Mr. Gibbs is a very
interesting man. He is a fountain of information about what it is like
being on the wrong side of the law. He makes no excuses for himself and
he does not blame the system for being in prison. He knows he did wrong
and deserves to spend time in prison. His complaint is that the system
does not give a tinkers damn about rehabilitation.
Prison is being used for punishment only. They do not care about
the fact that they are taking people that could be a
asset to society and turning them into worse people than they were before they
went in. That is why so many come out at the end of their time and go
back to crime. Prison should rehabilitate so that instead of worse
criminals coming out better people will be
coming out.
I have seen many men who I have given pages on my site and at other sites that are good men and women in spite of
the system. The sad thing is that in many cases they are not the ones
that get out.
Yes, Mr Gibbs may have been a hardened criminal. He admits that he was
not a nice guy. Now I feel he is a nice guy and I do not care what he
did. As of this writing I do not know what
he did to get in prison. I feel it is time for him to be set free.
Lee
I am 65 years old and have spent most of my adult and juvenile life in some
sort of jail or prison. I have been in the Eastern and Western State
Penitentiary, Graterford Penitentiary and several county jails in
I was previously State Director for the Maryland Old Town Jaycees (Number one
chapter in the nation for 3 years running.), Coordinator for the Seven Step
Foundation, Author and Chairman for the "Good Time For
Lifers" Bill. adopted and passed by the Maryland
Legislative Committee and through my Self Help efforts was featured, along with
another person, in a 3 column one picture article in the Time Magaszine (Aug. -
Sept. 1971). And was involved in and extremely decent juvinile program
while Coordinator fot the Seventh Step Program.
There is of course, a great wealth of knowledge and information in the prisons
that needs to be tapped and spread out to the public - who I believe is
virtually ignorant as to just how life is in these places and how dangerously
close their children are to falling into the hands of some D.O.C. system.
Not an nice thought, but one we have to
seriously consider.
I lost all of my family (their choice) and these places are not conducive to
making real friendships. The people I associate with however,
are decent people who have made mistakes in their lives and are deserve another
chance ar a normal life outside in the free world. When you have a
"letter" behind your name like all we
do, it is very difficult to get around the stigma placed on people with
our sentences. In the past fifteen years the penal structure has changed
considerably for the worse (as far as convicted
felons are concerned) and it is very difficult to have anything done.
(They) have taken complete control of our activities and work assignments
to the point wher we are just being "warehoused
" for profit.
The last thing I want to do is to a lot of complaining
about the penal structure and how they operate these days. We made
our mistakes and we have to pay for them - we all agree on that. I do
however, complain about the way they have changed the system to the point wher
it doesn't matter what was agreed on prior to the changes, because they have
taken everything we have earned in the past years and gave nothing in return.
People who were scheduled to be released years ago are still in these
places because of someone's whim and/or political aspirations. I myself
have actully made parole in 1988 and again in 1991 - yet I am still here
finishing up another five year hit from the parole board. Not something I
am please with.
In my years of prison life I have seen alot of changes in the system. The
system actually came full cycle several times since my
I also want to tell you (so that you wouldn't be surprised later on) that I was
on the F.B.I.'s "10 Most Wanted" list -
twice! once in 1964 when my incident happened
and then again in 1971 when I escaped. I guess the reason for the latter
status was the guy that was the President of the Jaycee Chapter I fled from was
an F.B.I. agent. I thought that was humorous - they didn't. Anyway, those
days are long gone and I have been on another road since then. I don't
mean to turn you off with information like this but its better that I dell you
whou your are writing to than some one else.
With all of this prison time I've experienced - I still had the opportunity to
visit four different countries while in the service (not including
© Copyright 2002 David R. Gibbs