Prison reform

[wdfifteen]

Kid who has been working for me on weekends is a felon who spent 3 years in an Ohio prison for selling drugs. He went into prison bad, came out worse, but by some miracle decided to turn himself around. He had been out and clean for 11 months before he started working for me. He is a working machine "all I want to do is work, eat, and sleep." He has started opening up after 3 months and the stories he tells are horrifying. Drugs are easier to get in prison than on the outside. You can get almost anything brought in to you - transported deeply up someone's butt. Cell phones, chargers, cigarettes, and drugs of course are all brought in through the anal canals of your friends. Guys with 3 years of nothing to do spend 3 years planning how to be better criminals when they get out.
We are wasting so much money on prisons. There has been a hue and cry from liberals about the evils of for-profit prisons, but done right, they might make a dent in our crime problem. If a prison's success was measured by how many inmates were prepared and obtained jobs after release vs how many ended up back in prison, and they were paid on the basis of their success, we would have better outcomes from our prison system. The idea of warehousing people for some number of months and then just turning them out into society hoping they will behave is insane - but that's our system.
My guy has a chance of getting somewhere. All he wants to do is eat, sleep, and work and for nearly a year that's all he does. He doesn't have or want any friends, totally keeps to himself because everyone he knows is in "the life" and he wants nothing to do with it. Hopefully he will find some people who are not part of the drug culture to befriend and move off on a path toward a happy productive life.

[Racerbvd]

Good luck to him, I hope he stays on the current path.

[freeform911]

The problem is for profit prisons.
They're paid big$ to keep them full.
Get the money out and start to rehab the cons( which we know doesn't work well either).
Like many things in life the answers aren't always easy.

Best to luck to your help..

[Arizona_928]

Originally Posted by freeform911

The problem is for profit prisons.

+1

Private Prisons
Judges
Let alone the laws for stupid offenses

You think it's bad what they do to adults. The juvenile system ain't much better.
My brother as a juvenile stole an ipod (remember those), as a lesson the judge sentenced him to 6 months in an adult prison. 2 months later he is dead...

System is broken from the top down..

[ckelly78z]

Good on you for giving him a chance to prove himself again. He does need to stay away from temptation though.

[billybek]

Originally Posted by AZ_porschekid

+1

My brother as a juvenile stole an ipod (remember those), as a lesson the judge sentenced him to 6 months in an adult prison. 2 months later he is dead...

I am very sorry for your loss. I cannot even imagine how difficult that was to deal with for you and your family.

[biosurfer1]

For profit prisons help rehab criminals so they don't return.

Sort of like pharmaceutical companies provide opioids so people get better and can stop taking drugs...how's that working out?

[Chocaholic]

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/11/15/van-jones-trump-criminal-justice-reform-credit-ctn-vpx.cnn

[Macroni]

I have also hired employees with time served on their application with success. They just want to move on with their lives.

[Tervuren]

Patrick.

You bring up one of my many frustrations.

Who really runs the prisons?

Sure seems like it is the criminals in too many locations.

The only answer I have is to keep the prisoners so busy they don't have time for anything else.

The education part only works on the willing.

[legion]

150 years ago, you could move west, change your name, reinvent yourself, and leave your past behind. I think this worked out well for people that really wanted to change. On the other hand, criminals who had no intention of reforming could always find a new pool of victims.

Now your misdeeds follow you for life. This works well against criminals who have no intention of reforming. It works out poorly for people who want to change.

I don't think there are any magic solutions here. Every solution has some advantages and some massive downsides.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by freeform911

The problem is for profit prisons.
They're paid big$ to keep them full.

That was my point, and why I think private, for-profit prisons can work better than government run prisons. If they get paid by the head, sure, they are going to want to keep the cells full.
But if, as I said, they get paid according to the recidivism and employability of the prisoners when they get out, they'll work at preparing the criminals to function in normal society.
As I said:
" If a prison's success was measured by how many inmates were prepared and obtained jobs after release vs how many ended up back in prison, and they were paid on the basis of their success, we would have better outcomes from our prison system. The idea of warehousing people for some number of months and then just turning them out into society hoping they will behave is insane - but that's our system."

I am amazed at how ignorant J (the kid who works for me) is of normal life. He doesn't know how to use cash for legal transactions. His other employer deposits his pay in some kind of account and J has a Walmart debit card that he uses to debit that account for everything he buys. He didn't know there were penalties for driving without a license or insurance. He wastes incredible amounts of money just because he doesn't know how spend wisely. Three years of sitting around with nothing to do and he was taught NOTHING about how to live once he got out. Totally effed up system.

[tadd]

Our entire concept of 'punishment' is very different from when we were a new nation.

Punishment was swift, immediate, and PUBLIC. Stocks, lashes, etc. Everyone knew you had done your penance, and moved on.

Towns were small, you needed your artisan (smith, cobbler, whatever) back at work. Replacements were days away if you could find one.

Heinous crimes usually ended up in hanging.

IMHO, locking people up is not a solution. We are still close enough to animals that direct and immediate physical punishment could be useful.

