[Editor’s Note:] This is the fourth in a series of interviews with people who have gone through tremendous spiritual change while in the prison system. (Go here for part one, here for part two, and here for part 3.) We at HKF find these stories powerful and inspiring in two ways: First, they serve as a voice –however small – opposing the popular attitude that all prisoners are dangerous criminals incapable of change; second, as a reminder of hope and encouragement to all of us who wonder whether our own transformation is possible. Josh Lozoff interviewed Tom through correspondence, having been turned down in his request to meet with Tom in person.
from Josh: This spring, my dad (Bo) and I traveled to Columbia, NC to interview our old friend, Henry Jarrette. Pete (as he’s known to his friends) entered the system in 1970 with a sentence for double murder. He escaped in 1973 and committed another murder, as well as rape and kidnapping, which landed him on North Carolina’s death row. In 1974, when I was three years old, Pete was in my dad’s very first prison workshop. Later that year, the U.S. Supreme Court found the death penalty unconstitutional, and all death row sentences were briefly commuted to life in prison. I began writing to Pete when I was a child, and my folks and I have maintained correspondence with Pete ever since.
JOSH: Say a little bit about your childhood, leading up to the first crimes you committed, and how you got inside the system for the first time.
PETE: I’m from Louisiana, and growing up in the Deep South in the ‘50s, racism was always an issue. I witnessed a lot of abuse that my family got from white people, and I grew up with vengeance in my heart. I always felt a need to even the score. I was able to overcome the racial stuff as a Marine in Vietnam, but it was still motivating me when I got back stateside. In Jacksonville, NC, there were these white Marines pumping a lot of racism, and pushing people around and stuff. I responded to that because I felt it was my duty. Those Marines were the first two people I killed.
BO: Was this a fight, or did you murder these guys?
Not a fight, no. I used combat guerilla tactics to do this. I used a knife and I killed them. I attempted to kill another one but it just wasn’t his time. Because I’d just gotten back from war, and they couldn’t rule out shell shock, they charged me with second-degree murder.
J: What was your mindset after this happened? Were you still caught up in the anger or were you feeling remorse?
I was a combat Marine trained to kill the enemy. When I would kill in Vietnam, it was something I needed to do for my survival. So in my mind, I was back home carrying out a war against racism. I felt bad about it later on when I had an opportunity to look at things from a broader perspective, but at the time I believed it to be my duty as a black man and soldier.
J: So you spent three years in prison, and escaped in ’73.
Yeah, and 6 days later, I was doing all the things I said I wouldn’t do. I had evaluated some guys who had been on escape before - how they got busted, and they all said, “Don’t get high, don’t go back where you’re known, and don’t tell nobody what you did.” I did all three. As soon as I got high, I wanted to see my girl in Memphis. How ridiculous was that? It was destined to happen, that’s all. My preparations were irrelevant.
B: How long did you escape for? 6 days? How did you commit your death row crimes?
When I escaped, I was a fugitive, which in my mind gave me an excuse to kill anybody that got in my way. So I killed a guy and took his car. The kidnapping and rape happened before that. I was in this girl’s car that I had kidnapped. I tried to make her get out of the car but she wouldn’t. So I took her with me.
J: Was she white?
No, she was black. I think if she were white, there’s a possibility that I may… have killed her. But she was a black girl and she just didn’t want to get out.
J: How old was she, do you know?
At that time she was like, 16.
B: How old was the guy that you killed for his car?
He was 15 or 16.
J: During your death penalty trial, were you in a different frame of mind in terms of remorse or regret? Connecting more to the pain that you caused other people? Or was that still not happening to you yet?
Well, I hate to have hurt people, and hurt people’s family. I hate to have done that. I certainly don’t want to do that again. But to me, remorse is like guilt or hatred - it would eat me. It would be like cancer in my system. I’m sensitive to the pains of others. The family members of the people I killed, if I had to be enslaved in their family custody to work to compensate them, I would. Sensitivity, empathy for those people and their families, yes. But to me, remorse is a negative emotion.
B: I think we’re using the term differently. I use the term remorse as a positive emotion. You’re talking about what I would call “neurotic guilt.”
I don’t like some of the dances that I participated in to get where I am right now, but in my mind, all those moments back then were just meant to be. Everything that happened was as it had to be.
