Prison system ideas?

[Dr T]

The Prison system, for the most part, is ineffective.  

 

I wonder what it would take to turn people's behaviors around?

I see a lot of problems with drugs.  I see money being a huge factor in crimes.  The old have vs. the have nots.  It appears that the have nots tend to try to "get over" on others, stealing, extortion, prostitution, lying, weapons offenses and others intended to benefit the criminal and takes advantage of the victims.  I wonder how to curb this problem?  I wonder if we could figure out a way to deal with the drug problems how much that would change crime numbers?  This is too complex to deal with alone.  What ideas do you all have to reform the prison system.  It costs WAY too much to house prisoners and our country has too many prisoners and it keeps going up.  What to do?  Please share thoughts.

 

Thank you  

[prisonchaplain]

Prison systems are increasingly focusing on re-entry preparation.  What can we do for those inmates who desire to turn around that will help them do so?  Requiring GED, offering parenting classes, making various spiritual and morals/ethics programs available, etc.  The charitable and faith-based communities are redirecting their energies.  Since the 1960s/70s the focus was getting religious education volunteers into the prisons.  Now, the effort is more towards aftercare and transition assistance.  That is, how can we help those inmates returning to our communities to make the change from prisoner to citizen?  Job search assistance?  Skill development?  Transitional housing, perhaps with a religious training component?

 

Bottom line:  I'm not so sure prisons are ineffective.  Some folks really do need a time out.  Or, we need a time out from them.  The question is how to make that time more effective, in a manner that is financially sound?

[Dr T]

Hi PC,

 

Thank you for your input.  Good points on touching on "what to do with them while we have them."  I am not familiar with the Moral/Ethics programs.  My Masters Thesis was on "Moral development in Incarcerated Youth" until I abandoned that idea during my research and after writing a lot about it because I started to believe Moral Development might only be measuring people vocabulary end expensiveness rather than behavioral expressions of morality.  We have pushed for GED programs.  We have some fire camps in CA that teach skills and I have experienced men that have really turned their visions around, were motivated to change and evidenced his change from being a hard core gang member to running the fire crew and preparing to get a job with Cal Fire.  Thank for your ideas.  I look forward to more thoughts.    

[prisonchaplain]

I believe this is the program I had in mind--because they call it MRT:  http://www.moral-reconation-therapy.com/

[Guest]

I ran a Systems Engineering Study on a modified version of the Jackson County,MS drug rehab model.  This county has very high incidences of drug addiction (mostly meth) going through the courts.  The model was to create a healthcare network for drug rehab tied to the courts with the main gist of it being a choice of verdicts between incarceration and a comprehensive drug rehab program.  Failure to pass drug rehab end-goals gets the patient sent back to the courts for another round of incarceration/drug rehab verdict.

[Guest]

I also saw a documentary made by Skousen (the Mormon director behind Napoleon Dynamite) about the University of Sing-sing... a college program for the inmates of Sing-sing prison.

[notquiteperfect]

Off the top of my head - 
 

poverty - you need to help people shift from a sense of lack to abundance.  There are various ways to do that (money games, chakra work, etc)

drugs - sometimes it's because of a chemical/hormonal/nutrition imbalance they're trying to fill so that needs to be addressed.  Also, when people start an addiction, they're emotional maturity stops at that point so you can't necessarily treat a person like they're calendar age.  Furthermore, to really clean up the addiction, you need to get it all out of their system (it seeps into the organs and cells so you need to do a total detox, not just a 'surface' one for lack of a better term).

 

They also need to develop empathy and feel a sense of being loved.  Pets can help with this.  
 

They also need a sense of purpose.

I might chime in with more but that's it for now.  Hope that helps.

[SpiritDragon]

I think a big problem for those that are in and out of the system can be financial. I am not saying that everyone in the prisons is Jean Val Jean, but that many may be closer than we think... especially those who have supposedly been helped by the programs in place before, why do they turn back? My understanding is that it is really hard to get a decent job once a person has a criminal record. If a person can't get a job isn't it more likely they will turn to theft and/or black market opportunities?

 

Therefore I think that a greater emphasis needs to be placed on re-integration as has been stated. Moreover I think it would possibly be very helpful to have state run enterprises or partnerships with specific industries to ensure available work for out-mates. Perhaps something similar is already in place? The main problem here is in determining the right type of jobs.

