David Fathi wrote about our “dysfunctional criminal justice system” for the Huffington Post. He points out the depressing statistics with the United States incarcerating 762 residents out of every 100,000. This figure compares unfavorably to other countries like Canada, that incarcerates 116 residents out of every 100,000; Japan incarcerates 63 residents out of every 100,000. The United States, it seems, is becoming more of a prison nation.

In Professor Joan Petersilia’s book When Prisoners Come Home, she wrote that in 1970, America incarcerated a total of 196,000 prisoners. In The Second Chance Act, Congress reported that America now incarcerates more than 2.3 million people. Does America feel safer with this increase that exceeds 1,000 percent?

The idea of closing prison camps is not without support from professionals who know prisons best. Earlier in my prison journey I had an opportunity to interview Warden Dennis Luther. At the time, Mr. Luther was the longest tenured warden in the Bureau of Prisons. As I was interviewing Warden Luther in his office as preparations for my master’s thesis at Hofstra University, he told me that prison camps did not serve a useful purpose. Anyone serving time in a camp, Warden Luther said, ought to be on home confinement or in a community based correctional program. That way those minimum security prisoners could pay their own costs of confinement while simultaneously providing service to society.

I have been incarcerated for 22 years, the past six of which I’ve served in three separate federal prison camps. I have held job assignments that have placed me in society without supervision. One job assignment required that I drive on a public road at midnight without staff supervision. I don’t grasp the purpose of such unnecessary imprisonment.

President Obama has called for cuts to unnecessary spending projects. Taxpayers ought to question the hundreds of millions it costs each year to confine nonviolent and nonthreating offenders in minimum-security camps.

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The Second Chance Act of 2007 provided federal prison administrators with the authority to release prisoners to halfway houses one year before their sentences expired. That Act also urged administrators to expand programs that would help prisoners build stronger family and community ties while the prisoners served their sentences. For whatever reason, the current BOP Director Harley G. Lappin chooses not to abide by the letter or the spirit of this Congressional legislation.

Director Lappin has led this agency since the Bush years. I am hoping that President Obama will soon appoint a new Director to lead the Bureau of Prisons. That new Director ought to embrace the Obama vision of enlightenment. Certainly, I understand that our country struggles through tough economic times. The BOP would not require additional funding, however, to implement the changes authorized by the Second Chance Act. It simply needs leadership that would advance prison policy from the dark ages.

President Bush signed the Second Chance Act longer than one year ago. It is inconceivable that during the past 12 months the Director could not have made changes within the BOP budget to provide more resources for community confinement centers. In the prison where I am held, where we have had a steady population in excess of 500 prisoners, only one many has been authorized for 12 months of halfway house placement during the past year.

Besides the BOP restrictions on halfway house placement, Director Lappin has kept policies in place that render it more difficult for prisoners to nurture family and community ties. The most blatant example of abusive policies that separate prisoners from family members is the 300-minute limitation on monthly telephone access for federal prisoners.

Prior to the George W. Bush presidency, federal prisoners could use the telephone to communicate with family much more freely. Monthly telephone limitations did not exist. The limitations began in 2001, and Director Lappin has kept them in place. That telephone restriction ought to be rescinded at once.

Congress did not pass the Second Chance Act haphazardly. The law passed with overwhelming bipartisan support because Congressional leaders recognized that prisoner recidivism rates were abhorrent. Those prisoners who built strong networks of support, who succeeded in finding employment, and who had time to decompress through halfway house placement stood the best chance for successful reentry.

America needs new leadership within the Bureau of Prisons. At the very least, it needs a Director who will embrace the enlightened prison reforms authorized by the Second Chance Act.

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In the Second Chance Act, Congress made specific findings about appalling recidivism rates that cost taxpayers billions each year and threaten public safety. The Act cited the prison system’s own metrics suggesting that prisoners who maintained strong family and community ties were the most likely to succeed upon release. Congress charged the Director of the BOP to create programs that would help prisoners nurture family and community ties during the course of imprisonment. Despite the passing of a full year since Congress overwhelmingly passed the legislation, neither prisoners nor their family members have observed changes that would help them nurture family and community ties.

