Interview with Sherry Swiney,
Founder of the Patrick Crusade Organization
People Aligned to Replace Injustice & Cruelty with Knowledge - P.A.T.R.I.C.K
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What is the Patrick crusade?
It's an acronym that stands for People Aligned To Replace Injustice & Cruelty with Knowledge — P.A.T.R.I.C.K.
The mission of P.A.T.R.I.C.K. Crusade (PC) is to correct the abuse that is endemic to our prison system through peaceful means. Many of the abuses that prisoners are forced to endure have been common knowledge for many years. Very few of these abuses are new, for things have changed very little in our prison system over the years. Prison authorities regularly abuse prisoners in the most inhumane ways. These officials know they will get away with this abuse because, other than family members, few care about the incarcerated once the prison gates swing shut. The fact that many hundreds of prisoners are released each year, because new evidence shows them to be innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted, should be enough to force an increased awareness of the deplorable conditions in our nation's prisons, but it is not. The problem is major. Prison abuse is compounded by the fact that people are not seeing justice within the court system. Too many innocent people are being taken from their families and anyone could be next!
We are an international human rights group that focuses on exposing what happens inside our prisons in the United States of America. Members of PC group are loving and caring. They work tirelessly for what is right, even when some of them do not have friends or loved ones who are in prison.
How does Patrick spend his time in prison?
The majority of people don't know what goes on in prison because of the apathy that has been pounded into everyone over the years about everything. Prisons and the injustice system are just one of the many signs of apathy in this nation that is heading for its downfall. So to answer your question directly, Patrick tries to sleep amidst the slamming doors, yelling youngsters who spend their days and nights practicing horseplay, screaming guards who march into his dorm like tyranny goons or yelling over the PA system, and bright lights. He tries to remain cool in the hot humid Alabama summers and warm in cold humid Alabama winters. Donaldson prison does not have air conditioning. He tries to eat from things he can buy from prison stores rather than stand in the chow line out in the hot sun or pouring down rain, among the rowdy inmates who have no problem butting in line. He tries to get to sick call when he is called for regular check-ups and hopes the guards don't turn him away when he is scheduled to pick up his medication for the month.
But that is not all. Patrick also tries to help other inmates whom he feels want to get out and stay out. He works with them and they in turn learn good values in life and respect him for this. Those that have gone through this with him do get out and stay out, hard as that is in the system of revolving doors, such as it is today. Patrick also helps people outside who are living in so-called freedom. I receive numerous emails, letters and phone calls from people who have received help from Patrick. I'd like to share one such email that I received recently:
"It seems to always come up in my mind about the time I was pondering prison reform and wrote the series called 'The Beast.' At that time I remember saying that as 'outmates' we should gather information from those who are inside the belly of the beast because they are uniquely positioned to assess the beast's subtle nuances of character. The majority of prisoners are also apathetic, unable to detect these nuances because they perceive themselves as victims and spend their time acting out their egos without a sense of purpose of any kind. But Patrick doesn't see himself as a victim; he sees opportunity to awaken the masses. Not only that, his focus is not on himself but on interacting with people in need. I will never forget the letter he wrote me after my mom died. Others were supportive but Patrick was the one who shared amazing wisdom about her death. That letter touched a part of me that was not even fully awake at the time."
"As you know very well, the majority of prisoners are so focused on their own victimhood that they can be a total energy drain. But Patrick stands strong right in the midst of that horrendous, difficult energy unwilling to adopt the victim mentality! How amazing is that???!!! He has lemons yet he chooses to make lemonade. I can't help but compare him to some of the great leaders on this planet who were exiled only to continue to lead anyway. And I cannot forget that YOU also lead in the adversity of having your husband in prison and dealing with all of the apathy that the prison and court systems dish out! You and Patrick have both chosen an existence that is steeped in adversity and difficulty yet both of you just keep going....like the Energizer bunny. Many people might wonder why you do it...but that wondering comes from an apathetic mindset. Patrick's essays on the injustice system may be as widespread now as the works of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Showing these things to the world is truly a unique opportunity to attempt to awaken people to apathy from the inside of the system where apathy exists in spades! It is also a wonderful opportunity to attempt to awaken the public from its apathy toward what happens inside our prisons. We as human beings can no longer live by the old idea that "Well, I have mine, so to heck with everyone else." As soon as they stop living by the notion that we are separate from each other, life will change for the better for them and for everyone else on this beautiful planet.
Where is your husbands case as far as appeals, parole etc.?
Patrick is finished with his appeals and so far, there is no parole in a sentence of LWOP. But this, by no means, is a statement that indicates we have lost hope or given up on freedom. Other things are in the works but I am not at liberty to discuss them yet.
How can the public help?
