Prisons at "Breaking Point'
DMBlover
Posts: 33
Saw the Discovery Channel has a special this Sunday about California's prison overcrowding crisis. I had no idea it costs this much...from Witness LA:
"What does the California prison system have in common with Harvard University? It costs precisely as much to house, feed and guard one prisoner for one year in a California state prison as tuition, meals and housing cost for a student enrolled for one academic year at Harvard. As far as California taxpayers are concerned, it gets even worse. Their prison system is so overcrowded that it’s reached a breaking point. Either the state finds a long-term solution or the federal courts have warned they’ll begin ordering the release of inmates, just to ease the crush."
http://witnessla.com/prison/2007/admin/america-the-jailor/
The three strikes law isn't working.
"What does the California prison system have in common with Harvard University? It costs precisely as much to house, feed and guard one prisoner for one year in a California state prison as tuition, meals and housing cost for a student enrolled for one academic year at Harvard. As far as California taxpayers are concerned, it gets even worse. Their prison system is so overcrowded that it’s reached a breaking point. Either the state finds a long-term solution or the federal courts have warned they’ll begin ordering the release of inmates, just to ease the crush."
http://witnessla.com/prison/2007/admin/america-the-jailor/
The three strikes law isn't working.
Keep the big door open and everyone will come around.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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you keep somebody housed 10 or 15 years that are supposed to die, it's too big a drain. plus there are plenty of people that look at prisons as a 2nd home (or first) i happen to know a couple of these. going in the big house is just another day to them. they are responsible and productive in life. prison is where everything is taken care of for them, they can still get high, etc.
changing pot laws would help. i know that some here have said that their cities do not bust for possession, but they do around here.
-Big Fish
Relaxing the pot laws would be a great first step. What about the crack dealers, who get caught every time they're released? You want to keep them off the street but the money it takes to "house" them all. Hope the documentary offers some creative solutions.
and we need to find out what it is that interests them in life, apart from petty crime, drug dealing/taking. i still have some faith for those people who steal for money. once they get out of prison they should be placed in a job or something like that. Because i'm sure everyone in here is aware that once you've got a criminal record it's very hard to find a job.....and so they re-offend. also we need to unite them with positive people, with whom they can be friends. because a lot of those criminals have friends who are criminals too, and when they get out their friends drag them into this shit all over again.
* edit* plus we need to change their attitude!
angels share laughter
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i dont have any answers. freeing nonviolent drug offenders and making prisons less liveable would be a start.
do drug rehabs always work? no. do drug rehabs work sometimes? yes. does tossing them in prison ever work? fuck no. at least with drug rehabs, they at least stand a chance. wouldn't you rather see an addict have at a chance with rehab versus sending them through the revolving doors of the prison system, where they don't learn anything to help them break the cycle of their addiction?
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I agree that jail time doesn't work. Save it for the worst of the worst. Then employ the self contained ideas Genie mentioned.
Rehab needs to be harder. The petty drug dealers should be made to actually pay for their crimes against society. The volunteer idea is a good one. Make them actually pay back society for their wrongs. After their secular job is done. Keep them so busy that they don't have time to re-offend.
what's up Juberoo?
so according to your twisted logic non-violent alcoholics should all be thrown in prison as well as non-violent drug offenders? they're living a negative lifestyle so what the fuck's the difference? I mean it's not like they're addicted to alcohol or anything and they can just "choose" to quit just like any other junkie addicted to drugs any time they wanna.
I'd love to know what great choices some kid that grows up in the inter-city (or alot of places for that matter) where their surrounded by drugs (it's all they've ever known) probably raised by drug users, the education system sucks and there are no jobs...tell me, where are they learning how to live a clean, productive, so-called legal life? I'm sorry, but this soceity has failed these addicts. what is the advantage to throwing them into the revolving door of the prison system versus sending them to drug treatment (at much less the cost) where they stand at least a chance of getting off of drugs and turning their life around for the better?
let me guess, you think that pretty much anyone that doesn't think like you deserves to be thrown in prison too, because they didn't "choose" to be perfect like you? you may as well throw all people that have compassion for others, non- christians, illegal aliens, liberals, single mothers, gays and lesbians, all non-whites, and all those that exceed the speed-limit etc. in prison as well... :rolleyes:
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ok, and are you 100% sure that all these rehabilitation programs have provided chance to everyone and with everything they could've offered?
