Mass Incarceration in the United States

HEATHEN

HEATHEN

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I know this is a recurring topic on these boards but I don't think we talk enough about rehabilitation. We've covered the prison industrial complex to exhaustion but I think the biggest issue here is the lack of opportunity for ex-cons to re-integrate back into society.

A felony is a lot like a modern day scarlet letter (minus the adultery). You have your rights stripped away, you're denied work, and really have very little chance at being an upwardly mobile productive member of society. We're literally throwing these souls away, and their families suffer dearly. Kids grow up without fathers, wives without their husbands, entire communities are being torn apart as a result.


Especially Black and Hispanic communities, and yes race is a factor here. When we're talking about at-risk youth we cannot deny that that young Black males are the most at risk, these kids are growing up without a father figure. We're effectively creating an environment setting these kids up for failure.


57.6% of Black children are growing up fatherless. (http://www.fathers.com/content/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=336)


And a huge reason behind that number is the Black incarceration rate. We're simply not giving Americans, namely Black Americans an opportunity to rehabilitate and provide for their families. These men are being institutionalized early on in life and it follows them through adulthood. It's a vicious cycle.

It's ******* genocide really, we're killing an entire generation of Americans. Mass incarceration without rehabilitation is genocide, make no mistake.


Land of the free right? Throwing away lives, and over what? Drugs? Guys are getting life without parole for narcotics charges. And the war on drugs is exactly what makes this prison industrial system tick, it's a huge cash cow.

http://reason.com/archives/2012/04/22/4-industries-getting-rich-off-the-drug-w


:smh:
 
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- Recidivism rate in America is 60%.

- Black Americans account for 13% of the American population but makeup about half the prison population.

- Black Americans also account for 50% of the ex-offender population.



Connect the dots.
 
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Someone made a thread on this video last week. It basically states the obvious without presenting the obvious.

The US criminal justice system is known to be inherently racist. It was one of the main messages I got from my Criminal Justice degree program.
 
mean while in Dutch land...

AMSTERDAM -- 

The Netherlands has an unusual problem -- too many prison guards and too few inmates.

The Dutch Justice Ministry isn't sure why the country's inmate population is dropping.

Several prisons have been closed since they're no longer needed.

Crime rates have fallen slightly in recent years, but aren't notably lower in the Netherlands than in neighboring countries, and many Dutch people think sentences for violent offenders are too light.

In 2008, there were around 15,000 inmates, in a country of 17 million. As of March of this year, there were just 9,710 inmates remaining, compared with 9,914 guards. That number of inmates includes 650 Belgian criminals the Netherlands is housing as part of a temporary deal.

In the U.S. the ratio is closer to one guard for every five inmates. Overall, the incarceration rate is 10 times higher in the U.S. than it is in the Netherlands.

Officials have announced they are in the process of cutting 3,500 jobs.

http://mynews13.com/content/news/cf...icles/cfn/2014/4/11/netherlands_we_don_t.html
 
Governer Coumo (NYC) has the right idea.


http://www.insidehighered.com/news/...soners-college-education#sthash.xEFNRJsB.dpbs

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo wants to bring professors back into prisons 20 years after Congress and one of his predecessors cut funding for inmate higher education.

Congress and the Clinton administration ended Pell Grant funding for prisoners in 1994, effectively cutting off funds for most college education in prisons. New York followed suit a year later and made sure its inmates couldn’t get funding from the state’s Tuition Assistance Program either.

Now, Cuomo has proposed a plan -- drawing fire from many -- that he says will save money by giving prisoners a better chance to find jobs and stay out of trouble once they are released.

The federal and state moves in the 1990s left many prisons without any higher education offerings, except for relatively small programs offered by private groups. Cuomo's plan is an unusual effort by a powerful politician to put real money into college programs behind bars.

"We’re imprisoning. We’re isolating. But we’re not rehabilitating the way we should,” Cuomo said this month when he announced the plan to a church gathering of the state’s Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus. “We’re not correcting the way we should. We’re not improving the way we should.”

The governor wants to better-prepare prisoners for life after jail and cut New York’s recidivism rate of 40 percent, which is still below the national average.