 

I also know it may sound harsh, but I believe in capital punishment. I think it should be extended to more than just murderers (or even on the table at all in Canada), I think the fear of death is a real deterrent that should be extended to rapists as well (at the very least non-anesthetized castration). Other offences such as drugs, theft, lesser molestation etc. should still be given chances to reform through the system, but we should not continue to pay for the same people to go through time and again to no avail. I think for these individuals a three strike system may help them not to re-offend... this three strike system being that if they land themselves in jail for the same class of offense three times they'll face the death sentence. This also saves paying for them to live out life in prison only to leave and return for the rest of their lives. 

[Guest]

I think a big problem for those that are in and out of the system can be financial.

 

It can also be cultural.  Have you seen Jersey Boys?  It shows some sections of Jersey Italians consider prison something to do (like visiting grandma), if not, a badge of honor.

[SpiritDragon]

It can also be cultural.  Have you seen Jersey Boys?  It shows some sections of Jersey Italians consider prison something to do (like visiting grandma), if not, a badge of honor.

 

All the more reason to instill the fear of death.

[Guest]

All the more reason to instill the fear of death.

 

Not gonna work with these Italians... they're the harbinger of death.

[SpiritDragon]

Not gonna work with these Italians... they're the harbinger of death.

 

It still solves the problem of paying for them to fill cells repeatedly.

[Guest]

It still solves the problem of paying for them to fill cells repeatedly.

 

I don't think you understood what I said... Death penalty doesn't solve the problem.  These Italians are not scared of the death penalty.  Murder is a capital offense that already has a death penalty attached.  That doesn't stop the Italians from killing people and ending up in the prison system without ending up on death row.

[SpiritDragon]

I don't think you understood what I said... Death penalty doesn't solve the problem.  These Italians are not scared of the death penalty.  Murder is a capital offense that already has a death penalty attached.  That doesn't stop the Italians from killing people and ending up in the prison system without ending up on death row.

 

It does solve the problem of the same person not returning again later. But you do bring up another valid point, once we determine they are getting the death penalty let's get it over with, none of this hang out in jail forever waiting to die. Then we'll solve both problems, limit repeat customers and avoid plugging up cells with living bodies waiting to be buried. 

[Guest]

It does solve the problem of the same person not returning again later. But you do bring up another valid point, once we determine they are getting the death penalty let's get it over with, none of this hang out in jail forever waiting to die. Then we'll solve both problems, limit repeat customers and avoid plugging up cells with living bodies waiting to be buried. 

 

Very very bad solution SpiritDragon.  If you had a perfect system with Jesus Christ Himself saying - this guy truly did it, this guy didn't do it - instead of 12 people on the jury box, I would agree with you.

 

Ending people's lives is not something to be trifled with.  A court system killing people who don't deserve to die is nothing better than a murderer.

[Palerider]

I do not work in the Prison system. I hVe several friends that do. I hear all sorts of opinions. I wonder what the percentages are of those who do the time and get out and turn their life around. I know there are many that do not make a change for the better. You always hear stories about the ones who committed a crime so they could go back to prison. My son works in the mental health field and most of his clients are out on parole and have mental health issues. The area where I live we have three prisons with in a 20 mile radius. One is a max security and one is mostly a predators unit and the other one is what they call a Diagnostic Center.

[SpiritDragon]

Very very bad solution SpiritDragon.  If you had a perfect system with Jesus Christ Himself saying - this guy truly did it, this guy didn't do it - instead of 12 people on the jury box, I would agree with you.

 

Ending people's lives is not something to be trifled with.  A court system killing people who don't deserve to die is nothing better than a murderer.

 

Ending people's lives willy nilly is indeed a problem, and the system is obviously not perfect (or we wouldn't likely be discussing improvement options). However when due diligence has been done to seek the truth and the accused are found guilty why should we keep them alive for 70 years in prison until they die? Because 20 years later we may find them innocent? I guess we had better make sure we get it right. Yeah revisions need to be made.

 

God obviously trusted people in the past to judiciously decide. In the old testament capital offences ranged from kidnapping, rape, and murder down to Sabbath breaking and idol worship. Now the mosaic law has been fulfilled and we don't kill Sabbath breakers or those who watch American Idol, but we also haven't been commanded against capital punishment ever.

 

It is the very point that ending people's lives is not something to trifle with that calls for every measure to be taken to reintegrate criminals who have committed lesser offenses back into society, while eliminating hardened criminals. If however reintegration measures continue to fail then we are continuing to allow these people back into society where they are ending lives (rape, kidnap, theft, etc ruin lives too). So why should we value the life of the criminal above the victims? Why should we give them free room and board (paid for by the victim's hard earned tax dollar) which serves as an incentive to re-offend. The point of a prison system is to be a deterrent for crime. If the message was clearly sent that we have a program in place to help you get your life together, and a support system in place to help ensure your life stays in order, you won't only be given a second chance, but even a third, but you choose to continue to be a scourge to society... we have a very permanent solution - it would be an improvement. 

