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DeathOfUSPrisonSystem 6 - 30 Jan 2008 - Main.VishalA
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I thought we quickly moved through an incredibly complex topic yesterday. Maybe we'll talk more about it this afternoon. But challenging the Prison Industrial Complex is not an new idea, although it's often characterized as radical. Is it though? Will it ever fit on a 3x5 card? The prison system and "criminal justice" generally in the American sense is entangled in so many of our social woes, fears and deeply structural inequities. | | | The war on drugs is a huge crock in my opinion, and generally serves as a less clandestine way to continue to put more black males in jail. The differences in the punishments that white and black drug users receive (ie, the differences in sentences for crack cocaine and powder cocaine) lead me to no other conclusion.
-- NicoleMedham - 29 Jan 2008 | |
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> | There is a blog called Grits for Breakfast that is written by a criminal justice advocate from Texas who has suggested a few ideas for the Texas legislature that I thought were sensible enough to share. I’m not sure how to block-quote in twiki and what the citation rules are, but if anyone knows feel free to edit this as appropriate.
1. Train 10,000 new teachers to perform individual training with dyslexic children, and increase funding for early testing for dyslexia. That's the low end of an estimate for how many are needed. Dyslexics make up 10% of children who are tested but 30% of Texas inmates, and illiteracy is a key indicator increasing the likelihood of imprisonment.
2. Create new programs to support children of incarcerated parents, including mentoring, tutoring, counseling, part-time jobs and access to social services. Without intervention, children of incarcerated parents are 6-8 times more likely than their peers to wind up in prison. Fund the programs that exist, including privately operated charities if they're effective and accountable, plus create new ones modeled on successful programs in Texas and elsewhere.
3. Cut probation lengths in half. Most probationers who re-offend do so in the first two years, the majority of those (says Tony Fabelo) within the first eight months. Texas has the longest probation lengths in the nation. Reducing them would reduce caseloads so probation officers could increase supervision during that most-important early period. (This will require revamping funding for probation departments, which are currently paid by the head.)
7. Allow local governments to operate syringe exchange programs to promote personal responsibility, reduce the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C and provide greater opportunities for outreach to hardcore drug users.
On this point, note the difficulties that Texas lawmakers are currently having in getting DAs to accept even small pilot needle-exchange programs. Additionally, even though such programs seem to be oriented more towards the health and safety of drug users and their families (a noble cause in itself), I bet there could also be substantial long-term benefits in terms of crime prevention that result from the act of introducing drug users to social workers in such a manner.
10. Fund re-entry programs designed to help ex-offenders get and keep a job, housing and stay out of trouble when they get out of prison, especially for the first 1-2 years.
-- VishalA? - 29 Jan 2008 | | | |
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| Revision 6 | r6 - 30 Jan 2008 - 04:54:09 - VishalA? |
| Revision 5 | r5 - 29 Jan 2008 - 17:02:40 - NicoleMedham |
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