Opponents of the plan, including state lawmakers with prisons in their districts, say law-abiding New Yorkers can barely afford college while the governor is trying to give a free education to the state’s crooks.

“Rewarding criminal behavior with free college education reinforces their actions and makes them smarter criminals,” Assemblyman James Tedisco, a Republican, said in a statement. “This is definitely ‘Breaking Bad’ by potentially turning a bunch of Jesse Pinkmans into Walter Whites – all on the taxpayer’s dime.”

Details of the plan will become clearer on Monday, when the governor's office is expected to ask higher ed institutions to submit proposals for the plan. Cuomo’s initial goal is to provide a college education in 10 of the state’s 70 prisons.

The governor hasn’t said how much the plan will cost or where the money would come from, but one cost estimate is about $5 million a year. It takes about $5,000 a year to educate a prisoner, and about 100 prisoners enroll per prison, said Rob Scott, the director of Cornell University’s prison education program. By contrast, it costs New York about $60,000 to keep a prisoner behind bars.

“You could run this whole thing for about the cost of incarcerating 100 people,” Scott said.
Still, critics of the plan have played on concerns about student debt.

Greg Ball, a state senator, started petition called “Hell No To Attica University: No Free College Education for Convicts,” a reference to the site of a famous prisoner revolt. One of the demands of the Attica prisoners was for better education.

Glen Martin, an activist with JustLeadershipUSA, a nonprofit that wants to cut the American prison population in half by 2030, said critics of Cuomo’s plan are trying to protect jobs in their districts.

The critics, he said, are “mostly conservative Senate Republican from upstate districts that rely on prisons as economic engines and have corrections officers as part of their
constituents.”

Critics of Cuomo have accused him of playing politics, too.

An editorial in The Staten Island Advocate said the governor was trying to outfox New York City’s populist mayor, Bill DeBlasio, who has been urging the fiscally conservative governor to fund an expansive universal pre-Kindergarten program. Cuomo has “done the mayor one better” with the prison education program, the paper’s editors said. The program could also appeal to minority voters without costing much, if the several million dollar price tag is accurate.

Since 2011, Cuomo has been critical of the state’s expensive corrections program, which cost $2.9 billion last year. In that year’s State of the State, he criticized the view that prison facilities should be used as economic development in the depressed regions of the state. “An incarceration program is not an employment program,” he said.

The appetite for providing college educations to prisoners dried up in Congress in the 1994 when Kay Bailey Hutchison, then a Republican Senator from Texas, backed a plan that made felons ineligible for the Pell Grant. In 1995, New York Governor George Pataki, a Republican, made sure state prisoners couldn’t get state financial aid either.
Immediately, prisoner education programs shriveled up.

A few handfuls of programs are operating. Scott said that Cornell’s program tried to put together a national directory of prison programs, but people said they didn’t want to be discovered. That’s in part because of what happened, Scott said, to a program in Indiana that operated under the radar but then was shut down.

New York happens to have several privately funded prisoner education programs, including Cornell’s, the Consortium of the Niagara Frontier and the Bard Prison Initiative.

Max Kenner, the founder of the Bard College program, said the private programs are all fragile and unsustainable without public funding. “Every week is an existential crisis and the governor’s proposal would not only expand on what we do, but make what we do continue to exist,” he said. “Frankly, without the government, this work is a temporary Band-Aid and really cannot continue.”

Advocates say the programs can not only help prisoners prepare for life after they are released, but help control behavior inside prisons. Only prisoners with good behavior are allowed to enroll and stay in the programs, and the inmates in the college programs can also serve as models for other prisoners.

It’s not clear which institutions would get involved if Cuomo’s program were to be funded, but both private colleges and publics are interested.

A spokesman for the State University of New York system said the governor’s plan was in line with the system’s mission. “SUNY supports the education of more New Yorkers so they can find jobs, be good citizens, and contribute to society,” system spokesman David Doyle said in an email. If the plan is approved, he said, the system believes New York could become a national model.


Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/...pay-prisoners-college-education#ixzz2yo3n7t1h
Inside Higher Ed
Click to expand...


