I
just read a horrifying true life story of a man who got a life sentence
as a sex offender, who was totally innocent. You know how the CHARACTER
or VICTIM at the center of any good mystery novel has to be some unusual,
amazing tragic victim of OLYMPIAN FORCES? When he is, and he's an utter
saint, the energy reverses and becomes an indictment of the system that
punished him. Also, the PULL of the readers' feelings for this sad event
creates a WAVE OF LONGING for the true malfactors to be exposed, caught
and prosecuted. THAT LONGING is the heart of revolution and reform. It
is the energizing motor that brings a novel or film to life and that mechanism
also belongs in JUSTICE NOVELS like John Grisham or Scott Turow write....where
a legal horror occurs, and some saintly person is either murdered or indicted
and jailed. It is almost TIDAL in its pull as a plot device.
At its center is the 'trough effect'. You know how the tide goes all the way out, you can see a horrible ominous hollow, a black hole. You see the 'sucked dry' beach, feel the unberable tension of a deceptive quietude, but with things gone wrong. Unseen, a backlash is forming, a huge wave is about to rise and then the BACKLASH will come as this enormous wave rises from the sea gathering in force, lifting in size and devastating the beach and all the posh houses set ridiculously on the sand banks and there, it must crash upon the villain. IT must be the appropriate villain, too.
The true life story of an innocent man given 10 years in the pen for a crime he didn't commit, and then has to be a registered sex offender for life.....is one that would make a fine FILM and indict as you state, the justice is blind system, perhaps the judge, as well, the avid prosecutor and I'd throw in that lying, rich, married whore that started this epic Greek tragedy off.
Read, Below, the case of STOKES, the Saintly 'Sex Offender' who wasn't is the tale of a Normal heterosexual male, foolin' around wi married ladyfriend, with a gun in the glove comparment, ....in a car - convicted as armed sex offender, and who does 10 YEARS IN the PEN and must be a registered sex offender forever after.
Tragic Traps: Make a Mistake in America and You May Pay a Heavy Price for Decades
By Joe Bageant, CounterPunch
Late at night through my window by the computer I can see my neighbor
Stokes bicycling at 10 p.m. to the local convenience store to buy
groceries. Not only is that an expensive way to feed one's self, but
it
is the only way for old Stokes to cop some grubs without getting thrown
in jail. Seriously. As a convicted sex offender, he is not allowed
to be
near young women in a supermarket checkout line. Nor is he allowed
to
visit a park, or even his own grandchild, even though he is not a child
molester by the court's own admission. He is not allowed to drink a
beer. In fact, he is not even allowed to read Playboy Magazine.
A dozen or so years ago Stokes, now 66 with a gray ponytail, an
altogether gentle soul who labors under the illusion he looks like
Willie Nelson, (and even has a framed photo of Willie on his wall to
invite comparison). Got caught by police in a, shall we say, "a
vehicular sexual incident" with a married woman. They were both drunk,
big deal. That happens in beer joints. To make a long story short,
by
the time they got to court, the lady's testimony was that it was all
against her will, which being a married woman, solved a lot of problems
for her. That resulted in Stokes being convicted as a sex offender,
while his public defender all but slept through the trial.
To make matters worse, Stokes had an unregistered handgun stashed in
his
car. Stupid, I know, but rednecks are often like that, and I'd be
willing to bet there are more unregistered handguns than registered
ones
around here. This may horrify urban liberals, but legal or not, it
is
the common practice of tens of thousands of people down here in the
southern climes of our great nation. It's also common practice
nationwide to many thousands of cab drivers, night clerks, hotel parking
valets, bill collectors, repo men, single women and god only knows
how
many others. At any rate, thanks to the gun that he never touched,
Stokes was prosecuted for armed abduction for sexual purposes and did
ten years.
He's been out for years now. But he was released into an entirely
different world than he left -- one that seems scripted by Adam Smith
and Hanging Judge Roy Bean. As a convicted felon, he has been released
from prison to serve a new sentence to serve time as a profit center
for
our economy. In truth, he has been one from the day he was charged.
First off, he was a profit center for the prison where he served his
time. Now it is fairly common knowledge that America's burgeoning system
of privatized prisons, "super jails," and related services has been
a
boon for corporations such as Corrections Corporation of America, Geo
Group (formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp.) and their investors.
Prisoner leasing programs such as Florida's, which rents out prison
labor for less than 50 cents an hour to private industry in the name
of
"job training," make building more prisons an attractive option for
state governments and investors. It also makes recidivism desirable,
since it assures the prison labor pool. Somewhere between 1 percent
and
2 percent of Americans are behind bars, locked up at any given time,
and
as many more are on probation or under state monitoring. Obviously,
capitalist style punishment is a solid financial investment.
