THE GOOD AND THE BAD

By William M. DiMascio
   Executive Director

A new year begins with a series of ups and downs, and, surprisingly, for once it seems the good news outweighs the bad.

A federal court jury awarded to former prisoners a total of $1.2 million in damages as a result of infections they contracted while being held in the Bucks County jail. The ailment, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) - broke out in the summer of 2002 and prompted a slew of lawsuits from inmates and guards.

County officials won the first two suits and reached an out-of-court settlement in a third before being stung by the most recent ruling. In this case the plaintiffs said the county provided scant medical care "unless death appears imminent." Nine other suits are pending, and some officials fear a precedent has been set for large monetary awards.

Prison officials responded slowly and ineffectually to the first word of the MRSA outbreak. It took a federal court order to get testing for all inmates; the results showed 31 prisoners and one guard were infected.

This jury award, which is being appealed by the county, will most certainly send a message to all prison administrators and their bosses about the importance of medical treatment.

Meanwhile, acclaimed prison journalist Wilbert Rideau's fourth trial in Louisiana proved to be something of a charm.

After serving 44 years on a natural life sentence for fatally stabbing a bank teller in 1961, Rideau's new trial found him guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to time served (the maximum would have been 21 years).

Rideau's earlier convictions came from all-white juries and were overturned by appeals courts for government misconduct. The last conviction was thrown out in 2000 when a federal appeals court ruled that the exclusion of blacks from the grand jury that indicted Rideau was unconstitutional. The latest jury included one white man, seven white women, two black women, a woman of mixed race and a black man.

Rideau, who is black, served as editor of The Angolite, a prison newspaper, and won one of journalism's highest honors, the George Polk Award. He also co-directed the documentary, "The Farm: Angola, U.S.A.," which was nominated for an Academy Award. Said one of his supporters: "When Wilbert was 19, he did something incredibly stupid and tragic. On the other hand, he's not the man he was then. It's a story of redemption."

Likewise, in Pennsylvania, Jackie Lee Thompson at SCI Rockview spent 35 years establishing an impressive record of positive development. He entered the system at age 15, finished his education, learned several trades and stayed out of trouble. He did what he was told to do by the judge who said on the record at sentencing that "there is a good chance. . .that you will be paroled after a few years."

Thompson also maintained supportive relationships with people from his home community in rural Tioga County. At his clemency hearing last month, in fact, the couple most ardently testifying in favor of his commutation was the father and stepmother of the girl he was convicted of murdering in 1970. Duane and Jean Goodwin told the Pardons Board what they had put in an earlier handwritten letter: "We can forgive him. Why can't you?"

Four members of the Pardons Board voted to recommend Thompson to the governor for commutation. The outgoing Attorney General, Jerry Pappert, voted no. It was one of the most striking displays of just how dysfunctional the pardoning process and the criminal justice system have become in the wake of the hysteria of the early years of the Ridge administration.

Just when it seems all is bleak, however, along comes America's latest political action hero, Arnold "The Terminator" Schwarzenegger, governor of California. The Golden State is losing $8 billion a year, so it's no surprise that his state of the state report focused on fiscal austerity. What is surprising, especially since it comes publicly from a high-profile star in the Republican galaxy, is the acknowledgement that rehabilitation in prisons works and is the smart strategy for keeping down the numbers of repeat offenders.

Last year, Schwarzenegger put Jeanne Woodford in charge of the California Department of Corrections. At the time, she was the warden at San Quentin and had developed programs designed to help people move away from criminality. She mobilized a volunteer corps of some 3,000 citizens who helped provide an extensive array of educational offerings from yoga to parenting. She told the New York Times, "Many people in the department wanted to do the kind of things we were doing, but it wasn't the right environment. There wasn't the support. Now there will be."

If the strategy succeeds in reducing the state's spending by cutting rates of recidivism, it's almost a sure bet that the environment at prisons across the country will be changing. Rehabilitation may not work for everyone, but the Terminator has grown fond of saying "the purpose of corrections should be to correct." Amen.