Most states have GED programs in place, and that's fine and dandy. But giving convicts a chance at higher education will drastically improve their chances at employability after release. Recidivism rates can go down, these men just need a structured rehabilitation plan, and education needs to be a keystone component of that plan.
 
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SneakerHeathen said:
Governer Coumo (NYC) has the right idea.


http://www.insidehighered.com/news/...soners-college-education#sthash.xEFNRJsB.dpbs
Most states have GED programs in place, and that's fine and dandy. But giving convicts a chance at higher education will drastically improve their chances at employability after release. Recidivism rates can go down, these men just need a structured rehabilitation plan, and education needs to be a keystone component of that plan.
Click to expand...
Not always true. I work with kids locked down and we have a wrap-around approach to how we rehabilitate them and they still re-offend at an extremely high rate. They attend school, have clinicians that they meet with daily, calls to family, visits with family, recreational activities including anything from basketball to arts and crafts to yoga and more, charity work, church, cooking, GED programs....pretty much anything that we can do to help them get back on their feet mentally and physically we do.

Problem is, once offenders go back to their old stomping grounds it's very hard to keep them straight. 

In my opinion, community outreach is just as important. People need social bonds to keep them from re-offending. The community needs to preserve the skills they learn while they're incarcerated.

Also, the earlier you get to kids, the better chance you have of rehabilitating them. Some of these kids are like 25 years olds trapped in 15 year old bodies. They know too much, they've seen too much, they've experienced too much at an unhealthy rate.

Sadly, some of them are just beyond helping. It kills me to say that. But it's true. And they are KIDS. Imagine how much harder it is to get through to serious repeat adult offenders.
 
AyZee said:
Not always true. I work with kids locked down and we have a wrap-around approach to how we rehabilitate them and they still re-offend at an extremely high rate. They attend school, have clinicians that they meet with daily, calls to family, visits with family, recreational activities including anything from basketball to arts and crafts to yoga and more, charity work, church, cooking, GED programs....pretty much anything that we can do to help them get back on their feet mentally and physically we do.

Problem is, once offenders go back to their old stomping grounds it's very hard to keep them straight. 

In my opinion, community outreach is just as important. People need social bonds to keep them from re-offending. The community needs to preserve the skills they learn while they're incarcerated.

Also, the earlier you get to kids, the better chance you have of rehabilitating them. Some of these kids are like 25 years olds trapped in 15 year old bodies. They know too much, they've seen too much, they've experienced too much at an unhealthy rate.

Sadly, some of them are just beyond helping. It kills me to say that. But it's true. And they are KIDS. Imagine how much harder it is to get through to serious repeat adult offenders.
Click to expand...


Great insight, and it just solidifies my belief that black males need their fathers in their lives. Especially when they're going back their neighborhoods, back to that same environment that cultivates this vicious cycle.


I commend you for your work sir. YOU are part of the solution.
 
AyZee said:
SneakerHeathen said:
Governer Coumo (NYC) has the right idea.


http://www.insidehighered.com/news/...soners-college-education#sthash.xEFNRJsB.dpbs

Most states have GED programs in place, and that's fine and dandy. But giving convicts a chance at higher education will drastically improve their chances at employability after release. Recidivism rates can go down, these men just need a structured rehabilitation plan, and education needs to be a keystone component of that plan.
Click to expand...

Also, the earlier you get to kids, the better chance you have of rehabilitating them. Some of these kids are like 25 years olds trapped in 15 year old bodies. They know too much, they've seen too much, they've experienced too much at an unhealthy rate.

Sadly, some of them are just beyond helping. It kills me to say that. But it's true. And they are KIDS. Imagine how much harder it is to get through to serious repeat adult offenders.
Click to expand...

|I too real, people downplay this too dam often
 
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But again, when talking about the adult population, a GED program is simply not enough. That is why higher education is the next step in rehabilitation and re-integration. We want to give these guys a chance at being employable.


It's already hard enough for most Americans to find gainful employment with just a simple HS degree, it's no wonder that a GED program isn't enough for ex-cons. I can't blame employers at this point, what's the upside?



