Reform by Belt

Reform by Belt

Ray Green

Reform by Belt

By Ray Green

Copyright 2013 Ray Green

Smashwords Edition

Foreword

I am a so-called karate master way past the mature age of three score and ten.

So when I am asked to read an author's manuscript I usually decline the invitation - in a nice way of course.

Ray Green contacted me out of the blue, reminding me that he had been a karate student of mine way back in antiquity, and that he was writing his fifth book, a novel titled Reform by Belt. The main theme of the story he said, was the reform of violent prisoners through Karate training.

Wow, I thought to myself at the time. Is this guy for real? He sure has high aspirations - but can he deliver?

When I challenged him on the issue of changing violent criminals into normal law abiding citizens, his reply was:

As you so well know, Sensei (teacher), dynamic Shotokan karate training changes people. By the time they reach the coveted black belt they have changed - for the better - in many ways. And this is not only from the demanding physical training. Of equal importance is the student’s understanding and demonstration of the Five Maxims of Shotokan Karate: Character, Sincerity, Effort, Etiquette and Self Control.

Here was a student of mine reminding me of the life changing benefits of karate-do.

Now I wanted to read the manuscript of Reform by Belt.

When the bulky package arrived I thought, This had better be good!

I skimmed through the first few pages thinking, Not too bad for an ex-karate man.

My thoughts during the next chapter were, This is warming up nicely.

Well, from then on I was hooked and I could not wait to get home and onto my bed, where I would carefully read the next compelling pages; each one reminding me how even the most unlikely students, with the guidance of experienced Sensei, are able to reach physical and mental heights which previously seemed impossible.

Doogie, one of the prisoners, who stands 6' 7" with a body like an assault tank and an attitude to match, is one such character who challenges the ideals and physicality of Drew Staynton, the creator of the reform program.

Ray Green knows how to draw the reader in and rev up interest with the flip of each page.

He writes on a subject which needs addressing in this violent age we currently live in. Criminals need rehabilitation not chaining.

Reform by Belt is not merely a two-dimensional page turning story. The content of this book is dynamite to say the least. It explodes the traditional myth of locking up prisoners and hoping they will rot. Why? Because they deserve to. Not good thinking. What will happen to these so called 'rotters' when they are released? In many a case he or she will become a parasite, sucking on the life-blood of a healthy society.

In this story Ray Green provides a solution to the problem of criminals entering prison and who by rubbing shoulders with their fellow inmates emerge from confinement as 'professional' criminals with pure hatred in their hearts and a menace to peace loving citizens.

You will be mesmerised at how one hundred of the most hardened and violent criminals are relocated into an intriguing environment. They are taught, driven, chastised, challenged, counselled and sometimes hammered into shape, by the formidable karate expert, Drew Staynton and his 11 Black Belt assistants. They will spend a full twelve months in this new free setting which becomes fraught with danger - both for the prisoners (now called students) and for Drew and his small team who courageously risk their lives. They exist in the faith-filled belief that Karate training, incorporating the Five Maxims, will change the 'students' into useful law abiding citizens.

For those who enjoy action together with intrigue, Reform by Belt, is a must read.

I loved it!

Stan Schmidt

Shotokan Karate Master

March 2012

Prologue

Recidivism –

Noun - repeated or habitual relapse, as into crime.

Psychiatry - the chronic tendency toward repetition of criminal or antisocial behavior patterns.

Recidivism is a burden on the prison system and on society as a whole.

It costs enormous funds year after year to apprehend and punish the same individuals repeatedly.

The most serious offenders are murderers, rapists, kidnappers, and armed robbers.

They don’t learn from their mistakes.

They don’t want to learn.

They scoff at authorities who try to help them.

They respect nobody, least of all themselves.

In the USA, more than four in 10 offenders nationwide return to state prison within three years of their release despite a massive increase in state spending on reforms.

The annual cost of a single prisoner in a maximum security facility is $50,000.

