News FeedPrison reform
Ice Pick Leaves Prison for Compton
Ice Pick is 35-years-old, and he has been incarcerated since he was 21. He was sentenced to serve 30 years, but a judicial decision resulted in Ice Pick’s sentence reduction. He transferred to this minimum-security camp in Taft, California because his time cut resulted in reclassification. Ice Pick hails from what he described as a […]
Prison Reforms Yield High Success Rates, Low Recidivism Rates
In the January 2009 issue of Inc. Magazine, I read Mike Hofman’s article that described the Prison Entrepreneurship Program sponsored by the Texas Department of Corrections. A former financial executive leads the program that teaches skills to prisoners that they’ll need to function in business. During the five years of the program’s operation, 440 prisoners […]
Prison Administrators Should Not Close Programs that Encourage Prisoners to Contribute
On Tuesday, January 13, 2009, Patrick McGreevy published an article in the LA Times describing how state prison officials eliminated a program that had been allowing non-violent offenders to earn their freedom. Instead of allowing the inmates to make contributions to society through meaningful work projects, those in charge of corrections made the administrative decision […]
Prison Reforms Should Include Incentives for Prisoners to Earn Freedom
Congress made several findings in its publication of the Second Chance Act. One finding indicated that American jails and prisons release 650,000 felons each year into American communities. Of those people who re-enter society from places of confinement, more than six in ten will return to confinement for one reason or another. That means 400,000 […]
Taft Prison Camp Makes Budgetary Cuts
The prisoners at Taft Federal Prison camp are feeling pinched by the economic crisis. Administrators are citing budgetary restrictions as a reason for discontinuing subscriptions to all newspapers and magazines. Inmates support the library by donating books. Now, the only way that prisoners at Taft Camp will have access to news periodicals will be if […]
Expand RDAP-Type Incentives in Federal Prison
Forbes published Time Off for Bad Behavior, by Kai Falkenberg, in the magazine’s 12 January 2009 issue. The article described how white-collar offenders maneuver their way into the Bureau of Prisons’ Residential Drug Treatment Program. The RDAP represents the only program available for qualifying federal prisoners to earn an administrative time cut. Those who qualify […]
Let Prisoners Contribute to Prison Reform Panel
Sandhya Somashekhar, a Washington Post staff writer, published an article reporting that Senator Jim Webb plans to introduce prison reform legislation this coming spring. That legislation will strive to create a national panel to recommend ways to overhaul the criminal justice system. As a long-term prisoner, I make a public audition for an opportunity to […]
Prison Reform Requires Leaders Who Listen
As a long-term prisoner, I read extensively in an effort to prepare for the challenges that will follow my release. Primarily, I read nonfiction literature to advance my education. Besides books, I read news magazines to understand how our society has been evolving during the 21-plus years that I’ve been locked in various prisons. One […]
Prison Reforms Ought to Include Checklists
I enjoyed reading an article editors from Time magazine wrote in the issue that celebrated Barack Obama as Person of the Year for 2008. When asked how future voters could judge his performance in years to come, the President-elect offered a simple checklist that voters might consider. When leaders consider prison reforms that will lower […]
Presidential Pardon Brought Justice to Kemba Smith
On Wednesday, 17 December 2008, the USA Today published an article in its forum section by Kemba Smith entitled The Wisdom of Pardons. Kemba Smith had been a federal prisoner who was serving a 24-year sentence for her role in a drug conspiracy. During the final days of Clinton’s Presidency, Kemba Smith walked out of […]
Prison Reforms Should Reward Those Who Reach Goals
Editors from Time magazine met with President-elect Obama in early December. Among numerous other questions, the editors asked Mr. Obama how voters in the 2010 mid-term elections would know whether his administration was succeeding. I really liked his answer. He set benchmarks, or clearly-defined goals, and the President-elect invited voters to hold him accountable. When […]
Prison Reforms Are Good For America
The recent comment from a reader identified as ssteacherme in response to my Forbes.com article expresses the cynicism I’ve come to expect from those who adamantly support America’s prison system. In the end, the writer asserted that “Those who spin their prison punishment into success empires cloak themselves in hero’s clothing made from the fabric […]
Prison Reforms Should Bring Transparency to the Prison System
In a recent Newsweek magazine, an author published an article that offered President-elect Obama some advice. The author suggested that our new President should look much deeper for information on American life. Presidents error, the author said, when they rely primarily on policy wonks and insiders. Instead of relying on the experts alone, the author […]
Prison Reforms Should Include Parole
When I began serving my sentence, in 1987, a parole system was in place. Tough-on-crime legislators abolished the use of parole in the federal system, and such decisions contributed to a surge in the federal prison population. Whereas fewer than 40,000 people were locked in federal prisons when I began my term, today we have […]
Madoff May Bring Attention to Need for Prison Reform
I hope the case of Bernard Madoff brings some real attention to the absurdity of America’s sentencing scheme. Newspapers are reporting that he may face up to 20 years in prison. I know that sounds like a lot of time in confinement. Truthfully, as a man who has just finished his 22nd holiday season in […]
