INCOMING, ANOTHER OXYGEN-WASTER

“He went from kid to adult in prison, probably really quickly, too,” Coleman’s lawyer James Galen Jr., said outside court while flanked by Coleman’s family. “If Coleman is the rapist police say he is, I have to wonder if we didn’t create a monster by putting him in the Michigan Department of Corrections at such a tender age.”

Detroit Free Press, January 25, 2011.

You’ve got to be joking? To imply that my employer is somehow responsible for making Raynard Coleman what he is today is just plain ludicrous. The only thing my employer did that was detrimental to ex-felon Coleman is take his DNA before he paroled; a DNA sample that, according to police, links him to six out of seven rapes in Detroit. My employer is not in the business of raising teenagers; my employer’s goal is to see to it that Coleman, as well as other prisoners, serve at least their minimum sentences, if not more. The ultimate responsibility of “doing the right thing” falls on the shoulders of Coleman himself. Perhaps my employer was too easy on him; giving him three hots, a cot, weight-pit, sports activities, television, church (including bingo), and various self-help programs. It’s fairly obvious that he’s still a man-child who needs constant supervision. I guess fourteen years of lock-up isn’t enough. Unfortunately, when he returns to prison he will be high-fiving his buddies, while my peers will be shaking their heads and saying, “Another oxygen-waster has returned.”