Above: John Wheeler in a videotaped interview at Clallam Bay Corrections Center, Washington in the Summer of 2008. He is serving a sentence of 777 years, 77 months, and 77 days under Washington's 3--Strikes law for un--armed robberies classified in the bottom quarter of the state's criminal seriousness scale.

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NM     You have three Robbery 2s.

JW     Yes, I do.

NM     Now, these are crimes as I understand it that don't involve weapons and don't involve injuries. Is that correct?

JW     Exactly. Yes, that is correct.

NM     Do you want to give a little background? Like, what led you to where you are today? How you see it?

JW     How I see it is what led me to commit the crimes that I committed ... It kind of happened all of a sudden. It was drug addiction and later on, once my mom passed and I kind of took that real hard and got deeper into the hard drugs. My mom and I were really close. I was the firstborn. Once she passed away I took it kind of hard and I got deeper off into hard drugs. And once I got off into that it was like no turning back. It was like a big snowball, it just kept rolling and getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

Heroin addiction itself is just a terrible thing for anyone to go through. Once I got so deep off into the addiction and, of course needing money for it, I basically resorted to doing things that I shouldn't have done, that I'm ashamed that I've done, in order to feed the habit.

NM     How old were you when your mom died?

JW     Well, I caught my first felony I was 37. I caught my first major felony for a Robbery when I was 38. But I was still dabbling with drugs prior to that. It started with alcohol and marijuana, pills, different things, cocaine: the "thing to do" and all that, you know what I mean. But once she passed away it just snowballed into an uncontrollable situation for me.

NM     Were you in your thirties when she passed away?

JW     Yes, I was, yes I was. And like I said when it happened I just, it was like I lost my best friend. I was all alone. And so I resorted to trying to soothe the pain of her being gone and so, consequently, the heroin seemed to be the thing that would do that for me. Take the pain away the most. Yeah. Which I didn't know I was really just adding pain to the pain, you see what I'm saying. And so consequently I ended up making terrible mistakes and ended up here.

NM     Where's your father? Is your father still around?

JW     No, he passed away also. He passed away when I was, well, in my 20s. He was a longshoreman for over 20-something years. I was born in Phoenix, Arizona. Once I was born my mother and father moved up to Washington State. And once they moved to Washington State my father became a longshoreman. And after that ...

NM     Ah, was your dad there when you were growing up?

JW     Well, he was there and he wasn't there. My mom and him, they did the best they could to raise us.

It became where it was 6 of us, 3 girls and 3 boys. After I was born then my sister was born then my brother was born then another sister

And one of my sisters, she passed away in a car accident and my mother took that real hard. It was just terrible, head-on collision. She was in one of those little Triumph Spitfires. It's like a can, a pop can getting smashed, you know. It was just terrible on her.

But my father, he worked a lot, you know, and my mom and him didn't really spend a lot of time together, which drew them further apart. And when I was very young I used to see them fussing and fighting. It became a .... It caused me to have a nervous condition. They took me to doctors and different things ... and they said it was nervousness, peeking around corners, seeing them fighting, yelling and screaming.

So, all these things that were happening during my younger years kind of followed me into my older years. They would send me out of town, I mean I became such a, it became such a problem that I was doing bad in school. You know, your mother and father, you want to see them together, mommy and daddy, you know. It caused me to have problems in school, bad grades, I was held back a year in the third grade, I had to repeat because of my problems. Finally, it got to the point to where I had to be sent out of Washington State back to Arizona to go to school, to finish school.

NM     Because of disciplinary things, learning issues?

JW     Well, disciplinary a little bit, not paying attention. They had me take a test to see exactly if I was capable of learning anything. And the test results said that I had the ability to do whatever I want to do. I just wouldn't apply myself. That was the results. So I had the capability, I just wouldn't.... I was resisting. Resisting doing anything that I guess was the right thing to do. My mind would wander, you know, I would put up barriers and walls because of the problems I was having at home.

Like I said, they sent me back to Arizona to live with my Aunts. I had all my Aunts and Uncles there in Arizona, all the immediate family, so I had a lot of family and support and love down there. I did better in school.

NM     So you moved at what would have been middle school age. That's a tough age to move. Though it sounds like it was a good place for you to be.

JW     I completed school down there and did ok. There was so much love down there in my immediate family, and my cousins.

My grandmother, oh, bless her heart, she was a beautiful person. When I was younger she would take me to church with her and we would have breakfast together. She had one rooster I remember, and we were sitting there, she would pray for me when I was young and we'd have Jimmy Dean sausages and eggs and toast and marmalade and oh, it was beautiful to be there with her, the time that I did spend with her before she passed. She actually got a chance to spend some time with my sons. I have twins, twin sons.

NM     So you're in the court system from a period of, well, from 89 to 99? Am I getting this right?

JW     Ok 89. It was 89 when I did it. Ok, yes.

NM     And then Robbery 2 1995.

JW     1995, and then the other one was 1998. So it was 10 years.

NM     Did anyone ever say to you - prosecutor, judge, you know, John, do you have a drug problem? Did you ever go into treatment?

