A place where you go to bed early, even when you're not tired, you
walk in circles, even though you have no where to go, and you pull
the covers over your head, even though you're not cold.
A place where escape is possible, but only through reading, dreaming
or just plane going mad.
A place where a kind word and affectionate touches are only dim
memories.
A place where basic humanity is ignored, discarded and eventually
forgotten.
A place where men are stripped of their clothes as well as their
dignity and herded like the beasts society believes them to be.
A place where what shred of human dignity you have left is totally
taken away when you run out of toilet paper three days before you get
your weekly roll.
A place where you're encouraged to your prison neighbors so that your
keepers can further punish you for their amusement.
A place where you write letters but can't think of anything to say.
A place where you wait for letters that come less and less often
A place where you've lost respect for the law because you see it raw,
twisted, bent, ignored and blown out of proportion to suit the people
who enforce it.
A place where you learn nobody needs you, you are the forgotten man
and the world goes on without you.
A place where you discover that all of the talents and abilities you
have are worthless for you are the man in blue.
A place that doesn't exist in the minds or friends for the cannot put
it on an envelope, nor can they find it in a car.
A place that only exists in a time warp, for you are only remembered
in the past tense, and that is probably appropriate for you can see
no future.
A place where you wait for a visit that doesn't happen and although
you know the real reason, you have to accept the lies.
A place where days blend into weeks, months merge into years and ions
pass without feeling the touch of a human hand unless it is raised in
anger.
A place where the value of human life can be determined by pressing
the wrong button on the remote control television.
A place where MCI somehow has a deal with CDC not to let you call
you're loved ones, but does give your loved ones and friends a good
excuse not to accept your collect calls.
A place where the language spoken has its own meanings, where your
mouth is your grill, your chest is your hood and the people you're
seen with is your car.
Can a man survive prison and resume a useful life? If he can overcome
the degradation this is heaped upon him, society will continue to
remind him that he is tainted. Does he deserve what he got? Of
Course, and smug society can be assured that it has done the proper
thing, until circumstances, errors, accidents or a mistake in the
judicial system flips the table and they find themselves in the same
shoes of the man in the cell next door!!!
Dave
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Letter To Roderick Hickman, Secretary Dept of Corrections, California
Roderick Q. Hickman, Secretary
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Dear Mr. Hickman;
Since you are the secretary of the CDCR, you are the one person most responsible for our prison system and its current dysfunction. This dysfunction is at every level within every prison and every department therein. The problems at hand can only be remedied by you in conjunction with your staff. The overcrowding, the medical neglect issues that have resulted in needless deaths, the abuses by your staff upon the inmates- make me ask you- the person in charge and the overseer- "What is really going on inside our prison system?" The families and loved ones of the inmates know, first hand. And yet when we try to bring about change or awareness to the situations-nothing happens! Why? Judge Henderson has placed the California Prison system medical into federal receivership-was that not a serious enough wake up call? YOU are the one that MUST be held accountable- the buck stops with you, Secretary Hickman, you hold the cards and have the power. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING? WHAT IS NEXT IN YOUR GAME PLAN?
How many more inmates must die because of incompetence, neglect, guard set ups, and careless housing before something is really done? It is time, past time, Secretary Hickman to make the much and sorely needed changes in our prison system. You must start answering the public, the taxpayers, the mothers, fathers, wives and children of the inmates that are SUFFERING. Take action. We as concerned citizens are taking action-organizing, briefing the media and spreading the word. Changes are imminent- we will not be silenced.
Regards,
Carol Leonard
Inmate Activists
"When the people lead, their leaders will follow."
Carol Leonard
Rehabilitation-Not Incarceration
When the people lead, their leaders will follow ~ Ghandi http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/Inmate-Activists
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Dear Mr. Hickman;
Since you are the secretary of the CDCR, you are the one person most responsible for our prison system and its current dysfunction. This dysfunction is at every level within every prison and every department therein. The problems at hand can only be remedied by you in conjunction with your staff. The overcrowding, the medical neglect issues that have resulted in needless deaths, the abuses by your staff upon the inmates- make me ask you- the person in charge and the overseer- "What is really going on inside our prison system?" The families and loved ones of the inmates know, first hand. And yet when we try to bring about change or awareness to the situations-nothing happens! Why? Judge Henderson has placed the California Prison system medical into federal receivership-was that not a serious enough wake up call? YOU are the one that MUST be held accountable- the buck stops with you, Secretary Hickman, you hold the cards and have the power. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING? WHAT IS NEXT IN YOUR GAME PLAN?
