden would be promoted. He then confirmed what I thought were just rumors and hearsay. He had informed me that our acting Deputy Warden was an ex-offender and he believed the department would not promote him above an assistant grade level. If that was the case, he believed he would probably just retire as well, and maybe seek litigation. We said our goodbyes, and I really never saw what happened with our acting Deputy Warden. The Deputy Warden he filled in for was back from medical leave, and he never returned to his Assistant Deputy Warden position. He just seemed to vanish. ..Prison Stories To Be Continued..

They made a bad decision. One could argue they kept making bad decisions and that’s why they are imprisoned behind three barb wire fences. Today would be a culmination of a continued convoluted logic. These level four prisoners decided they were not going back inside their housing unit. Instead, they would disrupt how the prison would be run today. Once the officers closed the back gate they were not going to be going anywhere. Our Acting Deputy Warden walked into the yard where they were standing. He had courage. The officers told me later, the prisoners cussed him out and threatened his life. I don’t know if they realized that the officer in the gun tower could literally take them out permanently, and in all likelihood was waiting on the order to do so. Instead, the deputy turned and left the yard and at the same time motioned in the air with his hand to sound the siren. Once the control center saw him on camera, they immediately sounded the siren, and our swat team squad was activated.

Our facility was now in full mobilization. When an emergency mobilization is activated we are to report to our principal’s suite. All prisoners are told to leave the school and go lock up in their housing units. This is usually completed quickly, and without incident. An accounting of all the staff in the school building is completed by our school officers. We would then be directed to the visitor room in our administration building. Today we were told to stay in the school. The facility swat team was deployed to were the prisoners were standing. The prisoners were ordered to laydown on the ground with their hands behind their backs. Today they would make a better decision and they complied with the order. I believe men and women with riot shields, helmets, batons, and other assorted weapons got them thinking correctly. Their hands were zip tied, and then handcuffed. Some would be kept in separate cells in the housing unit , the others would be led to our segregation unit, and jailed there. The prison would return to normal operations the following morning.

My tutor was smiling when I saw him the next day. He had informed me that those guys wouldn’t be here much longer, and I asked him how he knew. The Acting Deputy Warden would not tolerate their nonsense. He was a man no one fooled with. He watched a prisoner punch him in the housing and the prisoner wasn’t seen again. Our Acting Deputy Warden was seen the next day making rounds like nothing happened. He was sure the prisoners who acted up yesterday would become “immediate snowbirds today. “It didn’t take me long to figure out what he meant. A long white correctional facility bus was making its way through our sally port gate. “Damn”, he said. “That didn’t take long”, he laughed. “They are on their way to the land of ice and snow. No visits for them!” Michigan’s higher security prisons were mostly located in the upper peninsula. They would only be getting an hour outside of their cell anyways. I wondered if it was worth it. They must have thought it was. My tutor continued laughing while saying, “they will be official snowbirds.” .. Prison Stories To Be Continued..

The truth matters. Thank you Mosab! May God protect you.

The Acting Deputy Warden would leave his legacy on this prison. He was a man of action. He had brought order to a prison in the city where ten inmates had escaped with help from the immediate community. The changes in security he made there insured the prison would not be in the news again. The inmates hated him and he did not care. He was photographed with our then governor for being one of the best correctional managers in the state of Michigan and his career was getting him some notoriety. One of the first things he did as the Housing Assistant Deputy Warden at our prison was eliminate the small yard in front of all the housing units, and then had all the basketball poles removed there as well. There would be no recreation in front of the housing units. That was reserved for their yard time, when they had yard time, in the yard behind the school, and it would be monitored.

