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The Hypocrisy Files

by Editorial StaffPublished: 2022Updated: 11 November 2022




This page is designed to highlight the many hypocrisies wihtin societies. We focus pimarily on American society but invite readers to this page to submit their own exanples.

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We had hesitated to publish the following open letter to the Texas Parole Board. Even though the writer sent the letter under his own name, we did not want to throw more oil on the fire and smother any chance that he might succeed at his next hearing.

A year has now passed sinced the writer urged us to publish the letter. This very well written essay is too important to ignore. We now feel more confident that additional harm to the writer is unlikely. Nevertheless, we are not using his actual name.

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An Open Letter to the Texas Parole Board
by Casper

Five years ago when I first came up for parole I was ecstatic! I believed I had a chance. Everything lined up in my favor: a fiancé, a family to which to return, employment, housing. A slew of completed courses: correspondence-based sex offender treatment; 12-step substance abuse counseling; peer/SOTP counselor certification; cognitive intervention; Voyager; Anger management; Bible study programs. Then came the five-year set-off — retributive and politically motivated.

That's okay. The next five years were a flurry of activity. I threw myself into learning the law. I learned TDCJ policy. I earned a Blackstone paralegal diploma. I completed advanced law courses in criminal law and civil litigation. Every book or article on the prison industrial complex, prison abolition, racial and cultural studies, civil rights, revolutionary leaders, I devoured. I wrote essays for various prisoner advocacy organizations about my experiences as a gender non-conforming prisoner of war, captive within the Texas prison system. I've explored my truths. I am worthy. My voice explodes out against injustice. I am a human being! In short, I became an activist advocate.

Thank you from my deepest soul for that five-year set-off!

You tried to destroy my existence, bury me. How wrong you were to do so. I'm a seed blooming forth beauty amidst this bleak backdrop of misery behind these rolls of razor wire. You meant to dehumanize me: steal my voice, deny my identity by creating me anew as solely a prison ID number, a cog in the degradation machinery -- a commodity to be ruthlessly exploited without guilt. Even broken, I am a thousand shining shards!

Society wants all to believe I'm nothing more than a "sexually violent predator" criminalized for loving another. But stealing the humanity of the "aggressor" undermines the process of accountability for the entire community. If we separate ourselves from the "offender” by stigmatizing them we fail to see how society contributed to the conditions that allow violence to happen.

Yes, I freely admit I made horrible choices against the norms of society. I can never fully express the deepness of regret for the wrongs done my "victim": the impact on his life, the lives of his family, the lives of my family. The injuries pile up, uncounted and unremarked upon by a retributive society which doesn’t truly desire healing for any party. The betrayal runs deep, a river of pain forever gushes through the caverns of my soul.

However, was I a predator? No. Absolutely not. Assault is about power, the taking of what is not given. That is not at all what happened here. We had a consensual relationship lasting years. His family accepted me as their own. I taught this young man to function within American society; helped him to become employed; embraced him within my household; encouraged his college career in architectural design; loved and cherished every single moment we had together. That is, until the state ripped us and our lives apart.

Simple stories of the perfect victim and the monstrous predator bend reality to fit the pretexts for state violence, helping society to justify its pretense that the physical, emotional, social, and civic injuries of prison are somehow justice.

I did not have a "conscious disregard for my victim". Nor did I "select them for their vulnerability". This is the lie the Parole Board wants others to believe in order to justify their sanctions, their ostracism. In truth, he contacted me. He lied about his age. He lied about other things. His mother eventually told me the truth.

I made a terrible choice to continue our relationship. After all, the damage was already done, wasn't it?

One thing I feel it imperative to stress is I would absolutely NEVER hurt a minor, nor anyone. There was no criminal intent on my part. There is also a huge difference between what the "law" defines as "consent" — an ever tenuous and shifting definition —versus the consent given between two knowledgeable, agreeable persons. Our justice system, to the detriment of all, fails to make the distinction between such, and actual, physical, controlling rape.

Toward the end of my last parole hearing I was rudely, sarcastically questioned about "10,000 pictures of kids on [my] computer" by the parole counselor. She didn't write my answer down nor did she seem interested in the truth. To do so would not serve the disparagement of the Board prejudging any answer I gave to be a lie. A simple investigation would have revealed I owned a photography studio — Rabid Panda Productions, which engaged in youth sports photography, school portraits, quincineras, weddings, graduations, and other events. RPP was a registered DBA in Harris, Travis, and Montgomery counties. I paid taxes. I hired employees. I donated time and money to local organizations. Who in society benefitted from destroying my business and the livelihoods of those I employed?

In regards to parole, sex offenders have the second lowest recidivism rate for repeat crimes of any felon. Only convicted murderers are lower. Yet sex offenders are demonized and restricted from every aspect of society, branded not only with the "X" of a felony conviction but a massive scarlet letter. The intent of sex offender treatment schemes and post-conviction laws are solely to dehumanize and cause enduring harm to those who have committed offenses in the past. They certainly aren’t to protect society or aid in rehabilitation. The truth is purely vindictive, as victim advocates argue they suffer lifelong consequences as victims — those who committed an offense should suffer for life as well.

