The U.S. Constitution provides the President with the power to pardon people convicted of federal crimes. Different types of pardons exist, however. Through acts of executive clemency, the pardon can forgive or excuse a criminal conviction, amnesty can absolve an individual or a class of individuals from criminal prosecution, a reprieve can postpone the imposition of sanctions, and a sentence commutation can lower the severity of a criminal sentence.

President Obama should reform the pardon process because the federal prison system has become too large. Federal prisons confine more than 200,000 prisoners, and as the pardon process exists today, only the well connected have a chance of making an effective case for the President to consider whether an individual merits consideration for clemency.

When the founders of our country imbued the office of the President with the power to pardon, they did not envision criminal sentences that would confine hundreds of thousands. Further, long-term imprisonment should require some type of review. The interest of justice should warrant an inquiry as to whether multiple decades in prison meet the need of our evolving society. Without a federal parole board in place, the President ought to have a more effective system to evaluate whether continued incarceration is appropriate for all federal prisoners.

 Although an act of executive clemency is really an act of grace, or compassion, if offenders had a mechanism through which they could work toward earning meaningful consideration for clemency, many more prisoners would strive to build records that might advance their candidacy. I would like to see a system in place that would reward those who built long records of working to reconcile with society. President Obama could instruct those within the pardon office to evaluate such offenders on a regular basis, and political connections should not have as much influence on decision as records of merit.

With 200,000 people in federal prison, it seems inconceivable to me that the pardon attorney should consider so few for the grace of clemency. More clemency requests were granted when our nation’s prison system confined fewer than 40,000 prisoners. That evidence suggests the President and the Department of Justice ought to reform the pardon process.

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Certainly, administrators who set prison policies must create environments that are safe for both staff and the prisoners. Clearly, controls have a place. In order for corrections to occur, however, administrators would need to augment the oppressive controls with mechanisms through which prisoners may work to redeem themselves. That fundamental flaw of denying prisoners a sense of their own efficacy leads to the type of perpetuating failure Congress described through its passage of The Second Chance Act.

Through that legislation, Congress found that prisons produce recidivism rates that our enlightened society cannot accept. In the Pew Report, research showed that prison expenditures are misspent. My experience of having been locked in prisons of every security level convinces me that administrators can lower operating costs, reduce recidivism rates, and create environments where guards can correct.

M. Browning, a criminal justice major, asked me questions about how I could expect guards to make the leap to correctional officers when security of the institution remained the top priority. My position requires a broader perspective. Those who lead the prison, the top administrators, need to think about more than protecting the institution. As professionals in “corrections,” they have a responsibility to protect society. To me, that means establishing policies that lower recidivism rates. It means creating environments that would help more offenders emerge as law-abiding citizens.

A small portion of prisoners need total control. They have proven themselves unwilling or incapable of living in our society. Administrators have the power and the discretion to isolate those offenders. An overuse of oppressive policies, on the other hand, extinguishes hope among the prisoners who might otherwise be receptive to reform and corrections. My contention is that by implementing prison reforms that would allow prisoners to earn graduating increases in freedom through merit, administrators would create an environment for corrections to take place. In so doing, they would contribute to lower recidivism rates and safer communities.

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Katie A., a college student,  asked what kind of policy changes I would suggest to increase the possibilities for correction in America’s prison system.

Naturally, I recognize the need for prison staff members to maintain security and order within an institution. Prisons exist to protect society. When policies create oppressive environments, however, they lessen the likelihood of encouraging reform among the offenders that prisons hold. High recidivism rates make this clear. The Pew Report recently published findings that show how our prison system has grown. Despite $9 of every $10 in correctional spending going to confine people in prison, the Second Chance Act published findings that show seven of every 10 prisoners recidivate. Although I’ve been a prisoner for more than 21 years, that data suggests to me that this public policy is in need of reform.

We need prison reforms that do not necessarily make prisons more lenient, but rather provide incentives that would encourage offenders to work toward earning freedom through merit. When administrators implement policies that extinguish hope, that require staff members to do nothing more than guard, they miss an opportunity to create an environment where real growth can take place.

The policies that I would change would be those that totally isolate offenders from hope of making meaningful contributions to society. Rather than telling prisoners that the only matter of importance is the turning of calendar pages, I would recommend reforms that offer mechanisms through which prisoners can work to reconcile with society.

If prisoners perceived that they could work toward making a positive change in their classification and status through merit, prisons would inspire hope. That hope would lessen the troubling tendency of negative adjustments. The high rates of failure that our nation’s prisons condition are well documented. My experience convinces me that prison reforms that include incentives would create an atmosphere where corrections can take place. Such reforms would lower recidivism rates, lower operating costs of prisons, and lead to safer societies.

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As the federal prison system operates today, prisoners do not have a mechanism through which they can work toward earning freedom. That is a tragedy. It is a flawed policy that contributes to high recidivism rates, higher prison budgets, and a growing us-versus-them subculture that threatens the fabric of society.