[dahlia]

It does solve the problem of the same person not returning again later. But you do bring up another valid point, once we determine they are getting the death penalty let's get it over with, none of this hang out in jail forever waiting to die. Then we'll solve both problems, limit repeat customers and avoid plugging up cells with living bodies waiting to be buried. 

I listen to a lot of classic radio. There are a number of police shows, from the 1930's onward, based on real life events. It is amazing to hear at the end that the criminal had been executed within a year of capture. They didn't mess around back then and I don't think we should now. All this current garbage about Mumia Abu Jamal would be moot if the governor had just flipped the switch on this guy at the beginning and not let him stew in jail.

 

As for what we do once they're in jail - you'd be surprised at the low literacy rate. Before many of these people can pursue a GED or other education, they have to learn how to read first. It's a crime that almost all of them went to school, some even have high school diplomas, and they still can't read (I had a student who was involved in prison literacy programs take about 4 classes from me and did all her papers on various aspects of the same. I learned a lot.)

 

This isn't going to go over well, but I'd also suggest decriminalizing most drugs or making them legal so the money-making incentive is removed and the government can tax the revenue from sales. I'd also reduce the time for most drug related crimes. 10-20 yrs for street corner stuff is out of line.

[Guest]

There's a great documentary on Netflix called, "Serving Life". I highly recommend it. 

[Dr T]

There are some fantastic thoughts so far al.  

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PC, I would stick with the word broken for the CA prison system, California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation (CDCR) for multiple reasons.  "Broken" as in "not functioning, imperfect or incomplete; fragmentary, interrupted; disturbed; disconnected, not functioning (well), (of a trust, promise, contract, etc) violated; infringed, overcome with grief or disappointment."  To name some examples, we are over populated, financially out of control and recidivism rates are sometimes very high. 

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There is an opinion article I found interesting:  http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-07-13-prison-jail-system-america_n.htm

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NQP, those are great thoughts.  Thank you for sharing.  It is late and I'm dead tired.  This has been fun.  Thank you for your thoughts and I look forward to what else I can learn from your ideas.  :)

[Mahone]

Ending people's lives willy nilly is indeed a problem, and the system is obviously not perfect (or we wouldn't likely be discussing improvement options). However when due diligence has been done to seek the truth and the accused are found guilty why should we keep them alive for 70 years in prison until they die? Because 20 years later we may find them innocent? I guess we had better make sure we get it right. Yeah revisions need to be made.

 

 

Part of the justice process is allowing the convicted to appeal their conviction and sentence. In the case of those given the death penalty, every opportunity is given to the convict to prove a judgement was either incorrect or unfair. After all, they won't get the opportunity to do this after the sentence has been carried out. It's not always about guilt or innocence - sometimes it might just be that the sentence is too harsh, and considering the circumstances should be reduced.

 

This process contributes enormously to the length of time they spend on death row. Many of the arguments can be complex and take time to consider. Any big reduction in the time spent on death row would also reduce their window of time for appeals. So you solve one problem and by doing so, create another.

 

Even if just one innocent person was saved from death row as a result of the appeals process in its current form, do you think it's worth having it?

[prisonchaplain]

Recidivism is the big topic right now.  The conservative/liberal agreement is that prisoners need to finish their time, get out and stay out.  Political motivations that led to this agreement may very, but the hard-nosed reality is that we can no longer afford to house so many inmates.  As for rate-of-return, I've heard that 40% of federal prisoners, and in states as high as 75% return within 2 years.  On the low end, that would mean more than half do not.  Hopeful, though nothing to celebrate. 

 

Here's a site for those who love to dig into statistical studies:  http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=17

[bytor2112]

Addressing the penalties associated with non-violent drug crimes would be a good place to start. I am all for "hard labor" as a form of rehabilitation. Grow your own food, chain gangs etc for the violent offenders. I know prison is not a nice place currently, but, a boot camp type model with no opportunity to continue criminal activities would be optimal.

[Dr T]

Hello Bytor

 

There is much criminal behavior (bx) in the prison camp setting also.  Assaults, bringing drugs in from camp into the prison setting, passing messages to inmates and other contraband material for example.    

[bytor2112]

Very true Dr. T. The real answer is obviously children being born into intact loving families that includes a loving mother and father, structure and accountability at a young age and education. 

 

Prison should leave inmates with tired backs, aching muscles, little sleep and a profound desire to never return if released.