How many more inmates must die because of incompetence, neglect, guard set ups, and careless housing before something is really done? It is time, past time, Secretary Hickman to make the much and sorely needed changes in our prison system. You must start answering the public, the taxpayers, the mothers, fathers, wives and children of the inmates that are SUFFERING. Take action. We as concerned citizens are taking action-organizing, briefing the media and spreading the word. Changes are imminent- we will not be silenced.
Regards,
Carol Leonard
Inmate Activists
"When the people lead, their leaders will follow."
Carol Leonard
Rehabilitation-Not Incarceration
When the people lead, their leaders will follow ~ Ghandi http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/Inmate-Activists
A Ray of Freedom
A ray of freedom
Since 1989, children with disabilities have relied on the inmates in the Folsom Project for the Visually Impaired to gain access to books they might otherwise have to skip. Tuesday one of those children repaid them.
By Laurel Rosenhall -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Murderers, kidnappers, robbers and drug runners serving time in Folsom State Prison heard an unusual message Tuesday when 18-year-old Amelia Diaz came to visit.
"I want to say thank you," Diaz said to the 15 men dressed in prison blues who were assembled in the visitors room. "You guys have really done a lot for me."
Diaz is blind. Since she was a little girl, inmates in a job-training program at the prison have been turning her school books into audio recordings and pages of Braille.
Now that she is 18, Diaz, of Anaheim, was allowed inside the prison for the first time. The occasion drew media and public officials to the old prison ringed with granite walls, where inmates demonstrated the program and Diaz sang words of thanks.
The program creates an odd partnership between society's most vulnerable and some of its most vicious - and brings benefits to them all, prison officials say. Children with disabilities gain access to books and videos they might otherwise have to skip. Hardened criminals learn job skills and develop compassion by doing good for others.
For nearly 10 years, Diaz has relied on the inmates in the Folsom Project for the Visually Impaired to help her read everything from storybooks to advanced French texts to the autobiography of her favorite singer, Celine Dion. Now she goes to California State University, Fullerton, and the Folsom inmates have made her a Braille version of the campus map to help her find her way around.
To thank them, Diaz sang a Dion song on Tuesday - "These Are the Special Days" - under the bright lights of the visitor's room. It was an emotional moment for some of the inmates. Some smiled, some cast their eyes down, and some rocked their heads to the slow beat of the music.
"When I do something good here and it reaches out and touches other people, it's something I'm proud of," said Lyale Shellman, 55, who said he's been in prison for 26 years for crimes including murder, kidnapping and drug running.
"I was a bad guy. I hurt people from coast to coast," he said. "I can't take back what I've done, but now I can give back."
Shellman said he is counting the days until his May parole date - and then he plans to launch a business making media accessible to people with disabilities. In the Folsom prison program, Shellman has learned to make Braille books, closed-caption videos and books on tape. He said he's already lined up a contract to make Braille books after he's on parole.
The good feeling from helping others, combined with the practical job-skills training, make the program popular among inmates, said correctional officer Bob Schmitz.
"Now they're paying back, and that's part of the rehabilitation process," Schmitz said.
The program serves 18 inmates and has a waiting list of others who hope to get in, he said. Only inmates who can pass an English test, behave well and show eagerness to work and cooperate can be admitted to the program, Schmitz said. No sex offenders are allowed.
Developed in 1989, the Folsom Project for the Visually Impaired has created 1,000 books on tape for K-12 schools and community colleges up and down California. It also produces closed-caption videos for the hearing-impaired and converts government documents into Braille and audio formats.
Prison officials say the program has a zero recidivism rate - those who participate never end up back in jail. It's supported by grants from corporations and social groups.