One terrible disruption to the possible nurturing of family and community ties began during the era of former Attorney General John Ashcroft. It concerned changes to the inmate telephone system. The telephone represents one of the essential links prisoners have to society. Prior to John Ashcroft’s leadership over the Department of Justice, inmates could use telephones freely to communicate with family members and friends. Since 2001, however, telephone policies have limited prisoners to 300 minutes of telephone access per month.

Besides restrictive telephone limitations, under Director Lappin’s leadership, the Bureau of Prisons places severe limitations on each federal prisoner’s ability to nurture family and community ties through visits. In the prison where I am held, for example, a rigid point system prohibits prisoners from receiving more than one visit per week. Prisoners who cannot visit during Friday work hours face even more restrictive time limitations; they may visit only two Saturdays per month. Such restrictive policies hinder rather than encourage the nurturing of close family and community ties.

The Director even authorizes policies that restrict federal prisoners from nurturing strong family and community ties through correspondence. In the prison where I am held, for example, policies prohibit inmates from using e-mail, or even typewriters for social correspondence. Those policies threaten disciplinary action against prisoners who use typewriters to nurture family ties; they may not even type letters to open relationships with prospective employers.

I may have only been in prison for 21-plus years, but as far as I know, prisoners have no more than three mechanisms through which they can nurture family and community ties. Those mechanisms include the telephone, visits, and correspondence. Congress published findings indicating that close family and community ties were the most important links that can lead prisoners to post-release success. Under Director Harley Lappin’s leadership of the federal Bureau of Prisons, however, restrictions exist to block rather than nurture those ties.

In this era of government transparency, the incongruity between Director Lappin’s statement to a Congressional committee and the policies he enforces should not go without notice. Telephone, visiting, and correspondence restrictions represent but three of the troubling policies that afflict all federal prisoners. Those policies belie any ostensible mission to assist prisoners with post-release success.

As a prisoner who struggles daily to hold his family together in spite of the Bureau of Prisons stifling restrictions, I found Director Lappin’s misrepresentation to Congress patently offensive. I would have preferred the direct honesty of my former unit manager, Ms. Ortega, who told me point blank: “We don’t care anything about what you’re doing to prepare for release. All we care about is the security of the institution.”

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If a prisoner has a scheduled release date, society has an inherent interest in helping that individual find stability. The prisoner has a responsibility of course. He should work to educate himself, build a network of support, and prepare in every way possible. In light of the Act, administrators ought to encourage him by offering a clear pathway that would show the prisoner what steps he must take to earn maximum halfway house placement. Instead, administrators offer no such guidance. They do not offer a mechanism through which a prisoner can earn maximum placement. Ironically, those who educate themselves and build strong networks of support receive less halfway house, as administrators reason taht such prisoners will require less time to acclimate. Despite my having served more than 21 years, I would not qualify for maximum placement because I have educated myself and built a strong network of support.

I do not know a single prisoner whom administrators have granted 12-months halfway house. But that is only one element of the Act that administrators ignore. The Act also urged administrators to implement programs that would allow prisoners to nurture family ties during imprisonment. Instead, they limit telephone and visiting and correspondence access. Such actions suggest that administrators want to keep prisons humming with high recidivism rates.

The post Prison Administrators Resist Change appeared first on Prison News Blog.

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 a long-term prisoner, I can say with certainty that both the correctional system and the prisoner’s contact with society have an influence on adjustment patterns.

The prison is a total institution. That means administrators set the policy by which all prisoners must live. Administrative decisions determine our access to basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. They also structure our time and set the tone of the culture. I have been locked in prisons with oppressive, controlling regimes and I have been confined in prisons with real leadership at the helm. Since administrators set the culture by which all prisoners must live, they also set the climate for adjustment patterns that most prisoners will pursue.

My experience and interactions with others convince me that the harsher the conditions administrators set, the more likely prisoners will be to respond with behavior that citizens would consider inappropriate. In such environments, prisoners do not contemplate steps they may take to emerge successfully as law-abiding citizens.

Instead, they engage in disturbances. They form gangs. They adjust in ways that will help them overcome the oppression they feel.

Conversely, when administrators recognize that judges send people to prison as punishment and not for additional punishment, they create environments that motivate prisoners to adjust positively. Through the use of incentives, the administrators encourage prisoners to educate themselves, to develop vocational skills, to strengthen family and community ties.