Look at Brenda Spencer. She was the first school shooting. Locked away 40 years ago at 16 years old. Society was to timid to just kill her since she was under age. I ask you, what has been served? Many of those that were affected are dead. What happens when everyone who was affected has died and yet the criminal is still in prison? Is that still serving justice? Especially given the average for murder is 14 years...

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/sd-me-brenda-spencer-school-shooting-20190129-story.html

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/tssp16.pdf

What has been accomplished but society paying $30k a year ($1.2M so far) to hold this person? A $1 hollow point would have been far more effective, but someone would have to pull the trigger on a 16 year old girl.

[legion]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I am amazed at how ignorant J (the kid who works for me) is of normal life. He doesn't know how to use cash for legal transactions. His other employer deposits his pay in some kind of account and J has a Walmart debit card that he uses to debit that account for everything he buys. He didn't know there were penalties for driving without a license or insurance. He wastes incredible amounts of money just because he doesn't know how spend wisely. Three years of sitting around with nothing to do and he was taught NOTHING about how to live once he got out. Totally effed up system.

A couple of years ago, a recent college graduate (with a master's degree no less) decided to prove that minimum wage was not a "livable wage". He got a minimum wage job and would keep it for a year. He set a goal of saving $1,000, getting a place to live, and buying a used car by the end of the year.

At the end of six months, he had an apartment he shared with two other guys, had a used car that ran well enough to get him around, and managed to save $5,000. He kept having to turn down promotions at work to keep his wages down.

His conclusion was that it wasn't that the minimum wage was too low, but that those who lived on it had no idea how to manage their money.

[legion]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I am amazed at how ignorant J (the kid who works for me) is of normal life. He doesn't know how to use cash for legal transactions. His other employer deposits his pay in some kind of account and J has a Walmart debit card that he uses to debit that account for everything he buys. He didn't know there were penalties for driving without a license or insurance. He wastes incredible amounts of money just because he doesn't know how spend wisely. Three years of sitting around with nothing to do and he was taught NOTHING about how to live once he got out. Totally effed up system.

A couple of years ago, a recent college graduate (with a master's degree no less) decided to prove that minimum wage was not a "livable wage". He got a minimum wage job and would keep it for a year. He set a goal of saving $1,000, getting a place to live, and buying a used car by the end of the year.

At the end of six months, he had an apartment he shared with two other guys, had a used car that ran well enough to get him around, and managed to save $5,000. He kept having to turn down promotions at work to keep his wages down.

His conclusion was that it wasn't that the minimum wage was too low, but that those who lived on it had no idea how to manage their money.

[asphaltgambler]

Prison reform = oxymoron

[GH85Carrera]

Way back in the late 1970s Alabama had the federal courts take over the prison system because of the horrid conditions. I was part of a team of press allowed to take a tour of one of the prisons. I 100% KNEW I was leaving after a short tour, and yet when the big steel gates of the prison slammed shut behind us I felt a chill down my spine. I was standing next to a large prison guard as we walked down the rows of cells. I took pictures for the local paper, and Time Magazine. One of the photos was published in Time, several in the Birmingham News.

I can tell you the sights were bad, but the smell and the noise was way worse. We toured the cafeteria and the smell of the food was revolting. I was real happy to get the hell out of there.

I have never had a propensity to be a crook, but that experience reinforced be goal to never commit a crimes, and not be involved in any sort of criminal activity of any sort. To this day I have never been arrested, or had handcuff on. I plan to keep that streak going.

I said back then, and I will say it again, the courts need to set up a way to send juvenile defendants to a secure and separate area, yet right in the middle of it all, so they can spend a few days really seeing the reality of prison is. Eat that food, smell the smells, see the life of prison, yet keep them away from the prisoners. Anyone willing to risk going back is just a criminal at heart, and needs to be in prison away from the rest of us.

I saw in the new the other night the Alabama prison system is once again about to be taken over by the feds.

[Mike Andrew]

Agree with much posted here.
However, I think it comes down to personal responsibility for ending up in prison and personal responsibility to not go back to prison. Society, drugs, easy money. lack of education, blah, blah, blah. To me, it all boils down to personal responsibility for our actions and making good choices. Mistakes happen. They do not have to happen again and again.

[Clint Lando]

get what we deserve

[Arizona_928]

The prison systems vary soo much state by state, yet a money black hole! That is the most interesting thing about all this. You have Sheriff Joe's tent city. That is one place people do not want to go back to. We have PREA now, and for a fact certain races rape depending on geographics of the country. You have prisons that do 24 hours of solitary confinement. You even have judges taking $$ to send prisoners to private facilities for longer terms. You could write a dissertation on the injustice of the whole justice system.

Let alone all the innocent people that are in system that could not afford decent representation and just pleaded out. Who's in the system? Poor, very very poor citizens. Rich people get off.
Perfect example... We had a I-17 freeway shooter in west phoenix taking pot shots at cars on the freeway. They arrest some kid. Construction worker, poor as dirt kid. Governor makes his statement that we caught him. Come to find out they run trajectory on some of the projectiles and the shots are.. well they're coming tractor trailer height. They knew this all along, yet ruined this kids life until they dropped charges...