Nile Bowie: The Economics of Incarceration

Nile Bowie: The Economics of Incarceration: Written by Nile Bowie James Nachtwey / VII For anyone paying attention, there is no shortage of issues that fundamentally challenge...

Wow big business at it's finest, buying and selling people! First buy them, then put them to work for next to nothing and walla you have a huge money maker ha?

Micah has a job interview next week. For, drum roll please, a call center job. The worst part? He will be getting paid the same as my son-in-law who works for a call center in Costa Rica!

Yeah, hell yes they are bringing jobs back to the states!

1000 Times Around the Table

Micah called me early this morning. He never calls in the morning as he knows we are in class. I was worried that something was wrong. Thank goodness nothing was wrong, he was just waiting for them to bring clean sheets and towels and thought he would check in.

He also said he had done 1,000 laps around the table and was really bored. Well I can't imagine that kind of bored, but it must be pretty bad. It was good to talk to him and tell him about the new show on T.V. about talent in prison. They said on the news article that they would only make it available to "petty criminals". I'm not really sure if that would be Micah's MO or not? At any rate will surely check into it for him.

In the meantime I have been working on getting his book written. It is very good so far and I have been enjoying reading it. My eyes don't enjoy the little bitty print, but the story is great. It is about Costa Rica, and I will leave the rest to share later.

NEW PLANS

So Micah has new plans now. I hope he is writing down all the plans he makes while he is Coconino County because they would fill a book for sure. This weeks plan is to open a b&b with his brother in Costa Rica. Of course it would include massage, and he would be the massage therapist. His brother would be in charge of the cooking and coffee. They decided it should be on the beach. I think he forgot how hot it is on the beach.

Right now he is trying to decide on a magazine we can order for him for his birthday. He wants a mens magazine with lots of workouts and nutrition advice. He and his dad are researching it and he will talk to the boss man at the jail to get it approved. He is looking forward to having a weekly magazine. He is also looking forward to football season, right around the corner.

YOGA

Micah has been doing yoga. He took yoga in school classes last year at school and has been practicing it once again. I'm pretty sure he is the only one in Coconino County jail practicing yoga, but I could be wrong. He has asked his dad to send him some workouts as well as some Tai Chi work outs.
One day last week he worked out two and a half hours in one day. When he calls me and they come on to tell me that I have a call from an inmate he always identifies himself as "Mr. Musculo". That is the name of a guy on a commercial here in Costa Rica, and it is pretty funny. Of course doing 2,000 push-ups a day I'm sure he is pretty much Mr. Musculo!
The news of the day is that Micahs' attorney will be meeting with the prosecutor and his boss on Monday. They will be discussing Micahs' sentence. That sounds so bizarre to me. "Hey guys you want to get together and maybe talk about this 18 year olds next five or ten years?" Like isn't that something that should really take lots of time, thought, pondering, getting to know the kid, his case etc?
I am obviously very biased, but I would surely suggest this for any kid they were discussing the fate of. Even the other two boys who are as I have mentioned at home enjoying the company of friends and family as I write.
Anyway we will know more after Monday, probably not much more than we can talk about, but maybe. Micah read me a great poem that he wrote about the Indian guy that he saw get hit and killed on highway 89 one night when I was bringing him home from work.
I had caught only a brief view of a tennis shoe flying through the air, but he saw the whole thing. Once we turned around and went back he went to see if he could help the poor guy dying in the street, and I went to help the poor girl that had hit him. It was pretty traumatic, and next thing I knew Micah was sitting on the curb holding his head in his hands and trying not to pass out! That is a Neumann thing the passing out.
He ended up being a witness, and was also a witness to a death there that night on Highway 89. His poem was great, and I told him I can see he remembered that night very well. He said "heck yeah I saw that guy get hit and killed, of course I remember that". I did remind him that he did not include the part about him almost passing out in the poem. Of course he just said Ha Ha!

BROTHERS

Sorry to say Micah has lost a very consistant visitor! Happy to say I have one of my sons here in Costa Rica. I really needed it and am so glad Jake came to visit. I know Micah will miss his visits, or at least when he could beat Jaima to the punch and actually get a visit. I'm sure they will both remember the last one a couple of Sundays ago and cherish it for a very long time. The good part is now Micah can actually talk to Jake more since he can call him on our phone.
I have not been able to talk to Micah as much as I would like, it gets pretty expensive thanks to the companys that take over the phone lines and charge four bucks for every 15 miinutes. And that is for a local call, the long distance was fifty bucks for 15 minutes! That was why we got a area code to match the one where Micah is currently at.
I have not figured out how they managed to pull this scam on the people, but it is impossible to get an answer. One woman tried to talk to the phone service where her son was incarcerated and was told maybe they charged so much because the prisoners deserved it for whatever they did to get there in the first place.
So many people forget that prisoners are people doing their time for a crime, and sometimes with excessive sentences, we don't need to add to their pain and suffering anymore than they already have.