i'm a bit cynical when it comes to this, time and time again i've seen flaws in certain governemnt systems. here is little something that i've found out which was written in year '02 :cool:
"Due to federal budget cuts and lack of state funding, important transitional services necessary for the returning offender are not being addressed. Prison officials and inmates are faced with a lack of adequate educational services, substance abuse and anger management programs and limited access to vocational programs and transitional assistance prior to release. To improve public safety in the communities of Palm Beach County, returning offenders must receive adequate services prior to release to prepare them educationally, vocationally, emotionally and environmentally for a meaningful return to society and our local communities.
Currently, the Florida prison population is suffe ring from various program cuts that greatly affect the transitioning offender. The FDC has been forced to eliminate all but 11 substance abuse programs, the FDC education department has lost 85 of their corrections instructors, and vocational and job training programs have been limited. Although the department’s risk assessment tool is administered to every inmate at one of the three reception
centers, a full comprehensive exit assessment is needed for inmates to identify employability.
Substance abuse programs are suffering as well. There are 20,000 inmates diagnosed as in-need and only 1,070 treatment slots. Anger Management was a component of the substance abuse programs, but due to recent legislative budget cuts these classes are only offered on a limited
basis. Ex-offenders have a host of needs that cannot be addressed by the prison system.
Of the 1,055 offenders released yearly from a correctional facility to Palm Beach County, 62% are released from prison with no supervision and 34% are released with some type of supervision. Supervision indicates that an offender has been given a court-ordered term of community supervision under specified conditions for a specific period of time that cannot exceed the maximum sentence for the offense. Offenders are normally released to their communities with $100 release gratuity, bus transportation, and
limited employment skills. Many offenders are under no supervision upon release and have a significant need for transition assistance that includes employment, housing, transportation, food and counseling."
the rest you can find on here
http://www.reentry.gov/sar/pdf/wp1_fl.pdf
so my question is this, i know they've made number of goals to improve their systems, but have they implemented it properly and have they done everything they said they would???
What I'm saying is that rehab as it is now does not work. A person in rehab will do whatever they need to do to "play the part" so that they can get released. If they aren't given the pressure to uphold that rehabilitation when on their own, they wont do it. Why should they? Unless there is accountability for responsibility, there will be no change in the individual. They go back to the same environment, friends, lifestyle.
When you consider the information you presented, where do you think the problem stems? Obviously it is in the home at an early age. Seasoned criminals start their activity as youths. The "system" is failing these kids by not making them responsible. Juvenile detention does nothing but further the mindset that is already anti-authoritarian, anti-social. Instead of locking these kids up or putting them in "rehab" (another form of lockup) they need to make these kids pro-active. Put them to work for their choices. Teach them a lesson rather than encourage the dysfunction.
For example, if a teenager is caught in a drug situation, fine the parents (because ultimately they are responsible for the type of child they raise), then hold the kid accountable for going to school and after school volunteering at a hospital or orphanage specifically dealing with crack babies (or equivalent). Show them what such choices lead to. If they are vandals, make them clean up the city. If they are in gangs, put them to work in a homeless shelter or soup kitchen. Show them what certain choices do to society as a whole. Hold them accountable for their choices.
We have a highly publicized and often criticized Judge here in my city that does just this. He has been known to make people do very creative things for their choices. For example, recently two kids were throwing rocks of a freeway bridge. He made them dig grave sites at a local cemetery, by hand. Another case where a youth was involved in a gang shooting. His ruling was that this child was to work for a month in a morgue assisting the coroner.
What lessons do you think these children learned? Don't you think that they were given better tools to help direct their steps than merely throwing them in a lockup for awhile and then releasing them? Time will obviously tell if his techniques work. But for now, it has kids thinking. I would even venture to say that it quite possibly deterred one or two from poor choices.
Hand outs don't work. You cannot give a person lock up time, let them out and hand them a job at McDonalds and expect them to live a better life. It has to start internally. They have to want to do it. That means making them accountable.
