“Thanks for the money,” he says to me. I send him $100 a month, which he’s supposed to use for canteen food and basics such as pencils, paper, stamps, and soft drinks. He bought a fan—Old Roseburg is not air-conditioned. None of our prisons are. Partner sends him money too, though I have no idea how much. Two months after he landed here, they raided his cell and found some pot hidden in his mattress. A snitch had squealed, and Jameel spent two weeks in solitary. Partner would have choked him if he could have penetrated the screen, but the kid swore it would never happen again.
We talk about his classes. He’s taking remedial courses in an effort to get his high school equivalent, but Partner is not impressed with his progress. After a few minutes, I excuse myself and leave the room. Father and son need time alone, which is why we’re here. According to Partner, the conversations get rough and emotional. He wants his son to know that his father cares deeply and is watching from a distance. Old Roseburg is full of gangs and Jameel is easy prey. He swears he’s not involved, but Partner is skeptical. Above all, he wants the kid to be safe, and membership in a gang is often the best protection. It also leads to warfare and revenge and the circle of violence. Seven inmates were killed last year at Old Roseburg. It could be worse. Down the road is a U.S. penitentiary, a federal joint, and they average two murders a month.
I buy a soft drink from a vending machine and find a spot in a row of empty plastic chairs. No other lawyer is visiting today and the place is empty. I open my briefcase and spread papers on a table covered with old magazines. Hank appears and says hello again. We chat for a few minutes. I ask how the kid is doing.
He says, “All right. Nothing great. He’s surviving and he hasn’t been hurt. He’s been here a year and knows his way around. Doesn’t want to work, though. I got him a job in the laundry and he lasted a week. Goes to most of his classes, but not all of them.”
“A gang?”
“Don’t know, but I’m watching.”
Another guard enters through a door far away and Hank suddenly has to go. He can’t be seen fraternizing with a lowly criminal defense lawyer. I try and read a thick brief, but it’s too boring. I walk to a window that looks out upon a vast yard lined with double rows of chain link. Hundreds of inmates, all in prison whites, are killing time as guards look down from a tower.
Young and black, almost all of them. According to the numbers, they’re in for nonviolent drug offenses. The average sentence is seven years. Upon release, 60 percent will be back here within three years.
And why not? What’s on the outside to prevent their return? They are now convicted felons, a branding they will never be able to shake. The odds were stacked against them to begin with, and now that they’re tagged as felons, life in the free world is somehow supposed to improve? These are the real casualties of our wars. The war on drugs. The war on crime. Unintended victims of tough laws passed by tough politicians over the past forty years. One million young black men now warehoused in decaying prisons, idling away the days at taxpayer expense.
Our prisons are packed. Our streets are filled with drugs. Who’s winning the war?
We’ve lost our minds.
After two hours, Hank says it’s time to wrap things up. I knock and reenter the room, an unventilated little box that’s always stuffy. Jameel sits with his arms crossed, his eyes on the floor. Partner sits with his arms crossed too, staring at the screen, and I get the feeling that, though much has been said, no words have passed in some time. I say, “We gotta go.”
This is what both want to hear. They manage to say good-bye with some fondness. Jameel thanks us for coming, passes along greetings and love to Miss Luella, and stands as Hank enters the room from behind him.
Driving away, Partner says nothing for an hour.
Link Scanlon is not my first mobster. That honor goes to a sensational crook named Dewey Knutt, a man I do not visit in prison. While Link relished the blood, broken bones, intimidation, and notoriety, Dewey went about his life of crime as quietly as possible. While Link dreamed of being a Mafia don from childhood, Dewey was actually an honest furniture salesman who didn’t break bad until he was in his mid-thirties. While Link’s net worth was substantial but largely untraceable, a business magazine claimed Dewey was worth $300 million before his troubles. They sent Link to death row; Dewey got forty years in a federal slammer. Link managed to escape; Dewey has hair down to his waist and grows organic herbs and vegetables in a prison garden.
