I have what I believe is an incredible idea to fundamentally change this prison system in America. I worked as a Correctional Officer in Iowa for 23 years and in my time I watched thousands of men come back to prison over and over. Before they left they would be excited and had plans for the future. I spent some time on their return and asked them why? What happened and what changed? I found that a majority were overburdened by massive fines and penalties they’ve amassed over the years and just gave up. We expect them to get out, get a job(not a good one), pay rent at a halfway house or apartment, pay child support, restitution, buy food, utilities, and any number of expenses and still manage to pay down fines and court costs. Even the strongest people will drown under this burden. Now child support and restitution shouldn’t be changed but I think we should have an alternative way for men and women to repay their financial debts to society that doesn’t take their limited funds out of their pockets. I think we as a nation should incentivize good behavior. Put a value on their actions. Making appointments on time {probation/parole), providing clean UA’s, going to support group meetings (AA\NA), making their appointments with mental health services, etc. This shows them the positive way of doing the right thing that can actually benefit their lives. Some may argue not getting the revenue from these people in paying their debts would hurt the states budget, but honestly how much is actually being paid back every year? Also I would argue that there is a much larger expense in sending them back to prison because it is on average 1,500 dollars a day per inmate, as well as the burden, mental and financial on their families. The goal should be how can we get these individuals back into society on a positive direction in life, with as little expense to the taxpayer as possible. Also I believe this is as good of an Idea as “No tax on tips” I know people who are felons can’t vote but their families do and I believe that this could flip lifelong democrats to republican when they see conservatives doing things that could/would financially help them and theirs. Make America Great Again without leaving people who have committed crimes and their families behind. Thank you for your time.
I would tend to agree. We should take a page out of Norway’s book and focus on rehabilitation and re-entry for those who will get out of the prison system. Many men and women often return to a life of crime or turn to a life of crime, speaking towards inmates who are in for child support or other fines, and would not return if there was a clear way to re-enter. The dynamic security as well as the community-based facilities are two of the main things I believe we should implement. Community-based facilities keep people close to home to maintain healthy relationships with family and friends while keeping the facilities small to foster growth, development, and support. Their correctional officers are trained to mentor and act as role models for inmates rather than the tight grip we maintain on inmates currently. Their reintigration methods are also fantastic as inmates are not immediately shoved out into the world on their own, rather it is a slow integration as they finish out their sentence. There are things I would say wouldn’t work for America as well, such as the lack of fencing around the facilities, but I believe that if we even took some of their methods to our prison system we would see some level of a decrease in returning inmates.
Jereomy - I agree, but don’t know enough about it. I do know that private, for-profit prisons need to be ended permanently. Stockholders making a profit off the incarceration of it’s population is a disgusting thought.
Ultimately, I truly believe if we focused on morals and values of the family and put fathers back in the home, so that boys and girls are gifted a strong foundation, would alleviate a lot of the prison system. President LBJ destroyed the black family with the implementation of welfare, “if you kick your man out, you get money.”
Biden’s 1993 crime bill was DESIGNED to imprison much more of the population. Disgusting.
Love the discussion… anything to strengthen our country should definitely be explored!
Great topic and points Jereomy~~
One of the greatest challenges I’ve noticed is where do they go upon parole?
In CA they parole with 200.00 from which they pay bus fare to return home, buy clothes if needed, to replace those they were wearing upon incarceration, and provide from themselves until they can get set up.
As a doc, I’m not sure how well I would do dropped off on the streets of LA with 100 bucks to survive until I got set up.
Many are abandoned by their families who want no part of them. Not a lot of half way houses, and very few employers hire felons. The only option left for many of them, are their former gangs who are there to welcome them with open arms.
Why anyone would question high recidivism rates (return to prison) is puzzling.
There’s lack of will to fund programs for those paroling. What so many miss is the extraordinary cost of their return to prison and cost of incarceration.
Returning them to the community w/ the chance to become productive citizens is less than half the cost of incarcerating them.
One of the most successful programs I’m aware of is the Delancy Street project in San Francisco. Its run by and for cons, who do an excellent job of keeping their fellow parolees on the straight and narrow, giving them a place to live and work (movers, landscaping etc). Their recidivism rate is about 20% compared to 80% for those not in a program. Problem is its a small program, hard to get into and only in SF (that I know).
Second problem in CA was criminalizing mental illness by shutting down so many state funded facilities to house mentally ill. The thinking was each community could house its mentally ill. Well few if any communities had the fiscal resource or will to fund such facilities and so many of that population ended up in prison. The cost to house them in particular is astronomical. Its close to 1/4 of the cost to have state funded mental health facilities versus state funded prisons, required to provide mental health treatment & care; meaning having to build and fund doctors, and treatment housing inside a prison. its almost more crazy to go about dealing with it that way, than the people are who need that service.
Everyone cries out about needing better mental health care and lack therein, yet very few communities have the funds, or will to tackle that problem.
As for resource and critical shortages, , do what the military did, license psychologists to prescribe mental health medications, given the lack of psychiatrists graduating. There is 6-7 times the need relative to the lowering numbers that graduate. PhD/PsyD Psychologists have the same years training as their MD colleagues, and much much more training in non medication psych treatment modalities than their psychiatrist counterparts (who currently have very limited psych training beyond prescribing meds these days). Psychologist likewise have much greater expertise, more years of psych training than Nurse Practitioners, and profoundly more than Physician Assistants, or Family Medicine docs, who in turn would be more available to provide General Medical care midst huge shortages in these fields. Its kind of a no brainer solved a long time ago and professional organizations (AMA, APA, etc) need to get out of the way of protecting self interest, over the patients who need care.
I believe serious or repeat offenders should have to go through some sort of MANDATORY training program. I think learning agriculture is a great way for them to contribute to their own care. Large work farms would help to pay for their food, as well as a great way to give back to society by growing/raising food for food banks and schools. They would also have less time to get in trouble while incarcerated. They should also be subject to mandatory daily or random drug testing while incarcerated, with mandatory increased sentance for each dirty UA. Prison guards should be subject to the same and prisons should be state run and not for profit!