B: Well, this is a very tricky thing to talk about. It is all as it had to be. But good and evil are within that. When people say “It’s all perfect,” that doesn’t mean it’s all good. One of the consequences of hurting people is to bear a grief or a sorrow that leads to deep humility. It’s like “I did these things and it’s unbelievable to me that I could have done these things. I caused pain that is still being felt by these families and that’s part of what makes me want to be a good compassionate person now.”
Yes. My choosing not to hurt people now is because of having hurt people before. Now that I’ve participated in the worst offense against someone, I feel I’m qualified to be the ultimate opposite of that -- a loving, compassionate, empathetic person.
B: Right. Regret and remorse don’t have to be self-destructive. Some of it is what motivates us to live our lives in a compassionate way.
So if there is a positive kind of remorse, I suppose my motivation comes from that. It’s ironic that some of the consequences of my actions are a whole lot of good stuff. I thought that karma was just this bad stuff. But karma is everything. There has been good karma as the byproduct of me participating in that terrible dance way back then. I don’t like the idea that I had to be a part of some dance that brought so much suffering. But, for instance, there’s no way I could have met you guys had I not participated in those particular dances back then.
B: Again, you have to be very careful with that one. I’ve gone through this with “A” [a colleague who served 23 years in prison for manslaughter]. He blew a guy’s head off 30 years ago. Right now, he’s a full-time counselor in a drug treatment program helping many, many people. Does that mean we’re glad that his victim died? Of course not. It was a terrible thing that he did, and if he could take it back, he would. But did that death ultimately produce some good consequences? Yes. That’s the paradox. So we can say “I did a terrible thing,” and some good things eventually came out of it.
Yeah, I feel that pain that they experienced and of course the pain that their family… Oh man I hate going to funerals. I watch TV and I cry, you know. I feel their pain that somebody they loved is suddenly not here. And that’s the fuel that has motivated me. So, if that’s remorse, then remorse is there. Remorse for what I’ve done to those people. Yeah, in that context, yeah it is definitely there.
J: Continuing on -- So you ended up on death row.
After I got on death row, my interest was to take care of all these people around me, so again I had a place to focus my energies, try to fight for the people in some way. Socialism started to come into play at this point. One day I saw this guy reading a red book, Communist Manifesto, and I begged him to let me read it. I wasn’t good at reading at that time but I struggled through it. I learned about Karl Marx, his theory about racism being a tool of oppression. And at that point the whole concept of racism started falling to pieces.
J: You mean you started seeing white racists as victims too? That they’ve been manipulated into their prejudice by a bigger source of oppression?
Yeah. The system itself became the element, not racism. Everybody is victimized by those who profit from us feeling divided, separate from each other. So I looked around for how to help the people around me.
J: Did you have any spiritual or religious perspective at this point?
I guess not. I would say I was a humanitarian, but from a secular point of view. I don’t know. I didn’t have a good title for it at that time. All I know is I had a responsibility. I just wanted to take care of people, you know? First it was black people. Then on death row, I saw the whole unit as a community.
B: So how did that feeling go from just having to do with people, to having to do with larger forces that you relate to spiritually?
I think it was from my interest in the people around me. I had an interest in people and these people had different religions. So I needed to find some way to bring these people together.
J: That’s how you ended up in the meditation class?
Yeah. When I saw yoga and the meditation, it was like, wait a minute, this stuff here is loose enough to incorporate everything and appeal to everybody. The yoga and meditation gave me my first universal way to connect with people.
J: How did your awareness continue to evolve?
Well, the different philosophies fascinated me. Then I started kicking it with Bo. I was still all over the place as far as having a defined spiritual path.
B: I remember going back and forth with you in letters some times. You were way out there.
Yeah.
J: As your social beliefs evolved into spiritual beliefs, did you find yourself having to change your lifestyle? Change your habits?
No. That’s why I don’t consider myself to be religious, although I consider myself to be a spiritual student. I wanted to be free to play, to interact with everyone. So even though I helped get a Muslim group set up there, and Bo and I got a little Buddhist group started, I was no Buddhist, I was no Muslim, no Christian. But I learned something from each one of those sects. If I have a religion, it’s Love and Consciousness. And the only worship is to practice that.
J: Did you find yourself moving away from some of the people you were hanging out with? Were there people that you just naturally felt like, “I love ‘em like a brother, but when I’m with them I’m saying negative things?”