Inmate Marty Allen, 36, said he appreciates the opportunity to do meaningful work while serving his life sentence for second-degree murder.
"The whole prison experience has made me realize how stupid I was acting," Allen said. "It really makes you stop and think about the consequences of what you're doing."
And it helps the years pass more quickly, said inmate Mark Dorn, who is serving a life sentence for kidnapping and armed robbery.
"Not only does it break up the monotony, but the time flies by. ... There's always something new to learn," Dorn said. "We have guys who would otherwise be sitting in the yard with absolutely nothing to do and getting into who knows what."
Diaz came to Folsom on Tuesday with her mother, Rosa Diaz, and family friend Linda Claire. When the formal program was done, the women mingled with the prisoners and noshed on sandwiches. They said they were grateful that a program so helpful to Diaz could also help the inmates turn their lives around.
"It doesn't really matter why they're there," Diaz said. "They've helped people, and it's made a difference to me."
About the writer:
The Bee's Laurel Rosenhall can be reached at (916) 321-1083 or lrosenhall@sacbee.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since 1989, children with disabilities have relied on the inmates in the Folsom Project for the Visually Impaired to gain access to books they might otherwise have to skip. Tuesday one of those children repaid them.
By Laurel Rosenhall -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Murderers, kidnappers, robbers and drug runners serving time in Folsom State Prison heard an unusual message Tuesday when 18-year-old Amelia Diaz came to visit.
"I want to say thank you," Diaz said to the 15 men dressed in prison blues who were assembled in the visitors room. "You guys have really done a lot for me."
Diaz is blind. Since she was a little girl, inmates in a job-training program at the prison have been turning her school books into audio recordings and pages of Braille.
Now that she is 18, Diaz, of Anaheim, was allowed inside the prison for the first time. The occasion drew media and public officials to the old prison ringed with granite walls, where inmates demonstrated the program and Diaz sang words of thanks.
The program creates an odd partnership between society's most vulnerable and some of its most vicious - and brings benefits to them all, prison officials say. Children with disabilities gain access to books and videos they might otherwise have to skip. Hardened criminals learn job skills and develop compassion by doing good for others.
For nearly 10 years, Diaz has relied on the inmates in the Folsom Project for the Visually Impaired to help her read everything from storybooks to advanced French texts to the autobiography of her favorite singer, Celine Dion. Now she goes to California State University, Fullerton, and the Folsom inmates have made her a Braille version of the campus map to help her find her way around.
To thank them, Diaz sang a Dion song on Tuesday - "These Are the Special Days" - under the bright lights of the visitor's room. It was an emotional moment for some of the inmates. Some smiled, some cast their eyes down, and some rocked their heads to the slow beat of the music.
"When I do something good here and it reaches out and touches other people, it's something I'm proud of," said Lyale Shellman, 55, who said he's been in prison for 26 years for crimes including murder, kidnapping and drug running.
"I was a bad guy. I hurt people from coast to coast," he said. "I can't take back what I've done, but now I can give back."
Shellman said he is counting the days until his May parole date - and then he plans to launch a business making media accessible to people with disabilities. In the Folsom prison program, Shellman has learned to make Braille books, closed-caption videos and books on tape. He said he's already lined up a contract to make Braille books after he's on parole.
The good feeling from helping others, combined with the practical job-skills training, make the program popular among inmates, said correctional officer Bob Schmitz.
"Now they're paying back, and that's part of the rehabilitation process," Schmitz said.
The program serves 18 inmates and has a waiting list of others who hope to get in, he said. Only inmates who can pass an English test, behave well and show eagerness to work and cooperate can be admitted to the program, Schmitz said. No sex offenders are allowed.
Developed in 1989, the Folsom Project for the Visually Impaired has created 1,000 books on tape for K-12 schools and community colleges up and down California. It also produces closed-caption videos for the hearing-impaired and converts government documents into Braille and audio formats.
Prison officials say the program has a zero recidivism rate - those who participate never end up back in jail. It's supported by grants from corporations and social groups.
Inmate Marty Allen, 36, said he appreciates the opportunity to do meaningful work while serving his life sentence for second-degree murder.