The problem with court ordered rehab is the fact is if someone doesn't want to get clean they won't and forced time in a 30 day rehab centre is basically just prison without drugs. Not that it is any better or worse than jail but I think it would be better to keep the government funded rehab beds for the people who actually want to get clean. I mean how much would it suck for a herion addict to go to a rehab hospital and be turned away because it was filled with people there on court orders who don't even care about getting clean.
well then, it would appear that the education that kids receive about drugs in schools needs to be rehabed. for instance the fucked-up DARE curriculum where kids are taught that partaking of any drug (including pot even though it's not a drug) even once will result in them becoming an addict and lead them directly to their death via overdose. the thing is they are never taught that they can o.d. on alcohol and die from alcohol poisoning. no shit, this is what they actually teach to fifth graders and get them to believe it. the thing is after a few years once the kid is in high school (sometimes middle school) out of boredom and with some peer pressure alot these kids will smoke some pot. and guess what? they didn't become addicted and they didn't overdose or die (seeing how these things are impossible.) so these kids are thinking "well damn, if they lied to us about marijuana they must've lied to us about all the other drugs too." so some of them will go on to experiment with harder drugs that are in fact addictive and some of them will get hooked. so if you want anything as far as drug education to change to reflect reality the school curriculums on drugs along with the retarded DARE program in this country needs to be scrapped for starters, until and unless they start teaching the truth.
angels share laughter
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yes, but if they don't get clean after doing rehab it's a violation of their probation and nearly all will wind up in jail. at least give them the opportunity to get clean. I agree that it would suck for someone that honestly wants to get clean to not be able to get a bed in a rehab hospital. which is exactly why there's a need to be building many more rehabs instead of wasting so much money building more prisons.
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Second Chance
Y'all need to better manage the mentally ill that have surged into the jails since the close of the asylums.
yes, I agree that there needs to be many more programs such as the one that you linked to. even though some in this thread think that addicts should pull themselves up by their non-existent boot-straps with no other assistance.
I also agree that the way that the mentally ill are treated in prisons is horrific in this country. throwing them into a cage isn't going to help them to lead anything approaching a "normal" life either in prison or once they're released back onto the streets. it's really sad
angels share laughter
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Second Chance tried to help Stanley "Tookie" Williams from Lethal Injection, but the wannabe dictator Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to put him down. Kind of sad that the life of an inmate might come down to what Arnie decides.
I don't know about this. If you lived in a situation where growing up all you saw around you was examples of how you can probably go no where in life, your education sucks and the best job you could hope to get (since there is no way you could afford anything more than highschool,) is a minimum wage job where you could probably do it on drugs anyways; why wouldn't you get high?
Speaking of which, the best book I have ever read on the subject (and one of the best books I have ever read, totally changed my outlook on the drug use):
The Corner, by David Simon and Ed Burns
we need to relax on some of the laws out there that are clogging up the system like for some drug offenses....
also, i believe the three strikes law (CA) is a joke.. while there may have been good intentions with this law, the reality is that people who commit what most of us would consider minor crimes (albeit three times) are being locked up for life.... 3 strikes needs to be gone away with.
I'm not against all those points you've made in your post, i think they are very good. And i did write that attitutes of those criminals should be changed.
But i still want those people to serve at least some time in prison, and abviously do whatever it is you wrote in your post at the same time. And when those prisoners change internally for the better, give them a little push in the right direction by helping them a find a job. that's all.
But wtf...where is the logic behind prisons? Put all the criminals together in one place for prolonged periods of time and then release them on society. Who came up with this idea.
shouldn't WE... as a HUMAN race... start wondering WHY these people go to prison in the first place? If we addressed this issue, wouldn't it be a start?
No?
Actually much progress has been made in the fields of Criminology, Neurobiology and Sociology. The bottleneck seems to be Society. The wicked nature of people at large.
society is a bottleneck?
Yikes!
We should go back even further (farther?) ... how about NOT bringing children into this world with huge disadvantages before them? would that be a start?
Yes?
well how do we do it?
I propose mandatory sterilization for all male babies. (hasn't been invented yet but it will be easier than doing it to a female)
You want to have kids? Fill out this form and wait. (no charge because that would be lame.)
Never gonna happen!