Yes, this is Izell Robinson, Minnesota, inmate number 210006, calling from the Stillwater prison here in Minnesota; an innocent man confined within the quadrilaterals of systemic injustice, fighting to be heard. I’m only asking you, the listener, to hear me so that I can be heard, and asked. Today I want to talk about this situation that I’m in. My deepest challenge with the Minnesota Department of Corrections often leads to my most painful experiences of injustice. As a Black man in Minnesota, I’m consistently finding myself unjustly imprisoned by whites. And I don’t say that, you know, as someone who’s looking at the system from a racist standpoint, but one who sees it as a system who persistently chooses to dehumanize and disregard my humanity. How can I be expected to be successful on parole, when I’m constantly assigned racially insensitive parole agents who have been repressive and punitive minded, looking to be overly judgmental and assumptive-based off my past criminal record, rather than judging me by the content of my character alone, with the tools I utilized from successful completion of several positive programs to assist in my re-entry rehabilitation.
However, none of the good that I do, or have done, to positively change and repair my life, to ensure that I am a productive and law abiding citizen: it just hasn’t seemed to matter one bit to those making decisions within the system. I wrestle with emotionally excruciating questions like, how am I to live meaningfully, a meaningful life under unwarranted, intensive supervised release parole conditions and inhumane assigned parole agents, knowing I can be violated on parole, arrested and hauled off to prison at any given moment, losing everything I’ve worked hard to attain, without a valid reason or without ever committing a crime. I am suffering as a man that has been confined in the state of Minnesota for crimes I did not commit. Now, I’m suffering further depression and anxiety due to state endorsed fraud, allowing loopholes, and lack of oversight, and accountability for the Department of Corrections Hearing and Release Unit and Intensive Supervised Release [ISR] agents to set unwarranted release conditions on ISR parolees, like me, that become a set of rules of things that aren’t crimes or illegal behavior, but can be used to formulate a technical violation on parole to send a parolee back to prison.
Yes, the parolee does get a violation hearing. However, it is a closed hearing with a Department of Corrections appointed hearing officer that usually was a former parole agent themselves. So, it’s not a fair process, and it doesn’t run by rules of standards of a traditional court. Therefore, transparency is lacking as hearing officers and ISR parole agents are prone to deny, distort, or replace reality as a way to discount facts. It is difficult to challenge in these hearings where circumstances are assessed in a subjective way, not objectively. Clearly, in the hearings, facts, logic, history, all fall on deaf ears.
They’ve created this parole ping pong here in Minnesota, that’s become a convenient abuse when an ISR parole agent gets upset with an ISR parolee. They often call the state funded halfway house that the parolee is being housed at, and speak with the director of the halfway house, encouraging them to find some reason to terminate the parolee’s housing. Once a parolee’s housing is terminated, the ISR parole agent will have a warrant issued for arrest due to loss of housing. Then, usually, unaware to the ISR parolee, who has committed no crime, they’re surprised by seven or more officers busting in to arrest them, saying they have a warrant. Now, the seven or more officers to arrest one person who has committed no crime, is extreme overkill and a waste of state resources that could have been utilized to assist in real crime, rather than arresting one homeless person. Then, after the arrest, the ISR parolee goes to jail, then the hearing and release unit hearing which often leads back to prison for the parolee for zero to ninety days.
The problem is the ISR agents have began to exploit and abuse this failure to maintain agent approved housing rule as a weapon of injustice to further delay freedom and rights of deserving parolees. This has created a huge cycle of returning individuals back into the prison system here in Minnesota, which significantly adds to the state’s recidivism rate and wastefully takes taxpayers dollars to imprison, but not for committing the new crime, but simply being homeless. In these cases, I don’t think prison is a necessity, and you shouldn’t either. This is not an efficient and honorable act, but decisions that represent the worst in human judgment of people involved with this system. So, you and I must refuse to be silent, and demand more transparency and oversight in these hearings and release unit parole violation hearings, in the form of adding a, or a few community members to the punishment sanctioning committee as hearing officers to balance, and have a say so in making just decisions. This is what I think needs to happen, and we need to stand up and speak to the legislators in Minnesota and the Commissioner of Corrections here at the Department of Corrections in Minnesota. We need to reach out, speak, and act. Thank you for listening, and thanks for Prison Radio for this platform.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