Ah, now there's a good question and one that's dear to my heart. One thing the public can do is read about Patrick's case - read this interview, for example, ponder it and if so moved, spread the word so a lot more people know about his case. There's also a petition to help that is posted here.
Another thing people can do is talk about the case to other people and discuss how he was so wrongly treated by the courts (not to mention by the prisons). If five law schools would make it an assignment for students to study Patrick's case that would make a difference in the judicial system as I described earlier. If people would take a few minutes each day to imagine (visualize, think about, and “feel”) Patrick being home now that would make a difference in his life and many other lives.
What issues does the Alabama prison system have that need to be reformed?
Where to begin? I could talk about numerous issues here. You have innocent people in prison who should be home with their family and friends. That's not a prison issue really but still needs to be mentioned as a big deal. People need to realize that when innocent people are in prison, the guilty ones are still out there ready and willing to commit more crimes and create more victims of crime.
The main issue in the Alabama prison system, in my opinion, is overcrowding. You cram human beings into tight spaces like sardines and the result is unrest - mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The issue of overcrowding could be resolved by the abolishment of the AEDPA (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996) which I mentioned earlier as a knee-jerk law that was written after the Oklahoma City bombing. The AEDPA affectively wipes out the rights of the incarcerated to present their cases - even of innocence - to the courts when that was not the intent of Congress when they passed this law. It's not just Alabama's prison system that's overcrowded. The last report I saw, stated there are about 2.5 million people in prison across the country. This is greater than any other country on earth. One has to wonder if American citizens are all "that bad" or is there something wrong with the system.
What a waste of taxpayer money! More money is spent on prisons than on schools and universities and it is well known that the majority of people who are in prison never had anything resembling a decent education. Educate the citizens and the crime rate goes down. Duh!
In addition to the education issue, there needs to be a First-Time Offender law. Statistics show and even wardens testify to the fact that 97% of the people who murdered someone as a first-time offense, will never do that again. They will never hurt anyone again. I’m not talking about people who have killed someone in the course of committing another crime (such as bank robbery). Statistics show that the occurrence of the first-time offense is almost always due to a person being pushed to the limits. In addition to that the Three-Strikes law needs to be used under its original intent and not what it is today. And the War on Drugs needs to be abolished because it is a foolish war – one that will never be won.
If American prisons only held the people who are actually "dangerous" to society, the prison population would be a small fraction of what it is today. 2.5 million citizens in prison in one country demonstrates a system that has gone off the deep end. There's a lot of money being made from the Prison Industry just as there is today in the Oil Industry and Military Industry. Prison overcrowding is not about fighting crime; it is about profits. Once the public knows this, I believe things will change.
At this time if there is anything you wish to add please do so.
Yes, I want to continue where we left off regarding the spiritual war we are in as it relates to the injustice people are experiencing. Over the past few years, I have realized that the way human beings have been thinking and feeling about injustice and cruelty in our world seems to have brought even more injustice and cruelty to us. The way we have been thinking is “old paradigm” and times are changing.
Old paradigm says we must fight against it and replace it with something we think is better. But everyone has a different opinion of what is better and that has created confusion and as it turns out whatever we fight against we actually bring more of that to us. The new paradigm says our desire is for injustice and cruelty to be released from its own darkness of its own accord. I believe this can happen when all the injustice and cruelty in our entire nation is exposed. Should such exposure be done by individuals around the world, people would gain more knowledge and insight. This would help to eliminate ignorance which will beget a mindset of general wisdom that is not (and cannot be) mandated by any sort of law. I think all of this calls for a slight shift in everyone's awareness, and when that happens, that shift will cause a shift in the outcome.
Have you ever noticed that when you don’t feel very good, you get more of “you don’t feel good”? Your feelings are an indicator of what you are about to experience in the future. Well, when people go around saying "It makes me sick the way the government is treating people," guess what? They end up getting sick and then they cannot help anyone! Is that a coincidence or spiritual/universal law? It's actually a cosmic law based upon a fantastic design by something far more intelligent than we are. This intelligence has many names. Religious people call the creator of this awesome design, God. Scientists call the creator of this awesome design, Source / Field / Matrix. Native Indians call this awesome creator, Great Spirit. Agnostics might call this Chance or Coincidence. Other religions have their own names for All That Is. Names do not matter for names are human inventions, just as Time is a human invention. A Lily isn't offended if you call it a Rose or a Thistle.
The point I am attempting to get across to the novice reader is this. What you think Matters, and I mean that literally. Thoughts are measurable energy in laboratories and hospitals. They are called brain waves. You've seen brain waves on the Discovery Channel or the History Channel so this is not new information. It's just an explanation of what thoughts are. Thoughts are energy. Your body is energy. Everything is energy when you get down to it.