Well, even back then, when everybody was picking on the snitches and the baby rapers, I had a problem with that. And I’d say, “Those people already got their time. I’m not going to incarcerate those people inside this prison.” See like homosexuality - that’s something I didn’t have a problem with. And some of the religious people, they frowned on me cause they’d see me with these gay people; And I’d be with some hoodlums - the guys that was doing drugs, beating up people, I would be with these people. I may not be participating in their stuff but I had friends in every element, all around. And even now in this transformation that I made (and I’ve made some noticeable transformations in the past years that shocked me), I’m still using profanity; I’m still associated with people that people don’t want to be associated with. The gays, the crooks, the loudmouths. I associate with all these people. But I’m trying to bring an awareness to them. I’m trying to help them see a different dance going on here.
A lot of guys don’t have a religion. Not everybody’s supposed to have a religion, but everyone needs angels in their world, you know. I’m trying to be - I’ve chosen to be a prison saint of a sort. I never really wanted to change my behavior so much that I look all high and mighty. I’ve always wanted to talk to anybody in the population. And it is a challenge. But that’s the way I want it to be. My ultimate goal is more or less getting people to see that God’s signature is in everybody. God is in everybody. And when we open our heart, our mind, open ourselves, we get a chance to experience the God that’s in us.
J: So there isn’t a radical change in your behavior.
The radical part is in the way I’m kicking with my friends. I’m right down there with this gay person, you know. And I’m right over here with this guy even though he’s talking’ about doing something really crazy. I’m asking him to think: “Is this how you really want to represent yourself?” So I’m asking people questions, I’m hanging out with ‘em. You know, the Christians have a saying, “Don’t cast your jewels before swine.” I say the spiritual thing is to become the jewel among the swine. And then to see that all us swine can become jewels.
J: Do you feel like you’re still evolving, still in the process of transformation?
Last year I went through a big change. My friend said that in 2003 something good was gonna happen. Something big. He felt it in his cards, his crystal ball or whatever he was into. Somehow, I think I tricked myself into believing I was going to be released that year. When that didn’t happen, I think I went through a major spiritual transformation. Because no, I didn’t get to go “out there” but I think I almost deliberately made some type of transformation. Something was supposed to happen, so I created it. It’s like I considered the possibility that my “release” wouldn’t be physical.
J: You’re saying the transformation was what happened to you when you acknowledged that you might never get out?
Yeah, it became apparent to me in a way.
B: So how are you different after that? What’s the result of the transformation?
It’s like I have a bigger responsibility of a sort. It’s like, I’ve got to turn the volume up. You can’t just go over here and pray - you gotta feel your prayer. You can’t go over here and meditate - you gotta live your meditation. It’s gotta be who you are now. But still it can’t be in such a way where you’re some snob; you gotta be with the people in the way that they almost feel that you are not there. In my mind, I gotta become so blended with the people until I don’t feel different. It’s just the way I’m talking’ to them, loving’ them. Be so in one with them until they can’t see the difference. But you know the difference.
B: Well I agree that last year was a transforming year for you; in all these thirty-three years writing each other, that’s the first time I knew you finally made peace with the possibility that you’re never getting out. That’s something that you and I have always gone back and forth on. You’d say, “Well I know it’s okay, but” - and there was a big but, “but I could do so much good out there”
I still have that desire. It’s just that I don’t have to go to some hospital out there to heal someone. There’s a lot of illness all about me; a consciousness that the mental/physical/spiritual balance is not there. In a lot of ways within me and within everybody around me. So right now, every moment is like a precise, perfect opportunity for me to heal something; to experience something deep down inside me.
They gave me a class to teach, you know. A new group of people every few months to help get their GED. The angels blessed me with that. So that means I get a chance to make these people shine.
Sometimes I don’t do it so well, but most of the time I get down there with them on a new level. And sometimes it takes them a long while to see and feel it. But ultimately they feel another part of themselves that they can step into and make these higher choices, you know. That’s the characteristics of my transformation. You know, we’re evolving all the time. The angels are constantly giving us that little nudge
LETTERS
Well, I guess ya’ll never read this Bo.
My girlfriend got me on your mailing list and has asked me again and again why I haven’t written you yet?
I could lie, say I’m too busy, or that I really have nothing to say but I pride myself on the fact that I won’t tell a lie.
I won’t go into why I’m in prison, I will tell you I’m serving a life without parole sentence for my first ever offense of any kind. I will tell you that there was and is no evidence that proves my guilt and I will tell you that I am innocent of what I am accused.