When our new Acting Deputy Warden was making rounds he was often approached by inmates. Some had general concerns and he would address them. Still others, would end in bitch sessions which usually got the inmate handcuffed and led to segregation. One of the weirdest things I saw was an inmate rolling up to him in a wheel chair while he was walking towards the school. The inmate was cussing him out the whole time, and when he finally reached him, he was met by two officers who wheeled the cussing inmate to segregation. He was still cussing the Acting Deputy Warden out as he was being wheeled to the segregation unit. However, what I remembered most was the way he handled a potential prison riot. I was working with my tutor in the greenhouse getting ready for our afternoon class session. It was hot all morning, and it seemed to be getting hotter. A few of the level four prisoners had a very brief exchange of words with my tutor as they were headed back to their housing unit from the chow hall.

He felt they had just given him a warning about something bad getting ready to go down in the big yard where the level four prisoners were now congregating behind the school. We both walked to the edge of the barbwire fence and could see they were not returning to their housing unit. My tutor looked at me and told me do not bring out any tools for the afternoon class, and he informed me he was going to lock himself down in his cell. He believed the level four prisoners, not going back to their cells, was an indication they were getting ready to riot. He advised me to lock everything up and to go home. With that he left for his housing unit. I have to say. I was a little unnerved, and felt very uneasy. However, I did make sure that all the tools were locked up. Then the announcement was made on the over head yard speakers.: “All prisoners are to return to their housing units.” The yards were quickly cleared of all level two prisoners but about fifteen level four prisoners were not returning to their housing units from chow. It is beginning I thought, as I said a quick prayer, and watched the yard officers lock the gates to the yard where the level four prisoners were congregating ..Prison Chronicles To Be Continued…

When the Truth Matters. Well said Douglas Murray.

Mr. Dandy was in trouble. He had the highest GED completion rate in the MDOC prison school system which he used to berate the other school principals who could not even come close to his GED completion numbers. Even though he was the only prison school that had both day and night shifts of teachers teaching, he was held in high regard by the prison education administration because of his GED success rate. Now, his numbers were in question. I never heard about him again. I figured he retired and our training was being completed through the GED testing service. At the same time that happened, our prison had a new Acting Deputy Warden. He had been the Assistant Deputy Warden of Housing when I first met him, and then he became the Assistant Deputy of Programs over our school. From there he was promoted to Acting Deputy Warden. Our current Deputy Warden was on medical leave.

He was an interesting person. I met him for the first time when we were assigned to a prison housing unit during an emergency lockdown. I had heard from some of the officers that he was actually an ex-inmate. He had been assaulted during the prison riots in Jackson. Once he served his time for the crime he committed, he was hired by the MDOC and eventually promoted through the ranks The prisoners hated him. Most of the officers liked him because he knew the games prisoners played, and sided with the officers when prisoners became disruptive. During a lock down prisoners were not to leave their cells. The Acting Deputy Warden explained that over the loudspeaker in the unit, and the prisoners in unison started calling him names I had never heard men call other men on this side of the Mississippi River. I learned a whole new vulgar vocabulary. It was hard to figure out what they meant, and you just didn’t want to ask your colleagues, “hey what did they mean when they said they were going to split his wig and feed him the pig?”

At the time I figured it was some kind of an insult, but I didn’t want to ask anybody for clarification. I was just stunned by the amount of vocal outrage being showered on him. He surprised me when he stepped back up to the microphone an announced, ” I know what you want to do to me but it’s not going to happen!” Again, the housing unit irrupted into a vocal sea of vulgarity aimed precisely at him. Words and statements it would take years for me to decipher, but left an indelible mark on my psyche. Damn, you could feel the hatred. With that he left, after smiling at me and seeing that I looked to be in state of shock. As he was leaving he gave instructions to the housing unit manager and pointing at me he instructed her” to make sure I get some water. I looked like I’m going to pass out.” It surprised me, but all I could think of was “damn, what the hell is this?” This was my first time being called to a housing unit to work during an emergency mobilization. and it would not be my last. ..Prison Stories To Be Continued…

I passed the examination and was now the official GED Proctor at our prison school. Our new principal made sure that I had all of the support I needed to make it successful. We went over how the exams were to be administered, how often they were to be given, and the security needed to protect them from being stolen. They would be kept in a safe in her office, and only her and I would have the combination. There was a certain combinations of stops and starts that would always mix me up, and it would take me awhile to get it right to open. It was a gun safe but had been converted to our new GED Test safe. Our staff Lock Smith new how the combination was to be entered but he didn’t know the numbers. I would call him often in the beginning to get it right. He was always helpful and would just say, ” how long have you been teaching?” My reply was always, “obviously too long.”