Energy is a force that can never be destroyed, so that's what you are - a force. Energy can be changed from one form to another - light into heat, for example, but never destroyed. So think about this. Your thoughts create how you feel. Ever thought about how you feel about something?
Feelings are nothing more than frequencies just like a radio frequency. You tune into a radio station and that's the one you can hear. You turn the dial to a different station that's on another frequency and then you can hear that one - but you cannot hear both stations (both frequencies) on the same radio. So this is what the minds and feelings of human beings are. They are frequencies, which is a form of energy.
We make them be real by how we perceive things. Have you ever been in a dimly lit room and gotten startled or even scared by a shadow of something that looks like some kind of giant bug or flying thing? Then when you turn on the light, you feel greatly relieved to find out it was just a piece of spaghetti sauce the kids dropped on the floor :-). It's amazing what shining the light on something can do for you. So, that's what I am attempting to do. I am attempting to shine the light on Patrick's case as well as on the Justice and Prison systems. They are what we perceive them to be and they will continue to be this until enough people change their minds about how they are only one person who cannot make a difference....and much more.
You see, I believe there is a collective consciousness in this planet that comprises the individual consciousness of every human being. Some have called this a Matrix - or the Matrix. I hold to the notion that what happens to one, happens to all. Imagine how a spider web looks sparkling in the sunlight of a crisp morning in the rain forest. The slightest motion at any point on that web triggers a motion throughout the web. Do you remember how a lake ripples when a rowboat passes by, or when a rock is skipped across the water? Yes, we see a ripple effect or domino effect. Every bit of that water is affected to some degree by one little pebble skipped across the water.
In truth we live in a matrix of consciousness - a web of energy. Scientists have already shown us that we are only limited by our beliefs and what we once believed about this world and how it works is changing greatly. Surprisingly, (and this is for the religious people), everything in ancient scriptures points to exactly what scientists are just now finding out.
For example:
"What you sow, you shall reap."
"Give and you shall receive."
"Knock and the door will be opened."
"Ask and it is given."
"What a man thinketh, that he is."
"All things are possible with God".
The problem is that human beings have been conditioned to forget how thoughts actually create their realities.
Imagine planet Earth encased inside a huge web of invisible threads of energy. Imagine that your thoughts are energy, which they are. Imagine where your thoughts go once you think them. They go into that web of consciousness. Imagine billions of people sending all kinds of different thoughts into that web and then call that a pool of thought energy. Now realize that everything is made of energy, including YOU and your thoughts and feelings! Now, imagine what would happen to the matrix of consciousness if your thoughts and feelings (your current perception of the justice system) changed. This would have an affect on that matrix.
So what does this mean and how can people apply this knowledge to the things that are happening on earth and in our courts and prisons today?
Your thoughts are electric charges and they have power - more power than you have heretofore been told or ever imagined. Governments do NOT want you to know this. They want you to stay in your conditioning because that way you are easy to control. When you are easy to control, you get abused.
However, the truth is that you are a spiritual being who is wearing your body like a suit of clothing and you don't remember this because you've been conditioned to believe you have no power and that government has all the power. Not true. You have what some are calling your Full Potential Self available to you at all times. That self is connected to you and all other living things on this planet. In other words you are electrically connected to those whom you desire to change or wake up and they are connected to you.
This is profound thinking. It may be more than people are ready to hear right now.
But when people ARE ready, they will remember what they read here and they will put this information to work FOR change in the justice system that they had previously perceived as not working. They will become the pebble skipped across the lake.
What people have not known is that they actually have the ability to choose their thoughts. They are not puppets (although a lot of them act that way now). They do not have to be mindless drones if they don't want to be mindless drones. In reality they are a divine creation that cannot be destroyed and cannot be separated from the energy they are. The only thing that drives tormentors and victims is insecurity and that insecurity is based on their fundamental fear of not being connected to or somehow being separated from Source / God / Great Spirit / Matrix / All That Is. They do not know they are connected or that when they abuse someone by thought or deed, they are really abusing themselves first. In other words, their thought energy goes back to them first. Thus, they create their own living hell by their own thoughts and feelings. This is the way the design works.
What if people don't buy into this idea you have?
I am not here to try to convince anyone of anything or to try to control anything. Each individual reading this interview is responsible for what he or she chooses to think. I am here to tell you what I have learned from experience so far, to offer you the resources I have found during my studies and personal experiences over the years, and to make suggestions as to how people can apply these things to their work in the criminal justice system. I am very thankful that so many people on this planet are waking up or at least desiring to wake up. These are people who have never heard what I may be saying. They are experiencing these things independently and their lives are changing for the better in spite of what the world may look like to others. Or course, anyone is free to take this information or leave it as they wish.
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