The MDOC: Reform and Responsibility

Officer Rasheen McClain
Detroit Police Department

It has happened again, another police officer has been killed in the line of duty. I went out last Monday to two events. Early in the morning, I drove an hour to support our new Attorney General, Dana Nessel. I think if I'm going to advocate for prisoners that the leader of the Prosecutors is someone that I should become thoroughly engaged with. I made a statement, with the hopes that she would remember me. I took pictures of her and posted them to my Yaktown page on Facebook, because she matters. After over 20 years of Cox and Schutte, it is comforting to know that there is someone that is fighting for the ordinary people that exist in Michigan. The Seniors and children that has been forever scarred by the sexual abuse of the clergy in the Catholic Church. I applaud all her efforts and good work, thus far. Knowing that we have a long road ahead of us in the state. After my eye appointment, I went to Clarkston, and a "Coffee and Chat" with Senator Rosemary Bayer. Like in Sylvan Lake, the people didn't know how to take me. Senator Bayer didn't either. She knows she has to be diverse. The people that live in Clarkston, live there, because there are few Black people there. They don't have to deal with us on a regular bases. Seeing me sent them in to a kind of frenzy, and they were texting and making funny faces. When I spoke to one man, he tightened up as if to say, "I am not warming up to you!" I digressed.

Attorney General Dana Nessel

The reason that I put myself through so much anguish, sitting in the room with people that don't like me, is not that I want to fit in to a specific group. What I want more than anything is for those in a particular group to warm-up to the idea that prison reform is necessary. Many people may not see the correlation between police deaths and prison reform, but I do. It's something that I am going to constantly bring to the forefront of societal woes. People go to prison and don't do anything. There is no real structure for reform or the possibility of a better day. They get out and there are no jobs for PhD. and Master's workers, let alone someone that has done time. All they can do is get a job in fast-food or a plant that over works you and don't give you any quality of life. I saw a man on "Flash Point", with Devin Scillian that said that he went to prison for "Murder". Murder is really hard to explain away, and so is "Stalking". With both there is an element of being out of control. An employer would be weary of the next time you will lose control. The next time you get so angry that you kill someone or a customer walks in and you can't control you attraction towards that individual. You become a strong liability in their eyes, because you have no sense of when to stop. So, what do you do? This man went to school and so did I. It really doesn't matter to people that you are educated, most just see a criminal that can't understand boundaries. 

Senator Rosemary Bayer
Michigan 12th District

Having been a prisoner myself, I can relate. The way some people in prison think is beyond me. I had one woman try and make me feel bad about sitting alone on the yard. "Ah, you talk about me, because I got a girlfriend. At least I'm not sitting on the yard by myself!" She pointed and laughed at me. I didn't even reply. My friends were coming out soon and she wasn't even worth my time. I didn't care who had a girlfriend. She cared that she had to get a girlfriend, because she was weak. My friends came later and she walked by and her face was in shock. I felt so sorry for her. At one point we had been friends. She had put so much emphasis on "My [her] man". The two of them had robbed a gas station. She had two children and they had one together. Three people depended on her and the only way she could find to help them and herself was to rob someone. I asked her, "Didn't you ever think you would get caught and go to prison?" She looked at me, like I was stupid, "Yeah, but it's what my man wanted to do. I'm a ride or die! My mother went to prison, so, I knew I would end up here." I nodded, because I had made my mind up to be a "ride or die", too. But it all seemed to be so different. In her case, someone could have been killed. An innocent person that just was in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one ever knows the outcome when a gun is involved.

Hindsight is 20/20, and many women just made a clueless mistake. A mistake that cost them a fraction of their lives. How do we get people to understand their outcomes, when they have never been held accountable. These women get up in the morning and do nothing. They are controlled by women that have superiority complexes and no real rule book on how things should be done. They cut the prison budget first. Letting them know that they are last on the list of reforms. You take people that are under-educated and lost and tell them that they are worthless and that's how they will act. There are people that have been to prison as letters in the alphabet, and now are working on double letters. The school system has failed them, society has failed them and their parents have failed them. I think that it is time that we held prisoners to a higher standard and show them we care. I suggested in Clarkston that we get the 100K men that we have in the prisons to help, "Fix the damn roads". All they do all day is sit around and talk smack and one thing or another. One man made a reference to the prisoners not being trusted with shovels. Letting me know that non-prisoners are ignorant, too. Let's put them to work, and not in "Brubaker" fashion, but in a way that they help the system in a productive way.  These plans take time to implement, but with time it could work. California uses prisoners in the wild fires. We can use them to fix our roads. The men that we have out there make over $25 an hour. You could get away with paying a prisoner $5 a day. 

Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist

I vet these people all the time. I go to places where they are so that they will remember me. I show my strength and intelligence so that they can see that I'm someone they can trust and that I will do a good job. When Garlin Gilchrist came to Pontiac on his "Thriving Cities" crusade, I wasn't included. It hurt, but I know they know that I am in the fight forever, and that my opinions must be heard. These people we lock-up and don't give a second thought to will be back. They mustn't be disenfranchised, and made to feel that they do not matter. The men and women that serve as watch over them have to be held accountable, too. If we make a plan and put it in action, we do not have dead cops. Our cities will never thrive without a prison system that works! We don't have as many victims to sooth and make stiffer penalties, because stiffer penalties just make for sore criminals. The State has to start by taking their job seriously and cutting the "red-tape" and dealing with people like humans. I know it will take a long time, but our community is worth it! Don't you think so?