JW     I tried treatment. I went through ADATSA - a drug and alcohol program. Well, you know they have programs you have to go through once you're released, you have UAs and things like that, which I was pretty good at accomplishing. But the ADATSA thing I kind of did that on my own cause I wanted to get clean. And it was ok for a while. It seems like when you're in those programs it's good and then, if you're not ready to quit you're not going to quit, sometimes you look for a reason, you want something to happen so that you can have an excuse to use again, you know what I mean.

NM     Cause you're craving it.

JW     You're craving it. Yeah, it's a chemical. It's, it's always there. Just like the alcoholic. It's always there. One day at a time. I completed the AA class here. Matter of fact, I have my diploma in here.

NM     You said that a person could go through treatment, correct me if I'm rephrasing this wrong, even if you go through treatment, you're not going to quit until you're ready.

JW     Exactly.

NM     What makes a person ready? And do you feel that within yourself, that you've come to a place where you're ready? And can you say what made that happen? How that took place?

JW     Well, a lot of people say they have to hit rock bottom.

NM     I've heard that at AA meetings.

JW     Yeah, hit rock bottom. Some people, the bottom isn't far enough. They have to scrape the bottom of the barrel, you know what I mean.

It's kind of different from person to person but for me myself. I have really hit bottom. I mean, being away from my children and my grandchildren as long as I have, not realizing how selfish I had been toward my family, I didn't realize how much this is hurting them. Behind the time that I'm doing, they're doing time also with me.

I'm not there. I'm the oldest child. My mother and father are gone. I'm the one responsible now. ...I had come back from a trip. And I got a telegram that my father was deathly sick. He had gone into a coma, the fluid had went into his knee and it went into his heart or something and he had ...

I arrived at the hospital and they said that he had been asking for me. You know, the oldest son. My mother was there and I think my sisters. They were a lot younger then. So I went into the room where they had him. He wasn't conscious. I guess he was in some type of coma or whatever. But his heart was, you know they have the heart machine and everything. So I stood there and I said, Dad, I know you can hear me and I'm here. And I said I really believe I know what you would say: Son, it's up to you now, you take responsibility for the family. You're the oldest son. It's your time. And I explained that I understood what he would say and that I would be there and do everything that I can and was supposed to do for the family and told him how much I loved him. And then I kissed him on his forehead. Right after that the machine stopped and he was gone.

NM     It was as if he was waiting.

JW     For me to get there before he left. And then it went, the line, the straight line. That stuck with me.

Then for me to begin to get into and to live the life I got into, making the mistakes I made and not fulfilling my obligation to my family, my children, my grandchildren, my little ...

Deisha had just started walking. She was in court when I got sentenced - her mom and my son he asked the judge could I hold her before they take me away. The judge said, no. Now she's writing me, now they're growing up and I'm talking to her on the phone, you know, "Hi, Papa Wheeler." You know, Keishan he's, I think he's 10. She's 8. He's writing me letters telling me about all his sports involvement. He likes soccer. He was born with a ball in his hand - I mean he's just, he's something else, oh, yeah he's something!

And all this time and the experiences I'm missing with them now. Being away from my sons where they can come to me and say, Dad, I have a problem. Can you help me with it? I'm not there.

And, before I was going to be sentenced I was in my cell and I got on my knees and I cried and I asked the Lord to forgive me for what I had done. And I believe He really did. And I've been trying to lead a straight and narrow life inside ever since I've been sentenced and have been doing this time. I've been trying to help the younger guys who come in, to mentor them, which I've explained to you about. The (name of a family whose son he's helped in prison) family, I've helped them as much as I can and they've really been there for me. There are no words that can explain what they've done for me since I've been here, since us meeting each other.

That right there, the family, the family is the most important thing. Family. And by me not being there and going through what I'm going through and seeing all the things I've seen since I've been here....

JW     I went from doing, my first offense I did 8 months. I received a year and a day, did 8 months. My second Second Degree Robbery, which the first was 8 months, my second Second Degree Robbery, I received 18 months and did a year. I went from that to Life Without Parole.

NM     So was the first or second before the law passed?

JW     Yes, the first one was.

NM     So you didn't know at that time that it could count toward a life sentence.

JW     I had no idea! If I knew what I know now, I wouldn't have took the plea bargain. I would have fought it. I mean if I knew, if I plead guilty to this - later on... not that I knew I would commit other crimes later on but, knowing what I know... Hindsight. So the first one was in 88 and they didn't even have the law, 3--Strikes law. They went back and brought a law .... They created a law, went and took one of my convictions from before the law was passed, that I had already served the time for - and used it against me for me to lose the rest of my life. It's really not fair. So I went, like I said, from 8 months, to Life Without Parole.

And they have on the paper, they have to give you on the Life Without Parole a certain amount of years. So on the paper it has, you are committed to do 777 years, 77 months, 77 days. That's what it says!

NM     Why don't they just give you 100 years? You're not going to live much past 100.

