By EMILY DERUY Right now, taxpayers spend up to $70 billion each year to house the nation’s two to three million prisoners. That works out to about $31,000 per inmate. One would think that with such a stiff price tag, we’d be doing a better job of rehabilitation. The truth is that the prison system
They were code words. Employed in the opening salvos of the Reagan Revolution, the irresponsible “unwed mother”, lazy “welfare queen”, parasitic “drug dealer” and dangerous “gang-banger” were not-so-subtle euphemisms for the poor and people of color. The conservative movement’s concerted onslaught on the more inclusive entitlement and social safety net programs inspired by the New Deal era of government commenced, however, against the politically powerless and publicly vilified prisoner. Image courtesy splashlife.com
While the more overt War on Drugs with the attendant abolition of parole, mandatory minimum sentences, and expanded death penalty would take years to enact and for the crushing consequences to be felt, the initial forays against prisoners was fired by Virginia Congressman William Whitehurst in 1982, when he submitted legislation to rollback inmate Pell Grant disbursements. By 1991, senators and representatives from both parties (primarily from the old Confederacy) repeatedly introduced legislation to exclude “any individual who is incarcerated in any federal or state penal institution” from qualifying for Pell Grant assistance. For a decade, the various annual exclusion-fest amendments either did not make it out of their committees, or if passed on floor votes, were struck in the joint resolution committees.
With fiscal uncertainty rampant and budget cuts looming, state lawmakers are finally seeing the light when it comes to correction’s budgets. This light comes in the numbers of 7% and $50 billion. According to the National Association of State Budget Officers, states spend 7% of their discretionary budgets, $50 billion a year, on corrections. This
By Associated Press The Michigan Department of Corrections is working on several efforts to teach community college courses and vocational training in-house to a small number of inmates near parole. The effort comes after years without funding for prisoners to access higher education, The Detroit News reported Monday, and Michigan is joining a pilot project
A simple online search will reveal a plethora of prison education programs designed to equip prisoners with skills for life after prison. From community-based organizations to universities, there has been a growing consensus that releasing people from prison back into society without any training or education is likely to result in repeat offenses and subsequent
By Dianne Frazee-Walker Tom Clements was the Colorado Corrections Chief that was gunned down and killed by suspect Evan Ebel on March 14, 2013. Ebel was the parolee who prompted the Colorado parole director to create a new policy that would reduce the response time for ankle bracelet tampering alerts after he allegedly removed his
Image courtesy syracuse.comDianne Frazee-Walker
Ricardo Garcia, 28, reads to his nephew, Noah, from a Colorado prison. Garcia is incarcerated for a burglary conviction and parole violation. He has hopes that by exposing his nephew to literature, Noah will have a chance to live a different life than his uncle.
“Before, when I was out on the streets I was not a good example for him,” Garcia said. “I have a desire to be there for him. I want to be a good role model. I really hope they see that education is important and that reading is important.”
Garcia and other inmates are changing the grim statistics that children of incarcerated parents are six times more likely to end up in prison.
The reading program, Read to the Children is an innovative idea directed by Diane Waldon, state librarian.
Read to the Children entails inmates who have a good behavior record reading children’s stories to their kids. The parent’s voices are recorded on a DVD and sent to their children or loved ones. The postage is paid by the participating inmates.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) offers several vocational training and apprenticeship programs for inmates under their care. These programs are designed to teach inmates marketable skills they can use upon release to gain sustainable employment. While program offerings differ from institution to institution, the BOP does offer a surprising variety of programs. A complete
By William R. Piper
To begin, environmental survival concerns the ability of the prisoner to sustain his well-being given the rigors of prevailing prison conditions. Imprisonment entails a form of secondary socialization in which prisoners have to adapt to prison as a way of life. Old modes of living are shattered and they have to adjust themselves to the deprivations of prisons. They might do this in a number of ways. The range of such adjustment entails the pain of imprisonment in which prisoners must come to grips with a new reality, a new concrete situation in which the events in the prison setting fail to corroborate their prior social experiences.
Prison conditions constitute the concrete situation in which prisoners find themselves and in which they must not only survive, but must transform and from which they struggle to free themselves. Although constituting the prisoners concrete situation, prison conditions should not be perceived as hopeless or unalterable, but merely as limiting and therefore challenging. Image courtesy www.humanicabooks.com
I have been incarcerated since 1992, and during my imprisonment as a result of an unlawful arrest and conviction, I have witnessed the need for continuing education, along with other programs equipped to provide a means of positive change.
It cannot be disputed that providing education begins a process of enabling and motivation. It motivates the person to look at themselves and seek change; and it enables a person not only to gain information but to open their minds and spirits to more objective and positive views of the world and their own ability to establish a place for themselves in the world.
Education enables a person in prison to see the potential for change and the possibility of a new life. Indeed, it allows the person to think more responsibly and, in thinking more responsibly, the person’s attitudes and values are called into question.
When attitudes and values are objectively looked at, the full range of social and community obligations begin to take root in that person’s mindset. This in turn creates “positive” changes in one’s behavior.
It can furthermore be argued that education inspires a person to develop those essential human qualities that are necessary to all social and community relationships. With education men and women can return to their communities from prison, bringing the spirit of positive change. Without it, they bring only the worst of the experiences encountered as a result of their exposure to imprisonment and the Criminal Justice System’s practice of warehousing a particular class of people.
By Neo
Steve is looking down at his G.E.D. test booklet. It’s his fourth time taking this test. He’s mastered three of the five test subjects and he’s gazing at the questions – after months of preparation and studying – though it all looks Greek to him.
He’s sweating and feeling nauseous. Steve knows that he isn’t going to achieve what he’s been working on for so long. He failed and now he needs to do all the studying all over again. Image courtesy hopeworks.org
Many Americans go through this problem every day. Passing the G.E.D. is no easy task, but it’s achievable. Some call it Test Block Syndrome. That’s when you suddenly forget what you studied, but it’s not that: it is confidence.
Many prisoners incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of Prisons have grown up with minimal to no education. Prison administrations recommend that prisoners sign up and complete the G.E.D. program offered in their Education Department prior to release. But even then, a number of enrolled prisoner-students leave prison without attaining a G.E.D. This results in increased recidivism rates.
As a result, the prison-educators at FCC Petersburg have implemented a program that would remedy the problems that Steve encountered. That program is called: Fasttrack G.E.D.