Community outreach IS important. We need communities to embrace these young men as well as their older counterparts and bring them back into the fold. But we also need to properly equip these guys with the right tools to function within society long before we turn them over to their respective communities.


And I'm a firm believer that higher education is the means to that end.
 
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SneakerHeathen said:
Governer Coumo (NYC) has the right idea.


http://www.insidehighered.com/news/...soners-college-education#sthash.xEFNRJsB.dpbs
Most states have GED programs in place, and that's fine and dandy. But giving convicts a chance at higher education will drastically improve their chances at employability after release. Recidivism rates can go down, these men just need a structured rehabilitation plan, and education needs to be a keystone component of that plan.
Click to expand...

So if I am a law abiding citizen and cant afford a higher education maybe I should try to get arrested.
How about we offer better more affordable access to higher education so that people can see themselves surviving without having to resort to crime.
I think reducing the amount of new people entering the system is more important than curbing recidivism.

Take a look at this example. Dude robbed a bank to get the healthcare he needed. http://www.nwcn.com/news/220890011.html
 
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SneakerHeathen said:
But again, when talking about the adult population, a GED program is simply not enough. That is why higher education is the next step in rehabilitation and re-integration. We want to give these guys a chance at being employable.


It's already hard enough for most Americans to find gainful employment with just a simple HS degree, it's no wonder that a GED program isn't enough for ex-cons. I can't blame employers at this point, what's the upside?



Community outreach IS important. We need communities to embrace these young men as well as their older counterparts and bring them back into the fold. But we also need to properly equip these guys with the right tools to function within society long before we turn them over to their respective communities.


And I'm a firm believer that higher education is the means to that end.
Click to expand...
Some community outreach occurs in my area, but not enough. There's not enough support/funding from the government to facilitate programming. I know of a church group that opened up a cafe in the city and hires former juvenile offenders that have been released. While their heart is in the right place, what do you think happens when you put 10-15 offenders together? 

That's why the larger institutions within the community need to get involved and swallow up these kids (in a good way). They need to be reintegrated individually, but it's harder to accomplish when they're grouped together AGAIN, even if it's in a more positive environment.

I tell kids time and time again, "play it safe. gtf away from these kids that you met in the system." It rarely hits home, but it does enough to keep reinforcing that idea. The hardest part is cracking their hardened street-shell exterior.

On a positive note, MCI Framingham which is the women's prison in Massachusetts offers a Boston University program to inmates.
 
AyZee said:
Problem is, once offenders go back to their old stomping grounds it's very hard to keep them straight. 

In my opinion, community outreach is just as important. People need social bonds to keep them from re-offending. The community needs to preserve the skills they learn while they're incarcerated.

Also, the earlier you get to kids, the better chance you have of rehabilitating them. Some of these kids are like 25 years olds trapped in 15 year old bodies. They know too much, they've seen too much, they've experienced too much at an unhealthy rate.

Sadly, some of them are just beyond helping. It kills me to say that. But it's true. And they are KIDS. Imagine how much harder it is to get through to serious repeat adult offenders.
Click to expand...

All very good points, especially about people going back to their neighborhoods and the effect a community can have on an individual.

It really is unfortunate to see the lost souls, though. Dudes buy into that mentality and it becomes their identity...but I would never say that someone is beyond the point of no return. Rather, their life comes to an end before they realize there are other ways. In some cases, only the most tramatic events can change a person's perspective...and those usually involve death either direct or indrectly.

SneakerHeathen said:
Thanks for posting the OG thread.


@Yeah made some great points in that thread. Good read.
Click to expand...

:pimp:
 
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blackngold1z said:
So if I am a law abiding citizen and cant afford a higher education maybe I should try to get arrested.
How about we offer better more affordable access to higher education so that people can see themselves surviving without having to resort to crime.
I think reducing the amount of new people entering the system is more important than curbing recidivism.

Take a look at this example. Dude robbed a bank to get the healthcare he needed. http://www.nwcn.com/news/220890011.html
Click to expand...



good points, it all speaks to the lack of opportunities out there for people living in low-income neighborhoods. Kids already don't have one or both parent figures to come home to after school and a lot of these school districts are cutting out worthwhile extra-curriculars and after school programs. Teachers don't have an incentive to go out of their way to pursue careers in these neighborhoods. These schools are understaffed and underfunded.