I know what you’re thinking, another guy who claims to be innocent. Why don’t I just accept my fate? Simple. I didn’t do it!
I know, with the corruption prevalent in what passes as the justice system of CA that I have almost no hope of ever getting my old life, or any life back again. I’ve been in prison since ‘98. I faced the death penalty for almost two years till the D.A. dropped it. I was not granted the right to bail, and when I finally was, it was for such an amount (1.2 million) that it was impossible. My judge told me that if I could raise the bail, he’d raise it until I couldn’t possibly pay it. Sound like justice?
There is no evidence against me, so no way to refute the state’s claims. Several of the jurors in my trial have declared they were coerced during deliberations. Out of the fourteen (two alternates), nine of them can’t be found now, all information given to the courts about their addresses and other pertinent information has proven to be false. Does this sound like justice to you?
Well Bo, I’ve been reading your newsletter for about a year and I’ve been wondering something. What gives you the fucking right to give advice about living in prison? Have you ever been a prisoner of any state? Do you have any idea what it is like in here? I read continually how you tell us to accept our situation, make the best of life inside? What about the men who are actually innocent? What about them?
Do you have any idea of the pressures in here? The pressure to join the gangs, to be part of the blatant racism? The inhumane way we are treated by the C.O.’s? How every day our inalienable rights are shit upon, how the guards break federal and state law everyday with no consequence? That there are no programs anymore? Votec classes and school are being phased out and shut down, all extra curricular studies are being dropped so that there is no chance of rehabilitation at all.
They steal our I.W.F. (Inmate Welfare Fund). When I was at Corcoran we figured out that almost any yard with 1,000+ inmates makes about 1.2 million a year in I.W.F. Do you know how much of that we actually get? Less than $5,000 a year. Where does the rest of the $ go? Ask the Warden, and his associates. This $ is supposed to be for our use, not to line the bank accounts of the supposedly law-abiding officers and officials, not to mention local police. It that justice? I thought theft was a crime?
Do people know this is happening? Yes they do. Do they do anything to protest these crimes committed against us everyday? No. They don’t.
So, Bo? Have any damn advice now?
T
Hey T,
I’m sorry you’re having such a rough time and are so angry with me. If I say that I’m full of shit and have no right to say anything to people in prison, will that make you feel better? Will it change the rotten situation you find yourself in? Did you write me just to make one more enemy?
Listen brother, I’m not the enemy. I live, eat and work 24/7 with ex-cons who spent most of their lives in prison for very violent crimes - and they DID do it. Some of them spent over twenty years inside terrible places like you’re in. I don’t need your permission to do this work. Prison is a rotten place, but it is not UNIQUELY rotten, T. Most of the people in the world live under unfair conditions and crooked politicians and all the same sorts of things you’re complaining about. Don’t you read the papers?
And each one of us, every human being, has CHOICES to make. Not a choice of whether anything rotten will happen to us, but a choice of how we will respond when it does. That’s what my work is about, and it applies to you as it does to me and everyone else on the planet.
So you can call me friend or you can call me asshole, as you wish. You have choices to make. You are not powerless. If you choose bitterness and anger as a path, then at least know you have made your own free choice, and take the consequences of it. You are wrong, by the way, about “no one” doing anything about injustice. MANY good people devote their entire lives to changing these things, T. How much did YOU devote yourself to fighting injustice before you were a victim of it? How much of YOUR life was dedicated to helping innocent people get released from prison? Did you ever lift a finger?
Yet you will now bitch and moan and hate people like me who have been working their asses off for years to help people in rotten situations. If you got released tomorrow, would the world see a new nonprofit organization dedicated to helping others? Or would the T show just go on its merry way making up for lost time?
Maybe you are truly not guilty of the crime you were busted for, T. And that’s terrible. I am truly sorry. But you are certainly guilty of a self-centered life, and that’s what you have time now to look into and correct, both for your sake and for the world. My books are about the kind of self-honesty and self-improvement that can make the world a better place. All I hear from you is one guy pissed off at his own circumstance. Just blowing off steam, is that going to change anything? How about helping make your unit a less violent place to live? How about helping younger cons not be scared stiff when they come in?
Neither you nor I have immediate power to get you out of there. But we both have power, and RESPONSIBILITY, for how we live wherever we find ourselves. Do you think that most of the people in high-crime, crack-infested ghettos choose to be there? Or people working in dangerous jobs they hate, but that’s what it takes to feed their families? Many people have to make the best of where they are, and so do you. Just because you’re not guilty doesn’t give you a free pass to sit around and bitch about your bad breaks. No one can stop you from doing it, but it’s just going to alienate all the good people in your life and imprison you even further into hatred and depression.