Facts and history tell a different story. Increasing rates of incarceration have a minimal impact on crime rates. Common sense suggests economic precarity increases crime. Lack of housing and employment are prime motivators of recidivism. Both are stripped from those with sex offenses. Remember too, crime and harm are not synonymous. All that is criminalized isn’t harmful and all harm is not necessarily criminalized. How is society served?

In the past 15 years I've been a captive prisoner of war in this acrimonious war on sex, I've seen drug users, prostitutes, burglars, thieves, and other low-level criminals come back to prison time after time after time. Some only last long enough on the street to get a fix — then are right back on the same prison block they exited only a few months earlier. These individuals wreak far more havoc, cost way more in property crimes, financial woe to communities, and damaged lives than do sex offenders. Yet it is sex offenders made the pariah. Why is our society so terrified and adverse to sex? Especially when hypocritical media and advertisers portray sex and youth in every single aspect of our daily lives as desirable.

As you judge each file in approximately 30 seconds or less due to your extremely busy schedule, have you ever paused to consider the absurdity? The parole system in Texas is corrupt, unfair, and benefits neither the needs of the incarcerated or the society it claims to protect. The inmate is never allowed to grace your presence. Rather it is solely a perpetuation of the prison industrial complex as lawyers and parole package preparers peddle their services to an increasingly desperate captured clientele. Two of you decide our fate for an ever-increasing number of years neither knowing nor caring about the person behind the number.

Have you ever stopped to question why Texas has the highest number of prisoners in the United States? More than most countries in the world? Why do we have thousands eligible for parole who languish in prison at tax-payer expense, despite fulfilling obligations set by the state? I remind you, I too, am one of those tax-payers, as are all prisoners within the TDCJ prison industrial complex.

The University of Texas Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs reported recently the abysmal rate of parole in Texas, noting Texas has the most burdensome requirements of any parole system. That's within the entire United States! This report also noted that allowing us to take parole courses during the term of our sentence would save Texas $744,722 every single day! That's the price for continuing to hold the over 10,700 parole approved prisoners. Quite ridiculous, isn't it?

What would it look like to use the tens of billons spent on the prison system differently? What if that money were spent instead for jobs paying a living wage, for excellent public education, for health care, for quality affordable housing? What if we actually used that money to build up communities rather than continuing to outfit police with tanks and body armor to fight a war on the oppressed?

This is our modern slavery. Mahatma Gandhi reminded us "there is no dishonor in being slaves. There is dishonor in being slave-owners." The shame of any violation, personal or historical, lies with those who committed the violation, not with those who survived to heal and rebuild. Just like, during slavery, every individual abuse, violation and brutalization served to uphold, reinforce, and strengthen the larger system of oppression. You have to ask yourself: What part do you play?

Granted, I admit I've been no angel in the past. My poor choices were a betrayal of myself, of my community, as well as of the larger society. I dispute that not. Society has betrayed me as well. I'm a product of the failure of not only myself but those around me. Sexually abused as a child. Mentally and emotionally abused throughout my teens. PTSD from growing up in the war zone of drugs, sex, and crime. Homeless for a time. No realization of self-worth. Berated and belittled by family, teachers, police, the courts, that I wasn't good enough, smart enough, worthy enough, rich enough, white enough: I would spend my life in prison. Beaten down by the very system that was supposed to lift me up, to protect me. Bi-polar disorder. Attention deficit disorder. Borderline personality disorder. All this caused disorder for which I've paid the price, deeply and tragically. Damaged. Broken. The answer for which, in the United States, is imprisonment, enslavement, banishment. The richest country in the world, though its promises are only to a few.

Despite all the tragedy, any behavior changes were solely through my own self-rehabilitation. At no point did TDCJ offer any meaningful programs of rehabilitation. Even after the set-off, nothing was changed or offered to indicate the set-off was anything other than additional punishment.

Am I even asking for parole? I deserve parole. I have earned parole. I've certainly changed. Most definitely, I am NOT the same person I was 15 years ago. I am educated, confident, self-aware, driven. I am ready to conduct my voice as an advocate, a voice for the countless voiceless. I have a plan for success as a productive contributing member of society not to re-offend. Our former president George W. Bush claimed what he "did 20 years ago has no bearing on who [he is] today." How is that not true for tens of thousands caged behind these fences?

With all the restrictions, fines, fees, and penalties levied upon sex offenders I don't know if I even care to participate in the rigged system that is parole. Can I be a great citizen though heavily marginalized, and still do great things? It isn't really about that. You've already determined my value. Some would say to cooperate with a system which is oppressing you is to participate not only in your own destruction, but in that of your community as well. You could always prove me wrong.

Walida Imarisha writes, "But eventually I had to remember that all anger comes from pain. The larger the rage, the deeper the hurt. I was allowed my anger. But it was more than just rage. To pretend otherwise would be to embody cowardice, scared of my own complexities and contradictions in the mirror. I also had to allow myself my sadness, as well as the love I had for my [self], because it was out of that love that I could build a path forward."

And such it is with me.

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