We had a staff meeting which included all of our teachers, our secretaries, and the school officers. Our principal was very thorough on what was expected by everyone involved in this process. They all played a key role in the success of our program. The school officers were instructed to shake the prisoners down (frisk them) before they entered the exam room. They had to be dressed in their state blues (prison uniform) and were to be sent back if they were not. The prisoners could not take anything in with them, including jewelry and watches. The officers would enforce the rules of testing. They would also make regular rounds, and observe the testing process. If they felt anything was not right, they would address it with me, and if need be I would have the issue corrected if it needed to be. The school principal also wanted the officers to report any issues to her. She stayed totally connected. I had heard she was very thorough, and she demonstrated it in this meeting.

Her final instructions were to the academic teachers. They were in no way to enter the testing area, under any circumstances. It just wasn’t permitted by the GED testing service, and we could lose our license to give the exams if it was reported they were in the room while the exams were being given. The school officers had an open channel to our school principal and the warden if they felt the exam process had been compromised. A suspected serious compromise could shut the testing down until it was resolved. The prisons emergency response system was also addressed by her. In the event the system was activated while testing, a protocol was established that I had to implement, and secure the exams. The school officers would help in the process of securing the exams.

Before the meeting ended our school principal announced that all the GED testing was halted at our upper peninsula prison schools. The officers found answers to the exams in Mr. Dandy’s school. I couldn’t help but smile. I thought of my old boss Jesse and how he felt about Mr. Dandy. She shook her head and said with a smirk, ” A good guess, he’s no longer the apple of their eye.!” I thought, just like the MDOC, to go from hero to zero in a heart beat. Full circle karma for him…. Prison Stories To Be Continued..

The truth matters. Thank you Mosab Yousef.

I was surprised to find out about our new principals’ credentials. She didn’t share that with me when she asked to see how I ran my Horticulture program a few years earlier. However, she took that information and developed a very successful program at another prison. I was concerned now that she wished to speak with me after our school meeting. After our staff meeting, when everyone had left, she walked over to me, and began talking about the Horticulture program. She was amazed by our landscape and gardens. She knew I wasn’t satisfied with the status quo, as I kept expanding the number of plantings, and our landscape was best described as a floridly abundance. She informed me that she wanted me to be the GED examiner at this prison. I would have to go through a training process in Lansing, (Mr. Dandy the instructor), and after that was completed , she would help me get started giving the exams at our prison. She was also the Chief examiner and principal at another prison in Lapeer. She left it up to me to decide.

Not rushing the decision, I spoke with other trades instructors about the GED testing process. They informed me that only the vocational instructors could give the exams. The academic teachers were not allowed to handle the exams. The GED testing service required a regular annual training for all of the authorized exam proctors and that was usually held in Lansing. I was informed that those training in-services were interesting. It was a way for the exam proctors to talk about what was happening at their prisons and what works best for administering the exams in a prison school. My interest was piqued. I began calling the vocational instructors asking them how they were able to keep their class loads, and still give the exams? They informed me that their students were allowed to take their books back to their housing units and the tutors were allowed to keep the greenhouse and gardens producing. The arrangements were made with the help of the GED administrators (school principals) at the individual prisons, and the Wardens.

