Recidivism rates suggest the severity of obstacles following release. More than six of every ten people who leave confinement return to jails or prisons within a few years. Such failures come at a great cost to society. One of the reasons these people revert to crime, my research suggests, is that people who leave prison have a terrible time resuming their lives.

Billy was a prisoner with whom I served time while I was confined in the low-security prison at Fort Dix. He had completed 12 consecutive years in prison, during which time he lost contact with society. When he returned to Philadelphia, the only people he knew were other people he had met during the time he served in prison. The conditions of Billy’s release prohibited him from associating with any known felons, including the friends he had made during his previous decade of confinement. He was alone in the city.

While in the halfway house, Billy secured a job in a bakery. He earned approximately $400 each week, yet halfway house rules required that Billy forfeit 25 percent of his gross earnings, or $100 each week to pay the costs of his confinement. After taxes and other costs of living a frugal life, Billy said he had less than $20 available to save. Those minimal savings were insufficient for Billy to gather the resources he needed to become independent of the halfway house. He could not come up with the funds necessary to rent a small apartment, much less the furnishings necessary for the apartment. Lacking hope, or a path he could see to independence, Billy made the bad decision to steal from his employer; he was caught stealing bread. The employer not only fired Billy, but also reported Billy’s theft to his probation officer. The probation officer charged Billy with violating the conditions of his release and returned him to confinement for a period of nine months.

As a prisoner who serves a 45-year prison term, I have heard hundreds of stories from people who return to confinement after their initial release. They always tell me that financial hardship is what drove them back to crime or caused their return to confinement. I’ve learned from their experiences, and in so doing, I’ve made a personal commitment to ensure that I would conclude my prison term with the financial resources in place to facilitate my success. In creating work that earns an income, however, some may argue that I violate rules that prohibit inmates from conducting a business.

We need prison reforms that will stop the punishment of inmates who work hard to create value for society. Over the course of the 21 years that I have served in prison, my work has generated more than $1 million in revenues. Those revenues have come from market speculation and publishing, and have paid for a portion of my confinement through appropriate tax filings. More importantly, the earnings I have received have sustained my family and they have ensured that I will have the stability I need to succeed upon my release.

>More than abiding by prison rules that condition perpetuating cycles of failure, my allegiance is to my family. I am proud to make this commitment to succeed upon my release, and we need prison reforms that will encourage such positive adjustments. In so doing, such prison reforms will make society safer by lowering recidivism rates and tragedies like Billy’s life.

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I am not a proponent of long-term imprisonment for any non-violent offender. Sentences that keep nonviolent offenders in prisons for decades at a time do not serve the interests of justice or the interests of an enlightened society. My hopes are that all of these white-collar con artists will bring some attention to the absurdity of enormously long sentences for nonviolent offenders.

A case like Madoff’s must really sting those who trusted him with their funds. With billions in fraud, Madoff must have made victims of many hundreds, or thousands of people. Why is it, then, that his case is treated so much differently than the case of nonviolent drug offenders who engaged in transactions with consenting adults? Nonviolent drug offenders fill our nation’s prison system, despite their not having any victims? This is not to imply that drug offenders should escape punishment altogether. Though I think the system is horribly skewed when it incarcerates so many ordinary people of humble or disadvantaged origins for decades, while offenders like Madoff remain free on bond despite supposed admissions that he conned investors out of billions.

We need prison reforms that will bring fairness to America’s prison system. Such prison reforms should offer nonviolent offenders who have served decades opportunities to earn freedom. Mechanisms should be introduced to bring a measure of parity between the length of time that nonviolent offenders serve in prison with the length of time that Wall Street criminals serve.

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After ten years of such an adjustment, Blinky was well acclimated to the penitentiary. He didn’t have any contacts outside, though he was well liked by both guards and prisoners inside. When we met, Blinky had heard that I was serving a sentence that would keep me in prison for longer than a quarter century. He advised that the best way to serve time was to forget about the outside world. “Settle into the joint and just become one with the walls,” he suggested. “The time will pass quickly enough.”

Blinky concluded his term and was released to a halfway house. Fewer than 12 months later, he returned to the penitentiary. As an explanation, he told me that the struggle was too much. His probation officer was hassling him to find a job, though Blinky said that he met only frustration from prospective employers. Fed up, Blinky reverted to criminal behavior. He robbed a bank at gunpoint. FBI agents apprehended him at the scene of the crime. In a plea deal, Blinky’s judge handed him a fresh 20-year sentence to serve.

Although I was new to prison life when Blinky and I met back in the 1980s, now I have more than 21 consecutive years in confinement. Experiences have taught me a lot. As high recidivism rates suggest, I’ve met, interacted with, and learned from hundreds of prisoners like Blinky. Listening to their stories convinced me that I had to reject the questionable guidance of becoming one with the penitentiary. Instead, I kept my focus on preparing for the obstacles I expected to encounter upon release.