JW     Ok! "Seven Seven Seven Seven Seven Seven Seven"

NM     They just want to make sure in case there's new life-extending technology...

JW     (Laughs) Wow... it's....

NM     So how did you feel when you got that?

JW     At that?

NM     I mean was that in itself...

JW     That in itself, a combination of things, but that in itself... The family thing? Talking to my family members on the phone, my grandchildren: Grandpa, when are coming home? This was before Keishan - he was still very young. And I had promised to take him to the park to play, play catch, you know. Every time I would call there to talk to him: When are we going to the park? I want to go to the park! I mean, that hit me. And now he's 10. I never took him to the park. You know, little things that you miss doing with your family. Little things. I look at a lot of the small things that I'm missing now, like going to the park with my grandchildren, helping my sons with their problems, just living a normal life.

NM     What was the robbery (for your third strike)?

JW     It was a note at the bank.

NM     Ok so you passed a note.

JW     I passed a note and asked for some money, a demand, they called it. And it just so happens that an off-duty police officer and his wife and kids were on their way to some picnic or something. This was at the Westwood Village in West Seattle, Washington Mutual. I was just really sick, dope sick, as they call it. I went there, wrote out the note in the bank. I was just out of my mind, took it up to the lady and told her this is a robbery, you know, give me some money.

NM     So people talk about 3-Strikes as a deterrent. But you're addicted and there's this overwhelming chemical thing going on.

JW     Exactly, right.

NM     And I've heard people say, well, the kind of crime that gets stopped by deterrence is white collar crime - where someone is deciding whether or not to change some numbers in a book some where. Those people are thinking. But someone who's dope sick...

JW     They don't think.

NM     Do you think that would have stopped you?

JW     Well, let me put it this way. I had two strikes.

NM     Right. But you didn't know it.

JW     Well... yeah! I did know it! I knew I had two strikes. But the dependency on the drug at that time, the frame of mind I was in, the state my body was in, I didn't care! "I'll deal with that later." I mean: "I'm not going to get caught." Now, if I had knew I was going to get caught, of course I wouldn't have done it. But the frame of mind I was in, the drugs and everything, needing the drug, I did it.

NM     So you're not - at least from your standpoint... it wasn't a deterrence to you.

JW     No. That's just how strong the drug is. I've OD'd three times!

NM     You'd think that that... death would be a deterrent...

JW     But it wasn't. I've seen people hear of someone ODing on drugs. These are people that are addicted. They want to know: "Where did they get the dope!? That must be some good dope if they OD'd!" Know what I mean? They hear of ODing: "Oh I want some of that dope!" Cause I'm not going to do enough to OD. I'm just going to do enough to get a good high. It's it's it's crazy you become, you get into once you start using. Really. It could pertain to alcohol, heroin, cocaine, whatever the drug of choice. And it got to the point where it had me and I had no control.

NM     Some people are in that place and they want to quit and they force themselves to get help or whatever.

JW     Yeah, yeah. You force yourself to try to get help. Like I said earlier, if you're not ready, you're not going to quit. It works for a while.

NM     When you said that you have to be ready. I'm thinking this not only on a person level but also from a public policy standpoint. From that standpoint, how do you get more people to be at that spot where they're ready?

JW     Without being incarcerated?

NM     Without being incarcerated for life. Can you think of what would have made it different in your situation from a public policy standpoint.

JW     Is there anything that they could have done, public policy, to help me?

NM     Well, I'm trying to understand. What works? Do you see something that would have changed your path?

JW     Well, first of all I think a person has to have self worth. It's individual, each person is individual. You don't know what a person has been through in life or exactly what has happened to him. Myself, I can't really pinpoint or blame one thing that happened or could have happened. The things that happened in my childhood and coming up, I can't really lay the blame on anyone, or any one thing. At the time it seemed like it was the thing to do. Other kids were getting high, taking pills, smoking weed. You wanted to be in with the "in" crowd. That part of it, I was responsible for it. My upbringing was kind of see--saw, the trouble between my mother and father. But they were hard working and always tried to see we had everything we needed, my brothers and sisters and I.

NM     I'm not at all trying to say you don't have personal responsibility. That's not at all where I'm going. What I'm trying to get at is something very practical.

JW     No, I understand.

NM     Like, for example, your first sentence for a Robbery 2 was 8 months. And it jumped from there to 18 and then Life. If your first sentence had been longer...

JW     That probably could have helped me for the simple fact that, by that being my first felony, my first time into a correctional facility as far as a penitentiary, the joint, if it had been longer...

Because a lot of times they call that "going to school". Eight months. You hear a lot of things. You pick up a lot of things. You really don't take it as serious as you should. A lot of people can go and have that experience one time and never come back. Some people, it might take them twice and they never come back. Now it's taken me to get to the point where it's my third time and I can't get back.

So looking back on the time element that they gave me, the time, I guess if there would have been more programs. They had the GED and this and that. But if there would have been more emphasis put on the drug programs and rehabilitation, period, I believe that it could have helped me. And as it is now there is not really a lot of rehabilitation in the correctional institutions.

NM     Funding has been cut back...

