Humanity for Prisoners

I’d like to share a beautiful story...a story not written by me.   I feel certain that Luis Ramirez would be honored to have us pass along what he has written, but I can't ask him.   He's dead.   This message came to me from Texas Death Row in the early days of HFP. I was so touched by the experience that I vowed to keep the story alive. We generally re-publish it during the holiday season. May it remind us, again, that the names on death row represent real people. And, that the death penalty is dead wrong! Anyway, here’s my gift to you today...a story from the late Luiz Ramirez: (In all caps, just the way he sent it)   I CAME HERE IN MAY OF 1999...A TSUNAMI OF EMOTIONS AND THOUGHTS WERE GOING THROUGH MY MIND.   I REMEMBER THE ONLY THINGS IN THE CELL WERE A MATTRESS, PILLOW, A COUPLE SHEETS, A PILLOW CASE, A ROLL OF TOILET PAPER AND A BLANKET.   I REMEMBER SITTING THERE, UTTERLY LOST.   THE FIRST PERSON I MET THERE WAS NAPOLEON BEASLEY.   ...

I’m in my car running errands today (yes, at age 88, I can and may still drive, thank you!), the radio is on, and of course it’s December, so I’m hearing Christmas music. As many of you know, I’m an old radio broadcaster, so when Burl Ives came on singing “Have a Happy, Jolly Christmas,” it felt like old times. We played that tune every season when I was in that business. But, it was the topic, not the recording, that hit me today. I’m no longer in the radio business, I’m in the business of befriending, helping and supporting incarcerated men and women in Michigan. And, b ased on the hundreds of prisoner messages crossing our desk this month, a “Holly, Jolly Christmas” just isn’t in the cards.   Doug is running out of patience, waiting and hoping that the Parole Board will recommend a commutation of his sentence: “…today marks ten months, three weeks, one day, twelve hours, and about fifteen minutes since the counselor called me into his office and started this commutation. But w...

My special thanks, today, focuses on an unusual group of people. More about that in a moment.   As an octogenarian who never knows how many more Thanksgiving Days he will see, I’m engaged in a bit of reflection today regarding my third career---working with and for incarcerated men and women,   Before I get into that, I want to stress how grateful I am for our team---a fine Executive Director who leads HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS, as well as our dedicated staff, our enthusiastic volunteers, our supportive Board of Directors, and especially the many, many kind and generous people who see that we have the financial backing to continue our incredible work.   OK. Here’s what I’m especially thankful for: I thank God for the multitude of friends that I have who are behind bars or who formerly resided in prison!   Contrary to what you might think, everyone who is incarcerated is not a mean, unpleasant, hardened criminal. I cannot begin to count them all, but I’d wager that...

I first met Jim Samuels in the early 2000s. He was a highly respected defense attorney with an office in Big Rapids, Michigan. I had just started a fledgling organization called INNOCENT (later to become HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS), with an office in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Together, we were attending a national Innocence Network conference in another state.   Upon learning that we were from the same general area, and that we had similar feelings and intentions regarding incarceration and wrongful conviction, a friendship developed. Over the years, Jim became more than a friend…he was a supporter, an encourager.   One of the unusual characteristics of Jim Samuels is that he’s not only a lawyer…he’s also an actor and a writer! And so, when he represents people accused of crimes, he not only sees their story from a legal perspective. The artist side of him gives him an incredible sensitivity to their needs, feelings and emotions!   Jim and I are hoping to collaborate in t...

I have a new appreciation for my dear friend Maurice Carter today.   For those of you who are not familiar with this story, Maurice spent 29 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit. In the mid-1990s I joined hands with him in an effort to seek his release, a project that lasted almost a decade. We never got an exoneration, but in 2004 Maurice’s sentenced was commuted for health reasons. He died at the age of 60, just three months after he stepped into freedom.   One of the most admirable things about this kind, gentle man was that, after all he suffered under this terrible episode of misjustice, he was not bitter. His mind was good, his spirits were high, and despite immense suffering, he enjoyed his final three months.   An award-winning filmmaker has documented that story in a 45-minute video entitled: Wronged---The Maurice Carter Story. Last night we were proud to show that video to an audience of some 50 persons at Cooley Law School in Lansing. I counted...