I wanted to be a part of this positive process, and I accepted. Everything she promised me in terms of support was made available. My class was reorganized so I could give the exams, and the testing would take place in a larger classroom across from my current classroom. It could hold up to 20 students. The training in Lansing was better than I had expected, and I was surprised to see it included vocational instructors from all of the trades, and not just Horticulture. Mr. Dandy had to leave our class half way through the training, and my new principal completed it. We had to pass an exam to get our certification, and once that was completed satisfactorily, we could give the GED exams at our prison schools. That schedule would be determined by the school principals.

The night before our examinations, at around 3:00am in the morning, I was awakened by someone pounding on my room door. I looked out the peephole but no-one was there. I opened the door to look down the corridor both ways. My room was in the middle of a long corridor but no one was there. I shrugged my shoulders and went back to bed. At breakfast my instructor told me that she had been informed that my past principal had passed away last night. I was stunned. Jesse was one of the best bosses I had ever worked for, and all I could think of was him saying why he didn’t want to retire. I also thought of the time Jesse would open the back door to the principal suite and yell my name down the corridor towards my classroom. Everyone thought it was so rude and crude, but that was Jesse. A bull in a china shop. Always a Coach. Then I also thought of the the time at the Detroit Medical Center were the surgeon was documenting his patient’s near death experiences, and I wondered if the pounding on my door was Jesse saying goodbye? .. Prison Stories To Be Continued….

The madness continues

Our new ADW was not liking that Jesse was absent from our staff meetings. He began to intimidate some of the teachers, but I found him to be quite interesting. The prisoners hated him and I didn’t think that was all that bad. He had been one of them at one time and was assaulted during the riots of the 1980’s. In our meetings he did say that our school was one of the best, and he thought it was the only thing running well in the MDOC. However, he had what he thought was a better idea on how it should be run. I got the feeling from talking with our school secretary that Jesse didn’t think his new boss would last much longer in his new assignment, and as usual Jesse was right. He received a temporary promotion as he became the Acting Deputy Warden. It seems our Deputy Warden was on medical leave, and he was promoted temporarily to do that job. He still had some influence over the school but was prevented from putting his stamp on it with his new temporary duties.

I don’t think Jesse cared one way or the other about our new acting Deputy Warden. We saw little of him in what would be his final year as our School Principal. It did not surprise me when our school secretary had informed us that Jesse would be retiring at the end of the month. She said that they were planning to give him a send off at the Green Tavern, and we were all invited to attend. Jesse had liked the Green Tavern and we had many a school meetings there. Jesse paid for the food consumed. I was surprised that he was going to retire, and he informed us that it was only a partial retirement. He had told me earlier that all of his friends who had retired passed away right after they retired. He didn’t want to be another statistic. His plan was only a partial retirement. He planned on coaching part-time for a private school. He thanked all of us as we gave him our parting gifts. I felt I was losing a good friend and mentor. Time moves on regardless, we said our goodbyes, and I wondered who our new principal would be.

Our academic teacher who had retired from the military as a captain in the United States Air Force would be the acting principal until a new principal was selected. I had hoped he would be selected for the position and was stunned to find out that a Horticulture Teacher I had trained for her current position was selected to be our new principal instead. Our acting principal had informed me she was not only a Horticulture Instructor, but was also a Special Education licensed teacher, a Master Degreed Education Administrator, and a GED Administrator. I did not know this when I trained her for the Horticulture Instructor position a couplie of years prior. Jesse never mentioned her back ground. We met her a few weeks later, after her appointment to be our School Principal was announced, and after our meeting she asked me to stay behind. She wanted to speak with me. Now I was concerned. Prison Stories to be Continued

               1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18

 Once the GED testing service identified the jail and school district servicing them as the culprits for the security breach, all GED testing was stopped for South East Michigan, and exams were turned back into the GED testing service. This put our prison school into a state of flux. It was good that our school district was not the cause of the breach but all school districts with adult education centers, including ours, were not able to give exams until new exams were issued. This meant that our GED’s completion data would be null. A big zero. Our GED coordinator, (Mr. Dandy) would have a field day pointing this out to the Lansing Education Administration. Especially, since his prison school in the upper peninsula was turning GED completions out at a rather elevated pace. Mr. Dandy became the apple of their eye, and Jesse not so much. (Not that he ever was or cared to be)