The USA spends more than $60 billion a year on corrections, yet recidivism rates remain stubbornly high. As economic pressure compels states to do more with less, policy makers are looking for a better public safety return on their corrections dollars.

Some States have plans for managing all but the most serious violators in their community.

This story is about the management of the serious violators.

Chapter 1

Doogie Manning was a large man. Born in East Los Angeles, he was 6 foot 7 inches and weighed close to 300 pounds. He was black and he was proud and he was only 25 years old.

He didn’t know who his father was and only had vague memories of his mother, none of them pleasant. His schooling was erratic because of truancy and although he left the school system before he was 14 years old, there was no authority willing or prepared to coerce him back to a classroom environment. He terrified the teachers, students and administrators with his violent behavior. Only his football coach was sad to see the end of Dog Man, the name he preferred.

Doogie survived through cunning and brute force. His first real job was in an abattoir, where he lifted sides of beef over his shoulder and slammed them into delivery trucks as if they were bags of groceries. He hated the stench and the rigidity of the strict working hours. At 16 he became a junior bouncer for a Harlem nightclub, where he first encountered drugs, alcohol and prostitution. At 17, the nightclub owner recognized his physical ability by promoting him to head-bouncer, doubled his salary and fired two other bouncers resulting in a net reduction of his security costs. Good for Doogie and good for the owner.

Doogie was not happy. Although he could scare most men and shocked all women because of his sheer physical presence, he was not inherently a violent person. He loved children, although never in a sexual way, and small animals delighted him. Their innocence and fearless acceptance of his size and brute strength gave him a sense of comfort he didn’t feel with adults. Doogie considered adults, especially adults with authority were his nemesis. He knew they could hurt him – not physically – by denying him freedom to do what he wanted, where he wanted and when he wanted. They could force him to study or work harder or imprison him. They could deny him food or shelter. They could make his life hard and every confrontation with an adult with authority resulted in conflict, argument and often violence. That was Doogie’s method of conflict resolution.

He was serving 25 years for manslaughter having killed his parole officer who threatened to have his parole canceled. The prosecutor reduced the charge from first-degree murder after Doogie’s lawyer brought forward corroborating evidence from many other parolees that the parole officer was a sadistic individual who often threatened and harassed prisoners. Doogie had been on parole after serving four years for the brutal assault of a police officer who tried to arrest him for drunk and disorderly behavior after virtually destroying a bar in the Bronx. He previously served 10 months for car theft and two years for breaking and entering.

The judge at Doogie’s trial was not happy with the prosecutor’s willingness to reduce the charge and considering Doogie’s previous convictions handed down a more severe sentence than manslaughter would normally carry. He did not envy the prison system that needed to incarcerate Doogie for the next 25 years, but that was not his problem.

Jamie Piradock was born in New York into an environment where from his first day he stood no chance of becoming a useful citizen of his society.

His mother was a heroin addict.

Jamie didn’t cry for the first few weeks of his little life.

Instead, he screamed his tiny lungs raw, because he was suffering from a severe case of heroin withdrawal.

The doctors recognized this and treated him as they would any other heroin addict. They gave him methadone and waited for the monkey to get off his back.

When he and his mother finally went home to their one bedroom apartment, Social Services visited them regularly for the first six months. Thereafter, they left Jamie and his mother to fend for themselves.

Because of the limited funds she received from Social Security and her costly heroin addiction, Jamie’s mother treated her only son poorly. She did not breast feed him because of her addiction, so he was small for his age. He developed a violent temper, no doubt inherited from his environment where his mother and father were constantly at war with each other. Spousal abuse was one of his father’s lesser evils.

On the day after his fourth birthday, his father began a life sentence for his seventh criminal conviction, at a Nevada State Correctional Facility for offenders with sociopathic behavior patterns.

Jamie was a loner. He had no friends. Other than his mother and father, he had no relatives. He had no ambition except to survive each day, with no help from an unaware and uncaring society.

At the compulsory age of six, he began his schooling, but his truancy and several expulsions led to an abysmal education. He left school at the age of 15 with a diploma in motor vehicle theft, a degree in assault, and a master’s in criminal behavior.