JW     Funding, it's like a warehouse. You're warehousing people. You're locking up people like me and throwing away the key for nonviolent offenses.

NM     I want to ask you about race. Washington is about 3.5% Black and our 3--Strikes population is about 45% Black. We know in drug cases the race discrepancy increases at every step -- from arrest to convictions to sentencing - even though there's no substantial difference in drug use along color lines. Something like that seems to be at work with 3--Strikes. Do you have any thoughts about that? It's not that individuals so much are making racist decisions....

JW     No, I don't feel that it's individuals making racist decisions.

NM     But it's the system ...

JW     When crack first came on the scene, as you know, it was put into the neighborhoods, the Black neighborhoods. This goes back to the 80s. A lot of things were going on with it then. And then the sentencing differences, the time you would get for crack and the time you get for powder. I could have say 5 rocks and get possession with intent. This guy could have 5 grams of powder and get a slap on the hand.

NM     It's the same amount of chemical

JW     Yeah. You see what I'm saying. It was more liable that Blacks had crack. Rock it up. You can get more money if you rock it up. This is the psychological position that they put us in. Powder is a social thing, you snort it, whatever.

One of the VUCSAs I received I might have had a crack pipe with residue. No crack. There are so many pitfalls in the drug scene. People don't care. You're a dope fiend. You're a drug addict. You're hopeless. And they look at you in a way that makes you feel that maybe you are nothing. It's hopeless for you. If someone tells you something long enough you might begin to believe it. As far as the percentage of Blacks. There's got to be something wrong with that.

NM     It's clear that something's not right.

JW     Right. It just doesn't add up that so many African Americans are institutionalized or committed to institutions for these crimes. Drug related, basically. A lot of them are drug related. To get drugs or a drug related offense or there are drugs associated with the crime. It begins as one thing and turns into another.

Like when I did my first robbery it was in order to get drugs. When I took the plea bargain in 88 I had no idea that it would come back to haunt me. I felt set up. They set me up. You know what I mean? How are you going to give me the time for a crime in 88. I do the time, then use it against me to strike me out for the rest of my life

NM     I think of a feedback system, you know? Like one thing causes another. I'll try to think of an example. So for example, I read somewhere 24% of the African American men in Washington can't vote because of

JW     Because of the felonies, right. There's another angle.

NM     I read this in a court case. So they're not serving on juries. So already you have a smaller percentage of the population to begin with, then you have an even smaller chance to...

JW     To be on the jury. Exactly, there it is.

NM     But I think of stuff like this - small things build up.

JW     Exactly, not being able to serve on a jury... It touches all different aspects of life, of a person's life.

You're already starting with a strike against you. You're African American. They're looking at you, oh yeah, you're going to commit a crime. So maybe they kind of help you along your way in their own kind of way. Then once you get caught up in the system and get out there, there's no real program to really rehabilitate you, to help you reform from doing the things you were doing... (You think) ... what kind of job can I get? A dishwasher? With a felony record, what can I do? And they look at you different if you have a felony conviction. Especially back then. So it kind of puts you in a corner. You really feel like there's just no hope a lot of times. That makes people resort to drugs, doing things they shouldn't do.

All this builds up in you and puts you in a state of mind, frame of mind you know where you just feel like you want to give up.

I think a lot of the guys I've talked to since I've been here, younger guys, who were brought up without a father in the home, the father's in the joint, you know... I've seen guys go through here and go to the same unit that their fathers are in. Now here's a father and a son. African American. You know what I mean? Now here's the father, he's off the street. The son, he's off the street. He may have a child that the mother's bringing up by herself. He has no father, no grandfather. It's like a chain reaction.

NM     There's research that shows the children whose parents are incarcerated are 5 - 7 times more likely to go to prison.

JW     Exactly!

NM     I don't know whether the research shows there's a cause and effect - or maybe the same factors are working on the whole family. But I've read about prison itself, as an institution, being criminogenic...

JW     Sure, yeah. People get here and pick up things.

NM     Children are left without (parents).

JW     ...Without them. They have no father image. They come to the joint and these guys that really don't have their best interests at heart pick them up and teach them the wrong things. And they look up to these guys. Guys in for murder: "Oh, yeah, he's a bad guy - or he's a tough guy." They look up to these guys and they teach them all the wrong things and they may think this is the right road for me to take.

This gang thing is just terrible. Fathers are gang members and they don't know anything else. The kids see them going in and out of the joint and they have no guidance at all from... the mother can't do it all. Consequently it makes it hard on her. She's going to do everything she can. If she has to work all the time to try to provide, that's time she can't spend with her child. So he has to find himself another outlet or she has to find another outlet to try to bring herself up to a certain extent, raise herself or himself.

NM     The gang is like a family.

JW     Oh yeah, you see it every day. They join these gangs. I'm your family, you don't got to worry about nothing. We got your back. I see it all the time. Before coming over for the interview I saw a guy, the chain just came in today, it's Wednesday, chain day.

