A Sad Tale of the Times We Live In
By Mansfield Frazier
A good friend called last week to lament the fact Tony Farmer, the 18-year-old former Garfield Heights High School basketball star (he was also ranked as one of the top 100 high school hoopsters in the nation), was sent to prison for three years for an array of crimes related to him eventually going caveman on a young woman who supposedly was trying to break up with him. His assault was captured on a camera in the lobby of her apartment building and allegedly it showed some pretty brutal stuff. He’d also previously sent her a number of threatening text messages, so there was malice aforethought involved.
As my friend, a former semi-pro basketball player himself, went on about the ruined life and missed opportunity of a young man who just might be big talented enough to make it all the way to the pros, I almost drank the Kool-Aid and was about to begin remonstrating in regards to the tough sentence right along with him. But, in the nick of time, I came to my senses.
Is the grand opportunity Farmer blew off by his juvenile, stupid and criminal actions any more devastating than if, instead of him being 6’7” and potentially headed to stardom, he was 5’7” and headed for a career as an EMS technician, or, say, an auto mechanic? Why is the loss of potential stardom assigned more value by our society than the loss of a more mundane life and career?
Indeed, it could very well be the sense of entitlement we begin inculcating in young athletes the minute they hit puberty and are discovered to have size and talent is partially (or perhaps even primarily) responsible for Farmer’s reprehensible actions. All of the adulation leads many of them to believe they are somehow “special.”
How dare a young woman bruise his out-sized ego by quitting him, a star athlete… the self-acknowledged “Big Man on Campus”?
Nonetheless, the fact this young man will now join over a half-million others who’ll be placed behind prison bars in America this year alone certainly is lamentable… but society has a right to protect itself by removing from our midst those who’ve proven they pose a real danger. Simply by picking up the newspaper on any given day we can read about people — black, white, Hispanic… young and old… male and female — who commit stupid, heinous, and vile crimes with seemingly such cavalier attitudes we no longer find their transgressions shocking. Thank god we have penitentiaries.
But Farmer’s supporters (and indeed many of them were in the courtroom) bemoaned the wrong circumstance: the fact he was going to prison. What they should have been more concerned about — although it was a foregone conclusion and a done deal — was the felony conviction he was forever saddled with at sentencing. He’ll one day get out of prison, but the felony he accrued is on his record for life, even if it’s later expunged. In the age of Internet nothing ever goes completely away.
The question on job applications isn’t “have you been to prison?” it’s “have you ever been convicted of a felony?” So, in essence, he screwed up his life and forever gave himself a negative credential when he violently put his hands on that young woman… even if he never went to prison for a single day for his crime.
None of the above negates the fact America is far and away the most punitive nation in the history of mankind; we lead the entire world in the category of Draconian sentencing. Many of those half-million souls sent to prison could have appropriately been given alternative sentences… something the criminal justice system is thankfully using more frequently in recent years.
Does this mean I feel Tony Farmer should have been given an alternative sentence, such as probation? No, and the incredulity he expressed in the courtroom upon receiving the three-year sentence proves my point. He flat out could not believe it… due to his “special (in his own mind) status.” For some reason he thought he should have been allowed to go home with his momma.
But I think (and evidently Judge Pamela Barker also thought) he needed to go to prison where he can hopefully come to terms with the fact his size and skills with a basketball doesn’t make him special, doesn’t confer privileges on him others don’t possess, doesn’t give him the right to intimidate and then physically hurt someone… no matter how badly his heartstrings had been plucked.
Additionally, even if Judge Barker has wanted to sentence Farmer to probation, she would have been putting her seat on the bench in jeopardy by doing so. In high profile cases judges have to be particularly careful and guard against the perception of favoritism, lest they incur the wrath of voters come the next election. Can you imagine the righteous howls of indignation from women’s rights groups if she had allowed him to walk out of her courtroom a free man? For him and his supporters to think otherwise demonstrated an extreme level of naivety on their part.
But, with that said, does he need or deserve to serve three years behind bars? Oh hell no.
Three months should suffice in delivering the message… if indeed he is ever going to be capable of receiving it. At sentencing the judge said that she’s willing to review the case in 180 days, which means she’s inclined to grant Farmer shock parole (one of the best things ever devised by State Legislatures… at least in some cases) if his behavior in prison warrants it. This means he has to get into an anger management class ASAP and avoid the temptation of becoming the “Big Man on the Cell Block.” With his size and mad skills with a basketball he could easily become a prison cult hero. Indeed, some of the best athletes in the world reside — often permanently — in our nation’s prisons.
I won’t quibble over the additional three months he’ll have to serve, but if folks in the criminal justice system really knew their jobs (I’m talking mainly about criminologists here) they would realize that virtually all of the cognitive and behavioral changes a person is going to make — if they make any at all — are going to occur in the first three months behind bars; after that period of time a prisoner has adjusted to their surroundings and the only thing that happens is that taxpayers are throwing more money down the rat hole of needless, overly-long periods of incarceration.
If Farmer truly comes to understand that he can’t put his hands on anyone unless he’s attempting to block another player as they drive in for a lay-up, he still has his whole life and career in front of him. Hell, in the NBA they damn near give out medals to players who have had brushes with the law… for some sick reason they often become crowd favorites.
After he’s gotten over being pissed off at the fact he was treated like any other abuser (which will take at least a month or more), I just might have a friendly staffer I’m acquainted with at the prison he’s going to be housed at slip this column under his cell door.
Part of what I do in my other life is to try to intervene with young men and women behind bars and to encourage them to use their time wisely… to prepare themselves for a future after prison. But, honestly, my batting average isn’t as good as I would like for it to be. Problem is, everybody wants to go to Heaven… but don’t nobody want to die.
Who knows, reading this might do young Mr. Farmer some good; it could prove to be a “teachable moment”… or he might simply crumple it up and throw it in the toilet. But he needs to understand that if he does, he’ll be throwing his future prospects into the crapper right along with it. It’s time for Tony Farmer to grow up and man up… and learn that men don’t ever touch women in a violent manner, unless it’s a very clear-cut case of self-defense.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.neighborhoodsolutionsinc.com.
One Response to “MANSFIELD: The Case of Tony Farmer”
IndyCA35
It may be that 3 months would provide the same deterrent as three years, as you allege, but the judge is going to review the case after 180 days anyway. So what’s the point? If the perpetrator behaves, he’ll be out in six months anyway. At least he’ll know not to injure people in front of a security camera.