"The whole prison experience has made me realize how stupid I was acting," Allen said. "It really makes you stop and think about the consequences of what you're doing."
And it helps the years pass more quickly, said inmate Mark Dorn, who is serving a life sentence for kidnapping and armed robbery.
"Not only does it break up the monotony, but the time flies by. ... There's always something new to learn," Dorn said. "We have guys who would otherwise be sitting in the yard with absolutely nothing to do and getting into who knows what."
Diaz came to Folsom on Tuesday with her mother, Rosa Diaz, and family friend Linda Claire. When the formal program was done, the women mingled with the prisoners and noshed on sandwiches. They said they were grateful that a program so helpful to Diaz could also help the inmates turn their lives around.
"It doesn't really matter why they're there," Diaz said. "They've helped people, and it's made a difference to me."
About the writer:
The Bee's Laurel Rosenhall can be reached at (916) 321-1083 or lrosenhall@sacbee.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Ex-Con Nation
We locked 'em up. They're getting out. What do we do now?
by David Plotz
Every year, the United States sets two prison records-one we talk about, and one we don't. Our mania for incarceration is common knowledge: The number of state and federal prisoners has quadrupled to 1.3 million in the past 25 years. But Americans have paid no attention at all to the backdoor of the prison. Inmates are arriving at an unprecedented rate, but they are also leaving at one.
This year, American prisons will release more than 600,000 inmates, up from 170,000 in 1980. (To put it another way, a city with a population larger than Washington, D.C., leaves prison every year. And this does not even count the hundreds of thousands of lesser criminals who finish short jail sentences.) We lock them up, but we don't throw away the key. For all the hoopla that surrounds the death penalty and life sentences, only a teeny fraction of inmates-fewer than 4,000 per year-actually die in prison. Those who study "prisoner re-entry" have a new catch phrase to describe prisoners returning home: "They all come back."
Prisons still admit about 50,000 more offenders than they release, which is why the total census keeps increasing. But the growth rate is slowing, and by 2005, prisons may be springing as many people as they enroll. By 2010, according to University of California, Irvine, criminologist Joan Petersilia, annual releases may reach 1.2 million.
(The United States is becoming an ex-con nation. According to preliminary estimates by researchers Christopher Uggen, Melissa Thompson, and Jeff Manza, 5 million Americans are serving or have served prison sentences. That translates into 5 percent of American men, and 15 percent-20 percent of black men. They also estimate that 13 million people-including one-third of black men-have been convicted of a felony.)
Are the released felons more dangerous than when they went up the river? According to the best studies, the surge in incarceration is responsible for one-quarter of the '90s crime drop. (Economics and demographics are key reasons for the other three-quarters.) Does this mean the crime rate will spike as all these folks return home? "That is the $64,000 question," says Urban Institute senior fellow Jeremy Travis, a leading scholar of prisoner re-entry. "And no one has the answer."
Surprisingly little is known about prisoner re-entry. Ex-cons are extremely difficult to study, because they're transient and suspicious of authority. Almost no one has paid attention to them for 20 years. The fascination with prisoner rehabilitation that flowered a generation ago has withered. Vocational and educational programs didn't cut recidivism. Many parole boards, which had vast discretion to free prisoners early, were stripped of their power after being attacked from both the left (for being too hard on minorities) and the right (for being too soft on everyone). And the political climate chilled for prisoners, as the crime declines of the '90s confirmed the popular belief that we should worry more about putting them away than helping them out.
Still, enough information exists to conclude that ex-cons are dangerous to society and to themselves. In the mid-'80s, a major national recidivism study-the only one that's ever been conducted-found incredibly high rates of re-arrest and reconviction. Nearly two-thirds of ex-inmates were re-arrested on serious charges within three years, and 41 percent were reconvicted and returned to prison. A tracked group of 68,000 ex-offenders committed more than 300,000 felonies and misdemeanors in the three years after release.
