Bonuses for Bureau of Prison Officials!

I had to read Top officials at troubled federal prison system recommended for more than $3M in bonuses which led to Federal prison officials get bonuses as staffing shortages, management problems persist.

We had augmentation at Fort Dix. It eas hard to tell who did less - the regular guards or the people from Education.

For your consideration, I offer these headlines:

• Senate panel subpoenas federal prisons director to testify in corruption probe
• Bureau Of Prisons Holding Inmates For Longer Than Law Allows
  
• Thousands of federal inmates still await early release under Trump-era First Step Act
  
• Department Of Justice Proposes Final Rule To End CARES Act For Home Confinement For Federal Prisoners

I always thought bonuses were paid for doing a better than average job. Oh well, your tax dollars at work.

There was a general feeling among the prisoners at Fort Dix FCI that the B. O. P. did not want to let any of us go. Home detention? God forbid! Home detention does not provide jobs for guards. Call us cynical, if you like. Then go read the articles above.

Then consider what is the purpose of the prison industrial complex? You think it is protection of the public and rehabilitation of the inmate? Rehabilitation is Congressionally mandated to not be a feature of the federal prison system. 

What about deterrence? The judge said my sentence was to deter me and to deter others. I was deterred before I left for prison, but the federal government requires imprisonment - that is how they expect to deters others. Jstor recently published Rethinking Prison as a Deterrent to Future Crime:

And while imprisonment may well provide punishment and sequester criminals away from public life for a time, that may be all it does: A large body of research finds that spending time in prison or jail doesn’t lower the risk that someone will offend again. In some instances, it actually raises the likelihood that they will commit future crimes.

Repeat offenders mean a constant need for prisons. Prisons mean jobs for guards - from my observations - who are little suitable for a different career at the same level of wages. Workers mean a union. A union makes, I assume, political contributions, to politicians who vote.on funding prisons. So who wants to do without repeat offenders?

sch 7/23/22