We need prison reforms that would encourage offenders to work toward meaningful incentives. Prison administrators do not serve the interests of society when they govern with policies that extinguish hope. Administrators rely upon a rigid disciplinary code to punish bad behavior; we need prison reforms that will introduce an equally objective incentive system to reward positive adjustments.

Incentives do not have to increase prison budgets. Prisons are total institutions, where administrators control the infrastructure by which all prisoners live. In setting prison policies, administrators dictate how much access prisoners have to telephone, visits, education, food, clothing, recreation, and housing. Through the use of incentives, they can encourage prisoners to strive toward graduated increases in freedom. They may earn more telephone access, more family time, more control over housing assignments through positive adjustments. A proper incentive system would encourage prisoners to work toward earning freedom through desirable adjustments.

In designing a meaningful incentive system, administrators could induce more offenders to prepare for law-abiding lives upon release. That would lower recidivism rates and make society safer. It is the reason I call for meaningful prison reform through which offenders can earn freedom.

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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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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.

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To reduce violence in prisons, administrators ought to consider modifying the infrastructure – the rules by which they are governed. Instead of simply threatening prisoners with additional sanctions and punishments, they ought to rely on incentives that motivate those in prison to embrace the principles of good citizenship, even in the community of the confined.

When I was confined in a medium-security prison known as FCI McKean, in Pennsylvania, the warden implemented progressive leadership techniques. Although prisoners were serving lengthy sentences, some without release dates, the warden was a firm believer in the use of incentives. Wardens do not have the authority to change release dates, yet they do set the policies by which prisoners live. At FCI McKean, Warden Dennis Luther offered numerous incentives that prisoners could work toward earning. For example, he allowed those prisoners who kept their disciplinary records clean to choose their housing unit so they could live with like-minded individuals. Those who preferred a quiet atmosphere could share the same space while those who passed time playing table games could live together. That was a big deal, enabling prisoners to have some control over their lives.

There were many other incentives Warden Luther used to inspire good behavior. Those incentives did not come at taxpayer expense. For example, he allowed prisoners to earn the right to purchase food from local restaurants on occasion; he allowed prisoners to earn the right to purchase athletic apparel from local stores rather than from the limited selection of prison commissaries; he allowed prisoners to earn the right to watch videos or listen to cassette recordings of music; he allowed prisoners to earn the right to additional visiting and telephone privileges.

As a consequence of Warden Luther’s progressive policies, prisoners with long histories of violence got along. Instead of challenging the system or causing disturbances, they worked to earn the additional freedoms and privileges that were available. His leadership led to success as measured by the prison system’s own metrics: lower incidents of violence, no suicides, no escape attempts.

Warden Luther retired in 1995. The new warden eliminated Warden Luther’s progressive management techniques and reverted to oppressive practices. Within six months of the administrative changes, a riot broke out that caused more than a million dollars in damages. I wrote about my experiences of confinement under Luther in articles available at www.criminal-indictment.com. They convince me that incentives are effective.

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Drugs enter institutions through visiting rooms, through the mail, and through corrupt staff members. The smuggling of drugs into prisons is particularly problematic in secure prisons. Ironically, in minimum-security camps, where prisoners enjoy significantly higher levels of freedom and interaction with the broader community, drugs are less of a problem. Administrators ought to learn a lesson from that truism.

Drugs are not such a problem in minimum-security camps for a variety of reasons. The most obvious, of course, is that minimum-security camps confine mostly offenders who were convicted of white collar crime and other nonviolent prisoners who are nearing their release dates. The people in minimum-security camp have more hope than those in higher security prisons. Although administrators in higher security prisons cannot change the type of offenders who are locked inside the boundaries, they can use their enormous power to encourage more hope.

Inmates who live without hope are vulnerable to negative adjustment patterns. Many ceaselessly plot and scheme to build a power base inside the penitentiary. They feel totally alienated from the world beyond prison boundaries, or recognize that they will not return to society for years or decades to come. Recognizing that many prisoners rely upon drugs to numb themselves to the pains of confinement, many prisoners traffic in drugs as a short-sighted way of easing their time in prison. Those activities contribute to many problems inside the chaotic world of the penitentiary.

Although administrators must make appropriate use of security measures, another tool they should consider to stop the flow of drugs into prisons would be implementing a meaningful incentive program. Rather than simply relying upon the threat of punishment to discourage bad behavior, prisons should make use of incentive programs that encourage good behavior. Inmates should have opportunities to work toward meaningful privileges that would improve their quality of life inside.

Some examples of incentives that would drive inmate choices might include opportunities for inmates to enhance their ties to society. For example, they could offer access to e-mail programs, better visiting access, more telephone access. Administrators limit those programs. If they allowed prisoners opportunities to earn privileges like more food, preferred housing within the penitentiary, or access to movies, music, or books. Since administrators control the infrastructure, they could control inventives that would motivate desirable inmate adjustment patterns.

The threat of punishments and further sanctions extinguish hope and contribute to the oppressive atmosphere. Incentives, on the other hand, would open and encourage motivations to grow. That shift in management would help stop the flow of drugs into prison.

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