And yes, people are left without medical coverage, as well as other necessities. It speaks volumes when people rather be institutionalized than be free. Kids often have one meal at school and that'll be the only meal they have all day, who is going to feed these kids when school is out?



So yes I agree beyond rehabilitation more needs to be done within communities and schools to help children and their families.
 
offbad said:
maybe people could/should stop committing felonies? 
Click to expand...


ignorant statement completely devoid of any consideration of the circumstances many of these individuals grow up in.


not everyone is privileged enough to grow up in an environment that makes it that simple.
 
AyZee said:
Some community outreach occurs in my area, but not enough. There's not enough support/funding from the government to facilitate programming. I know of a church group that opened up a cafe in the city and hires former juvenile offenders that have been released. While their heart is in the right place, what do you think happens when you put 10-15 offenders together? 

That's why the larger institutions within the community need to get involved and swallow up these kids (in a good way). They need to be reintegrated individually, but it's harder to accomplish when they're grouped together AGAIN, even if it's in a more positive environment.

I tell kids time and time again, "play it safe. gtf away from these kids that you met in the system." It rarely hits home, but it does enough to keep reinforcing that idea. The hardest part is cracking their hardened street-shell exterior.

On a positive note, MCI Framingham which is the women's prison in Massachusetts offers a Boston University program to inmates.
Click to expand...



Hm interesting point you bring up. Kids and ex-offenders being lumped together in the same environment, even a rehabilitative environment can be counterproductive.


Maybe we need to start sending these kids to private schools the next town over, summer programs/camps, get them away from the same damaging elements and into new ones.


I'd much rather see my tax dollars go to these causes instead of military funding and foreign aid.
 
I would like society to take more stock in the people that aren't as fortunate. As corny as it sounds, I always go back to Ice Cube's last lines in BNTH "either they don't know..."



Funding in juvenile corrections is pathetic The funding they do have isn't distributed appropriately. The turnover of people that work in human services is high because they're paid horribly. Basically people don't value other people enough is what it boils down to in my opinion.
 
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AyZee said:
I would like society to take more stock in the people that aren't as fortunate. As corny as it sounds, I always go back to Ice Cube's last lines in BNTH "either they don't know..."





Funding in juvenile corrections is pathetic The funding they do have isn't distributed appropriately. The turnover of people that work in human services is high because they're paid horribly. Basically people don't value other people enough is what it boils down to in my opinion.
Click to expand...


exactly man, people tend to only concern over their own ilk and that's about it.


Americans rather send money abroad than help inner-city at risk youth.


same people say that inequalities and gross gap divides in privilege can be remedied if black communities just hold themselves accountable and work hard.


Yeah, over 300 years of slavery and Jim Crow segregation is remedied by just strapping up your boots kids. Never mind the fact that nobody in their family has ever been to college, never mind the fact that the men in their family are in and out of prison, never mind that police purposefully troll black communities profiling black men.


Hard work'll remedy all of it right?


Pure BS. Again I'd much rather my tax dollars go toward these communities than toward military endeavors. Kids are disenfranchised long before they lose their rights because of a felony record. They never had a chance. While children of privilege have access to extra-curriculars, after-school programming and tutoring, fine arts, athletics as well as a stable family unit.


And that's not to say that all white youth have it good, just talking statistically here.
 
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SneakerHeathen said:
 
offbad said:
maybe people could/should stop committing felonies? 
Click to expand...
ignorant statement completely devoid of any consideration of the circumstances many of these individuals grow up in.


not everyone is privileged enough to grow up in an environment that makes it that simple.
Click to expand...
implying environment makes things simple.

nah.

one can make it out of a particular environment if one wanted.
 
offbad said:
implying environment makes things simple.

nah.

one can make it out of a particular environment if one wanted.
Click to expand...



:lol: Right, if obtaining that state of mind was that simple. These kids really don't even think like that, they have no idea of hope.
 
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