Now I am not about to screech here that our prison system is anywhere
near that created by Uncle Joe Stalin. We do not have 9 million people
in it, and we do not get sent there for being late for work at the
factory, our factories having been outsourced. However, after 1929
Stalin's prison camps were transformed to an economic machine. And in
order to fulfill the camps' economic goals, more and more prisoners
were
required, just as more prisoners are required to fulfill the investor
goals of Corrections Corporation of America, Geo Group. In any case,
convictions are profitable and the more of them there are, the more
money both private interests and the state take in.
That in itself is way the hell past just being strange. But throw in
the
term 'sex offender' and get on the registered sex offender list (which
seems to be mostly filled with Johns who solicited prostitutes, though
you'd never know it by the way they name the offense) and it all gets
really weird. Chilling even. This is partly because of the taboo and
stigma associated, but mostly for the bizarre monitoring rules, and
the
money involved in enforcement. For example, Stokes must pay a couple
hundred a month for counseling, group therapy and so on, until they
tell
him he can stop doing so. This therapy mainly amounts to listening
to
the stories of more serious offenders, such as child molesters, even
though he is not one but is being treated by law as if he were. Such
is
the fate of being legally shackled to any of dozens of types of
"certified sex offender treatment providers," an ever expanding industry
they tell me.
He also must pay for registration as an offender, blood, saliva,
fingerprints, palm prints, police registration of his internet address
(within 30 minutes of obtaining it), and so on with the Department
of
State Police and the Sex Offenders Registry, providing a new photo,
address, etc., for 10 years, effectively the rest of Stokes' life,
not
to mention registering with the local cops wherever he lives. After
five
years he may petition the court for relief from having to reregister
monthly. He cannot leave the state. He is supposed to inform employers
of his status as a sex offender. So he cannot get a normal job and
subsists on handyman work. In the end he generates about $400 a month
for one post-incarceration entity or another, whether he has a job
or
not.
Stokes' designated handlers tell him that the system would smile upon
him if he would get more formal 8-5 employment, something that could
be
more easily tracked and taxed. Would that it were so easy for a
66-year-old man in this country. So he replies, "I'm retired dammit.
I
got the same right to live on my social security, if I can manage to,
as
anyone else."
Yes, but it's not much of a life for someone who once worked a skilled
job setting up lights and stage gear in large arenas and performance
venues. Now he lives in a basement workshop of an overcrowded apartment
building/rooming house, in a space that is supposed to pass for an
apartment but doesne't even come close. For that privilege he pays
$600
a month and is allowed to work off part of it off by the landlord as
a
handyman.
Stokes tells me he could get out from under much of this by, and here's
the legal wording, "satisfying the court's criteria for clear and
convincing evidence that due to his physical condition the person no
longer poses a menace to the health and safety of others."
"You could cut your dick off," I suggested.
"Sometimes I wish I had," he sighs.
In any case, I am pretty dammed convinced parole is a racket, just like
incarceration has become a racket, just as everything in this whole
goddamned country is a racket in disguise, from home mortgages to
healthcare. If it is vital to ordinary citizens, it's a racket. But
fear
is the biggest racket of all. Even our rightful fear of sex offenders
gets harnessed to the objectives of the corporate and political elites,
woven into the weft and warp of the national delusion we call "the
fabric of our society." The freedom loving one that currently has 2.2
million of its own citizens locked up and another 2 million walking
around under strict post-incarceration supervision and monitoring.
At this writing there are supposed to be 117 registered sex offenders
in
this burg of 24,000 from which I write, Winchester, Va., yet only 61
in
the surrounding county, which has a population of 73,000. Let me make
a
wild speculation here and say there may be a difference in the way
justice is administered in the two localities.
As if Stokes' needed to catch any more bad breaks, Stokes' situation
got
worse. It seems he had the outrageous gall to get himself a dog. Stokes
came upon a rather large black female mutt recently that looked like
she
had a little retriever in her, according to Stokes, though I could
never
see it. She was bone skinny, partially blind, and being neglected and
abused by an old alcoholic woman down the street.
That dog, named Beulah, just loved Stokes. He lovingly fed her, and
she
stayed by his side constantly and obediently. But she kept getting
skinnier and skinnier no matter how much he fed her. For a while we
speculated it was worms, but I've seen enough dogs to know something
worse was at work. Stokes spent money he didn't have on expensive worm
medicine. But he surely did not have $150 for a vet and tests, and
in a
nation where uninsured folks are let to die slowly because they cannot
pay cash, there was damned sure no more mercy for dogs.
