I do not believe that we can achieve social justice in the United States if we forget our brothers and sisters in jail. One of the major problems facing us in the struggle for fair, reasonable, and productive jail terms is the fact of For Profit Prisons.
While jail is a necessary evil in our society, we truly need to decide exactly what purpose we want them to serve. Are they to be for punishment only, rehabilitation, or a mixture of both? Once we have a clear understanding of what purpose jails serve, we should pass legislation to make certain that jails serve the desired purpose.
No jail should be run for profit, ever. Let me repeat that. No jail should be run for profit.
The map shows which states are embracing For Profit Jail. The number of beds in both For Profit and Non Profit jails has been increasing every year.
Please join me below the fold!
According to The National Institute of Justice:
Recidivism is one of the most fundamental concepts in criminal justice. It refers to a person's relapse into criminal behavior, often after the person receives sanctions or undergoes intervention for a previous crime. Recidivism is measured by criminal acts that resulted in rearrest, reconviction or return to prison with or without a new sentence during a three-year period following the prisoner's release.
The statics are frightening.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics research tells us that staying out of the System, once acclimated to it, becomes almost impossible.
Bureau of Justice Statistics studies have found high rates of recidivism among released prisoners. One study tracked 404,638 prisoners in 30 states after their release from prison in 2005. The researchers found that:
★Within three years of release, about two-thirds (67.8 percent) of released prisoners were rearrested.
★Within five years of release, about three-quarters (76.6 percent) of released prisoners were rearrested.
★Of those prisoners who were rearrested, more than half (56.7 percent) were arrested by the end of the first year.
★Property offenders were the most likely to be rearrested, with 82.1 percent of released property offenders arrested for a new crime compared with 76.9 percent of drug offenders, 73.6 percent of public order offenders and 71.3 percent of violent offenders.
If you happen to own stock in
CCA, which happens to run
Silverdale here in Chattanooga TN, those statistics are encouraging. They guarantee a full jail and future need for expansion. For families, those statistics speak of fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters lost to the world. Families are torn apart by long prison sentences. The prisoners return home changed by the violence they live through in jail.
I personally know a young woman who was being held in Silverdale pending a review of her parole, which she had violated. While there, she began bleeding heavily. She begged for medical attention. The employees of this For Profit Jail waited almost three days to get medical attention for her. She lost the baby she was carrying, and almost lost her life from blood loss. There are four more such occurrences at Silverdale. I have met these sad victims of a judical system that cares more for profit than for life.
If we are running prisons to make a profit, while severely punishing criminals, we are doing a fabulous job!
If we are attempting to rehabilitate our citizens who break the law, we aren't accomplishing our goal.
Last night I happened to catch The Birdman of Alcatraz on TCM. This movie, staring Burt Lancaster, told the story of Robert Franklin Stroud. This incredible man served over 50 years in prison, mostly in segregation. He established a line of avian medications while in prison. His medications saved hundreds of thousands of chickens, and are still in use today under the name Stroud Specifics. His book Stroud's Digest on the Diseases of Birds – January, 1989 is still the best source of information about avian diseases.
Robert Stroud was a difficult prisoner. He wrote the book "Looking Outward: A History of theU.S. Prison System from Colonial Times to the Formation of the Bureau of Prisons". It was written from the point of view of a prisoner. Unfortunately, the Federal Bureau of Prisons refused to allow publication of this ground breaking study. Like the man himself, it was lost in our unfair prison system.
If Robert Stroud had been rehabilitated and returned to society, he might have contributed even more greatly to society. His hard work and contributions were never recognized. He refused to prostrate himself before officials in order to win parole. He died in prison.
It seems that the system requires a prisoner to be stripped of all dignity before release. Then, they can't understand his inability to function in society. According to the Dictionary the word rehabilitate means:
rehabilitate
verb (transitive)
1. To help (a person who has acquired adisability or addiction or who has justbeen released
from prison) to readapt tosociety or a new job, as by vocationalguidance, retraining, or therapy
2. To restore to a former position or rank
3. To restore the good reputation of
The best line in the movie is when Burt Lancaster tells the Director of the Federal Prision System, that the word rehabilitate is derived from the Greek word which means "to invest again with dignity." He goes on to say, "You strip men of all dignity, and when they are released they strike back in anger at the first opportunity."
I believe that this is exactly why criminals re offend. They leave prison with their dignity in tatters. Most have no cash, nowhere to live, and no job skills. We throw them on the street, and expect them to be sucessful. Then, we sit back and wonder why they can't make it.
If jail is strictly punitive, we are doing a great job. Letting corporations make a profit from keeping men penned like animals is fine.
If jail is rehabilitative, we are failing miserably.
I personally fear this new For Profit system. The temptation will be there to sentence more citizens to longer sentences for ever smaller infractions of the law. I have no real home and very limited funds. If I were arrested for even a petty crime, I wouldn't have the resources to fight the system. Like so many others, I would be forced to accept a plea agreement, and plead guilty even if innocent.
We already have more citizens in jail than China.