I guess the bottom line is, being in prison is not your greatest problem, T. T is your greatest problem. Certainly do everything you can through the legal system to shed light on your case, but if you don’t ALSO work on yourself, on your anger and selfishness, it won’t matter if you do get freed someday. Life will still not be on your side. My prayer for you is that you open your heart to something deeper than your own pain. You will NEVER find peace or happiness any other way.
Love, Bo
Dear Bo,
I have been reading your books now for about 3 years. I really enjoy We’re All Doing Time. I am writing about a serious matter. I want to know if a person that has a mental health problem can be spiritual. I suffer from great depression and I also have a compulsion to cut myself. I have even gone as far as biting my wrists open. Because of the medication I take I have trouble staying awake, let alone meditating. My mood changes so fast, one minute I want to live the next minute I want to die. It’s hard being so up and down because after I hurt myself I no longer feel upset, then I regret hurting myself. I don’t know what to do anymore. I feel that my life has no room for being spiritual. Well if you could let me know how to balance a spiritual life as well as good mental health I would be happy.
In peace & Love, K
Dear K,
Sorry you’re having so much confusion about your mental health problems and your spiritual life. I hope I can help you see it a little more clearly. If we believe in God at all, then we have to assume a couple things right off the bat:
God wants everyone to have a spiritual life.
God knows about your mental health problems.
So forget about the idea that “my life has no room for being spiritual.” Everyone has room for being spiritual, we just have to figure out what that means for our own exact situation. In your situation, it may mean getting the right meds that help you to be mentally stable, and figuring out the best time to meditate so that you don’t immediately fall asleep. And even if you find that you can’t “officially” meditate, that’s not the end of the world. Meditation is not a requirement. Being spiritual is mainly about being kind, truthful, sincere, helpful, unselfish, etc. It’s about learning how to accept the life we have been handed, and doing our part to make our life the best we can.
Being spiritual is about not wanting to cause any pain or harm to others OR to ourselves, K. It’s about turning to God with our prayers and problems, knowing that God knows us and has a reason for our lives being like they are.
If you can figure out a way to practice meditation, great. But if you can’t, you can still be as spiritual as anyone else in the world. The most important thing for you right now is to cooperate with your doctors there and find the right balance of medications to help with depression and self-hurting, and yet not zonk you out so much that you can’t keep your eyes open. That is your spiritual work for now, okay? You’re smack dab in the center of your spiritual journey, little brother. Put all your energy into your mental health. Do it for God.
Love, Bo
Dear Sirs or Bo,
My name is W, I’m in prison here in Texas. I am on my second year into a 30 year sentence for Murder 1. During that time I have been through a lot, my daughter has passed away during my incarceration, then my wife left me, and a load of other things have been on my mind. I became someone else, distant, dark, unsociable, very bitter, and disruptive. I tried to get involved in Bible study groups, but I couldn’t concentrate. So I withdrew, began to feel hopeless. I do know God, and I trust Him, but when I would sit and try to speak with Him, my mind was filled with (everything). Then one day I met this man named C, we sat and talked one day after I disrupted the day room with a near fight. During our conversation he handed me a book and tells me to read it, so I took the book to my bunk and opened it up to the letter from a man who talked about how he would deal with people he did not like. He said he would go through his day and everyone he passed he would think to himself “I love you brother”.
Well I thought it sounded silly, but I was willing to try anything to end this urge to yell at everyone. So the next day I began my new task. Each person I seen I thought to myself “I Love you brother”. Bo, every time I would do that I would smile, because it seemed so silly to me, but I promised myself I would do it for at least a week and would you believe for that whole week I never had a cross word or even a cross thought towards another person. And then C told me he could tell I was happy. I asked him how can you tell, he said “every time he saw me I was smiling” and then it suddenly came to me, that I must have been frowning all the time until I began the “I love you brother” technique. Well, I would smile when I had that thought because I thought it was silly. But unbeknownst to me instead of greeting everyone with a frown they were greeted with a smile which changed everything. Next in the book I began to learn how to meditate, and after awhile I was able to focus on things and be more sociable. Sorry I went on so long with this story.
Sincerely with Love and breathing deeply,
Love, W
a little good news
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