There’s a new book on the market, and everyone should read it.   I must admit that there’s a selfish goal as I write this column…I want to promote an old book, as well. It’s gift-giving time, so please think about these books.   The new book is called FRAMED, and its co-authors are John Grisham and Jim McCloskey. Grisham has written numerous legal fiction novels. He also published an outstanding book in 2006 that tells a true story: THE INNOCENT MAN. McCloskey is the founder of a fine, faith-based innocence project called Centurion Ministries. As of today, some 70 wrongly convicted people are free, thanks to their excellent work.   The new book tells ten dramatic stories, and it’s a must read!   In the book’s preface, Grisham says: …every wrongful conviction deserves its own book. He goes on to say: Our goal with this book is to raise awareness of wrongful convictions and in some way help to prevent more of them.   That is exactly the position I took s...

A recent story in the Wall Street Journal highlights a serious problem facing prisoners : child support payments.   Writer Howard Husock focuses on Black men behind bars, and chooses to blame Kamala Harris for overlooking the problem.   We take a much broader approach. This is a problem facing all incarcerated men, regardless of color, and attention to this serious problem should be extended to more than just political candidates.   Here’s the situation in a nutshell. Fathers have no way of making child support payments while incarcerated. Then, when they get released, reality hits them in the face with a frustrating combination of a prison record plus child support payments. The National Institute of Justice reports that, “one of the biggest obstacles to reentry is the size of a parent’s child support debt, which averages $20,000 to $36,000, depending on the state and the data used.”   So, these guys get out of prison, and if, with a stroke of luck they’re ...

" When I get out, I’m going to get me a Cadillac just like that one! Maurice Carter and I were standing on a beautiful site along Michigan’s longest river: the Grand River. He was living in a nearby senior care facility, and he was in bad health.   Pointing to the car in a nearby parking lot, he said, “Not a new one. Just a nice used car!”   Melancholy hits me every year on October 24 and 25. That’s when Maurice died. It marked the end of an emotional decade in my life. It marked the beginning of an amazing final chapter of my life!   I first met the man in the mid-1990s when a Michigan prisoner said to me: “I’m not the only person who was wrongly convicted in Berrien County! I’d like you to meet Maurice Carter.”   Here was a dear Black man, financially indigent, no support group, only a few family members…unable to attract anyone’s attention, claiming innocence.   As an experienced journalist, I looked into this case, it was true!   So, I joined ...

A couple of former prisoners sat in our office the other day. One of our clients, a friend of mine who had served 16 years (all the while claiming innocence), was finally paroled a few years ago. He and I met with our Executive Director, who also served time for a crime he did not commit. But, the frustration being shared was not over innocence or guilt issues. The topic was reentry.   Al had a difficult time getting a driver’s license. Even though he had maintained a high grade-point average in community college courses during incarceration, he found it difficult to get a job upon release. He had been approved for some good positions…that is, until his prison record was discovered. The same thing happened when he wanted to continue his education. Even one of the fine Christian colleges in the area turned him down…donors might not like it!   And that reminded me of numerous unpleasant reentry stories.   Maurice Carter was seriously ill after 29 years of incarceratio...

A headline in the August 30 edition of the Detroit Free Press shouted: Violence on rise at women’s prison! Veteran Freep writer on prison issues, Paul Egan, led off the article by saying, “Violence and turmoil are on the rise at Michigan’s only prison for women…”   For background information, some 2,000 women are housed in Women’s Huron Valley, located in Ypsilanti. They were all moved into one facility in the early years of HFP. I have personally been a champion for these incarcerated women from the very beginning. A check of our blog posts over the years will show a continuous battle for improvement. One of the times when I went there to speak with inmates, I was given a standing ovation. It wasn’t because Doug Tjapkes was so great. It was because HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS cares!   When Heidi Washington assumed the position of Director of the Michigan Department of Corrections in 2015, she assured me in a private session that she had a personal interest in WHV. Personal in...

An item in the Washington Post last week caught my attention. Here are a couple paragraphs:   Death row inmates in five states have been put to death in the span of one week, an unusually high number of executions that defies a years-long trend of decline in both the use and support of the death penalty in the U.S.   The United States has reached 1,600 executions since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, said Robin Maher, the Death Penalty Information Center’s executive director. The story struck a chord with me because, as many of you know, I witnessed the execution of a friend who, I believe, was wrongly convicted in Texas. That experience gives me much appreciation for this quote from Clint Smith:   The death penalty not only takes away the life of the person strapped to the table - it takes away a little bit of the humanity in each of us. This will not be a long piece. I’ve been beating this drum for years. I am not optimistic i...