 Our special education teacher pointed out some facts that Jesse wasn’t aware of: The first, Mr. Dandy was receiving student inmates who were only needing to complete one or two years of high school from our reception area in Jackson. With the new law in place the inmates had to get a GED before being released from prison. They were very motivated to get their GED. Secondly, Mr. Dandy ran two shifts in his school. He had an AM shift and a PM shift. Jesse was not made aware of this by his colleagues. Finally, one would expect him to have more GED graduates given he ran his school for sixteen hours a day. No other prison school was being run sixteen hours a day. When Jesse found this to be true, he was livid. He of course had to make sure this was correct because he didn’t always believe our Special Education teacher whom he thought had an axe to grind with the prison education administration. He would get to the facts soon enough.

 His one loyal connection was a matronly principal in the UP whom he could trust and often shared information with. She let him know that all of what our Special Education teacher had said about Mr. Dandy was true. It seemed that it was a concerted effort, between the Education Administration, and Mr. Dandy. The goal was to get inmates who were close to completing high school before they were incarcerated, sent to the UP prison school, so they could get their GED. The problem was that the data was being used to show the other prison schools were not pulling their weight when in fact their completion rates were as good or even better. The cost of running two shifts of teachers was never mentioned in the statistics. The only data collected was the amount of GED certifications issued.

She pointed out that Mr. Dandy was in fact running two schools. One during the day and one at night. His data was skewed. No other prison school was run 16 hours a day. I think that about did it for Jesse. He had enough. Our new Assistant Deputy Warden, being a prisoner at one time himself, was Jesse’s new boss. I could see Jesse wasn’t a big fan of this new reporting arrangement. Our new ADW had requested Jesses schedule. Jesse obliged him but was always sure to have a reason to change it. Something always seem to preoccupy his time at the Thumb Correctional facility , and he couldn’t make the scheduled meetings at Macomb. That drove our new ADW absolutely bonkers and I believe Jesse enjoyed frustrating him. Our school secretary (rest her soul) was one of Jesses biggest fans, and I believe she played a role in perpetrating his frustration.  ..Prison Stories to Be Continued..       

              2 Corinthians 5: 14-21

  Jesse’s plans to retire were unknown to anyone except Jesse. We would get to work with him for another three years and it would be memorable. It started with a staff meeting where the academic teachers had decided it would be way too difficult for the school to complete the process of being NCA accredited. Jesse had the schools academic teachers working with the representatives from the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. He wanted our school to be accredited and it would be one of only 42 prison schools to be accredited. The teachers felt the reporting mechanisms the NCA wanted from the school were too encumber some. They were still going to have to do the monthly reports the MDOC school administration required and the new reporting mechanisms the NCA mandated as part of accrediting the school. They felt Jesse was wanting too much from them. The teachers wanted the NCA accreditation but they wanted to stop having to produce Lansing’s reporting requirements. They felt it was a useless duplication of data.

  However, Jesse did not want to fight that battle with the MDOC school administration in Lansing and wanted them to do both. Interesting enough, the NCA agreed with the teachers. The reporting duplication seemed senseless they wrote in their final e-mail to Jesse. As a result, Jesse dropped wanting the NCA accreditation for the school. I could see for the first time he looked tired. Our school would have been the first and only prison school NCA accredited. In the scheme of things, it would have been a big accomplishment, and could have brought more funding for prison education. However, Lansing was more concerned with how many GED’s were being issued by the prison schools, and viewed the schools as successful only by the amounts of GEDs granted to their students. In the midst of this discussion we were interrupted by one of the Program Office secretaries. She had informed Jesse that he needed to contact Lansing immediately over a security breach in the GED testing process here at Macomb. Our school meeting was adjourned immediately.

