Response to Mark Singer's
"Unfinished Business"
By Michael G. Santos



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Many of you may have had an opportunity to read Mark Singer's excellent article in The New Yorker, (October 7, 1996). In "Unfinished Business," he describes his observations of and his relationship with Brett Kimberlin, the former federal inmate who became a cause c3/4l(bre when he announced in 1988, during the heat of the Presidential election, that he had sold marijuana to then Vice Presidential candidate Ban Quayle. After reading that article, I felt compelled to write this open reaction to it, and my response is dedicated to the many people who have chosen to help me during my own struggle to earn freedom from confinement.

Let me begin by saying that I myself met Brett Kimberlin several years ago. A few weeks after The Honorable Jack Tanner sentenced me to a cumulative total of 45-years in prison, I was sent on the long journey that would take me from the Fierce County Jail in Tacoma, Washington. to the United States Penitentiary, in Atlanta, Georgia. Before I got to Atlanta, though, I was holdover at the Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno, Oklahoma for a few weeks. That is where I met Kimberlin.

I was new in the system and knew very little about it. One of the first places I visited inside ECI El Reno was the library, more specifically, the law library. Brett was the clerk in the law library, isolated from the crowd in an adjoining room that contained hundreds of federal law books, his desk, and his typewriter. I didn't really know what I was looking for, so I asked him to help me find some information about people convicted of the Continuing Criminal Enterprise statute, the most serious crime for which I was convicted. Be gave me a few books to read through, then came over and began talking with me about my case, my sentence, and what I intended to do about it.

At the time I met Kimberlin I had been confined for about a year already and had recently turned 24. I didn't really know exactly how I was going to spend my time, as I had never before experienced life in prison. What I did know was that I wanted to educate myself.

When I was arrested I was not able to express myself very well in writing. Not only did I lack knowledge of the mechanics of writing, I had trouble putting my ideas on paper. Besides my poor writing skills, I also had trouble analyzing information, as the decisions I made following my arrest made clear. The one thing I needed to do was grow as a human being, and the first step I had to take in that direction was to improve my thinking and communication skills. By the time I met Kimberlin I already had made a commitment to myself that I would spend my first decade in prison educating myself, as I then knew that my lack of good decision-making skills, as well as my lack of a solid formal education contributed to the reasons why I was in prison.

Kimberlin began trying to sell me the idea that I absolutely had to fight my case. He said that it was unconscionable that a federal judge would sentence a person who had never previously been to prison to a 45-year term, especially if the individual was convicted of a crime with no violence involved. I agreed my sentence seemed excessive, but I also knew that at that tine I d id not have the skills to begin exploring the legal technicalities of my case. Besides that, I really didn't have the proclivity to pursue judicial relief from my sentence. By that time it had become quite clear to me that I had made some terrible decisions as a young man, that I had disappointed numerous people and my community. I was eager to begin putting that sordid part of lily life behind me and begin, finally, to mature, to become more of an adult, a man who accepted responsibility for the decisions he made.

Kimberlin persisted, pushing me to call a friend of his in Chicago whom he said was the top post-conviction lawyer in the country when it came to convictions like mine. Brett told me that he himself worked together with the lawyer and (lid a lot of the research for appeals, that without a doubt there would be issues in my case that--if responded to properly--would result in my returning to court for a reduction of my sentence.

Well , I spent some of the time that I was in El Reno learning about the federal prison system from Brett, but I never did call his attorney friend, and to this day, I never have deviated from my plan to spend the first ten years of my confinement educating myself and looking for ways to develop my character, to improve myself as a human being.

Later in my sentence, when I got to Atlanta, I read about Kimberlin's assertions that he had sold marijuana to Dan Quayle. It is possible that Brett made his statements to help American taxpayers understand more about the person who night hold the Vice Presidential Office of the United States of America, but I thought it more likely that he was making such statements in some type of self-serving scheme that might in some way open his own prison gates by stepping on someone else's head. Bringing harm to someone else's life for the sole purpose of escaping one's own punishment did not seem like a particularly noble act; it was not consistent with efforts to build character and integrity, and it was not- an action that I could respect.

