My day on the bus with ex-criminals - A mind bender

Okay, all this happened about eight years ago. But the situation still exists.

My car had broken down, and I drove it to the mechanics.

To get home, I took one bus down the "Miracle Mile" in San Anselmo and disembarked at the main "Heatherton" bus station in San Rafael.

It was just before rush hour so I knew that the only other people on my bus would be the odd domestic worker who got off at 2: 30 Pm or so, the group of teens not old enough to drive, the newly DUI-ed who were forbidden to drive and people like me whose cars were Kaput. (In Marin at that time, and NOW and FOREVER! the bus service is suck-y - not too many people use it. It can take one and a half hours to go the same location it takes to go in fifteen minutes by car. And it is expensive to boot!)

However arriving at the main bus hub, I saw the area was deserted. I walked across the wide expanse to the exact spot where my bus would be arriving in fifteen minutes or so. My heart sank.

There at that particular bus stop sign were some two dozen people. None were female like me, none were white like me, and ALL of them were in the orange jumpsuits offered to San Quentin prisoners that are newly released.

I have often lived in rather integrated neighborhoods, so PLEASE - it was not skin color disturbing me. It was the notion that these people were "mother rapers and father stabbers and father rapers and mother stabbers" and I felt real fear.

Then I remembered Neal Cassidy. I remembered a Merry Prankster tale of how he and several other Pranksters had arrived at a rural bar that had once been friendly to hippies and beatniks.

But after they had entered, they realized that the place was under new management. It was bikers and rogues and thieves and mean ugly dudes who ate their granmas for lunch. The Pranksters knew they couldn't leave - their long hair and day glo tee shirts and ratty jeans had already spelled out for the crowd who they were. Leaving would just send out the message to the sharks that here was a whole posse of fearful bait, and a whole rather weak-at-combat-posse at that.

Then Cassidy remembered that he had a jumbo sized package of gum. He went up to the meanest looking of the ugly biker dudes, and offered a stick of gum. The biker smiled in appreciation and took out a chew. Then Neal made the rounds of everyone in there, and pretty soon the Pranksters were schmoozing with everyone else and everyone had a good time.

So I remember thatas it was a few days before Halloween, that I am in luck. I have this huge Halloween sized package of 982 pieces of tootsie rolls or Snickers or some such on my person, and I make my way over to the meaner looking of the dudes at the bus stop and offer him a piece of candy. "To celebrate your release," says I.

The others crowd around, acting more like kindergartners when the teacher is dispensing cupcakes than a pack of ornery hombres or ex-cons.

They are happy with me, and they start introducing themselves and each other. they acted honored that I am in their midst, and I start feeling odd, like I should be honored to be in their midst.

Finally I strike up enough nerve to ask these twenty four human beings, "So what got a nice person like you into a mean miserable place like San Quentin?"

One by one they explained their sad tales. "It was a single joint the cops found on my person when the neighbors down the hall got into a domestic scrap. I called the cops so the lady of the house wouldn't get hurt worsen she was, but they SEARCHED me!"

"I didn't have a working signal indicator in the back, and they stopped me and my car, and they searched the whole car and found a small baggy."

"My wife was in labor, so I ended up missing my probation meeting, but the kid was born sick, so I forgot to cancel it or explain, and even though it was my first drug bust ever and only for a little weed, I ended up back in the pen."

Every single one of these "monsters" had been tucked away into the Big House because of Weed!
Not one of them was charged with dealing. Not one of them was carrying a charge for something so sinister that had they had middle class moms and dads, they'd have ever done a day of jail.

On the bus, it was even worse. I sat in front, and listened while they talked amongst themselves. They sounded more like young GI's home on leave - this guy was taking up the other guy on an offer of a home cooked meal at the Auntie's house next Thursday. THat one was setting up a date to meet his other friend's wife and family. SOmeone had a funeral to go to, but no car, and four or five of the group offered a loaner. They told jokes, they celebrated going back to the world of creature comforts. They were all extraordinarily nice. They had taken care of each other while in prison (and to this day when Mike Malloy says, Hey brother, watch your back, I think of them - they watched not just their own back, but their buddies' backs as well.)