 The lead GED coordinator in the state, a principal at one of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula prison schools, who would latter have his own prison school embroiled in controversy, had been informed of a breach in the GED testing process. Someone at Macomb had answers to the exams and was selling them. I knew from experience our exam process was being handled by a school district and they would have to be notified as well. However, it didn’t take Jesse long to figure out that it was our county jail and not us responsible for the breach. The county jail used a different school district to administer their exams, not the one we used, and that school district was responsible for the breach at the county jail. After that fact was established, Jesse had no problem calling our state GED coordinator, and telling him off. He questioned his competency, and said that if he “payed attention to details as well as he dressed himself everyday (he did wear the newest in business attire- a real dandy) he would have known it was the jail prison school and not Macomb Correctional Facility.” Jesse winked at me, hung up the phone, and informed me it wasn’t us. I believed he enjoyed that.      ..Prison Stories To Be Continued..

This is Black History Month and on Fridays in my classroom I would usually show something related to our African American Community. My students enjoyed the diversion and we could have some discussions which weren’t always cordial. My universal antidote: If we don’t acknowledge our past mistakes we are destined to repeat them. This message didn’t always sit well with my student’s who were repeat offenders.

They didn’t listen then, and they won’t listen now. Israel knows what has to be done to protect their country. Godspeed. Am Yisrael Chai

              Psalm 25:16-22

  Jesse had other plans. Speaking with him, he felt that all of his friends who had retired died shortly there after, and he wasn’t going to do that anytime soon. When I first met him he smoked and drank without a care in the world, and he reminded me of the proverbial ”bull in a china shop.” I had the chance to be with him at a conference in Lansing and I saw first hand how he was being treated by the current education administration. It was obvious they did not like him. He was too crude. However, they had to deal with him because of his intellect. He also had a lot of energy for his age, and while they were debating the latest things happening in prison education, Jesse was looking for the free doughnuts. Another one of our special education teachers, who was also at some of these conferences Jesse attended, made sure to call out his unsavory doughnut eating behavior, and pointed out that’s all Jesse did. Eating doughnuts and saying the prison teachers needed more class time was Jesses sole contribution at these conferences. This contradiction was voiced by the same teacher who witnessed it when Jesse professed he had the teachers backs at our staff meetings.

  Jesse always redirected such attacks on his character. The MDOC had some teachers who used what should have been their preparation time between classes to go golfing. They were actually caught by the departments new administrator who immediately had them fired. She also wanted to see classroom schedules and to her chagrin, 42 prison schools had different inmate student schedules. They were all tailored for the prisons they operated in. The inconsistencies in the school schedules, led some teachers to take advantage of the down time, and unfortunately they didn’t use it for class preparation. Jesse made sure to announce this fact when his motive for expanding class time was questioned. However, he never defended his eating free doughnuts. That was something everyone got to do at the conferences if they could beat him to the table. Jesse wasn’t the fastest person in the room but once he established position, he was hard to be moved.

 Eating doughnuts did not prevent him from contributing to the discussions, and I had to admit that as crude as he could be at times, they looked forward to hear what he thought. Especially, if it had to do with prisoner movement, and classroom management. Jesse had a lot of corrections education experience. He spoke of working at the Jolliet Correctional Facility in Illinois. He had me laughing when he informed me the administration would lock the prison down for security checks, and confiscate all the spud juice. Spud juice was the inmates alcohol that could be made from anything that would ferment and be vented. Jesse swore that some of the inmates there could make better whiskey and vodka than the known distilleries. When questioned how he knew this, he smiled and replied that once confiscated the administration would taste test it. “Yikes,” I thought out loud. “How much taste testing was done, ” I inquired. The answer, “if it was good, the prison stayed locked down until it was finished.” I shook my head in disbelief, and he started laughing, “those were the good ole days.” He was definitely a character and his legacy would continue for at least a few more years at Macomb. ..prison stories to be continued..