There are many reasons to believe that today's army of released prisoners poses even more danger and faces even worse prospects than the smaller cohorts of the past. Ex-cons spend more time in prison than they used to. According to "From Prison to Home," a report published by the Urban Institute this week, prisoners released in 1998 served 27 percent longer than those released in 1990-28 months versus 22 months. Longer sentences, contends the Urban Institute's Travis, weaken the social and economic ties that may shield prisoners when they return to society. The longer you serve, the less contact you have with family, friends, and employers; the more your job skills deteriorate; the more your social network consists of other criminals.
Prisons do less now to prepare inmates for life outside. Vocational and educational programs have been cut and inmate participation in them has dropped. Drug treatment is even scarcer than it used to be. Though the proportion of inmates with drug problems has remained steady, the percentage receiving treatment plunged from 25 percent in 1990 to only 10 percent in 1997. States have also gutted parole. "Truth-in-sentencing" laws-most states now require violent felons to serve 85 percent of their sentences-mean that more and more prisoners are serving most of their sentences in prison then are released without any restrictions. More than 100,000 prisoners were released unsupervised last year. Researchers suspect that unsupervised releasees have harsher re-entries than those on parole. Not that parole is so effective: Budgets have contracted, and the average parole officer monitors 70 felons, up from 45 a few years ago. Other transitional institutions, such as halfway houses, have also weakened.
American society remains hostile toward ex-cons, and new laws and surveillance techniques make it easier to be tough on returning felons. Employers can quickly check criminal records and deny employment to former inmates. Some states have banned ex-prisoners from public employment and public housing. The declining economy will hit ex-cons hard: Since they are the most marginal employees, they are first to lose their jobs in a recession. More and more live in the poorest areas. The Urban Institute says that two-thirds of inmates return to "core" urban counties (where jobs are scarce), up from only half a decade ago. (California found that 70 percent-90 percent of its parolees are unemployed.)
Returning prisoners may be more dangerous than they used to be. An enormous number are violent: 140,000 of the 1998 graduating class are violent criminals, up from 75,000 in 1985. More ex-offenders than ever suffer mental illness. And ex-cons pose a health danger, too: Prisoner rates of HIV infection, tuberculosis, and hepatitis C run five to 10 times the national average. (According to the Urban Institute, in 1997, one-quarter of all Americans with HIV/AIDS were released from prison or jail.) Prisoners return as disease vectors as well as crime vectors.
Not all the data is awful. Releasees average 34 years old, up from 29 years old in the '70s. (They are older because they are serving longer sentences, and because the big baby boom cohort drags the average age up.) Felons commit fewer crimes as they get older, so by locking up crooks longer, we may be naturally aging them out of a life of crime. The stats about violent ex-cons are also ambiguous. Though record numbers of violent offenders are getting out this year, they actually represent a lower percentage of released inmates-only one-quarter of all releasees, down from 32 percent in 1985. (The percentage of violent offenders has dropped because many more releasees are nonviolent drug offenders.)
The best news for ex-cons may be that people are interested in them again. The Urban Institute's Travis speculates that the record crime drop, the strong economy, and perhaps even the success of welfare reform have convinced Americans that ex-prisoners are worth worrying about. The public policy community is seized with passion about this. George Soros' Open Society Institute has been sponsoring re-entry studies, as have at least two other major foundations. The Urban Institute's "From Prison to Home" is the first comprehensive prisoner re-entry report in years; the General Accounting Office is publishing findings on federal re-entry next week, and the Department of Justice will release the first major recidivism study in 15 years this fall. Congress appropriated nearly $100 million this year for pilot re-entry programs, and the Senate Judiciary Committee is considering a new bill to assist federal-prisoner re-entry.
No crystal answers have emerged yet. (Most articles and reports, in fact, conclude that: "We need further study .") How re-entry affects the crime rate remains an open question, as does what kind of programs best help ex-cons. Still, there are a few promising ideas. Researchers had concluded that job training is useless, but recent work by Shawn Bushway of the University of Maryland hints that job training at least helps older prisoners, encouraging them stay away from crime and stick to the legit economy. Other evidence suggests that pre- and post-release drug treatment helps ex-cons live straight. Many researchers insist that more parole and rigorous supervision of ex-cons will dampen recidivism.