So I heard someone call me: "Hey, Johnny!" I said, "Who is that?" I knew he was someone who just came in because he was on the bottom tier. They put all the new guys on the bottom tier. I say who's that? I go and look, and I see this guy that got released in 2006. Now, he got out to the streets, caught another beef, he says for possession. And he asked me for a bar of soap.

Here I am fighting 3-Strikes, trying to get my freedom. And here these guys come in and out like a revolving door. I'm not saying it's not someone else's fault. He's responsible for his own actions. But a lot of times these guys get out and don't have any resources. They get out with a bus ticket and $40 gate money. A lot of times they can't get out because they don't have no address. They try hard to get it, they go over their time, their release date cause they don't have an address. They beg someone, their grandmother, whatever, to give them an address. That has to be checked out. Then they get there. It may not work out. Then they're back out on the street, hustling, you know what I mean? Then one thing leads to another and they're back in here! It's probably what happened to him. I didn't talk to him but I know the...

NM     It's a typical story.

JW     Typical story, yeah. Here he's back...

NM     One viewpoint is that it's all individual responsibility, no matter what the society does. But, policy wise, the revolving door you were talking about - you're never going to stop people from doing what they're going to do. But when you change the system you reduce it.

JW     Exactly. Change the system - that's the key. It doesn't have to be major changes. Because a lot of people deserve to be where they are, trust me. I've seen all types. I mean, by me being here and not having committed any violent offenses really, and being confined here.... I came up to Clallam Bay basically because, by me having a 3--Strikes Life Without Parole sentence, there wasn't that many facilities that they had available for me.

NM     The sentence itself indicates that you're violent ... even though the crime wasn't violent.

JW     Right, I'm a "violent guy", you know. And they said, when I was at Shelton and the counselor said Walla Walla - and the stories I had heard, I really didn't want to go there. I wasn't a Walla Walla type of guy. Then he mentioned Clallam Bay and Single Man Cells. And I said send me there, wherever it is. He said, well it's at the end of the Peninsula. I said, I don't care. Send me. I wanted to have my own cell. Because I was in the King County Jail for 17 months and went through so many cells, cellies, in and out, getting out of jail, coming back in. Like I said it was like a revolving door.

JW     I've never been to IMU, Intensive Management Unit. I call it: "I-Messed-Up" Unit. But, still, it's where they put you when you don't do what you're supposed to do. I've never been there the whole 10 years I've been here.

NM     You've been at Clallam Bay for 10 years?

JW     I've been here since 99.

NM     Since the beginning. And you've been working in the same job?

JW     I worked in the laundry first. And I was in the clothing department. When the guys come in off the chains in their jump suits, overalls, orange suits - pumpkin suits, we call them, and you have to give them clothes, 3 pair of pants, 3 shirts, we set up the badge, give them towels. We have that ready. We have to size them up, get them ready. I was in charge of that for about 4 years, 4--5 years. Then I left that. The most you could make was $55 a month.

NM     And they take half of that?

JW     On the $55 they didn't really take anything, they took little bit. But on this job I have now, the industries job, correctional industries, which makes the jeans, the shirts, and the coats for all the other facilities, now that Clallam Bay's taken it over. They used to do chairs; now they're doing all the clothing. I think the chairs are at Stafford Creek now.

So I've been doing that for... Well, here's my certificate for that. Now this is a program that Governor Gregoire started - the re--entry program.

NM     That was recent, last year.

JW     Yeah, $25 million or whatever. Well, this is my certificate of proficiency from the industries job. And what it does is, once you're back on the streets they have some kind of board ...

NM     3,200 hours. Wow!

JW     They take whatever the number is here and that tells them exactly whatever it is you may be qualified to do. And that's how they sort whatever job you may be able to be employed for. So this is part of the program that she started.

NM     Senate Bill 6157.

JW     Ok, yeah. So I'm still there at that job doing very well. All these things I'm doing, I'm trying to do the right thing. And for people to understand that people can be rehabilitated. Everybody doesn't deserve to be locked up for the rest of their lives.

NM     Do you think that this program here, that this can help open doors?

JW     Yes I do. Yes I do. Because a lot of people who don't have jobs can get jobs when they get out.

Now, this here, I can take this, thank God, if God is willing that I am released, it shows you here, specialties: inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers ... these are things I can do. Right now I'm in charge of quality control. Once the jeans are made, they come to my table. I inspect them. I make sure that all the belt loops are on that all the bar tags are done right, you know what I mean, any loose threads I clip them off. I make sure there are no blow outs. And once I do this - and I might do at least 200 pair a day - if that's the quota - it goes from 180, 200 depending on how many orders he has backed up, whatever. Once I do that, I send it on to warehousing where they box them up and put them upstairs till they go on the truck. Now I've been doing that for 3,200 and some hours.

NM     So it's the job skills, it's also the self-worth that people get

JW     Oh yes. I'm accomplishing something. I'm making a difference - to a certain extent, you know what I mean. I take pride in my work. It means something to me because, if I don't - well, one thing, I'll be disciplined - not just for that reason, but because I take pride in the things I'm doing anyway. And coming to jail, getting this time, this Life Without - I prefer not to use the term, Life Without, because I'm full of life. And I refuse to be without ... God in my life. You know what I'm saying? 3-Strikes, ok, 3-Strikes. It's a game to them, but it's life to me. I refuse to use that term, Life Without. But it's showed me - it's brought back my self--worth, what I can do and how I can make a difference.

