Prison Reform

 Having been in federal prison, I read What’s Prison For? Concise diagnosis of a huge American problem from The Guardian. I found things that explained some things I noticed and has some ideas that I can agree with. If you think prison works to reform criminals and protect you, I suggest you read this review and my posts under the label Prison Life. It does neither.

Points from the review:

The statistics are familiar but remain startling: America’s incarceration rate per 100,000 is “roughly twice that of Russia’s and Iran’s, four times that of Mexico’s, five times of England’s, six times Canada’s” and nine times that of Germany. In addition, “parole and probation regulate the lives of 4.5 million Americans” – more than twice as many as are confined in prison.

These numbers come at the beginning of Bill Keller’s smart, short new book, in which he tries to explain how America became so addicted to mass incarceration, and how we might finally reform a system which houses a disproportionally Black and brown population.

I know only the federal prison system, and then only Fort Dix FCI, but addiction I agree with. I saw people with first-time, non-violent offenses who in the Indiana system would have been placed on probation. They would not see a prison unless they violated their probation rules. They were all blacks and Mexicans.

I would not have seen the inside of an Indiana prison. Nor would I have received a sentence of 151 months, or a lifetime of post-incarceration supervision. 

An addiction was my opinion of what I saw, so I certainly agree with the reviewer use of addicted.

As Keller writes, “Rehabilitation was denigrated on the right as coddling”. But a Democratic Senate judiciary committee chairman, Joseph R Biden of Delaware, made everything much worse by championing the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which not only spurred a prison-building boom but also eliminated Pell Grants for prisoners enrolled in college courses. President Biden has acknowledged his mistake.

It was President Reagan who inserted the profit motive into the prison business, allowing the Corrections Corporation of America to pioneer “the idea of privately run, for-profit prisons”. As Keller explains, “Since the new prison owners were paid the same way as hotel proprietors, by occupancy, they had no incentive to prepare prisoners for release.” Private prisons now house about 7% of state inmates and 17% of federal.

Back in 1851, Indiana got its last constitution and in its Bill of Rights declared the purpose of the penal laws was reformation. The Indiana government pays lip service to that right. The federal government disdains rehabilitation outright. So, if you thought your tax dollars were paying for rehabilitating prisoners out of the criminal life, you are wrong. 

I would have pointed out that for-profit prisons only make a profit by cutting costs, and the costs I saw of a prison are: medical care and food and clothing and bedding for inmates, safety, and labor. It is not like the federal government did such a good providing for its inmates, I imagine the for-profit prisons to be an outright hellhole.

Keller points to Norway and Germany as providing the best examples for systemic reform. While American prison guards rarely get more than a few weeks of training, Germans get two years of college courses in psychology, ethics and communication. American visitors to German jails are amazed to see unarmed guards “shooting baskets, playing chess, sharing lunch” and having conversations with prisoners.

One reason Europe is so far ahead is its depoliticization of the criminal justice system: judges and district attorneys are appointed, not elected.

A Fordham University professor, John Pfaff, has pointed out that in the US, during the 1990s and 2000s, “as violent crime and arrests for violent crime both declined, the number of felony cases in state courts” suddenly shot up. Because of political pressures, “tens of thousands more prosecutors” were hired, “even after the rising crime of the 1980s had stalled out”.

From what I saw at Fort Dix, the guards were former military or those who failed to get a job with the real police. Educated? Maybe high school, but college degrees seemed to be very few.

During my stay in prison, the high security Norway prison made TV. I think it was on 60 Minutes. We watched and were shocked. Fort Dix FCI was a low security facility, and we had more razor wire than the Norwegian prison holding prisoners.

Keller reports the most effective ways to reduce the prison population are also the most obvious ones:

    Make low-level drug crimes “non-crimes”.

    Divert people into “mental health and addiction programs, or probation or community service”.

    “Abolish mandatory minimum sentences and encourage” judges to “apply the least severe punishment appropriate under the circumstances”.

    Give “compassionate release to old and infirm inmates” who don’t pose a real threat to the general population.

The challenge is to get these common-sense ideas to prevail over the rhetoric of politicians who still rail against anyone who is “soft on crime” – the knee-jerk ideology which got us into this catastrophe in the first place.

 From what I saw and what I know, those are the best reforms possible. During the Covid outbreak, the fort Dix Warden was not granting compassionate releases in any great volume (see letter from New Jersey Senators to the then current warden - he was transferred before my release.)
The BOP just did not seem willing to turn any of us loose. See Thousands of Sick Federal Prisoners Sought Compassionate Release. 98 Percent Were Denied. That seems to confirm what was my opinion while in Fort Dix. You might also take a look at my Covid Dog & Pony Show 2/3/21.

Many of the people with charges similar to me would have done better with mental health treatment than just being warehoused. You taxpayers might have gotten some benefit for your tax dollars in that cases.

Not everyone needs to be incarcerated. The minimum sentence in my case was 5 years. The Sentencing Guidelines jacked that to 151 months. About those Guidelines and my sentence, you might take a look at What the Government Won't Like #2 .  My judge told me my sentence was to deter me and others. He never asked me any questions about whether I was deterred or not (I was - having made a public ass out of myself brought home hard and deep not to go back to what I had been doing, but I also did not care because I thought my lungs would finally give out in 151 months.) As for deterring others: ‘Subway’ Jared Fogle speaks for first time from prison: ‘I royally screwed up’ and Child sex crimes growing across the U.S. including in Indiana. I guess they did not get the message.

I do thank the federal government for the time given me to read and write.

For more on the wrongness of mandatory minimum sentences, check out FAMM.

Back to prison employees, where did all those cell phones come from and the K2? This might explain a little (and confirms the opinions of many of us inmates): Former BOP Correctional Officer Sentenced for Bribery of Public Official

Not that I think the American electorate cares a bit about prison reform, or about the people their government incarcerates. I doubt the majority of American citizens would blink if every inmate of every prison were gassed. They are wholly ignorant of the inmate deaths caused by Covid. But I can hope and

sch 10/1/22