There is a very callous reason why the current effort on behalf of ex-cons may succeed where the attempts of the '60s and '70s failed. Today's fascination with ex-cons is rooted not in emotion but in pragmatism. Most researchers and activists don't seem greatly animated by sympathy for prisoners. They fret about the threat the ex-cons pose to public safety, public health, and general social order, and worry little about the threat the ex-cons pose to themselves. This is not a grand lefty crusade. No one is romanticizing what prisoners are like and what reforms can accomplish. Conservatives can embrace this struggle as easily as liberals. If we're stuck with ex-cons-and we've finally realized that we are, by the millions-we had better figure out something to do with them.
http://www.Slate.com
We locked 'em up. They're getting out. What do we do now?
by David Plotz
Every year, the United States sets two prison records-one we talk about, and one we don't. Our mania for incarceration is common knowledge: The number of state and federal prisoners has quadrupled to 1.3 million in the past 25 years. But Americans have paid no attention at all to the backdoor of the prison. Inmates are arriving at an unprecedented rate, but they are also leaving at one.
This year, American prisons will release more than 600,000 inmates, up from 170,000 in 1980. (To put it another way, a city with a population larger than Washington, D.C., leaves prison every year. And this does not even count the hundreds of thousands of lesser criminals who finish short jail sentences.) We lock them up, but we don't throw away the key. For all the hoopla that surrounds the death penalty and life sentences, only a teeny fraction of inmates-fewer than 4,000 per year-actually die in prison. Those who study "prisoner re-entry" have a new catch phrase to describe prisoners returning home: "They all come back."
Prisons still admit about 50,000 more offenders than they release, which is why the total census keeps increasing. But the growth rate is slowing, and by 2005, prisons may be springing as many people as they enroll. By 2010, according to University of California, Irvine, criminologist Joan Petersilia, annual releases may reach 1.2 million.
(The United States is becoming an ex-con nation. According to preliminary estimates by researchers Christopher Uggen, Melissa Thompson, and Jeff Manza, 5 million Americans are serving or have served prison sentences. That translates into 5 percent of American men, and 15 percent-20 percent of black men. They also estimate that 13 million people-including one-third of black men-have been convicted of a felony.)
Are the released felons more dangerous than when they went up the river? According to the best studies, the surge in incarceration is responsible for one-quarter of the '90s crime drop. (Economics and demographics are key reasons for the other three-quarters.) Does this mean the crime rate will spike as all these folks return home? "That is the $64,000 question," says Urban Institute senior fellow Jeremy Travis, a leading scholar of prisoner re-entry. "And no one has the answer."
Surprisingly little is known about prisoner re-entry. Ex-cons are extremely difficult to study, because they're transient and suspicious of authority. Almost no one has paid attention to them for 20 years. The fascination with prisoner rehabilitation that flowered a generation ago has withered. Vocational and educational programs didn't cut recidivism. Many parole boards, which had vast discretion to free prisoners early, were stripped of their power after being attacked from both the left (for being too hard on minorities) and the right (for being too soft on everyone). And the political climate chilled for prisoners, as the crime declines of the '90s confirmed the popular belief that we should worry more about putting them away than helping them out.
Still, enough information exists to conclude that ex-cons are dangerous to society and to themselves. In the mid-'80s, a major national recidivism study-the only one that's ever been conducted-found incredibly high rates of re-arrest and reconviction. Nearly two-thirds of ex-inmates were re-arrested on serious charges within three years, and 41 percent were reconvicted and returned to prison. A tracked group of 68,000 ex-offenders committed more than 300,000 felonies and misdemeanors in the three years after release.
There are many reasons to believe that today's army of released prisoners poses even more danger and faces even worse prospects than the smaller cohorts of the past. Ex-cons spend more time in prison than they used to. According to "From Prison to Home," a report published by the Urban Institute this week, prisoners released in 1998 served 27 percent longer than those released in 1990-28 months versus 22 months. Longer sentences, contends the Urban Institute's Travis, weaken the social and economic ties that may shield prisoners when they return to society. The longer you serve, the less contact you have with family, friends, and employers; the more your job skills deteriorate; the more your social network consists of other criminals.