I started doing the mental calculations - Jose's four months had cost the tax payers over 10K.
Chan's year and a half was about 48K. Jannie's sixteen months was a bit over 32K. And that was just in terms of what the taxpayers had to kick in for these people to rot for such a time in jail. It didn't take into account the lost wages, the pain felt by the family, the trouble that they would have in finding work due to a conviction etc.

By the time I got off in Sausalito, i felt sad that I'd never see these 24 guys again. I waved, and they all hooted and hollered and told me to have a great life.

I think I could have a great life, if we could just all do something about making jail time convictions for minor weed possession a thing of the past.

k'n'r'

Alice!

This just goes to prove that this state is more keen on jail supply to tax us to pay those prison guards and Ahnold's special interests. Even though he wasn't gov then, it seems it's the prisons that pay the governors salary.

k 'n r 'ed

pot posession. How frigging stupid is that? But hell, kill hundreds of thousands of civilians in a country that you didn't even understand or know anything about, or loot the Treasury for billions, or just be a plain evil fucktard who doesn't care that you're making the men and women that you sent to fight and possibly die for YOUR bank account be denied the very basic benefits that Veteran's are supposed to be awarded, and you live pampered and wealthy, denied nothing.

We truly live in Bizarro Land.

The orange jumpsuits are to identify people in custody. They might be on a work gang, going to court, traveling to a half way house - still inside county jail at night but out clearing roads or other duties in the day time.

That's why they wear the orange. To quickly and easily identify them as "in custody." Makes escapes easier to stop.

awfully conveniently coincidental......

I've been checking on San Quentin, too, and that's a maximum security prison

if these guys are first time offenders for marijuana, would they be sent there? more than 10 percent of the over 5000 inmates there are on death row.

anybody know the offense the average San Quentin inmate is ther for?

in orange jumpsuits without a guard nearby.

Also, nobody does four months in San Quentan. It's a state prison where people do at least a year minimum, mostly longer. 4 months would be county jail.

And the OP never replied, so I guess it's a mystery.

The people in question were far too jubilant to be celebrating just going home for an evening after being out on the road picking up trash.

There were constant rumors in Marin County regarding the public perception that the orange jumpsuits meant release. The occasional letter to the editor about the indignities of this happening to the newly released etc.


And this was at least eight or nine years ago (I am dating the experience from remembering which car I owned that broke down at that point in time) Don't know if policy was different then or not.

But I am guilty of having never checked details you folks are mentioning with those authorities who are in the know.

Recommended

The Alice's Restaurant reference and the Prankster solution tell me that we share a common set of references from the past - references that have given many of us a perspective that I wish more people shared.

Your courage in meeting and talking to people that many would avoid at all costs is the kind of actions that I wish everyone would have - just think how much bad karma could be avoided.

The waste that has resulted from the War on Drugs (especially dope) has to be measured in human as well as economic terms.

The small pebble you threw into the lake of prejudice and mistrust may still be causing ripples of enlightenment to this day.

Thank you.

Excellent essay. Thanks for sharing.

The world would be so much better off if people treated other people like, well, people. You were able to see beyond the orange jumpsuits and as a result you had a great experience.

K&R!

These guys went to jail for being non-white, to teach them and their kids and the people in their neighborhoods a lesson that had nothing to do with "drug use."

Things have gotta change!

It's not often that we get to see the cascading impact of a small act of 'random kindness' - no matter how much we talk about 'faith.'

:applause:

However, you should be aware that no one in prison is guilty.

Still, your message of their humanity is right on.

Keith Olbermann, every newspaper you can think of, every member of Congress....

This is too good to stay within the confines of DU.