And, yeah, it makes me feel good. Really. My employers ... I've acquired a pretty large reference thing that I've sent out .. Satterberg got one. It's part of my central file now. But I have a lot of references. A letter from my employer, matter of fact he's my supervisor, Mr.D, he wrote that up for me because all that is part of my clemency ...

NM     (Reading from letter from supervisor) "His attitude in this key position has made my job much easier. His ability to work with other offenders has helped the flow of production on my team." Very cool.

JW     So you see. And that makes me feel good

NM     Your attitude has had ripple effects on everyone.

JW     Exactly, and as you see, he said it made his job a lot easier. And he's my boss. So that makes me feel good to know that I'm making a difference. And, I don't know, if this is what it took for me to be able get back to where I really need to be. But it's what happened. I have to look at it like that because I still feel in my heart that I didn't deserve the time that I received but I'm not looking at the negative part, I'm looking at the positive things that have happened and that I've done while being incarcerated. And I feel good about myself.

NM     The 3-Strikers I've come to know a little bit are thoughtful people who I see as potential leaders. They can make it in the world if there aren't too many barriers. You can really help other people. And I see this 3--Strikes thing as this most crystallized example of revenge politics - criminal justice turned into a game. And it's at an historically important point, where policy is at a turning point. And I see in a positive way - that this law may be changing as a positive thing - that you have the ability to help others, it's almost like an historical standing. I mean it's such a unique thing that we were first in the nation.

JW     Yeah, yeah, exactly.

NM     And the 3-Strikers are really it's such a small group of people. But to me it can be a positive thing if it ends positively.

JW     Hopefully, God willing. I really am hoping that it does. Since being incarcerated I've written my memoirs. I'm a writer. Poetry. And I put it all in a poetic form. Which I surprised myself that I even did this. And I did one that kind of reflects and puts in the context my past, my present, and where I feel I want my future to be. And it's entitled, "The Life"

And if you would like, I could recite it for you.

NM     Yes!

JW     Thank you.

The Life

I recall days of being young when my life begun
Having not a care in the world
I didn't care for school or the golden rule
All I wanted was money and girls.
So I refused to be told and I hit the road
Seeking my fortune and fame
Testing my skills, trying to pay my bills
And when things went wrong there was only me to blame.
Sometimes I was happy, other times I was sad
And didn't have a dollar.
But my heart I thought always kept me dang tight strong
So I could always pop my collar.
Yes, I had my share of dough, cars and clothes
Doing what I wanted to do
And then things turned bad, from riches to rags.
I looked in the mirror without a clue.
So I turned to dope where there is no hope
Feeling here's the answer.
And for a while I felt good, like I thought I should
Until the drugs became my master.
Yes, my arms would bleed from syringes full of misery
And I tried to conceive how I could do this to me.
Shooting dope to my veins instead of hope to my brain.
And now it is ironic that I am a diabetic
and the same syringes full of dope to help me die
are the same syringes full of insulin to keep me alive.
I guess that old saying is true:
the same things make you laugh also make you cry.
Yes, I've been through some things in my life I prefer not to mention.
But the Lord knows in my heart and soul I've always had good intentions.
I put my foot down in four corners of the world
only to return back home.
And now, with only four walls to share, there is nowhere to roam.
The women I mistreated, now who are needed, are no longer by my side.
Instead of being a man doing the best I can, I preferred just to get high.
You know there comes a time to look into ourselves
to see where we are going.
For the past is something we try to hold onto
A light we want to keep glowing.
So I look at what I'm going through as a blessing instead of a curse
because to look at this any other way would only make matters worse.
Now this time I serve is only a moment compared to eternity.
For with my Lord, Jesus Christ, is where I am truly free.

And that's the one I wrote, that's one of the first I wrote, called, "The Life".

NM     That's very cool.

JW     It kind of sums up where I was at, where my mind was at. You know I wanted to be cool, and now I'm here. It kind of puts me to where, I don't know. Everything happens for a reason. And if I can make a difference in someone's life, which I've been trying to do since I've been here, then all this isn't for nothing. And hopefully before this is all over with, I'll be able to touch many lives with my experiences and what I've been through being incarcerated here.

NM     So you have an entire memoir in poetic form?

JW     Yes I do. A lot of positive things in there. One entitled, Just Make it Happen, The Natural. I just sat down and started - and then seeing that I had a knack for it. It just started coming out. And I had two copies made. I sent for my copyright number to Washington DC. Oh, yeah. I'm planning to have it published. And I told myself, if I never came ... if I was never in this position, I never would have wrote this. I never even would have known I had the ability to do this because I would have been somewhere trying to get high. Maybe I wouldn't even be alive right now. You know what I mean? So, like I said, everything happens for a reason. And hopefully I can make a difference.