Since that time I've read about Kimberlin in many newspapers magazines, though I did not see the initial piece that Singer wrote about Kimberlin, which he described as an account of an individual's civil rights abused by politicians and bureaucrats who were protecting their interests, but I did read this most recent piece , "Unfinished Business , " and upon reading it I experienced more than a little anxiety.

Whenever I read about people in prison who have built a strong network of support, then disappointed those who put their good names on the line for the individual, I feel 1ike I've been cut myself, and I've been cut several times.

One of the most notorious such cases involves Jack Henry Abbott, the man who wrote to the great American author Norman Mailer while Mailer was writing the book about Gary Gilmore, The Executioner's Song. Abbott was in prison at the time, serving about his 17th year. lie wrote to Mailer, offering to help him by providing information about what life is like inside maximum-security prison. Abbott`s letter led to an exchange of correspondence with Mailer, a friendship, a grotesque book about prison by Abbott himself that is titled In the Belly of the Beast, and Mailer `s uniting of influential people from across the world to help Abbott win his release from prison. Then, within a few months after his release, Abbott stabbed a waiter to death in a restaurant when he suspected that the waiter had "disrespected" him by not serving him fast enough.

I also have read about Danny Martin, an individual who honed his writing ski1ls while being held at the federal penitentiary in Lompoc , California, and became a regular contributor-while he was incarcerated--to a Northern California newspaper . Martin `s writings helped him develop a rich network of support, and I do not think it is unrealistic to assume that it was his support group that helped him win a parole date from prison after serving eight years, even though ho was serving his third prison sentence, and even thoug1t he was convicted of numerous violent crimes. It pained me to read later that Martin had been returned to prison for some stupid and irresponsible behavior on his part.

And I've had some personal experience with prisoners who have returned to prison after their release. John, a person with whom I had grown close while I was serving time in Atlanta, introduced me to a man who has since become one of my most loyal sources of support, arid to a woman who has become a dear friend. I knew tint John was not thinking very sensibly when he left prison, and that if he continued that type of thinking, not too much time would pass before he would be returned to prison. John and I spoke about the need to live as straight as a laser beam upon release, yet our discussions did not internalize with him, because in less than a year, he was in custody again. That was only the first of several of John's returns to custody; indeed as I write this response, John is doing time in one of Florida's many prisons.

All of these stories bother me tremendously because I know that they make it harder for responsible citizens to believe in people in prison. Most all of the friends who stand beside me today are people with whom I've come into contact since federal prison number 16377-004 became a second name for me. And I cannot help but believe that when those people read of such accounts, like the one that Mark Singer wrote about Kimberlin, doubts begin to surface about whether I an worthy of support, of whether I too am just another person in prison who will say or do anything to convince tire world that he has changed, when inside, beneath a thin veneer, lies the same cheating, manipulating, deceiving, lying schemer who broke the law so many years ago.

Since coming to prison, I've structured my life according to a plan that would reflect my commitment to building character, temperance, and discipline. Those virtues were missing from my life before I cane to prison, and in order for me to earn my way out, to live a free and contributing life upon my release, it was imperative that I improve the values that governed my actions. It also would be important. however, for community leaders to believe in me, to help me as I strive to help myself.

In October of 1994, Professor John Dilulia brought a group of his students from Princeton University to FCI McKean, where I was then being held, for a discussion about prison management with me, During that meeting, Dilulio spoke with me about the notorious former prisoner Jack Henry Abbott and his relationship with Mailer and others, then asked whether I thought that community leaders who came forward to help offenders obtain relief from prison should bear any reasponsibi1ity if those offenders a return to criminal lifestyles. Of course my answer was no, that I do not believe one citizen should be held accountable for the actions of someone else.

