(Conrad) Black 'enlightened' by prison time

[alp227]

Source: CBC News

Conrad Black has slammed the U.S. justice system as he reflected publicly on the 28 months he spent in a federal prison.

"Of course, I was glad, jubilant, to leave … but also grateful for many of the relationships I had formed; enlightened by my observation of American justice on the other side of the wall; and happy to have got on well in an environment very foreign to any I had known before," Black wrote in a column for the National Post.

During his time at the federal prison in Coleman, Fla., Black, 65, said he developed a greater practical knowledge of the realities of race relations, of those "who had drawn a short straw" from the justice system and of the "wasted opportunities" to reintegrate many of those prisoners into society.

The former media mogul said he saw the "courage of self-help, the pathos of broken men, the drawn faces of the hopeless, the glazed expression of the heavily medicated." He described America's inmates as an "ostracized, voiceless legion of the walking dead."

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/07/31/conrad-black.html?ref=rss

[shraby]

1. Question is, will he make use of his new-found revelations

and try to make the prison system better?

[daleo]

2. He should change his title from Lord to Saint

I am skeptical (the man wanted to horsewhip Linda McQuiag), but maybe he has been transformed a bit. I have often been pulled up short by how much of Conservatives' lack of compassion is related to simple ignorance and misinformation about the less privileged.

[The Magistrate]

4. Indeed, Sir, Nothing But Benefit would Come From Imprisoning The Rich For Several Years Each

[daleo]

5. It does seem that misfortune broadens the mind

A year on unemployment insurance generally makes people better understand the plight of a the economically marginalized. A dalliance with a serious illness tends to help one understand the frailties inherent in the human condition as well.

[grantcart]

7. Black is the strangest of cases

One of the things that got him in trouble was using corporation money to purchase large private collections of FDRs papers.

He wrote a great biography of FDR. (His training is in history)

Goes to jail for misusing corporate monies.

Rather astonishing really.

[Wilms]

11. When I first found that out, my brain really hurt.

I admit it. :shrug:

[UpInArms]

3. this guy will probably go back to his life cushioned with piles of money

and forget all that.

[daleo]

6. He's got a lot of debts

And the U.S. tax department is still very interested in him. So his new understanding of the downtrodden may have some staying power. Time will tell.

[Ken Burch]

8. And, once he Barbara Amiel takes everything he still has in the inevitable divorce

Black will REALLY understand what it is to be downtrodden.

[cliffordu]

9. Boy howdy.

[SoapBox]

10. So will he be ever so "enlightened" that he will help those men...or just himself?

[Ken Burch]

12. He'll get a show on whatever the Canadian version of the Christian Broadcasting Network is

Charles Colson will be his Ed McMahon.