In Jail, It's Miller Time

By: Suzette Martinez Standring Every day, Judith Miller sitting in jail in Virginia comes to mind. Having once worked in a minimum-security section of a state prison, I am familiar with the zoo of crowded living, booming announcements and the non-stop blare of very bad TV. To plumb the depths of truly awful food, eat prison fare.

In 1997, before my life as a columnist, I taught a weekly meditation class at Webster Correctional Institution, a state prison for men in Cheshire, Connecticut. I wanted to reinvent myself as a stress management teacher. As Frank Sinatra once sang, ?If I could make it there, I?ll make it anywhere,? and so I set out to create credentials. Every Wednesday night, I met with ten felons and taught them to relax.

Nothing prepared me for the impersonal and soulless life of incarceration, even in minimum-security. For starters, the architecture is depressing. At Webster, there are no rounded corners or arches. The interiors are blocky and sharp-cornered. Colors disappeared in a barred world, except for gray, dull green and white. Overhead fluorescent lights stayed on 24 hours.

When I asked my 10 students why they wanted to learn meditation, they said self-control was essential since anger easily flared up around them. Danger was present in a TV channel change, or an accidental bump in the hallway, often in a racial conflict. ?We need ways to stay cool because it can get pretty ugly in here,? one inmate said.

If they yearned for anything (besides freedom) it was for one hour of peace and quiet. Noise is everywhere and all of it negative. The hallways echo with the heavy clank and loud buzz of steel gates. Guards bark orders. There is no refuge from the constant droning and shouting. Bad TV and music play on until the wee hours.

During meditation classes, noise was especially difficult. There I was, taking the men through a rainforest guided imagery, and suddenly, the P.A. would boom, ?BASKETBALL IS OVER. REPORT IMMEDIATELY TO CHARLIE DORM.? I?m not sure if Judith Miller has to deal with that particular announcement, but the Virginia facility may have the equivalent.

A prisoner?s feelings don?t count for much. There are reasons guards are trained to act authoritatively and impersonally. It is not their job to rehabilitate you. Steel doors, 24-hour cameras and steel toilets are your new reality.

Judith Miller appears to be resolute in choosing this experience over divulging her confidential sources. I imagine she toughs it out one day at a time. To think about what you?re missing would drive you nuts. Just make it through a day. That?s what my guys told me. To better understand prison stress, I toured their living quarters. Minimum security is similar to dormitory living, but imagine a good-sized closet flanked by three bunk beds on either side, with barely enough space for one man to stand in the center. According to press accounts, Judith Miller may be in a one-person room but even that can change; her first days at the facility she had to sleep on a mattress on the floor due to overcrowding.

Miller surely could not have been prepared for this. She must be among the few from a comfortable background. During my time inside one inmate took pains to tell me, ?I?m not like them. I graduated from Cornell.? He complained to me of being harassed by others who resented his privileged background. The nightly threats terrified him, but since nothing physical had happened (yet), the guards wouldn?t help him.
Many inmates I met seemed decent, but just as many looked dead behind their eyes. I imagine Miller keeps to herself for fear of any kind of confrontation.

An E&P story reported Miller was suffering from stomach problems. Prison fare is awful. Along with your freedom, say goodbye to fresh food. Canned fruit, tasteless meat, lots of macaroni and heavy on the mayonnaise, but at least it resembles food. In New Jersey, I once covered a story on jail food where inmates were fed a processed protein loaf, since it was more economical than using real meat.

Some may argue that women?s prison is different from the men?s minimum-security facility I?ve detailed. Wake up and smell the bad coffee. Miller is not getting a quilt on her cell bed, or flowers on a writing desk. To whatever degree she experiences the above, prison is prison.

Getting information is how the press does its job, and Miller is a role model for how a journalist cannot serve two masters. She has chosen freedom of the press, placing her principles far above her own wellbeing. For reasons to which we are not yet privy, Miller has determined it paramount to protect her sources. Critics suspect she may be protecting administration insiders who fed her lies. We do not know this for a fact. Only time will tell if she is protecting the public?s right to know, or protecting herself from incrimination.

She never wrote a story stemming from her research. A journalist is in jail for refusing to cooperate with a subpoena that conflicts with her ability to do her job. It?s vital to protect a reporter?s right to research stories. Basically, she is being jailed for receiving information, whatever it is.

There?s a legal adage, ?If you can?t do the time, don?t do the crime.? For the press, it would appear the government is trying to revise it to, ?If you can?t do the time, don?t cover the story.? But then what would we be worth as reporters and columnists?

Miller?s willingness to do the time speaks volumes. Above the din, Miller?s endurance is her lone shout back. Every day I hear it so clearly.