At 16 he was sentenced to the first of his eight criminal convictions at a juvenile facility – he had finally surpassed his father’s achievements at something.

In that environment he excelled. Although small in size, he was ferociously fearless and swift of foot and temper. Most of the guards avoided him wherever possible. All the other inmates were afraid of his temper and tendency to violence and because of this they accorded him unwarranted favors and privileges leading him to become the ‘king of the roost’.

At 18 he committed his first murder, the stabbing death of a drug dealer with a broken bottle following a disagreement and was sentenced to only five years at a low-level security prison. He escaped after only three months, was recaptured while holding up a gas station where he used a flame thrower to terrorize the night attendant. The court added two years to his original sentence and four years for the attempted holdup.

At 23 he was paroled, and under the attention of his caring parole officer, it appeared Jamie had mended his ways. He received individual counseling, he attended, not without some duress, interpersonal skills and behavioral programs and his mentors treated him with a degree of respect he had never experienced before.

To say he disappointed them by viciously beating his behavioral psychologist to death with a fire extinguisher was an overstatement. The professionals who attempted to treat Jamie were not surprised. They had been wary of his positive approach and except for his parole officer they heaved a collective sigh of relief when he received a 20 year sentence, in maximum security, by a judge too weary to consider Jamie was anything but wasted effort.

Mario Zontabo, born in Queens, had a bizarrely similar story to Jamie.

He was an orphan so there was no family environmental excuse for his antisocial behavior. He was, however, sexually abused by three male and one female employee at the two orphanages he attended.

After his last episode of ‘kindness’ from his uncaring counselors, he ran away from the orphanage and began his extended criminal career, paralleling Jamie’s to a remarkable extent.

At 15 he served four months for shoplifting.

At 16 he served two years for aggravated sexual assault on a female attendant at a Florida theme park.

At 20 he served six months for assault with intent to do serious bodily harm to a night club bouncer, and the only reason his sentence was not of longer duration was the criminal record of the bouncer for assault on five occasions. Mario pleaded not guilty on the grounds of self-defense, but the judge gave only partial weight to the plea considering Mario continued to beat and kick the bouncer for five minutes while the man lay helpless on the ground.

At 24 he was arrested for possession of two kilograms of heroin and while being driven to the arresting officer’s precinct, he managed to escape and was tracked down to an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Queens in New York. He opened fire with a mini-Uzi submachine gun on the SWAT team that surrounded the only entry to the dilapidated building, seriously wounding three officers.

On sentencing Mario, the judge noted with a degree of scorn, that he thought Mario was one of the worst cases of societal mistreatment he had ever come across, nevertheless he sentenced him to 20 years in a maximum security facility.

Sheila Hamond, 23 years old, was born in Boston and moved to New York when she was 12 years old. She started to associate with a rough crowd from the age of 15 and was in trouble with the law starting on her 16th birthday.

She was arrested for drunk and disorderly behavior at 16 and was released into the custody of her parents by a compassionate judge. Unfortunately, her parents were con-artists and fooled the judge into believing their pressured work situation prevented them paying their daughter enough attention. The facts that her father was a professional gambler while her mother was a borderline alcoholic were not available to the judge.

She was arrested again three months later, compounding her offense by assaulting a police officer when he tried to detain her after she ram-raided a convenience store using a stolen van. She faced the same judge as before and he warned the parents to lift their game while sentencing their daughter to six months in a juvenile detention center.

On her release her mother tried to talk to her daughter, the first serious talk they had ever had, but the alcohol on her breath and the hypocritical advice she gave Sheila resulted in an argument. The father intervened and both mother and daughter received severe injuries resulting in the father’s arrest and the daughter’s hospitalization for 10 days.

When Sheila arrived home from the hospital, she found her father beating her mother with a broomstick and despite her frail condition from the beating he had given her, Sheila grabbed a bread knife and proceeded to stab him 17 times.

