Looking out: We should ask ourselves: Why?
By Brandon Astor Jones
"Penology ... has become torture and foolishness, a waste of money and a cause of crime ... a blotting out of sight and heightening of social anxiety." — Paul Goodman
Reality can sometimes be stranger than fiction. That certainly has been the case for Daisy Jane Benson and her daughter Robbin. You would have to search long and hard for a story more compelling than theirs. Of course, I cannot tell their whole story, but I do want to share a few segments of it with you, since Daisy has given me permission to write this article.
This is not the first time I have written about the elder Benson. In June 1994 in this column I disclosed how she was forced into a "medicated stupor" during her trial. Shortly thereafter, she was convicted and carted off to prison.
Daisy has been in prison several years now. Nevertheless, despite the demoralising circumstances of her environment, she has effectively salvaged and redirected her life in a positive manner worthy of both praise and respect.
Today, Daisy is a driven and tireless fighter for all those prisoners whose convictions were obtained while they too were forced to take mind-altering drugs prior to and during their trials. Such trials are little more than stages of contrived judicial theatre upon which barely conscious defendants are railroaded into US prisons.
In 1978, Daisy's mother and Robbin, then just a girl, left Michigan on a journey to visit Daisy, for they had not seen her in a very long time. Filled with hopeful anticipation, they reached California on the day before Daisy was to be shipped off to prison; they were only allowed to visit Daisy for 15 minutes by way of a jail telephone that was situated next to a 6 foot by 10 foot glass opening — from either side of which they could only seen one another's tears.
That was the last time Daisy would see her mother: sixteen months later, Daisy's mother died. Thirteen years would pass before Daisy and Robbin would see each other again, despite the latter's continual efforts to visit her mother.
Having no-one, and little or no guidance to speak of, Robbin quickly fell into a devastating life of crime and drugs on the streets. In Daisy's words Robbin was "looking and hooking". Daisy went on to say, "For over two years I have waited for the chaplain to come [and] tell me [that] my girl was ... dead. She has been on a very self-destructive mission with her life for the last five years."
In more than one of her many run-ins with the law, while standing before various judges, Robbin begged to be sent to prison so that she could see and be with her mother. We should not be surprised that all of those judges denied her requests, especially during those times when she was known to admit to crimes that the judges knew she was not guilty of.
In 1991, because Robbin had a valid "out of state" driver's licence, she was allowed one visit with her mother, but due to a multiplicity of prison rules and regulations she was not allowed to visit her again. That one-time reunion was a very meaningful experience for them, but Robbin's lifestyle did not change.
Then one day in July 1994, appearing before a judge she had stood before repeatedly, Robbin explained that she was both homeless and addicted to drugs. Again she pleaded, "Please send me to prison to my mother". This time Robbin's request was granted. In one of Daisy's more recent letters, she wrote, "She tells me she had to see where I sleep, where I eat and how I lived; she had to see how I was".
Now she knows where her mother sleeps, what she eats and how she lives. Daisy and Robbin are cell mates. Robbin is doing well in a drug recovery program. She does not look like the same woman who was sent to prison just a few months ago; there is a new gleam in Daisy's eyes too, in the more recent photographs she has sent me.
There is a great deal I have not mentioned here, but for those who might be inclined to rush to judgment where Daisy and Robbin are concerned, I would urge equally critical thought to a system and a nation in which so many stories like theirs exist. In the midst of so much right-wing rhetoric, along with all the politically correct Republican/Democratic pandering that is so in vogue today, we would all be well served if more than a few would honestly ask: why is the USA a place where so many Daisys and Robbins must go to prison before they can be both happy and together? Why?
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He is happy to receive letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G2-51, GD&CC, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA.]