The irony is that, whereas prison guards ignored Blinky and his drinking buddies as they inebriated themselves in the cell, the system of corrections has blocked and frustrated my efforts to reconcile with society every step of the way. Instead of encouraging prisoners who strive to build ties with community leaders and mentors, administrators issue admonitions and block prisoner efforts to connect with society. It is as if the prison system, too, wants those inside to follow Blinky’s advice of becoming “one with the walls.”

We need prison reforms that encourage prisoners to partner with community leaders and mentors. As a long-term prisoner, I refuse to leave confinement without a strong network of support who will assist my transition upon release. I am reaching out constantly with hopes of building ties with journalists, academics, professionals, and other community leaders. Yet administrators discourage my efforts. They warn me that I am not allowed “to promote my books.” I have been transferred from prisons in three separate states as a consequence of my writing for publication. As rules stand, administrators are encouraging more adjustments in the style of Blinky. They do not support those who strive to build ties with community leaders and mentors.

These are the reasons we need prison reforms. By encouraging prisoners to build partnerships with community leaders and mentors, prison reforms would lower recidivism rates and thereby make society safer.

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The motivational signs might fool those in groups that tour institutions into believing that administrators make authentic efforts to prepare offenders for successful re-entry into society. Those locked in prisons, on the other hand, recognize the huge disconnect between the smiley face slogans and the realities of prison life.

As a long-term prisoner, one reform that I know would work wonders in lowering recidivism rates would be to replace the cliches and trite expressions with policy changes. Among others, I’d welcome reforms that encourage rather than discourage prisoner efforts to build supportive success networks. Such fundamental changes would make society safer by lowering the number of prisoners who fail upon release; they also would reduce the financial costs associated with operating a prison system that churns out so much failure.

Taxpayers who fund these failure factories might be surprised to know that prison administrators support policies that effectively penalize prisoners who maintain strong family and community ties. We see such an example in the allocation of halfway house eligibility times.

In the recently signed legislation known as The Second Chance Act of 2007, Congress authorized prison administrators to grant inmates the privilege of serving up to the final 12 months of their sentences in a halfway house. While serving time in the halfway house, the prisoner is supposed to re-acclimate himself to society. He must find suitable employment and pay the costs of his confinement by surrendering 25 percent of his gross pay to the halfway house administrator.

The time in the halfway house would provide the federal prisoner with a head start at living a law-abiding life. While serving the final months of his confinement, he would have an opportunity to build a modest savings account and purchase the staples he will need to adjust as an independent citizen.

Despite the 12 months of halfway house time Congress authorized, administrative policies under the current Bureau of Prisons Director place a practical limit of six months halfway house eligibility. The real irony is that the harder an inmate has worked to maintain strong family and community ties, the less halfway house time administrators will grant him. Such policies thwart Congressional intent of helping inmates transition into law-abiding lives and discourage inmates from working to build supportive success networks.

The ridiculous halfway house eligibility policy represents just one example of the way prison administrators discourage inmates from building networks that can help them succeed upon release. We see the same patterns in visiting and telephone policies. Current visitation policies prohibit inmates from visiting with people they did not know prior to their current term of confinement. Only the warden has the authority to override such policies, but as a matter of practice, wardens refuse to grant exceptions to the policy.

I have been incarcerated for longer than 21 years. I was in my early 20s when my period of incarceration began, and during those troubling years of my life, I was trafficking in cocaine. I no longer have relationships with the people I knew then. Yet during the many years of my imprisonment, I have worked hard to educate myself and reconcile with society. Those efforts have brought many mentors into my life whom I did not know prior to my imprisonment. Those mentors are community leaders with impeccable, unassailable records of achievement. They correspond with me and guide my preparations to overcome the obstacles I will confront after a quarter century in prison. Yet because of my not having had a relationship with them that preceded my confinement, wardens in two institutions have denied them access to visit me. We need prison reforms that will encourage prisoners to build supportive success networks.

Telephone policies, too, thwart inmate efforts to build and nurture strong community ties. Prior to the election of President George W. Bush, and his appointment of John Ashcroft as the Attorney General, inmates were not limited to the number of minutes they could talk on the telephone. Officers monitored all prisoner telephone calls, of course, but inmates could keep ties with family and friends by talking on the phone without limit. Yet under the more punitive policies that followed Mr. Ashcroft’s appointment, inmates faced limits that restricted them to an average of fewer than 10 minutes of daily telephone access. We need prison reforms that will reverse such policies that block prisoners from nurturing family and community ties.

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Effective prison reforms would offer incentives that motivate prisoners to become students and teachers.

In today’s federal prison system, administrators compel those who lack a high school education to participate in classes or study programs designed to bring each prisoner up to a high school equivalency level. Those prisoners who refuse to participate in the mandatory education program suffer penalties. They lose access to potential good-time credits, and they earn lower nominal wages from prison jobs. Yet high recidivism rates strongly suggest that high-pressure tactics like compulsory education programs fail to prepare prisoners for successful re-entry into society.

Through my work in writing about prisons, the people they hold, and strategies for growing through confinement, I’ve spoken with hundreds of prisoners. Many of those men serve lengthy sentences after continued failures following previous releases from prison. Despite citing struggles in finding adequate employment as the underlying reason for their repeated returns to prison, few make the full commitment necessary to educate themselves in meaningful ways. They suffer from an apathy that only gradual incentives can cure.