She was sentenced to five years for involuntary manslaughter. The judge warned her that had she not been a minor, the three strikes rule would have applied and she may have received a much longer sentence.

She was paroled three years later and at the age of 20 began to look for work for the first time. She found nothing that suited her and a life of crime was what she thought she needed to survive. For 12 months she robbed liquor stores with two drug addicts from Queens and narrowly avoided arrest a number of times.

Finally, an argument erupted between her drug addict friends over the split up of the proceeds from their last robbery, a crime she had nothing to do with, resulting in them killing each other. She was arrested as an accessory after the fact of murder.

She presented before the same judge who had threatened her with the three strike rule and this time, despite her plea of innocence, he sentenced her to 20 years in maximum security.

Maria Sociton was born in Florida. Her parents were refugees from Cuba. At 25 years old she had already served eight years in either juvenile or adult prisons for crimes ranging from petty theft, prostitution, drug use and possession, assault, manslaughter, kidnapping and finally murder.

She was serving a 25 year sentence for the last crime of murdering her parole officer whom she swore attacked and raped her. On examination at the nearest hospital emergency ward she presented with no injuries, sexual or otherwise. Her victim, however, suffered severe groin, scrotum and penile slashes from a seven-inch switchblade found on her possession. The jury agreed with the prosecution, and the judge commented that he thought she was a person of no possible redemption and her 25-year sentence was as light as he could administer.

Max Trivalle, born in the Philippines, age 22, was sentenced to 20 years after a plea-bargain for turning states evidence in return for a charge after the fact of the rape and murder of a 20 year-old nurse he met while he was receiving treatment for injuries sustained in a barroom brawl in Philadelphia.

The officer who found the young nurse’s body, stuffed into a drainpipe near Max’s ramshackle cottage on the outskirts of Reading, New Jersey, said he had never felt more ashamed for the human race considering the injuries the nurse sustained.

In considering his sentence the judge agreed with the defense that Max tried to stop his co-accused, but had not come forward to the authorities to report the crime. He said he was forced to take into account the long and sordid criminal career of the accused. This included five separate prison terms for attempted rape, assault, armed robbery and kidnapping.

Bobbie Julietto, 22, was born in Memphis and abandoned by her mother on the steps of a Baptist Church. She became a ward of the State of Tennessee and moved from one set of foster parents to another until finally escaping to New Jersey at the age of 14.

Her dire financial situation led her into prostitution and drug addiction. She escaped twice from the same juvenile center after she was arrested for possession of heroin and an unlicensed revolver.

At the age of 16 she was arrested for the second time for shoplifting and was sent to a different juvenile center where she again escaped, this time fleeing to New York.

At 17 she was arrested for prostitution and possession of a large quantity of cocaine. She was not at that stage a drug addict, having weaned herself off her prior addiction when she realized it would eventually kill her. She became a pusher of the drug to supplement her meager earnings from prostitution.

At 18 she was arrested for the abduction and murder of her cocaine dealer when he tried to rape her.

Her attorney failed to prove to the court that she acted in self-defense after the court heard that the deceased dealer was held in captivity for four days before his genitals and both hands were amputated with a blunt instrument.

It took the police and district attorney two months to uncover her prior criminal record from the other states. It took the jury less than three hours to find her guilty and the judge broke with tradition and passed sentence on the same day as the jury verdict.

She was serving 25 years in maximum security for the kidnapping, mutilation and the murder of her drug dealer.

The list goes on…………….

Chapter 2

Drew Staynton, a 7th Dan Black belt in Shotokan karate, sighed as he carefully folded his cell phone and gently placed in on the desk. His face was impassive, although a slight rippling of his jaw muscles was an indication of his anger and frustration.

Anger was an emotion he thought he had conquered. He had spent too many years trying to control his own quick to rise temper to allow a setback such as this to affect him. He pressed his palms together, like a golfer holding a club, his thumbs curled back while his index fingers pointed straight out and he exhaled deeply before inhaling again and holding it. He let the breath out slowly and his body relaxed into complete stillness.