Even the U.S. Congress has made findings that show close family ties represent one of the best ways to lower recidivism rates of prisoners. Yet in the Second Chance Act, Congress found that prison administrators do not sufficiently encourage prisoners to form close ties with society. On the contrary. My experience has been that they erect obstacles that make it more difficult for prisoners to hold families together. They limit prisoner access to visits, telephone, and mail.

When prisoners lose hope, they become more susceptible to the negative influences that pervade the penitentiary. When they have hope, they strive to become one with the fabric of society. As high recidivism rates show, however, most prison administrators expertly create atmospheres that extinguish hope. That is why I believe we need fundamental prison reforms.

The post Hope Leads to Positive Prison Adjustments appeared first on Prison News Blog.

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.

The post Top Ten Prison Reform Goals, Article 3: Prison Reforms Should Encourage Prisoners to Build Supportive Success Networks appeared first on Prison News Blog.

His release date approaches, yet he has no idea what kind of life he will lead. As we were watching the news this morning, we saw that a government agency had reported that more than 10 million Americans were unemployed. Dan is returning to Arizona, a state that has suffered one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation. If national unemployment rates exceed 6 percent on average, Dan knows that unemployment may be worse in the Phoenix area. For a 40-year-old man without a job history, with a substandard education level, and with a lengthy prison record, the unemployment rate might approach 100 percent. The prospects for Dan’s future do not look bright.

Dan lacks both financial and human resources. Administrators from the Taft federal prison camp are releasing Dan to a halfway house six months prior to the expiration of his sentence. While in the halfway house, administrators will expect Dan to stabilize himself. They will allow him out of the house each day to find a job. Once he finds a job, Dan will have to forfeit 25 percent of his gross pay to the administrators of the halfway house. Those funds will cover the costs of Dan’s room and board. Administrators will allow Dan to keep the remainder of his earnings to prepare for his life.

During the time that Dan has served in prison, he has lost everything. He does not own any clothes outside of the ragged sweats he has accumulated from other prisoners. He does not own a vehicle and he has no idea of the cost of living. Without a work history, Dan does not expect to find a job that will pay more than $400 per week. Yet Dan will lose $100 of that money for halfway house expenses. He anticipates that after taxes, he may be left with $250 in take- home pay for a full week’s work.

Dan hopes to find a job during his first month at the halfway house. If he can reach that goal, he will have an opportunity to work for five months before his term will expire. When Dan’s time in the halfway house concludes, he will have to pay the full cost of his housing and food expenses, and he expects those costs to run him far more than $100 per week.

Yet during those six months that Dan serves in the halfway house, he knows that he will have personal expenditures. He will have to purchase clothing, as he does not own anything. He will have to pay for toiletries, transportation expenses, and any food that he eats away from the halfway house. Tough times await him.

Dan has heard that he will need to save sufficient funds to meet the expenses of renting an apartment. With move-in costs including a prepaid first-month rent, last-month rent, and a security deposit equal to one-month rent, Dan anticipates that even an efficiency apartment will require $1,200 in savings. With expected take-home pay of $250 per week, Dan has no idea how he will manage to save enough money to live independently.

In the early spring of 2008, President Bush signed a law known as The Second Chance Act. That law made it possible for administrators to release offenders to a halfway house up to one year prior to the expiration of their terms. That extra time in the halfway house was supposed to provide offenders with more opportunities to stabilize themselves upon release from prison. Dan requested halfway house placement at the earliest possible time so that he could find employment and work toward stability in accordance with Congress’s intention of The Second Chance Act. Yet the Warden at Taft Camp denied Dan’s request, assuring him that six months in the halfway house would be sufficient for him to find a job and save enough funds to begin his life. When Dan appealed the warden’s decision to higher-level administrators, they too declined to grant Dan relief.

Recidivism rates in our country exceed 60 percent. More than six in every ten offenders who walk out of prison engage in some type of activity that returns them to confinement within three years. For some, it appears that the complications awaiting their release dwarf the harshness of living in prison.