I once had a very limited experience of this kind: I approached a rough-looking dude at a phone booth, who had left his sun glasses at the utility payment counter where we had both been. As I got close to "his space," he glowered at me and looked pretty threatening. I handed him his sunglasses, and he was still saying "Hey, Lady, thanks a lot" over and over as I walked away.

To approach 24 ex-cons took a lot of courage, but your story just shows that when we extend the hand of human friendship, the rewards are great.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write and post that for us, Truedelphi!

:hi:

with a great sense of humor and a smile that would melt your heart. And if he had been part of that group on the bus, he would also have told you that he was arrested for having a small bag of weed in his car. What he would neglect to tell you is that he has also stolen several cars, broken into several homes and stolen the contents (including ours), and that this is his fourth visit to the prison.

Be vewy vewy careful. Don't lose your kind and generous heart, but be aware that not everyone is as nice as you.

Not the unrelated pot ownership. Our drug laws are broken.

I'm not sure they are broken.

I believe one of the covert purposes of the "war on drugs" is to disenfranchise members of the underclass, especially blacks. That part is working.

I hope that someday he is able to turn his life around. Prison should definitely be reaching the rock bottom - but some people, like your stepson, seem to possess the need to return again and again.

I pray that he figures his life's true purpose out and comes home as a rehabiliatated soul.

I do elder care for a living. One of my most favorite clients was a man who had been a prison warden. he would say quite often "What all of us are doing is marking time."

What else are we doing here? We think we are free and of course I am fond enough of my creature comforts that I cannot stand the thought of jail. But I am caught in my ruts, and who is to say they are not as destructive as the person whose ruts seem more outward.

your original concern; I would not feel comfortable with a gaggle of men of any kind. No offense, fellows. It is hard to be female and outnumbered on a street corner. Delphi did the smart and right thing. And most importantly, she benefited from it.

sent to the poorest communities, who soon discovered that they were learning more from their flock about true Christianity than they were able to teach. It sounds like it was a moving experience for those young men, also.

On a more sour note:

"I started doing the mental calculations - Jose's four months had cost the tax payers over 10K.
Chan's year and a half was about 48K. Jannie's sixteen months was a bit over 32K."

Ah, but was it a private prison? Think of the consequent enrichment of those directors and shareholders....

What a reckoning there must be awaiting your legislative, judicial and penal authorities. The USA still doesn't seem a part of the developed world. The lynching which so disgraced the US after its belated divestment of slavery, just seems to have been modified - though with no less demonicly malign intent.

I lived in Marin County for a number of years....San Anselmo and Mill Valley. And damn do I miss it.

EVERYONE smokes herb, at least here in Berkeley.

Once they get these guys in the system with probation or parole, they have the right to search them at any time. Anything they find, even one joint, is a violation and a one way ticket back to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.00.

We need to decriminalize marijuana!!!

sR

I haven't smoked dope in 20-something years, so ths isn't about me - but I find it utterly ridiculous, appalling, wasteful, costly, etc. that we incarcerate zillions of citizens for having small amounts of marijuana or cocaine in their possession, waste billions on the not-very-successful 'war on drugs', ruin lives, waste lives, and so on.

I haven't smoked in 20+ yrs. either and because of my asthma, I doubt that I will, so it's not about me either.

To assign marijuana a similar status as heroin and crystal meth and to incarcerate mj users is insane!

Time to end the stupid god-damn drug war. Ridiculous that we're spending tens of billions a year locking up consenting adults for what they choose to do with their own body.

In some states, position of it is a felony and voting rights are taken away!

reminded me that I need to read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test again. What a great read and ride...

I wrote about a similar subject, but from a less personal perspective, last year:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1283288

The victims are lucky if their jail time doesn't turn them into criminals.

busts to ever change the laws.

will the next dem prez. change things? or will they be too fearful?

Drugs should be decriminalized!!!