Holding conscientious citizens accountable for the actions of irresponsible people is like holding judges accountable for the criminna1 actions of people who are released from prison after their sentences are served. Now, however, I see that many citizens do indeed hold judges responsible for the actions of people released from prison, and after reading Singer's article. I suspect that many responsible citizens will refrain from helping people in prison because they do not want to put their names on the line for someone who may disappoint and embarrass them later.

This troubles me greatly. As a person who is hoping to find relief through a Presidential commutation of sentence, I constantly an pursuing public support, support from people who know me only through my writing and through introductions from others. But who t can I possibly do to assuage the anxiety that citizens must have about putting their reputations on the line for me? That in the critical question that torments me, especially when I read of so many others who come from these parts and then learn of their behavior after release.

I wish that things were different, that I did not have to endure this Sisyphean task, of finding support, of trying "to market" myself from prison. But this most unorganized and inefficient system of justice to which I am condemned gives me no alternative. I cannot earn my freedom without broad community of support. The task would be so much more manageable if I could earn freedom objectively, through measurable accomplishments made from behind these walls. Our nation's correctional system, however, is not designed to measure progress or growth that an individual makes while in confinement; instead, it seems like it is designed to ensure perpetual incarceration.

Yesterday I had a discussion about this very topic with a relatively new inmate who has become a friend of mine. Actually, it wasn't a discussion, but rather my expressions of frustration at the way this so-called correctional system functions. Let me tell you what triggered my frustration.

My friend, Steven, and I had just sat down for lunch in the prison's cafeteria. Steven is a relatively short-term inmate, expecting to return to the community sometime next summer. Like most logical people, Steven assumes that there might be at least some relationship between the contributions and accomplishments one makes while in prison and the quality of life inside the institution--including when that life "inside" will come to an end and real life wi1l begin again "outside." It is not unreasonable for Steven to make this assumption. After all, he has been incarcerated for fewer than five months, and he comes from a professional background where contributions and accomplishments are indeed rewarded. And for the first eight years of my sentence, I myself comp1etely espoused the belief that the more one contributed to an institution, the more 1ikely that person would be to obtain relief at some point in the future. Now, however, I realize the hollowness of such an assumption.

Anyway, in the few months that Steven has been in this facility he has written curriculums for three classes and has taught each class on a voluntary basis. His regularly assigned work detail is with me in the gym. Steven, though, has an opportunity for an even more desirable job, which is to have his status as a "volunteer teacher" changed to that of a permanent teacher, meaning that he would not be required to maintain the job in the gym. I asked him whether he had made a decision to change jobs, and he said that he had not yet decided because his Unit Manager the person who monitors Steven's progress in here, led him to believe that being a volunteer "looked good" on paper and might contribute to his getting out of prison sooner.

When Steven told me this, I overreacted. I couldn't hold back my frustration at what the Unit Manager said, and how directly contradictory his statement' was to my own observations, to the way things actually happen behind these fences. What is worse, is that I felt that Steven might actually believe that his good deeds in prison may somehow contribute to his getting out sooner. The reason Steven's interpretation of this message concerns me, of course, is because such a belief implies that people who remain in prison for extended periods of time are in prison because they are not doing enough inside to bring about their own release.

The fact of the matter is that even if Steven were able to teach every illiterate person in this prison how to translate Chinese and Russian literature into English. and vice versa, his Unit Manager would not move him into the commun1ty any faster than he would if Steven spent his entire term in confinement sleeping and shooting pool. It is wonderfu1 that Steven contributing. but he should be doing it for himself, because it gives him satisfaction to contribute to the lives of others, not because of empty pabulum that a Unit Manager feeds him.

There is only one program available in federal prison where inmates have an opportunity to advance their release dates through accomplishments. That is a BOP-sponsored program that is designed to help inmates control their drug problems. Individuals who complete the 500-hour program are eligible to receive up to one year off their sentences. In order to participate in this program, however, an individual must have a documented history of drug abuse. Other than completing that program, there is no contribution or accomplishment that an individual in federal prison can make that will. be rewarded with an advanced release date. Prisoners can behave in ways that may extend their stay in prison, but they have no power or capacity to earn their way closer to freedom.