Prisons do less now to prepare inmates for life outside. Vocational and educational programs have been cut and inmate participation in them has dropped. Drug treatment is even scarcer than it used to be. Though the proportion of inmates with drug problems has remained steady, the percentage receiving treatment plunged from 25 percent in 1990 to only 10 percent in 1997. States have also gutted parole. "Truth-in-sentencing" laws-most states now require violent felons to serve 85 percent of their sentences-mean that more and more prisoners are serving most of their sentences in prison then are released without any restrictions. More than 100,000 prisoners were released unsupervised last year. Researchers suspect that unsupervised releasees have harsher re-entries than those on parole. Not that parole is so effective: Budgets have contracted, and the average parole officer monitors 70 felons, up from 45 a few years ago. Other transitional institutions, such as halfway houses, have also weakened.
American society remains hostile toward ex-cons, and new laws and surveillance techniques make it easier to be tough on returning felons. Employers can quickly check criminal records and deny employment to former inmates. Some states have banned ex-prisoners from public employment and public housing. The declining economy will hit ex-cons hard: Since they are the most marginal employees, they are first to lose their jobs in a recession. More and more live in the poorest areas. The Urban Institute says that two-thirds of inmates return to "core" urban counties (where jobs are scarce), up from only half a decade ago. (California found that 70 percent-90 percent of its parolees are unemployed.)
Returning prisoners may be more dangerous than they used to be. An enormous number are violent: 140,000 of the 1998 graduating class are violent criminals, up from 75,000 in 1985. More ex-offenders than ever suffer mental illness. And ex-cons pose a health danger, too: Prisoner rates of HIV infection, tuberculosis, and hepatitis C run five to 10 times the national average. (According to the Urban Institute, in 1997, one-quarter of all Americans with HIV/AIDS were released from prison or jail.) Prisoners return as disease vectors as well as crime vectors.
Not all the data is awful. Releasees average 34 years old, up from 29 years old in the '70s. (They are older because they are serving longer sentences, and because the big baby boom cohort drags the average age up.) Felons commit fewer crimes as they get older, so by locking up crooks longer, we may be naturally aging them out of a life of crime. The stats about violent ex-cons are also ambiguous. Though record numbers of violent offenders are getting out this year, they actually represent a lower percentage of released inmates-only one-quarter of all releasees, down from 32 percent in 1985. (The percentage of violent offenders has dropped because many more releasees are nonviolent drug offenders.)
The best news for ex-cons may be that people are interested in them again. The Urban Institute's Travis speculates that the record crime drop, the strong economy, and perhaps even the success of welfare reform have convinced Americans that ex-prisoners are worth worrying about. The public policy community is seized with passion about this. George Soros' Open Society Institute has been sponsoring re-entry studies, as have at least two other major foundations. The Urban Institute's "From Prison to Home" is the first comprehensive prisoner re-entry report in years; the General Accounting Office is publishing findings on federal re-entry next week, and the Department of Justice will release the first major recidivism study in 15 years this fall. Congress appropriated nearly $100 million this year for pilot re-entry programs, and the Senate Judiciary Committee is considering a new bill to assist federal-prisoner re-entry.
No crystal answers have emerged yet. (Most articles and reports, in fact, conclude that: "We need further study .") How re-entry affects the crime rate remains an open question, as does what kind of programs best help ex-cons. Still, there are a few promising ideas. Researchers had concluded that job training is useless, but recent work by Shawn Bushway of the University of Maryland hints that job training at least helps older prisoners, encouraging them stay away from crime and stick to the legit economy. Other evidence suggests that pre- and post-release drug treatment helps ex-cons live straight. Many researchers insist that more parole and rigorous supervision of ex-cons will dampen recidivism.