Prisons don’t have to churn out so much failure. Rather than warehousing prisoners like Dan for 14 years, administrators could have designed meaningful incentive programs that would have encouraged Dan to develop skills and resources that would allow him to transition to society as contributing citizen. We need prison reforms that will reverse the troubling trends of high recidivism rates. The entire mindset of these institutions need to change, and that change should begin by replacing the Director of the Bureau of Prisons with a new leader who shares the promising vision of President-elect Barack Obama.

For prisoners like Dan, any change will come too late. He will be home for Christmas of 2008, yet I have a suspicion that he may miss the steady routine of the human warehouse to which he has grown accustomed. Dan is not ready for the challenges of society. With more than 600,000 people returning to society from prison each year, Dan is but one of many examples that we need prison reform now.

In my article entitled Strategy for Successful Prison Adjustment, I offer guidance other prisoners may follow to ensure they don’t walk out like Dan.

The post Dan is Getting Out of Prison appeared first on Prison News Blog.

I write from the perspective of a long-term prisoner. My time as a prisoner began in 1987, when I was initially confined inside the high walls of a United States Penitentiary. I was 23-years-old then, and Norm Carlson was the Director of the Bureau of Prisons. Since then, the BOP has expanded its population by a factor of five. With its shift toward more punitive policies, the system has become more violent and less likely to prepare offenders for law-abiding lives upon release.

A new Director who espouses President Obama’s vision would rely on more than threats of punishment to shape human behavior. Rather than extinguishing hope, as has been the policy of the current and past BOP Directors, a new Director of the BOP would implement policies that would encourage offenders to redeem their actions through merit and contributions to society.

As members of Congress stated in the Second Chance Act of 2007, the BOP’s own metrics show that strong family and community ties represent the most effective means to support successful re-entry for prisoners about to return to society. Yet Harley Lapin, the current BOP Director, supports policies that hinder those in prison from nurturing family support. One blatant example of BOP policy that deteriorates family and community relationships is the ridiculous limitations on telephone access. Federal prisoners cannot access the telephone for more than an average of ten minutes per day. Such limitations weaken family relationships. Marriages fall apart. Children lose contact with their incarcerated parents. Prisoners cannot use their precious phone minutes to build community ties without sacrificing family communications.

Visiting restrictions represent another flawed BOP approach to corrections. Rather than encouraging family members and supportive mentors to play an active role in the prisoner’s efforts to prepare for release, the current Director supports policies that frustrate and impede citizens from visiting with those in prison. Where I am incarcerated, for example, administrators implemented a strict points system that severely limits visiting opportunities. Each prisoner here is allocated only 20 visiting points per month. Prison administrators penalize prisoners and their families by “charging” 8 points for a Saturday visit and 6 points for a Sunday visit, and visiting on federal holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas “costs” 8 points per holiday. Such limitations make it impossible for me to build the network of support that I will need to overcome the challenges that will follow my release after more than 25 years of continuous imprisonment.

The current Director of the BOP sets policies that are designed to preserve the security of the institution. Rather than implementing creative, incentive-based programs that encourage offenders to work towards emerging as successful, law-abiding citizens, the current BOP Director embraces the failed policies of divisiveness. Those policies that strive to isolate prisoners from the values of America are diametrically opposed to the policies that President Obama supports.

To reverse the costly and destructive trends of high recidivism rates, President Obama should appoint a BOP Director who will abandon this flawed, architecture of human failure. Rather than presiding over an institution that warehouses humans and obliterates hope, a BOP Director under President Obama should set policies that motivate offenders to educate themselves. As former Chief Justice Warren Berger suggested, prison administrators should implement programs through which offenders can “earn and learn their way to freedom.”

Policies come from the top down. To realize the promise that President Obama so eloquently describes for America, we need a new Director for the Bureau of Prisons. We need a Director who will help, rather than block, prisoners striving to reconcile with society.

The post We need President Obama to appoint a new Director in the Bureau of Prisons appeared first on Prison News Blog.

In April of 2008, President Bush signed the Second Chance Act of 2007. According to an overwhelming majority from both houses of Congress, the legislation had several purposes. Primarily, the law exists to break the cycle of recidivism. One of the changes Congress enacted was to extend possibilities for access to halfway house placement. Unfortunately, administrators in the institution where I’m being held have thus far refused to recommend inmates for maximum halfway house placement.

