News FeedI Need Sponsors to Advance Prison Reform
I need sponsors to advance arguments for prison reform. As a long-term federal prisoner, I am in a unique position to serve as a voice from inside prison boundaries.
The reason my background qualifies me as an outstanding candidate to speak on the need for prison reform is that while serving my entire adult life in federal prison, I have worked continuously to reconcile with society and prepare for a law abiding life upon release. I know the challenges of sustaining focus through multiple decades of imprisonment, and I know the prison reforms necessary to encourage other prisoners to work toward these same prison adjustments.
The concept of prison reform may sound unpopular, though statistics show that the subject of prison reform ought to concern every American. According to the Pew Report, prison expenditures have taken funds away from education, health care, and other social services. At a cost to taxpayers of $59 billion each year, prison expenditures represent one of the reasons that 10,000 potential university students at California State University could not receive funding for tuition. Similarly, prison expenditures represent a reason fewer Americans qualify for health care services.
Americans waste too much money incarcerating too many people for sentences that are too long. I am not alone in making this assessment, as Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court made the same observation in his 2003 speech to the American Bar Assocation for prison reform.
I am in a unique position to advance the call for prison reform, however, as I can help Americans understand the absurdity of the system. In 1995, after I had served eight years in prison for a nonviolent conviction that brought me into confinement for the first time, I stood ready for release. I was 31 then. I had earned an undergraduate degree from Mercer University and a graduate degree from Hofstra University. Americans had already spent more than $200,000 on my imprisonment, and I stood ready to repay that expenditure as a law-abiding, taxpaying citizen.
Instead of release, however, this ridiculous system required hundreds of thousands more in expenditures to incarcerate me for decades longer. Those expenses caused people to lose educational funding, health care coverage, and funding for other social services. The system has grown out of control with expenditures, incarcerating too many people for too long.
We must take up the issue of prison reform. The US imprisons more people than any other country in the world including China, Russia, North Korea. Prison destroys lives and families.
There is no corrections anymore, it is warehousing. It’s a tragedy.
Private prisons making a profit by imprisoning our citizens. How horrible is that?> There is now an incentive to throw more people in jail.
Keep up the good work! Keep fighting the good fight!
We support you all the way!
Jon
Tucson, Arizona
It is truly a disgrace what our nation is doing to it’s citizens. It is tantamount to warehousing of bodies, especially when a private enterprise profits! There is absolutely no rehabilitation in prison other than helping drug addicts get clean for the stay, and forcing them to go to school for a GED. Any rehab is solely a matter of choice through one’s own decisions. Why don’t we spend those tax dollars on rehab centers rather than more prisons! For individuals who are a threat to society, yes, keep them incarcerated. But for the hundreds of thousands of inmates who are first time, non-violent offenders they should be at home helping their families, not locked up creating emotional and financial strain on their families. Most would be better served on home confinement and/or probation. In our courts, you are not innocent until proven guilty. The prosecutor and investigator will lie and cheat to get the most time and forfeitures possible, and the majority of them are unethical. Average Americans w/o financial wealth and connections to avoid or get out of the “justice system” are doomed. Our outdated, unjust drug laws are shameful to say the least. The drug war should be declared on drugs being brought through customs, borders, etc…. not against the people and the small nickel and dime dealers. People in high places are making millions financing these drug deals and the “street people” are being locked up. The drug was has been lost and our taxpayers are continuing to pay per inmate, but private investors are taking home the bacon. Wake up America, congress and all other governing bodies responsible for changing the worst and most disgraceful situation in our country.
I am completely an advocate for serious prison reform. Too many children are without their dad’s at night. I have some ggood ideas and would like to become more vocal against this injustice in our society. Prison is cruel and unusual and not opnly doesn;t work it makes things much worse. Dr. Steve