Prison administrators maintain that they support individuals who pursue self-improvement programs, programs that will help them and others lead contributing and law-abiding lives upon release, yet--in a distressing dichotomy--they refrain from recognizing those who succeed or rewarding them in any meaningful way. A federal prisoner cannot oven earn his way in to a lower-security prison.

I had to spend nine years in prison before I was able to move to a low-security prison. I would like to believe that the contributions and accomplishments I made while I was in prison helped me to earn my way to this low-security facility, but they did not. 1 have letters of appreciation in my file from wardens and community loaders alike verifying that I initiated numerous programs that contributed to 1ives inside the prison, and to projects that contributed to lives in the community during my term in confinement. It a1so is true that I began my university studies in prison, and earned both an undergraduate and a graduate degree from the wrong side of prison walls. Further, I always have maintained full-time employment and have kept my disciplinary record blemish free. Yet the only factors that had any influence on my lower-security rating wore my blemish-free record and the nine summers that had passed while I was in prison. In other words, positive contributions do not matter as one is judged within a prison.

Security levels, like release dates, are computed by an impersonal grid of points that are assigned to each individua1. Character, contributions, and efforts at personal atonement have no place in this matrix. For example later yesterday afternoon I was drawn into a conversation with another individual who recently arrived hero from a medium-security facility. Be has been incarcerated for four years and was boasting that "hustling" was how he spent his time in prison. He then went on to detail his activities: making wine, weapons, sel1ing drugs, stealing, and participating in any type of predatory behavior or ruckus to which the herd led him. "I like to run wild," he said. Because another page on the calendar turned, however, his points dropped and so he was transferred to this low-security facility. He did not get here on merit.

These are the facts of prison. We may call prisons part of a correctional system, but it is hardly like any other system that I know. A system usually implies the use of logic, but I find little logic in a the methods prison administrators use to correct behavior. In fact, it's more of an anti-system, one that claims that it wants people to act responsibly, but does not distinguish--in any way--those who do.

It is because of the complete void of opportunities for an individual to earn his freedom from within the system that I have come to realize that I must try to earn my freedom completely outside of it. In a fact, the only avenue open to me is that of a Presidential commutation of sentence, which, of course, is extraordinarily difficult to achieve. As anyone who has been reading the national news of late knows, executive clemency decisions have huge political ramifications--a lot to lose for the office holder but little to gain, save one insignificant person's freedom. The successful petitioner for executive clemency will not only have a sterling prison record, he or she also will have an impressive network of community support. That is why well-written articles that describe slippery prisoners bring me anxiety attacks, as I cannot help but believe that such articles hinder anyone's inclination to trust in me.

Again, I wish that things were different. I wish that there wore opportunities available for me to distinguish myself within this system and earn my relief through the contributions I make. But the fences and gates and walls that surround my environment make things much more difficult, as I now know that I have no efficacy over my own release date. Well, on second thought, I do: through bad behavior I can increase the length of time that I remain in prison, but there is nothing I can do to lesson it. Case managers know this, unit managers know this, and I know this.

It is for these reasons that I turn to all of you who have been so gracious in supporting me throughout these years. I do not know whether stories about people like Brett Kimberlin dampen your support for me, and I do not know who what more I can do to assure you of my sincerity in my quest to develop character. But one of the differences that I hope you will consider between other people who have served time in prison and myself is my complete acceptance of responsibility, and the fact that I have never stepped on somebody else in order to lift myself up.

Every day I make a conscious effort to look for ways that will help me to become a man of character, a man of integrity, a man of dignity. In sum, I strive to emulate the leadership of my role models in the community. In order to earn my freedom, however, I will need community support, tons of it. And so I will look for tools and vehicles to help me reach out, to broaden my network. At the same time, I want each of my supporters to know that I value the confidence placed in me, that I consider myself fortunate, and that I always will work to prove myself worthy of it. That is my pledge to you, which together with my hard work and gratitude, is all that I can offer.