Tom provides an example of an attitude that I find typical of the prisoners I’ve interviewed. Tom served nine years in a California prison and was released in 2002. He said that upon his release, he could not find sustainable employment. The wages Tom earned while working at a car wash were insufficient for him to save the funds necessary to rent his own apartment. He said that after a full week’s work, he paid his expenses and was left with $3 in disposable income.

“If I bought an order of fries with my cheeseburger I would be over budget.”

While still in the halfway house, Tom engaged in criminal activity that resulted in his receiving a new prison term of ten years. I met him a few months after he arrived at the prison where I was held. Tom told me that he had no choice but to commit another crime, as he wasn’t making it in society as a working man.

Despite the new term, Tom served his time in ways that were unlikely to prepare him for sufficient employment upon his next release. He played cards. He participated in classes like leather shop, beading, and crocheting. Since Tom had earned his GED during his previous term, Tom felt certain that he had all the formal education he needed.

“More school ain’t gonna help me none,” Tom rejected my suggestion that he participate in a program that could lead to his earning an associate’s degree from Taft Community College. “No one out there’s gonna hire no felon. And these people here don’t care nothin’ about me going to school. All they want is that I earn me some certificates and that’s what I’m doing. I got ten years to serve. That’s all that matters. I’ll worry about what I’m gonna do when I get out of here.”

Prison reforms ought to change such attitudes, and my experience has convinced me that meaningful incentives would help. Prisoners like Tom fill our nation’s prison system. They lack an appreciation for the importance of education, and release dates that hover years or decades away lulls prisoners into a dangerous complacency. Too many prisoners become comfortably numb to their surroundings. All of society has an interest in motivating people in prison to work toward earning freedom, which is one reason that we need prison reforms now.

Legislators and administrators ought to introduce incentives that will motivate prisoners to both learn and teach. Those who educate themselves will have deeper skill sets from which they can draw when striving to create places for themselves in society upon release. If prison reforms were introduced that offered prisoners opportunities to work toward improving their quality of life while they served their sentences, and perhaps advance their release dates through a series of sustained accomplishments, legislators and administrators would simultaneously lower recidivism rates. Such prison reforms would make society safer and lower the costs of operating our $60 billion prison system.

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What does society expect of its prison system? As in any venture, leaders must define success before they can achieve it. If taxpayers want prisons to warehouse and isolate offenders from society for the duration of their sentences, then prisons succeed brilliantly. Costs and consequences accompany such myopic goals, however.

Our nation now locks more than 2.3 million prisoners inside boundaries. The lobbyists representing the powerful unions and businesses that serve the prison industry welcome the surging population levels. By confining more people for longer terms, legislators must allocate higher budgets to fund the bloated prison system. Congress found that between 1982 and 2002, taxpayer expenditures on corrections increased from $9 billion to $60 billion.

The escalating financial costs, although troubling in and of themselves, fail to reflect the truly devastating consequences that flow from our packed prisons. What about the human costs? Decimating hope for millions of Americans has long-term consequences on our society. Just as the abominable practice of slavery caused systemic problems for generations of Americans, long-term confinement contaminates many more lives than those of the prisoners themselves. Children and family members of each prisoner suffer as well. Sundry costs and consequences accumulate when society’s institutions extinguish hope.

If taxpayers want prisons that do more than perpetuate cycles of failure, then prison reforms ought to require administrators to shape and influence prisoner attitudes. The task should not prove so daunting. After all, prisons are total institutions. Those who preside over the prison provide the basic needs for each prisoner, including shelter, clothing, and food. With complete discretion to create total infrastructures that determine how each prisoner spends each hour of his day, administrators simultaneously influence perceptions, values, and attitudes.

When administrators implement policies that fail to provide mechanisms for prisoners to distinguish themselves in positive ways, administrators invite rebelliousness. I saw repeated examples during the many years I served in high-security penitentiaries. Prisoners who served sentences that would keep them locked inside walls for decades did not see the value in preparing for the challenges they would confront upon release. They adjusted to the rigid, oppressive, control-obsessed atmosphere that administrators established. Instead of conditioning prisoners to learn how to think or communicate, the penitentiaries where I served time, conditioned prisoners to learn how to hate and use a knife.

Human beings respond better to the promise of incentives than they respond to the threat of further punishments and controls. This fact applies to prison populations as well as it does to any other segment of society. If taxpayers want more prisoners to prepare for law-abiding, contributing lives upon release, then they ought to support prison reforms that will encourage prisoners to work toward earning gradual increases in freedom.

By offering those in prison a clear path to redemption and reconciliation with society, prison reforms can improve prisoner attitudes. The concept of corrections could have real meaning with such prison reforms. The shift in focus might prove an anathema to the lobbyists, unions, businesses, and other groups that thrive on institutions that perpetuate a permanent underclass, yet prison reforms can bring the promise of an enlightened America, where the virtues of hope and redemption extend to all.

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