He stood and faced the windows. He watched the trees of the forest lazily sway to a slight wind and observed how their pattern was unpredictable and yet constant. He smiled as he felt their contained power and knew he would forever be an admirer of the peace and tranquility they always gave him.

Senator Morgan and the system he was part of was a vexation to his spirit. If he could he would deal with someone else, but there was nobody else. His influence and contacts with the Federal Bureau of Prisons was undoubtedly of use to Drew, but the process was taking too long. Drew was a patient man, but his patience was running on empty. It was no wonder this fine country was in such a mess if decisions took so painstakingly long to make. This was not rocket science. This was not gambling. This was not wishful thinking. This was a plan to save the US Government multimillions of dollars a year. And yet they procrastinated. Why were they so cautious? Why the constant questions? Why the doubt?

He had approached the senator four months earlier and put forward his proposal to save the US Bureau of Prisons one billion dollars over the next twenty years.

The plan was simple. The plan was thorough. The proposal was professional and comprehensive. It contained a mass of detail and yet the presentation was precise. In theory it was a no-brainer for a cash-strapped and overwhelmed prison system.

Drew would take 1000 of the worst inmates from the prison system each year and turn them into law-abiding and useful citizens of society.

Simple. Uncomplicated. No strings attached.

Then why was there such reluctance to proceed?

Was it fear their system would appear tarnished with the success of Drew’s proposal? Was it fear of Drew’s failure? Fear of criticism from the senator’s political opponents? All the above?

Drew let his mind wander to his first meeting with the senator in Maryland four months earlier…

Senator, I thank you for seeing me and hearing what I have to offer, Drew said, admiring the view from the senator’s spacious office overlooking the parkland outside the Maryland office complex.

Their handshake was brief and to Drew’s surprise, the senator’s grip was like a wet fish struggling to survive out of its environment. He had consciously relaxed his own naturally firm grip least he crush the senator’s immaculately manicured hand.

As I said on the phone, Mr. Staynton, I don’t have much time. If we could keep this brief and to the point, I’ll be able to decide if what you propose has any merit.

Right, Senator, Drew said, a little disappointed at the clipped and officious manner the senator was adopting. I’ll try to be as brief as possible. My proposal is not complicated and it should be of great financial interest to you and your colleagues in the prison system.

Well, we’re always looking for new approaches that can save us money while still keeping within the guidelines of the system.

Drew knew what buttons he should push.

What I’m proposing could save you one billion dollars, Drew said, keeping his face passive.

He watched as the senator’s eyebrows raised in surprise.

A billion dollars? Are you serious? the senator asked, leaning forward in his chair.

Yes, Senator. At least.

Ok, you have my attention. Now tell me how.

Drew leaned back and began his presentation.

Senator, as you well know there are thousands of young offenders in maximum security in the Federal Prison system. Each year, with mandatory sentencing now commonplace, the numbers are growing. Your systems are not coping with offenders who have little hope and care nothing for your efforts at rehabilitation.

Now that’s something I understand, the senator growled. He had presented a summation of the problems to a full sitting of the President’s Cabinet the previous year, yet little had changed since then, except the number of inmates had grown exponentially. The system is overcrowded and our strenuous efforts result in few if any improvements. I’m interested to hear what you have to offer.

Senator, I can reduce the number of long-term maximum security inmates by 100. Today. Now. Just give me the word, Drew whispered.

What are you going to do? Execute them? the senator smirked. I think the civil libertarians may find that somewhat objectionable.

No, I’m not going to execute them. I’m going to take them off your hands, Drew said, for a small fee, of course, he added, smiling, but without the senator’s smirk.

Ah, I knew there was a catch somewhere. How small a fee? the senator asked, furrowing his brow with suspicion.

Drew nodded and continued as if the senator had not spoken.

Your department has pushed out figures that state the cost to the taxpayer is 50 thousand dollars for every prisoner for every year they serve out their sentence. So, an inmate serving a 20 year sentence will cost you one million dollars. And that’s not considering inflation and the escalating cost of their incarceration. Do you agree with those numbers?

