Steve said that he did not have any family support. He was 35-years-old and he was only a few months away before he would qualify for release to a halfway house. The Second Chance Act made Steve eligible to serve the final year of his sentence in a halfway house, but prison administrators would not grant him more than six months of halfway house placement. The director of the BOP had determined that six months of halfway house time would be sufficient for offenders to re-acclimate themselves to society.

Although I’ve never been released from prison, six months of halfway house does not seem sufficient for someone releasing from prison to acclimate himself. Without community support, offenders would really struggle to gain traction. They would have to forfeit 25 percent of their gross earnings to pay for the costs of their time in the halfway house. With the minimal wages an ex-offender could expect to earn, six months did not seem like enough time to settle in society.

After several years  in prison, a man like Steve would return to society without any of the bare necessities. He would have no clothes, no shelter, and no leads for employment. In many ways, the ex-offender would return to society lost, without a compass to find direction.

Rather than offering less assistance, recidivism rates suggest that those in corrections should offer more assistance to help offenders transition into law-abiding lives upon release. For offenders like Steve, who serve time under the honor system in prison camps, the prudent approach would be for a substantial period of work release. Prison administrators ought to operate more community confinement centers and eliminate these ridiculous prison camps. Prison camps without boundaries do not seem to make sense. If administrators can trust an offender to serve time on his own honor, then he ought to be working in community-based programs, earning the resources that would help him transition into society.

I am in favor of programs that would allow prisoners to earn higher degrees of freedom. They ought to follow policies that encourage all prisoners to govern themselves. Once they have reconciled with society and earned freedom, I am convinced the society would reap greater benefits by releasing the men. It makes no sense, to me, to confine people for the sake of confinement. After a period of time, the massive investment in prisons brings a diminishing return, as high recidivism rates show. As the U.S. Sentencing Commission suggests in its report, an emphasis on alternatives to imprisonment make sense.

I thank John Zacha, a criminal justice student, for inspiring these thoughts.

The post Community Sanctions Make Sense appeared first on Prison News Blog.

As a long-term prisoner, I have observed how prison administrators employ their own version of The Broken Glass Theory in managing their institutions. They are convinced that control and punishment represent society’s best response to shape human behavior.

At the United States Penitentiary in Atwater, for example, where a psychotic prisoner murdered a correctional officer earlier this year, high-level administrators responded with changes in prison management that promised more severe punishments. They drew plans to convert USP Lewisburg into a much more restrictive institution that would lock troublesome prisoners from across the country in more austere conditions. At USP Atwater, administrators brought in a new warden, the no-nonsense Hector Rios, to straighten things out.

According to media reports, Warden Rios came to the penitentiary with the intention of bringing more control. He ordered yellow lines painted on corridor floors and ordered guards to strictly enforce a code requiring prisoners to walk within the yellow lines. He ordered guards to frisk prisoners regularly and to rifle through their cells frequently in search of contraband. The new warden enforced the rules to the letter and threatened disciplinary action on anyone who didn’t comply.

In the Merced Sun-Star, Scott Jason reported on Warden Rios saying that “prison management comes down to control.” Like The Broken Glass Theory advocates, prison guards feel convinced that punishing trivial offenses like walking outside yellow lines with swiftness, certainty, and severity, they can lessen the possibilities for prisoners to commit more serious rule violations like murder.

I have been locked inside the Federal Bureau of Prisons since 1987. During those 21-plus years that I’ve served thus far, administrators have confined me inside prisons of every security level. I’ve been forced to share cells, tables, and shower space with many psychotic prisoners who thrive on mayhem. Certainly, order, control, and The Broken Glass Theory has a useful role in prison management.

Yet prisons fail society when promises of swift and certain punishments are the only factors in the equation. High recidivism rates show that oppressive institutions do not prepare offenders well to function upon release. I know the reasons behind these dismal results. Unfortunately, prison administrators ignore the need for incentives to motivate socially acceptable behavior.

Prison communities lock many hundreds of inmates inside close boundaries that extinguish hope. Prisons become societies of deprivation. They are brilliantly designed and constructed and operated to suppress the best aspects of humanity and to bring forth the worst. Despite the proliferating turmoil, some prisoners live lives of discipline. They commit to educating themselves, to building strong networks of support. They strive to generate resources that will help them transition into society as law-abiding citizens. In their lust to implement more controls, however, administrators show no interest in the individual striving to adjust positively.

Administrators express decisive views on the need for controls to discourage bad behavior. Ironically, however, the entire field of corrections resists the idea of meaningful incentives that would motivate more prisoners to prepare for productive lives upon release.

I know first hand how exposure to the degrading life of the penitentiary can paralyze an individual’s will to grow in productive ways. While serving time and struggling with patronizing rules that challenge a man’s dignity, men lose years or decades of their lives. Family members and loved ones desert them. They feel trapped, as if they are living a civil death.

Prisoners with weaker wills, or less vision for the future, sometimes succumb to the temptations of defiance. They lack the discipline or energy necessary to master English, math, or history. What’s the point? Prisons degenerate into primal societies where the most valuable currency flows to those who can instill fear in others, or to those who build coteries of recalcitrant followers who strive to disrupt the institution that holds them.

More controls can help keep the wicked in line. Yet for any “corrections” to take place, society needs prison reforms that will offer meaningful incentives to those who commit to work toward redemption and reconciling with society. I’ve been working to transcend the walls for many years, though I’m more hopeful now than ever.

The post Expanding The Broken Glass Theory for Prison Reform appeared first on Prison News Blog.

For example, prison administrators determine what clothing an inmate may wear and how much clothing he may possess. They determine what the prisoner may eat and how much. They determine where a prisoner will sleep and with whom he will share space. Administrators set rules that determine the structure of every prisoner’s day. They establish a disciplinary code to punish prisoners who violate the rules. One thing missing from the prisons where I have been confined since 1987 was an incentive system that would encourage inmates to reform their ways and prepare for law-abiding lives upon release.

One of the consequences that follow the institutional atmosphere is that prisoners lose a sense of efficacy. They do not strive to prepare for the challenges that follow release because administrative practices discourage growth on meaningful levels. Those who run the prison strive to maintain security in the institution, that means keeping it running smoothly, without disruptions. The policies are designed well to cope with gang problems, with contraband, with corruption and violations of rules.

They are not so well equipped to function with individuals who are striving to build bridges to society or expand their networks of support. Prisons are designed to confine, to extinguish individuality. That does not result in a good return on taxpayer investments in these costly institutions, as the high recidivism rates suggest.

During the more than 21 years that I have served, I have worked hard to build a record that would demonstrate the need for prison reform. My work required that I educate myself, keep a clean disciplinary record, and interact with others so that I could write vivid descriptions of the prison system and why it fails to bring about positive change. I interacted and learned from many of the men with whom I served time. Those interactions put me into contact with prison gang leaders, organized crime figures, and white collar offenders. My fellow prisoners share their stories with me because they know that I write with hopes of bringing about change that will improve society and our lives as prisoners.

By extinguishing hope, I am convinced that prisons breed violence and continuing cycles of failure. They fail to make society safer, as more than 600,000 people are released from prison every year, and those individuals lack the preparation they need to function as law-abiding, contributing citizens. If administrators were to change their policies and implement incentives that would encourage inmates to earn their freedom, I am certain that more prisoners would adjust in positive ways. I’ve written about the work I have done to lead me to such conclusions in my books, and in articles available at www.criminal-indictment.com.

The post Prisons Fail to Prepare Prisoners for Society appeared first on Prison News Blog.