Federal Follies 11- 1-2010

 I spoke with with a fellow here at the Volunteers of America halfway house, who told me he could own nothing for the next 7 years. I asked him why, and he said it was federal law for drug cases. From the context of our conversation , he could not own his own business.

Does not Congress understand that people get in the drug trade to make money? That keeping people from making legitimate money only keeps them in the drug trade? None of this made any sens eto me.

The federal courts will supervise me from the time I leave prison until death. For the first five years I cannot acquire debt without the permission of the federal probation officer. I do not understand that provision's connection with my crimes. 

And I notice more oddities with this half-way house. Let me explain there are three classes here: pre-trial detainees, returnees from prison, and probation violators. The returnees are treated as if they were still in prison. I think the idea ought to be breaking them of their institutionalization and preparing them for life in a world far less orderly. Why should the Bureau of Prisons not want their graduates acclimated to a world outside of prison?

I think the criminologists have grabbed the wrong end of the recidivism stick. If the prison system is designed to fail, then the blame should not fall on the inmates. The more years one serves in prison, the more more one becomes accustomed to institutional life, and the more problematic for successfully remaining in the real world.

Why design a system for failure? I cannot say the federal (and many state) penal was designed for failure, except it being so explains what I am seeing here. Too much profit is found in handing out sentences with as many years as possible without regard of what the penal system returns to society. Name one politician who lost their position by thundering about a need to get tough on crime, or judges losing their jobs for giving out longer and longer criminal sentences. Besides which, the federal government has all your tax dollars and can cover the costs of an inefficient system.

But what good comes of so many subservient to the federal government?

sch

[For my adventures as a returnee, see the entries under "halfway house life." sch 8/3/2023.]