Writing this book has led me on many adventures, from having lunch with a paroled murderer to enjoying an inmate-organized poetry reading inside a maximum-security prison. Many things surprised me. My image of prisoners doing push-ups in their cells was shattered when I stepped inside one of the cells and realized there wasn’t enough room to do a push-up. At the same time, the prisons I visited weren’t dungeons. They were brightly lit and exceedingly clean. The maximum-security Oregon State Penitentiary was peculiarly windy inside, while the medium-security Oregon State Correctional Facility smelled like dryer sheets and contained a room full of cubicles in which inmates answered the DMV call line. It looked a lot like the offices I worked in when I was in college.
What surprised me most in the end was the cost. To remand a parolee back to prison costs an average of fifty thousand dollars, money that can be levied at the behest of a single parole officer for infractions as minor as crossing a state line or failing to report. As an educator, I can’t help but wonder what the country would be like if teachers had that kind of money to spend on troubled and vulnerable students before those students landed in prisons, jails, or juvenile detention facilities.
I’d like to thank the parolees, inmates, and correctional staff who shared their experiences with me. A big thank-you also goes to my wife, Fay Stetz-Waters, for answering my never-ending stream of legal questions. More importantly, thank you, Fay, for making my life a true happily-ever-after story. Thanks also to my wife and my friend Scott McAleer for taking me to eastern Oregon to get a look at the real-life Tristess County. Thank you to Chris Riseley for helping me work out plot points by the river and showing me that the answer is “whiskey and welding.”
Thank you to all my friends and colleagues at Linn-Benton Community College and to all the friends, near and far, who make my life rich.Thank you to Jane Dystel and Miriam Goderich for opening the doors of the publishing world for me. Thank you to Madeleine Colavita and the staff at Forever Yours for making this book the best it could possibly be. Finally, thank you to my parents, Elin and Albert Stetz, for providing a beautiful model for marriage and for life. Happy fiftieth anniversary, Mom and Dad!