NM     Do you think if you hadn't fallen under 3--Strikes there would have been a chance to overcome the addiction? When I look at the age of conviction for 3--Strikes. There's no one getting a third conviction past the age of 60. No one's doing crimes then. That's an overstatement. There's no one in the 3-Strikes population past 60 something. There are no heroin addicts in their 80s.

JW     No.

NM     Like there are no 80 year olds passing bank notes...

JW     Right, right: "Could you cash this?" It just doesn't happen.

NM     So the prognosis... eventually it ends up...

JW     It's gone.

NM     Either the person dies...

JW     Dies, overdose, or something. If you commit a bad enough heinous crime, you're going to lose the rest of your life, anyway. But a person like myself that's in the position I'm in with three second degree robberies -- I deserve another chance. And all that is behind me now. That is the farthest thing from my mind - the drugs, all that. There are so many other things that I could be doing right now, family wise, that I miss deeply. I would never ever put myself in this position again. And hopefully through the justice system, the legislators and everyone, they will look at it and really consider letting people like myself and Mr. Rivers and others that are nonviolent offenders, let us go home to our families and give us another chance at life. And that's all I can ask. Just give me another chance.

NM     Is there anything you want to say, or a message you want to give - family, friends, policymakers...

JW     I'd like my family to know how much I love and miss them. That, hopefully in the near future I can be back with them. Hopefully before my 60th birthday. I'm 58 now. And I'll be 59 in October. I've been incarcerated since I was 49, was when I caught this.

Since being here, like I put in my poem, I became a diabetic. While I was in the R Units. They say it hits you sometimes in your 40s. And I just happened to be in my cell one day. And this dry throat. I kept urinating. Thirsty and weak. So I went to the infirmary. They thought it was the flu. Here take these pills, call me in the morning, whatever. They just shuffle you through a lot of times. So it didn't get better. And at that time I didn't know I was becoming a diabetic, that it was hitting me. So I said well I feel awful weak. Maybe if I bought some candy...

NM     Oh no!

JW     It would give me some energy. Little did I know I was adding fuel to a flame. So I bought Snickers, jelly beans, Tang, you know the Tang that you add to water and all these things. Before I knew it I was on my knees praying to God, don't let me die. So I literally had to get another infirmary pass. At Shelton there's like a tunnel that leads from the cells to the infirmary. So and I literally had to hold onto the wall all the way to the infirmary.

NM     Because you were weak?

JW     Right, weak and dizzy and everything. And so once I got there now I guess a light went off in their head, oh let's test his blood. So they pricked my finger. When the blood sugar level came up, because the normal level is 70-120, mine was 877.

NM     So you could have gone into a coma!

JW     A diabetic coma. So they panicked. Oh! Get him out of here! Get him to the hospital! So they rushed me out of Shelton R Units to Mason County General. They had me in Intensive Care Unit for 24 hours. Then I was in the hospital for 5 or 6 days, a week. They had me shacked to the bed. They had two officers there, COs with bullet--proof vests because I'm a "Life Without Parole" guy. Wow, that was another experience.

NM     You were lucky you were surviving, let alone breaking out...

JW     Yeah. I was just glad to be alive! I mean, wow. And so the nurse came in and said, well, do you have any diabetes in your family. And I said, no, not that I'm aware of. And she said, well, you're a diabetic. You're one now. Then, later on, I found out that my Aunt in Arizona she's a diabetic. It's in the family, my father's sisters. So, after becoming a diabetic, being on all this medication. I have to take insulin twice a day. I have to take Med Formin twice a day for the diabetes, to help the insulin flow or whatever it is. That's why I put in the poem it was ironic that the same thing I was using to help me die, shooting heroin into my system, now I'm taking a needle to shoot insulin into my system to help keep me alive.

If I would have been on the streets, say I would have gotten away with the crime I was committing and didn't get caught then. And this ailment came over me. I would have figured in my mind, that oh, you're just dope sick, you need more dope. I wouldn't have realized that I was becoming a diabetic. You see my point? I would have rushed out to get some money to get some dope or whatever. And I wouldn't have gone to the hospital, doctor could you take my blood sample? The diabetes would have hit me. I would have been injecting dope instead of the Snickers and the jelly beans. Then it could have gotten to the point then where I could have died. I would have died and never knew that's what it was. In a way, I look at this as a blessing instead of a curse. Because I might not have been here.

NM     Was there a time when you were angry and it changed? You know, angry that you were in prison for life? That's one of the things that's struck me with the 3--Strikers. I don't hear bitterness.

JW     No. I feel the sentence itself, the law itself is unjust. I can't be bitter towards anyone. I mean it's just not in my nature to be that way. First, I have to live with myself. And if I carried around bitterness all the time it would reflect onto other people. I mean, I can't see myself living like that. It's enough having to cope with losing my freedom for the rest of my life as it stands now. But for me to be bitter on top of that every day ... eventually of course that's going to rub off on other people. When I was in the county jail and I had received my time and was looking at it, was fixing to receive the Life Without, a lot of the guys would see how I carried myself when I was in the county for 17 months. I was always upbeat, positive, and would have a positive word for them and whatever. Even though I was going through all this myself. And then one day I was talking to some guys after chow and I told them my situation. What!? Life Without Parole!? Man, I would have never thought that's what you were in here for, the way you carry yourself. If it was me, I would have tried to kill myself.

