As Grandpa gets down to her level, smiling for the photo, he knows it may be the last time he sees her for a while. Not long after this photograph was taken, Robert Booker made the fifteen hour move west from Michigan, through Indiana, Illinois and Iowa – all the way to Yankton, South Dakota, where he settled into his new home on what was once a college campus, but is now known as Yankton Federal Prison Camp. We have so many prisoners, we really do turn schools into prisons.
Booker talks of how beautiful the place is, the skies filled with hundreds of geese travelling in one direction one day and in the opposite the next, searching for something. The trees hold nests too numerous to count. The food’s better than where he was before. The people are respectful.
To his friends, he’s Gino, or Bob, or Bobby. To some he is Robert. To the littlest ones, he is Grandpa. Regardless of who he is to them – he is currently far away. But, no matter where he has been geographically for the last two decades, he has been ‘removed’ from them all, cut off by concrete and fences, phone rules, mail restrictions and visitation room requirements.
Robert Booker has been without his family for nearly twenty-five years. He missed dinners, holidays, graduations and funerals. He missed watching his children grow and seeing his parents buried. Currently, he’s missing taking his grandkids to the park, telling them tall tales, and holding their tiny hands in his while they cross the street. He’s missing every single one of their ‘firsts’. He lost one generation and he is currently losing another.
Booker isn’t a danger to himself or anyone, that is why he is housed in a ‘camp’. He’s proven he is not a security threat and has spent the last two and a half decades writing. Not just writing, but achieving goals many writers only dream of. He’s worked hard, authoring six published books, with another fifty manuscripts in storage.
In spite of that, the federal government spends over $30,000 a year to keep him far removed from his family and housed in Yankton, South Dakota. That figure becomes three quarters of a million dollars if multiplied by twenty five, the approximate number of years that Booker has been incarcerated. That’s a lot of money to keep a man that is no threat to anyone from going home.
The housing costs do not include the money the government has spent to fight the legal battle to keep him behind bars. Mr. Booker was arrested June 29, 1994 on charges that included possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine, conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute crack cocaine and operating a ‘crack distribution house’.
On April 13, 1995, Booker was sentenced to twenty years in federal prison. That wasn’t enough, and in July of 1996 he was sentenced again and given thirty years. A year later – Booker was again resentenced, this time getting Life. It’s hard to understand why so much money would be invested to keep one nonviolent individual from ever being free again, and it would be difficult to calculate how many thousands of dollars were spent in order for the prosecution to achieve that goal. It seems the man hours and funds could be spent on something much less destructive and more productive. It defies logic, really.
Today, nearly twenty five years after his conviction, Robert Booker is a loving father, an adoring grandfather, an author, and friend to many. There was a war started decades ago that has not improved the drug situation in this country, but rather continues to feed the hunger of the largest mass incarceration problem in the world – the overpopulation of the prisons in the United States. This destructive pattern is not only filling our prisons to overflowing, but also destroying families, leaving large sections of society feeling hopeless, helpless and targeted – with good reason.
Twenty years into Booker’s life sentence, the sentencing guidelines changed, reducing Life to 38 years. Then, before he left office, Obama granted him clemency, once again reducing the sentence, this time to thirty years.
Yet, Robert Booker remains in prison to this day. He is serving his time as a trusted inmate, walking the halls of what used to be a college campus in Yankton and watching the geese fly by. He continues to miss all of the ‘firsts’ with his grandkids, walking in endless circles around a track, and writing. And the government continues to fund his incarceration in order to punish a man who has already been punished, reform a man who has already been reformed, and keep a man they know is not a threat to anyone far removed from those who love him. For what? Robert Booker is the face of the fallout of the failed war on drugs.
AUTHOR’S NOTE. Robert Booker loves to hear from people and readers of his books. He can be contacted at:
Robert Booker #19040039
Federal Prison Camp Yankton
P.O. Box 700
Yankton, SD 57078
Booker’s books can be purchased at his Author Page on Amazon.
I’ve spent ninety-two weeks plus, cooped up at The People’s Zoo. This is where they place all of the untrustworthy incorrigibles to be petted, groomed and most importantly – watched.
I pace my floor in slow, calculated strides. Like a feline, the King of All Cats – The Lion. Yet, I dare roar. It’ll expose my hand and allow them to see me in the light that I’ve worked so hard to distract them from. I’m now the ‘Quiet One’. I smile quietly to myself as I unsheathe my sword. I admire the elegance of my work. She’s been with me for as long as I can remember. Flexible, yet firm. Molding to my hand. It belongs there. So, I write,
Once she returns, I step in the yard and the door is closed behind me. I stoop once again to place my hands through the slot so the handcuffs can be removed. My clothes are then passed to me through the slot. I quickly begin putting them on and trying to get warm.
ABOUT THE WRITER. Travis Runnels, is a published author, and is currently working on his second novel. He lives on Death Row.
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