Yes, I agree. Costs vary by State but only by a small margin. One million over 20 years is conservative, the senator nodded.

My fee, Senator, is 100 thousand dollars for each prisoner rehabilitated into society. You’ll save 900 thousand a prisoner over the term of their sentence.

That’s different from the one billion you spoke of, the senator replied, shrugging. Your numbers don’t stack up?

I’m proposing the creation of 10 centers for rehabilitation, each with 100 prisoners. Once all centers are up and running we’re talking of 1000 prisoners, every year. Over a 20 year period there’s your billion.

The senator furrowed his brow yet again, his mind working overtime with the calculations. He had promised the president he would solve the problem, or at least mitigate it by significant amounts. He based his reputation on this commitment.

I’m sorry. I don’t understand. Please explain more fully. I don’t want to appear a little slow. I know I’m from the south and we take things on face value. How can you come waltzing into my office and offer to save me a billion where a thousand Federal Prison System administrators have failed to reduce our costs in any way? Who’s going to pay for these prisoners? You? Out of a fee of 100 grand? You must either be mad or you really are going to execute them.

I’m going to rehabilitate them, Senator. Them I’m going to send them back into society as law abiding, taxpaying citizens, and they’ll not reoffend. On that you have my guarantee. If they fail the program I receive no payment and I return them to you unharmed in any way.

Of all the initiatives we have implemented over the years, rehab is our biggest failure. How will you succeed where we have failed? the senator asked, the smirk sliding easily into place.

My methods will be different from yours, Senator. And my costs will be significantly lower. With a guarantee in place, what have you to lose? Drew asked, his face showing no emotion whatsoever.

Only the next election. My position in government. My reputation. My career. Nothing you need worry about, but it worries me. Unless I’m convinced your scheme will work, then….

It’s not a scheme, Senator, Drew interrupted. It’s something I’ve been doing for the past 30 years and I’ve not failed once. It’s a methodical approach to the application of character, sincerity, effort, etiquette, and self-control. Karate has tremendous character building and cleansing qualities. It works and I’ve proven it time and time again. You should come along to one of my dojos and see for yourself.

The senator knew of Drew’s involvement in martial arts. He knew he owned the largest chain of karate schools in the USA. He knew he was a wealthy man. He had investigated his background before agreeing to meet him.

Mr. Staynton…,

Please call me Drew, Senator. I hate being called Mr. Nobody calls me Mr. I’m usually called Drew or Sensei Drew. No Mr. in my title.

Ok, Drew, but I’ll leave out the Sensei part unless I become a student of yours and at my age it’s not likely, the senator grinned, although he didn’t give Drew the same courtesy of using his own first name.

I have many students a lot older than you, Senator. And they enjoy their sport.

Let’s dispense with these frivolities, Drew. I’m a busy man. Tell me your plan and let’s move on, shall we, the senator smiled, although the smile went no further than his lips.

Like a fighter about to deliver the winning punch, Drew thought. But the Senator had no winning punch up his sleeve. He was now posturing, dancing around with nowhere to go. Drew breathed in deeply to avoid becoming too aggressive with this man of politics.

I’ve told you my plan, Senator. What part of one billion saving and 1000 rehabilitated prisoners every year don’t you understand? If it’s frivolities you want to dispense with then I’m all for that. I want you to watch and listen without interruption. Agreed?

Watch what? the senator asked, a little in awe now of Drew’s sudden switch from the normal groveling visitors he usually received.

I’ve prepared a slide presentation on this computer, Drew said, taking a small iPad from his briefcase. It’ll only take a few minutes and it’ll answer all your questions. May I?

Go ahead. Would you like something to drink while I watch and listen, the senator asked. My secretary…

I’m fine, Senator. You watch and listen then we can talk.

Drew slid the iPad in front of the senator and touched the screen once. It began its show and for once a US Senator was speechless...

Now Drew waited for the return call from the senator, who had promised to call back within the hour. Time wasted; time he could be spending organizing, arranging, and planning the next phase of his ultimate goal. His years of martial arts training had instilled in him a sense of patience, yet when it came to politicians and bureaucrats his patience ran thin.