With the Second Chance Act, Congress stated that federal inmates were now eligible to serve the final 12 months of their sentences in a community corrections center. Inmates could serve up to the final six-months of that 12-month window on home confinement. By providing that opportunity for inmates to serve the final portion of their sentences in a community corrections center, Congress hoped to help offenders rebuild ties to the community. Such change would enhance their ability to transition from prison into law-abiding citizens.

Although I expect administrators will modify their rigid stance and implement the policies to fulfill the intentions of Congress by 2010, it may take litigation to push them along. As of this writing, administrators in this facility resist this need for change from the you’ve-got-nothing-coming mentality. Instead of providing inmates with a clear path to maximum halfway house placement, policies here are to award minimal halfway house placement. Clearly, those who preside over such policies ignore the struggles inmates will face upon release from confinement.

No inmate leaves prison with intentions of failing to make a successful transition. Yet as Congress pointed out through the historic Second Chance Act, nearly seven of every ten people who leave prison return to confinement. The flawed policies of the past are at least partly to blame. With time restrictions on access to visiting and telephone, inmates lose their support systems as they spend time inside federal prisons. Congress authorized the extended halfway house provisions as a good-faith effort to help inmates strengthen their community ties. Prison administrators, however, ignore or diminish this need. Despite specific language in the legislation citing that “families are an often underutilized resource in the reentry process,” administrators at this prison are using evidence of such support as a reason to prolong an inmate’s stay in prison and minimize his access to halfway house placement.

Danny’s case presents a twisted example. He has been incarcerated for longer than 11 years. Despite repeated requests for transfer to a prison closer to home, for the past four years administrators have kept Danny out of state. He has not had a single visit in longer than five years. He is 38-years-old now and within one year of his scheduled release date. During Danny’s imprisonment, he has maintained a record that is free of any disciplinary conduct; he has earned two college degrees; he has participated in volunteer community projects that allow him to travel into society without escort or restraints. Clearly, Danny does not represent a threat.

Danny requested 12-months of halfway house placement. To bolster his argument for consideration, he explained to his case manager that he had never held a job in his life, yet he wanted desperately to succeed upon release. While living in the halfway house, Danny pointed out that he would have to

1. secure employment
2. save money necessary to rent an apartment, including a deposit, first, and last month payment
3. save money to purchase transportation
4. save money to purchase clothing
5. pay for his living expenses while he served time in the halfway house
6. re-acclimate himself to society after longer than a decade in prison.

He must also agree to forfeit 25 percent of his gross pay as a condition of living in the halfway house. Danny seemed a perfect candidate for the full 12-months of halfway house placement that Congress authorized with the Second Chance Act.

Danny’s case manager, however, told him that she would submit him for only between five and six months of halfway house placement.

“Five or six months,” Danny protested, “that won’t be enough time. I’m a felon without any work history. I expect to struggle in finding employment and may not earn more than $10 per hour. To fund my transition into society I’ll need to save a minimum of $4,000. How can you expect me to do that in only five to six months?”

“Records show that your family has been sending you an average of $100 per month,” his case manager responded. “They should help you.”

“They’ve been sending me that money to pay for my phone calls because I’ve been locked up out of state. That’s the only way we’ve been able to stay connected, but my mother lives in a trailer and she’s in her 60s. She can’t afford to help me. I’m 38 and need to take care of myself. Are you telling me that the responsible approach for me to take upon release is to leech off my family?”

“Our policy says you’re only entitled to between five and six months,” his case manager said. “That’s all I’m submitting you for. The rest is up to you.”

Danny’s prison record showed that he had acted responsibly, as was evidenced by his minimum-security rating. He was also realistic about the high hurdles that awaited him upon release. Congress was moving in the right direction to fight recidivism when it authorized administrators to provide inmates like Danny with up to 12 months of halfway house placement. Prison case managers at this institution, however, refused to budge. Rather than providing a path for Danny’s successful re-entry, they were setting Danny up for failure upon release. Ironically, the efforts he made to maintain family ties during his eleven years of confinement have disqualified him from maximum halfway house placement.

Inmates need time to make the transition from prison to society. Until administrators begin encouraging all inmates to earn maximum halfway house placement, however, they continue the status quo and facilitate the high recidivism rates Congress is trying to avoid.

The post What Second Chance? appeared first on Prison News Blog.