Rehabilitation Failure
Sticky, of San Diego, California
After
being incarcerated for just shy of eight years, I think I am qualified
to some judgment toward our State's prison system. I know California
has the largest prison budget, largest prison population, highest paid
prison guards, and greatest failure in what they label as rehabilitation.
I believe the rest of the nation should see us as one of the several states
in our union which is in crisis. The system in play today extends
punishment to the taxpayer and, thus, to the economy.
I
believe in order for rehabilitation to actually work, citizens, to include
the media, should be allowed to attend parole hearings and other conclaves,
just as the public is allowed into a courtroom. They are all essentially
the same thing. But, the prison authorities claim that allowing in
the press might cause people to become sympathetic toward convicted felons.
They want to protect the victims but who is really being protected?
I know hundreds of truly reformed men who have been turned down for parole,
after serving 30+ years on a 5 to life because, time and time again, they
were deemed not ready. I bet if the hearing was televised they would
be viewed as ready.
This
state proclaims it is rehabilitating its inmates, but how do Californians
know for sure if they are not allowed beyond the lethal electric fence?
The 70% recidivism rate says it all. Maybe this is due to the majority
of prisoners being held like livestock in cells, stacked in dormitories,
and stored in out-of-state facilities (making them not count toward the
gross inmate population), while serving very harsh and severely long sentences.
Most of these individuals are left to their own devices for rehabilitation
because the state can no longer fund needed self-help programs. I
should know. I am a recovering alcoholic/addict, yet no programs
exist. Those of us who are serious about recovery must form our own
unofficial groups. How is it there is not enough funding in our current
multi-billion dollar budget? Refer back to sentence #2 of paragraph
#1. To me this translates to failure, and use of a punishment driven
system.
I
believe no inmate should have to waste away his incarceration time.
Perhaps we should start by actually establishing a rehabilitation program.
If one exists, I have not seen it. I am in a vocational class I had
to fight almost a year to be placed into. Maybe we should examine
what the 30% of successful parolees are doing to stay out, and establish
a curriculum in that area. There will always be a class of prisoner
who remains recalcitrant, but there is no reason for that number to be
70%. Our system accepts that purely for job security.
In
my eyes, California's prison system is a failure. Prisoners are released
back into a society well prejudiced to see them as misfits bearing the
stigmas of ex-con, convicted felon, and other marks of shame. Those
same prisoners are given a $200 pittance in release money, an amount which
has not changed in well over thirty years, giving him/her little more than
bus fare and a recipe for failure. Why not give them $1000?
If they return within three years, that amount becomes owed restitution
to the State.
We,
as responsible Californians, need to realize our prison system is in such
a state of dysfunction that it needs to be overhauled. Otherwise,
it will continue on its downward spiral of destroyed lives and wasted treasury.
Stray Thoughts
Sam Aurelius Milam III
The
silly idea that men and women should have equal rights is rendered irrelevant,
as well as silly, by the fact that neither men nor women presently have
any rights at all, only privileges.
It's
own government is usually a nation's most dangerous enemy.
As
a strategy for weight loss, I'd prefer to eat less of the things that I
like rather than more of the things that I don't like.
Voting
doesn't control the government. It legitimizes the police state.
| October 2015 | Frontiersman,0c/o
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