Mercy too has been privatized and costs money. Meanwhile old Beulah
is
hanging out in the back yard in a friendly fashion, weak and sick as
she
is, sniffing and getting petted by all who come her way. Dogs are like
that. Uncomplaining and decent unto death. I've had several who passed
that way. She was old and getting ready top die, sure as god made little
green apples. Broke as Stokes is, this was certainly was not going
to be
a veterinarian administered death, with a canine Kevorkian attending.
And being a paroled felon, for damned sure Stokes was not going to
produce a gun and shoot her, which is the way old dogs and other animals
were put out of misery back in our day.
A situation like that is bound to draw the animal control officer's
attention and rightfully so given the outward appearance of the
situation. So Stokes was busted. An examination showed that Beulah
had
diabetes. Seems they'll get a vet to examine a dog to get a conviction
but not to save a dog's life. Whereupon Stokes was charged with animal
abuse by the animal control office of our city police department. "You
should never have let that dog get in this condition; you should have
taken her to a veterinarian!" Now Stokes has a court appearance on
the
docket for animal cruelty. And of course no money for a lawyer. That's
where the compassion of a lonely old man for another sentient being
will
get you. Smack dab in the jaws of our justice system.
I hold middle-class America responsible for this deformed thing we now
call justice. And I've wanted to write an article about the sex abuse
crime industry scam in this country and proposed it to several
magazines. Every one of them said that sex abusers are too unsympathetic
as characters for them to publish. I pointed out that these are real
people, not characters in a fictional work. The editors added that
they
were afraid the public might mistake such a story as being supportive
of
real sex offenders.
Governments and states exist to control people and for no other reason.
If justice is achieved somewhere in the process, it's an added bonus.
But control above all else is necessary for modern civilization to
exist. Population grows by the minute, increasing social pressure on
humanity.
More rules and more control are required to keep order. Order is defined
as the way we think others should behave -- or imagine them to
misbehave. We support the state's police machinery and massive
incarceration of our fellow citizens, so long as they are being
imprisoned for the right reasons. They should pay. Every action in
a
capitalist world must produce money. So they should pay in cash.
I was recently in Minneapolis and spent a couple of nights getting drunk
with a friend, an apartment building owner who in his younger years
did
hard time for burglary. Things were somewhat different then, he avowed.
In the '50s and '60s, a prisoner may or may not have worked off his
"debt to society." But in these times, he says, "the system demands
that
you just deliver payment in cash. It's more efficient. But not
fundamentally different. Back then, the rich still profited for our
crimes more than we did. We stole $10,000 worth of stuff. Next day
in
the paper we found that the guy we burglarized claimed $30,000 worth
for
insurance purposes. Getting robbed was a winning situation for him.
He
made 20K on us."
It's also is a wining situation for the 20 percent of Americans in what
we call the middle class -- those actually living the middle-class
life
as advertised by the commercial and financial state's marketing
department. It works well for Stokes' psychologist, his piss tester,
his
lie detector service contractor, the people with the sex offender
website contract, and all good citizens with investments on Wall Street.
The psychologist needs money to send his kid on the private school
trip
to Italy this summer. The contractor providing the sex abuser services
just built a summer down on the eastern shore of Virginia. The state
police officer running the sex abuser monitoring program will retire
in
six years -- his investments need to earn another $50,000 in that time.
But hold on!
Honest to God, as I conclude writing this -- and I swear on a stack
of
friggin' Bibles -- a police prowl car and two of the department's animal
control officers in a police truck just parked in front of Stokes'
place, across my driveway. They get out after rifling through some
papers on a clipboard and talking on cell phones.
Now they have walked over to Stokes' back door. He comes out and they
sit him down in a lawn chair while they stand over him, hands on hips,
lips moving under dark sunglasses. And the neighbors are all peeking
out
their blinds, watching the cops accost the registered sex offender
(once
he was on the internet registry, word got around here fast). They are
probably looking at the animal control officers' truck and thinking,
"Oh
my gawd! Bestiality too?"
Anyway you look at it, this cannot be good. Not for Stokes, not for
you
or me or anyone else less than enamored with the idea of a police state.
And Stokes? As he told me only yesterday, "I'm a goddamned magnet for
bad luck."
No he's not. He's just one more anonymous human profit center
to be
squeezed, one more grape to be crushed in a grotesque blood and
money
press that has no mercy.
* * * * * * * *
Joe Bageant is author of the book Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches
from America's Class War. (Random House Crown), about working class
America. A complete archive of his on-line work, along with the thoughts
of many working Americans on the subject of class may be found on his
website.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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