So that right there told me that I must be doing something right to have that kind of attitude. Because if I could be that way with the sentence I'm facing, then maybe someone with less time than the sentence they're trying to give me can look and say, wow, if he can be that way about his, maybe I can be that way about mine, and try to get to the point where I won't have to deal with a 3--Strikes conviction. Always try to give them a positive word or input, you know what I mean? You'd be surprised. A lot of people say, Johnny you don't realize how much the things you say have effect on people. This is me. This is the way I am. I'm not putting on anything. This is me. So a lot of times, if I say something, no one's going to listen: I'm not EF Hutton... But I know if they do listen - so, evidently, I'm saying something right.

JW     Being here and going through the daily routine of the same thing over and over and over again. Waking up, going to work, coming home, going to the diabetic line, the doors popping when they do. It's like one big deja vu to me.

NM     Yeah. I can see that. You use the word, surreal before. It's almost....

JW     Yeah, it's like one big Deja.. and you lose a sense of time. The time on the outs, as we call it, and the time in here is completely different. Because you get into a routine.

NM     Longer in here? Shorter?

JW     It's, it's.. the ten years went by like that to me. (snaps fingers)

NM     Wow.

JW     Sometimes we have a banquet here. Different little events or something.

NM     A blogger comes in..

JW     Yeah, the highlight of my day! But, other than that, it's just the same old same old. So you have to learn to occupy your time. That's why I program like I do. I have all the things, television. I like to read a lot. I like to write. I love jazz. Music is.. I play the keyboard.

NM     Do you? Do you get the chance to play here?

JW     I do in church sometimes. I was going to buy one. But then I thought - I don't want to buy too much stuff in here, I want to get out of here! I wanted to - but then I didn't want to. Yeah, it's just like one big deja vu. Time has a way of just stopping when you're in here. And it goes fast but it stops. It's strange. You know, you lose a sense of time. Like guys come and go. You see guys come and go. I've been here 10 years so I've seen a lot of people come and go, come back. Thank God I've been able avoid conflict with anyone. Maybe it's the way I carry myself.

NM     How is it that you carry yourself that avoids conflict?

JW     No. Well, I'm an older guy. They consider me an OG.

NM     Well, you and I are both a little bit grey...

JW     Yeah, there you go. And every strand has a story.

NM     So does that provide a little more safety to you, as an older person?

JW     You could call it safety if you like the word safety. I get a lot more respect. You're not going to get any stripes for beating up an old guy. That could be part of it. Another part of it is how I carry myself and how I talk to people. It's a lot to do with your demeanor.

NM     Respectful?

JW     Yeah, very respectful.

NM     So it's not toughness, it's respectfulness.

JW     No. No, I've never put on to be a tough guy. No, I like to carry myself in a finesse-ful way. Like I said, this is me. There are some people who know me, and know of me from the streets and while I've been here. And people watch you, how you carry yourself. And who's trying to be this and who's trying to be that. And they've seen me perform. I perform every year at the Juneteeth celebration.

NM     Keyboard?

JW     No I recite a lot of my poetry every year. Matter of fact, I did one this past Juneteenth. It was beautiful! It was really a nice banquet. I've gained a lot of respect since I've been here also. I don't have any problems in that area. Which is a good thing.

NM     Yeah, you don't want to be in that I-Messed-Up Unit.

JW     I-Messed-Up Unit, yeah, exactly, right.

NM     Well, this has been really great.

JW     It's been beautiful. I would just like to thank you for being so dedicated to helping with this cause for myself and the other 3--Strikers that are in my situation. And if there was more people like you - which I know there are a lot of people that are advocates for this also.

NM     Advocates for different things

JW     Different things, different aspects of it. If we can just get this across to the others that really aren't knowledgeable of how certain of us are, in other words, people like me, then I think once they get more informed of the basis of this 3--Strikes law itself and the number of people it's scooping up who really don't deserve this, it may make a difference.

NM     It seems to me that's what's going on with 3--Strikes, it's so unjust if you really look at it past the rhetoric -- if you really look at it -- it can help people understand a lot of what's going on in other areas of criminal justice.

JW     Exactly. Now that so many people can see that it's not right - no one wants to take the blame for, well, we made a mistake on this. That's politics, you know. I look at it as if, if there's a way they can kind of get it out of there without too much attention on who's to blame or whatever, it may, it seems like we're getting closer to more awareness of it, anyway. And God only knows when we may overturn it. I see it going in a positive direction, myself. I try not to look at anything in a negative way. There's too much negativity in the world as it is now. Like I said, I appreciate everything you're doing, and all that Justice Works! and everyone is dong -- and all we can do is keep on fighting, it's all we can do, all we can do.