My 22 years of experience as a federal prisoner give me a strong opinion on the reasons that our system of corrections breeds so much failure. The prisons in which I have been held extinguish hope. They do not encourage those who strive to prepare for law abiding lives upon release. The consequence of this flawed policy, from my perspective, is that prisoners who struggle to sustain focus through incarceration abandon adjustment patterns that could help them prepare for law-abiding lives upon release. Instead, they embrace adjustment patterns that lead to continuing cycles of failure.

Professor Petersilia reports some of the findings from her distinguished colleague, Professor James Q. Wilson. For many years I have read of Professor Wilson’s work. He is well known for his 1985 book Thinking About Crime, in which he wrote that prisons ought to isolate and punish. I’ve served my entire sentence in prisons designed not only to isolate and punish, but also to extinguish hope. The high recidivism rates that the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported represent the fallout from such myopic objectives.

The problem with prisons is that they condition people to live inside boundaries, though they simultaneously condition people to fail upon release. We need prison reforms that would lower recidivism rates and simultaneously lower prison operating costs. The way to accomplish such goals would require fundamental changes with the ways administrators manage prisons.

Rather than extinguishing hope and erecting barriers that obstruct prisoners from preparing offenders for law-abiding lives upon release, administrators ought to implement incentive programs that encourage the opposite. As Justice Burger once said in his speech Factories with Fences. We need prison reforms that will encourage offenders to earn and learn their way to freedom.

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Too many American citizens live with delusions that long-term imprisonment makes for safer communities. By isolating and punishing, the thought goes, offenders will refrain from criminal acts in order to avoid the possible sanctions. Some merit exists in the theory that the fears of punishment keeps people in line, thought 22 years of living in prison convinces me that prolonged isolation and punishment renders society less safe and wastes taxpayer resources.

In Professor Joan Petersilia’s work, I read that between the 1920s and 1970, America incarcerated its residents at a rate of 110 per every 100,000 people in the population. Since the 1970s, we’ve increased that rate of imprisonment to more than 700 prisoners for every 100,000 people in our country. America incarcerates more than 2.3 million people, and more than 700,000 prisoners return to society each year.

By only isolating and punishing, society has conditioned those offenders for continuing cycles of failure. That is the reason government statistics show that 67 percent, or two out of every three prisoners, return to confinement within three years of release. This policy of isolation and punishment does not render society safer.

My experience of living in prison convinces me that long-term imprisonment makes society less safe. As people spend decades in confinement, they learn to adjust to confinement in ways that they perceive makes their time pass easier. Without hope for relief, they join gangs, they hustle contraband, they corrupt the institution. As prisoners adjust to confinement negatively, they simultaneously condition themselves for failure upon release.

We need prison reforms that will encourage prisoners to empower themselves. Those reforms should offer opportunities for prisoners to earn freedom through merit. Isolating and punishing only keeps the cycle of failure going. We need a more enlightened approach to corrections. We should start by rewarding success. Perhaps citizens will start the process by supporting my petition for commutation.

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