IN THE BEGINING

I thought since I did not have a blog from Micah today, until he calls me tomorrow that is, I would just tell my side of the day of. Our internet is dead at the moment so I am trying to do this at the internet cafe and the girl beside me is about to pound her keys right through the dang table, and I have my headphones on! It is making me crazy so I will try to focus.

On July 11th we were in Nicaragua. Since we are considered perpetual tourists we have to leave Costa Rica every 90 days and get our passport stamped. Our very favorite place to go is San Jaun Del Sur. It is an awesome beach town and is not as far as other cool places to hang out for a few days to wait and return.

So on that fateful weekend we had travelled there with our son Jesse and two of his buddies who were all spending the month hanging out in Costa Rica. I have to say if Jesse had not been there I dont think I could have coped. But I get ahead of myself for a moment.

We had arrived on Thursday and spent the day playing at the beach. On Friday we went to the internet cafe to check our email. I brought up my myspace and there were two urgent messages from Micahs legal guardian. I immediately brought them up. The first one was just a few lines. She told me she had received a call early that morning that Micah had been arrested and charged with murder 1, robbery, and kidnapping.

The next message was the Daily Scum report on the whole incident. By the way I hate, hate, hate the Daily Scum and in a way wish it was them that had lied and not the police lying to them, just so I could sue them. But again I digress.

When I read that message I felt like someone had just sucked all the air out of that little internet cafe in San Jaun del Sur. I have never experienced anything like that before in my life. I just freaked out and started yelling at Jesse and Rick. I was not even aware of any other person in the whole world at that time, like I had just fallen off the planet.

They both came running and we all stood in shock. Jesse was the first to respond with the words, Micah would never do this, something is wrong. From there we ran next door to the internationa l call center and called our friend. She gave us the number for juvy, since he was only 17 that is where he was.

When we called juvy Micah refused to talk to us. The police on duty told us he was fine and was just a little upset and we should try back later. I just could not think straight. I was just thinking I had to get to Flagstaff immediately and save my kid from what was happening. The flight or fight response had kicked in big time and I was in flight mode.

We all went for a walk and I just could not stop crying. There was a big political rally going on in the streets and megaphones, drunk people and shouting going on. We were sitting on a park bench in the middle of it all my daughter and I just sobbing. My husband headed to the Catholic church there to pray.

When we headed back we went to the call center and I called my daughter in Costa Rica. She was of course shocked and when we arrived home the next night she had cleaned our house and had a hot meal waiting there for us. She is awesome and knew just what we needed. She was also able to call the other boys and tell them what was going on.

I will always look back on that day as the day my life changed forever. I have had many trials and tribulations as we all do. But nothing could ever prepare me to lose my son in this way. I strive in every way I can to keep connected to him, but I know he will change. I will never have my little boy again, he is gone.

WHO I AM

I thought that I would write a little about Micah while I wait for his call tomorrow and his first official post. Micah was born Oct. 4, 1990 in Missouri. We moved to Flagstaff when he was three years old and he has lived there ever since. He did spend six months living with us in Costa Rica the second sememster of his sophmore year of high school.

When he was six years old Micah started playing the cello with the Suzuki program at NAU. He had an awesome teacher, Mrs. Bean. She was the most patient, kind teacher that I have ever seen. He definately pushed her to the limits of her patience and she stayed sweet. When he was 12 he made the decision to switch from cello to swim team. He joined the Snowsharks and took off. He was an awesome swimmer, specializing in the breast stroke.

Micah attended the Motessori school in town for seventh and eighth grade. He attended the public middle school for the last part of eighth grade. The goal for his whole life was to play football. He loved football and made the jv team in his freshman year. In his sophmore year he made the varsity team and did awesome. Another talent that Micah discovered in his sophmore year was singing. He made the select choir at his school and then went on to make the jazz singers. He sings beautiful and plays the guitar.

In his sophmore year half of the family moved to Costa Rica to open our study abroad massage school. Micah joined at the end of his first semester and attended a private school in Costa Rica. His spanish came right along and he was pretty fluent by the time he left in July to return and prepare for his junior year and football.

Micah found a gracious family that agreed to be his legal guardians so that he could remain in the U.S. and pursue his dream of playing football and going to college. At the end of his junior year he left his legal guardians home and moved in with some buddies.

July 12th Micah was arrested and has been in Coconino County jail since then. We do not know if he will go to trial at this point and time. He was arrested with two other boys whom he did not know very well.

Micah loves letters and money in his account for more stamps, and letter writing supplies. He is an awesome writer and as you can see from his history just pretty darn good at anything he sets his mind out to accomplish. Yes I guess I am a little bias, but hey I am his mom!