In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance, by Wilbert Rideau. Out today. Who is Wilbert Rideau? From his Wikipedia entry:

[D]escribed by Life magazine in March 1993 as “the most rehabilitated prisoner in America” … Rideau was incarcerated in Louisiana State Penitentiary (better known as Angola Prison) from 1961 to 2000, convicted in three successive trials of murdering bank teller Julia Ferguson in the aftermath of a botched bank robbery by all-white, all-male juries. A fourth trial in 2005, before a mixed-race jury of ten women and two men, resulted in a conviction of manslaughter, for which he was sentenced to 21 years. Since he had already served nearly 44 years for the bank robbery and killing, he was freed immediately.

After 11 years in solitary confinement on death row, Rideau wanted to write for the prison newspaper, The Angolite, but was refused because he is black. He started his own prison publication, The Lifer, for and about lifers at the prison. With the success of that publication — and permitted by desegregation — the warden made him editor of The Angolite, which became the nation’s only uncensored prison publication.

Rideau went on went on to edit the magazine for 25 years. His exposés of prison life won some of journalism’s most prestigious awards, including the Robert F. Kennedy Award, the George Polk Award, and the Sidney Hillman Award. This in what was then the most violent and barbaric prison in the country.

So how’d that happen?

“We had a run of good wardens,” Rideau said in a Fresh Air interview yesterday, “[they] cracked down and cleaned up the prison in, what, less than two years…which impressed me with the fact that it can be done. And once officialdom decides there’s not going to be violence, you’ll put an end to it.”

I quote this exchange because it clearly and concisely articulates how the restorative justice model is in society’s best interest. And in your individual interest:

GROSS: I should say everything you’re describing is counter to one theory of incarceration, which is, you know, like lock the door and throw away the key. Don’t give them anything. Don’t give them education. Don’t give them privileges, you know.

Mr. RIDEAU: Well, you can do that if you want to but its counterproductive when you consider the fact that 90 percent of the prisoners are coming back home to you at some point. You know, just in the interest of self preservation, wouldn’t you want that guy, that criminal who you sent to prison because he was dangerous and because, you know, he was difficult to have in society, wouldn’t you want him to change and come out a better individual at the end of his prison term? Because he’s coming back to you, to your community.

GROSS: You’re proof that that can happen, that somebody has a transformation in prison.

Mr. RIDEAU: And I’d like to say, I’m not the only one. There are plenty other guys just like me. They might not be writers but, you know, plumbers, electricians and just everyday prisoners. You have a lot of guys, the one thing I was always impressed with while I – and I never lost sight of while I was in prison is that most of the guys who were in there with me, they all wanted to be better than who they were.

Now, whether they got opportunities to do that or not, that was a different ballgame. But they really wanted to be better than who they were. They came to terms with what theyd done, that they were in the worst situation in their life and they wanted to change.

Former District Attorney Rick Bryant, the prosecutor in Rideau’s final trial, provides an excellent example of a cold, hard, retributive justice position. This from CBS Sunday Morning:

“Wilbert has not paid for what he did,” Bryant said. “Forty-four years may seem like a lot. I think he should have died in prison.

“He got his life back; Julia Ferguson’s dead. Her family never got to have another birthday or a wedding, or a Christmas the rest of their life,” he said.

Rideau was Fresh Air’s prison correspondent from 1992-1995. Excerpts from his reports from inside Angola appear are available at The Fresh Air site, along with a 1994 interview of Warden John Whitley in which he explained why he approved of Rideau’s reports on NPR.

The goal of our prison system should be, for moral, economic and crime control purposes, to turn out set free inmates like Wilbert Rideau.

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