The cell phone chirped.

Drew flipped it open, Yes, Senator, he acknowledged knowing from the caller-ID who the call was from.

Hi, Drew, Senator Morgan said. I’m sorry it took so long. I’m afraid we’ve had a setback. I don’t think it’s anything insurmountable, although it may delay things a little.

What setback, Senator? Drew asked, his brow furrowing with disappointment

There are a number of senior administrators who think you’re underestimating the seriousness of the crimes committed by the type of inmates you would be initiating into your program. They also think you’re underestimating the capacity for violence of these inmates and that you may not be able to control such a large group.

Drew shook his head wondering why they did not understand the measures he and his team would take to prevent and control any violence from prisoners.

Senator, I…

Let me finish, the senator interrupted. They want a demonstration. They want you to prove you can do what you say you can do. Only then will they give their final approval.

What kind of demonstration? Drew asked. They’ve seen the videos of my Sensei and me. What more do they want?

Your videos are in a school environment. Indeed, they’re impressive videos but they don’t think in a crisis your men will be able to cope with an inmate riot.

Ok, Senator. What do they want? Drew asked, anticipating the request for further demonstrations would be a waste of time.

This is what they want, Drew. And I’m afraid unless you pass this test of theirs, they’ll reject your proposal. They have significant concerns about the security of your proposal, and that’s not to mention the legal issues with early parole. I’m handling those with the AG. They’re insistent and I can’t say I disagree with them. They want you to…

Drew and three of his Sensei arrived early. They wanted to prepare for the ‘final demonstration’, although they didn’t know exactly what they were preparing for.

On arrival at the prison, a junior officer of the Federal Bureau of Prisons met them at the security gate.

Follow me, please, was all the officer said.

They walked down a long, dim corridor and finally arrived at a set of double doors. On entering, they saw a large group of corrective service officers, milling around what was obviously a mess-hall.

The senator and another man came forward and shook Drew’s hand.

Drew Staynton, meet Commander Mico Halburton. Miko is in charge of this facility. He runs a tight shop here and has never had any troubles with his inmates.

The two men shook hands and the commander’s strong face and equally strong handshake impressed Drew.

Pleased to meet you, Mr. Staynton. I think we can get right to it. Let me explain what we have planned for you. This is a typical mess-hall. The inmates eat here three times a day. At most sessions there is some kind of trouble. Two inmates may start a scuffle with one another and our guards need to break it up. Or an inmate may become aggressive with one of the guards and before it gets out of hand we need to take action. There could be a mass riot, although that’s never happened on my watch. Today, we’re going to play out such scenarios and I want to observe how you and your men handle the situation.

Drew was surprised with what the commander was proposing. He had expected a lot worse.

Is that all? he asked the commander. For a minute there I thought we were in trouble, he smiled at the senator and the commander.

I don’t think you understand, Mr. Staynton. You won’t be dealing with inmates. My guards will play the role of the inmates, and believe me they are as tough as they come. These are not a bunch of 25-year-old pussies. These are men hardened to the ways of criminals and I’ve ordered them to take their role-playing seriously. They won’t pull any punches.

No problem, Drew replied, adopting the same hard attitude as the commander. I’ll instruct my men accordingly. Will your men have weapons?

They’ll not be carrying their usual side arms, but in a prison environment, anything else is possible. If it’s a problem we can call this off, the commander said, a tiny smirk creeping onto his lips but not his eyes.

No problem, Commander. Let’s do it, Drew nodded.

Drew walked back to his three Sensei and spoke softly to them, telling them what to expect.

I think they’ll attack from behind and in numbers. Use all your techniques, but no solid kicks or punches. We don’t want any serious injuries. We don’t want to play this down either. Use your discretion. Assume this is a full contact kumite session in a dojo. It’s serious but not life threatening.

The three junior Sensei nodded, and mentally prepared themselves.

Drew was referring to sparring