White Collar Support Group Blog – Tom Gage, Writing for Interrogating Justice

Tom Gage is a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets on Zoom on Monday evenings. He is a gifted writer, as his articles for Interrogating Justice show (links below). Enjoy! – Jeff Grant

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Tom Gage is a freelance writer, editor, proofreader and tee-shirt designer. He holds a B.A. Degree in English and a Juris Doctorate from the University of New Hampshire.  Tom served as a Representative in the New Hampshire General Court (Legislature) from 1980-90 representing the towns of Exeter and Newfields. He was an attorney-at-law and real estate developer in the Seacoast of New Hampshire for nearly thirty years. In 2018, Tom was prosecuted for a financial crime arising from a botched refinance of his family home. Convicted under a statute he helped to write, Tom served 20 months in the New Hampshire state prison system. He was paroled to Stamford, Connecticut in 2020. When he is not writing, editing or designing, Tom works on the I-130 immigration petitions for his wife and stepson, volunteers with a local organization which resettles Afghan immigrants and watches TV game shows.

Huge thanks to our friends at Interrogating Justice for permission to reprint and link.

Who’s Guarding The House? A Bizarre Prison Guard Story, by Tom Gage:

“There’s a bizarre story out of Alabama that has flashed across the news in the last few days. Capital murder suspect Casey Cole White and the prison guard who was transporting him to a court-ordered mental health appointment at the Lauderdale County courthouse vanished. The officer was not just any prison guard. She is Vicky White (no relation), the Assistant Director of Corrections in the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Department, and was in her last day on the job…”

Read the full article: https://interrogatingjustice.org/government-accountability/whos-guarding-the-house-a-bizarre-prison-guard-story/

Does The SHU Fit? A Note About Solitary Confinement, by Tom Gage

“Aside from the death penalty, there is likely no more contentious issue in the area of prison reform than the abolition or remaking of solitary confinement. The term itself feels so odious that most jurisdictions have replaced it. They use terms such “punitive segregation,” “administrative segregation,” “isolation,” “secure housing” or “special housing” instead. Today, the debate about solitary confinement, its use and its detriments lies at the heart of any discussion about incarceration itself…”

Read the full article: https://interrogatingjustice.org/prisons/%ef%bf%bcdoes-the-shu-fit-a-note-about-solitary-confinement/

So, Why Do We Call A Penitentiary A Penitentiary? by Tom Gage

“A couple of years ago, I was “housed” at the Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility in Berlin, New Hampshire (also known as the Berlin State Prison and “Berleasy”). While there, I had a “homework” assignment for my counseling group: to talk about how prison was improving me…”

Read the full article: https://interrogatingjustice.org/ending-mass-incarceration/so-why-do-we-call-a-penitentiary-a-penitentiary

It’s Not The Ritz: Attitudes About Prison Conditions In America, by Tom Gage

“On May 17, a judge remanded Young Thug, a rap artist from Georgia, whose legal name is Jeffrey Williams, to pretrial custody after a court hearing in Atlanta, Georgia. Allegedly, the artist co-founded the “Young Slime Life” gang, which has allegedly been responsible for numerous crimes, including possibly 50 or so murders, in the area. The judge found him to be flight risk and placed him in pretrial detention while he considered the bond he will order…”

Read the full article: https://interrogatingjustice.org/fairness-in-sentencing/its-not-the-ritz-attitudes-about-prison-conditions-in-american/