Several years ago representatives from the Michigan Department of Corrections visited Norway to learn about the country's criminal justice system and correctional facilities. And, for good reason. Norway's criminal justice system focuses on restorative justice and prisoner rehabilitation, and the number of prisoners keeps dropping!   Correctional facilities in Norway aim to make prisoners functioning members of society .   But, and we cannot stress this enough: Something else is incredibly important in the Norwegian System. Leaders there claim that their success also hinges on two other critical components: dedication to staff training and staffing ratios.   I was prompted to write about this after our good friend Carol Myers sent me an article from The Seattle Times. The State of Washington is in the middle of a multimillion-dollar effort that some advocates hope will make Washington’s prisons safer. It has nothing to do with tighter restrictions or heightened sur...

Music. That’s how it all began!   I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting. I’m sure it’s a combination of old age, the recent 23 rd birthday of HFP, and the production of a new documentary detailing the Maurice Carter/Doug Tjapkes story. I keep trying to answer the question: How did I get here? With a major in broadcast journalism, and a minor in church music (none of it the result of formal education), here I am working with prisoners. And loving it! And believing with all my heart that this is my calling!   Well, let’s go back to my first prison experience.   The year was 1968, the shameful Vietnam War was in full swing, and I was in that war-torn country on behalf of World Vision International, accompanying two wonderful singers…old family friends. It’s hot in Vietnam, unless you are up in the mountains. It was a chilly, rainy Sunday morning in the Central Highlands when World Vision rep Jim Franks led us to a prison. It was a small facility where captured enemy sol...

Maurice Carter wouldn’t believe it. His story goes on!   It was back in the mid-1990s that I made the decision to assist a Michigan prisoner named Maurice Carter, who claimed he was innocent. Maurice was introduced to me by another inmate who also claimed wrongful conviction. I was selling church organs at the time, so I was on the road a lot. This enabled me to stop by a state prison from time to time to visit my new friend.   I’ve told this story so many times, I’ll keep it short. It didn’t take long for Maurice to convince me that there was a major injustice here. A Black man from Gary, Indiana, with almost no family support, absolutely no financial support, and whose claims of wrongful conviction kept falling on deaf ears, finally had a helper. Maurice and Doug. His team had doubled!   The story of our history-making fight for his freedom over the next nine years resulted in a book: Sweet Freedom. Then it was told in a stage play: Justice for Maurice Henry Cart...

August 29, 2001…the date that the bylaws were signed for a new non-profit organization called INNOCENT! Years later, the agency’s name would change to HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS to more accurately reflect its work and its mission.   One might think that, when I started this organization 23 years ago, I had lofty goals in mind and knew exactly what I was doing! Couldn’t be farther from the truth.   I was successfully selling church organs, and certainly needed no more tasks or responsibilities in my life. BUT, I had this good friend residing in Michigan prisons, serving time for a crime he did not commit. We were five years into the fight for his freedom, as partners or, as we preferred to call it, “brothers.” And this brother of mine kept insisting that we should start an organization to help others with similar plights. It should be pointed out that Maurice had little-to-no support, only a few close family members, and no money.   Maurice was no “lone wolf,” he insiste...

OK, fellow church goers. A quick question for you. When’s the last time you heard either the topic of incarceration, or more specifically the incarcerated mentioned in your church prayer list?   Some of the most beautiful prayers in the history of the church, in my opinion, are found in the Book of Common Prayer. Granted, we seldom use this type of English in our prayers anymore, but take a moment to read this:   O GOD, who sparest when we deserve punishment, and in thy wrath rememberest mercy; We humbly beseech thee, of thy goodness to comfort and succour all those who are under reproach and misery in the house of bondage; correct them not in thine anger, neither chasten them in thy sore displeasure. Give them a right understanding of themselves, and of thy threats and promises; that they may neither cast away their confidence in thee, nor place it any where but in thee. Relieve the distressed, protect the innocent, and awaken the guilty: and forasmuch as thou alone bring...