When I sit back and think about the events of the last couple of days, I repeat a pattern I continue to find useful in guiding me through these situations.

 First, what is the motivation and objectives of the people I am dealing with?

 My motivation is simple, protect the family. I want this nightmare over. Additionally, I would like to see long term change, a reprogramming of the Machine to prevent some of the horrors the Machine visited on my children.

 Patricia’s motivations can not be determined due to her mental illness. Let me illustrate – one could impute a motivation for Patricia not to return to prison and on the surface I would agree. Yet her illness is such where she can not connect all the dots. She is able to construct a world where she can do anything she wishes and would not return to jail. There is a part of her that believes if the ‘truth’ came out about me, she would get a medal and not prison.  Her physical assault on me while we drove down a freeway in California is on point. Her assault endangered herself as much as it did the children and I.

 Thus, Patricia remains an unknown variable.

 The Department of Corrections motivations are clear and understanding them is necessary. The Department motivations are classical bureaucratic. The Department wishes to protect itself, maintain control, and do as little work as possible. These are the three rules of bureaucratic behavior.

 The Department does not give a damn about my children, about me, or Patricia. Honestly, I would be in complete shock to discover otherwise. All they wish is to avoid me making them look like idiots with the Governor and the media, avoid being sued, and never hear the name Patricia Long or Stephen Avery again.

 Well the feeling is mutual.

 I look back at my previous encounters with the Department of Corrections in terms of my formulated three rules of bureaucratic behavior.

Incident One

 March 2005 -- Judge Murdoch orders Patricia into seven specific treatment plans as part of her judgment and sentencing. One of these is a specific program that will require Patricia’s participation for a full three years and is the basis of the Judge giving her three years and not the eighteen months he gave someone the week before for the same crime against an assistant DA (transcript of Patricia’s sentencing).
 
 December 2005 – The Department of Corrections decides to release Patricia on parole in April of 2006. Ella Frank, director of the Parole Board, asserts in writing that the Department of Corrections is not bound by any order of the Judge’s after they have the inmate thirty days. Both Ms. Frank and her boos Tim Kline made opposite remarks to the media when they tried to explain their role in the release of an inmate who subsequently killed a deputy (media stories on parole). There is also the issue of state law requiring me to be informed of possible good time at sentencing. Ms. Franks response to this is there is no enumerated penalty for ignoring this law. Well, there is no enumerated penalty for ignoring the bill of rights either.

 I appear at the parole hearing, drop a bomb about their plans to release Patricia to someone who threatened me as a new hit man, and they decide Patricia is not ready for release.

 A New Mexico State Senator reports that 87% of the women released from the Women’s prison return as violators. The national average for return is about sixty percent.

 Nine out of the ten women released return. I believe it is reasonable to conclude rehabilitation is a failure within the women’s prison system. The Department’s failure to provide the services Judge Murdoch ordered does not appear to be a circumstance unique to Patricia.

      I left with the impression the women are warehoused there, pushed out as soon as possible, only to return later as they fail to adjust to the outside world.
     
      The Department is trapped in this cycle, but it is their cycle and they wish to control it. My actions interfered with all three rules of behavior.
     
      First, they failed to protect themselves from the media actions I took.
     
      Second, they lost control of the situation and had to back off Patricia’s release. This does not happen very often.  Look at these two stories about Astorga and a child molester Kline released.
     
      Third, the return rate and the failure to provide the mental health treatment ordered by the judge are indicative of the minimal effort law.  They do not seem to be working very hard out there at the women’s prison.
     
Incident Two

 In April of 2006, the ACLU sued the Department of Corrections for overcrowding at the Women’s Prison.  The Parole Board scheduled over forty parole hearings for a single day, a second hearing for Patricia.

 The Parole Board attempt to dissuade me from attending arguing that this hearing was a continuation of the first hearing in December and that I had already exercised my right to speak then. When I insisted they backed down.
 I detailed these events in a series of blogs beginning with “Luck and the Victim” . The Department of Corrections objected strongly to my interference, characterizing me as a federal criminal.

 Yeah, yeah, Timmy. I get images of the “Shield” whenever I think of your first career in law enforcement. Not very happy when someone interferes with his plans. Not really sorry, Patricia stayed in jail for another year. Better luck next time.

 Next – Next Time, what does this mean about the current actions of the Department of Corrections?