There is a very callous reason why the current effort on behalf of ex-cons may succeed where the attempts of the '60s and '70s failed. Today's fascination with ex-cons is rooted not in emotion but in pragmatism. Most researchers and activists don't seem greatly animated by sympathy for prisoners. They fret about the threat the ex-cons pose to public safety, public health, and general social order, and worry little about the threat the ex-cons pose to themselves. This is not a grand lefty crusade. No one is romanticizing what prisoners are like and what reforms can accomplish. Conservatives can embrace this struggle as easily as liberals. If we're stuck with ex-cons-and we've finally realized that we are, by the millions-we had better figure out something to do with them.
http://www.Slate.com
Monday, January 24, 2005
Yet another Prison Murder- Alabama
Everyone,
Please note: the phone system was down at Donaldson Prison (Bessemer, Alabama) since Friday 01-21-05. I had just called the prison about an hour ago to report that I had not heard from my husband since Thursday night and wanted to know if something was wrong at the camp. The woman I spoke to said they were having trouble with the phones and "No tellin' when they'd be up again."
A few minutes ago I learned the reason for the phones being shut down. Sending this to news reporter, Carla Crowder, to investigate:
Friday 01-21-05 guards at Donaldson Prison beat a mental patient inmate to death. It is said that the Deputy Warden was trying to keep everything about this under the carpet, but Warden Bullard entered the scene and said, "No, I want the truth."
The murdered inmate (name currently unknown) was handcuffed behind his back and his arms were tied with a sheet so he could not move. And then he was beaten to death by guards. It is said that the inmate who was murdered Friday was beaten in I-block, taken to the infirmary and beaten again to death. From all indications there was blood all up the hall and even on the walls, but this was cleaned up right away, destroying the evidence and violating the rules that say no evidence is to be destroyed until I&I has had a chance to investigate.
One guard who is well known at the Donaldson camp as being "unstable and crazy", kicking doors and screaming, is said to be one of the killers in Friday's murder. This guard is said to be an officer but not a Lieutenant. It is said that this guard is the one who got the inmate saying he was taking him to the Shift Office but instead took the inmate out to the asphalt and proceeded to try to provoke a fight.
So far, known witnesses are said to be:
1. Ms. Lawson, nurse
2. Mr. Greene, nurse
3. One other nurse
4. Inmate Jimmy Sides from G dorm
What was done to the inmate is a crime and the people responsible for this inmate's murder need to go to trial and prison. We hope we do not see a mere slap on their hands for killing another human being just because they were a badge and have the title of "corrections officer". We hope we do not see a report that says this inmate committed suicide.
I will be posting further information as it becomes available.
Please note: the phone system was down at Donaldson Prison (Bessemer, Alabama) since Friday 01-21-05. I had just called the prison about an hour ago to report that I had not heard from my husband since Thursday night and wanted to know if something was wrong at the camp. The woman I spoke to said they were having trouble with the phones and "No tellin' when they'd be up again."
A few minutes ago I learned the reason for the phones being shut down. Sending this to news reporter, Carla Crowder, to investigate:
Friday 01-21-05 guards at Donaldson Prison beat a mental patient inmate to death. It is said that the Deputy Warden was trying to keep everything about this under the carpet, but Warden Bullard entered the scene and said, "No, I want the truth."
The murdered inmate (name currently unknown) was handcuffed behind his back and his arms were tied with a sheet so he could not move. And then he was beaten to death by guards. It is said that the inmate who was murdered Friday was beaten in I-block, taken to the infirmary and beaten again to death. From all indications there was blood all up the hall and even on the walls, but this was cleaned up right away, destroying the evidence and violating the rules that say no evidence is to be destroyed until I&I has had a chance to investigate.
One guard who is well known at the Donaldson camp as being "unstable and crazy", kicking doors and screaming, is said to be one of the killers in Friday's murder. This guard is said to be an officer but not a Lieutenant. It is said that this guard is the one who got the inmate saying he was taking him to the Shift Office but instead took the inmate out to the asphalt and proceeded to try to provoke a fight.
So far, known witnesses are said to be:
1. Ms. Lawson, nurse
2. Mr. Greene, nurse
3. One other nurse
4. Inmate Jimmy Sides from G dorm
What was done to the inmate is a crime and the people responsible for this inmate's murder need to go to trial and prison. We hope we do not see a mere slap on their hands for killing another human being just because they were a badge and have the title of "corrections officer". We hope we do not see a report that says this inmate committed suicide.
I will be posting further information as it becomes available.
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