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Alternatives to Prison Protect the Community
Locking up convicts — the longer the better — has been seen as a sure way to promote political careers, protect job security and pacify communities fearful of crime.
That may be changing. A new kind of “truth in sentencing” movement is underway. It is based on the premise that it isn’t how long a criminal defendant spends behind bars that’s important, but whether the community is safer if he’s put in prison.
There’s mounting evidence that being “tough on crime” — especially regarding non-violent offenders — actually makes communities less safe.
Missouri Supreme Court Judge Michael Wolff, who chairs the state Sentencing Advisory Commission, is a leading evangelist for what he calls “evidence-based sentencing.” That’s when judges use hard data on a criminal convict’s risk of reoffending as a key element in the decision whether to mete out jail time.
In a speech last year at New York University Law School’s Brennan Center of Justice, Mr. Wolff noted that 50 percent of inmates in Missouri prisons are non-violent offenders. Working with researchers at the Missouri Department of Corrections and the Department of Probation and Parole, he collected data on offenders convicted of non-violent felony theft.
The data show that 45 percent of those sent to jail or prison — even for as little as 120 days — reoffend. But only 19.1 percent of those sentenced to probation or community service commit additional crimes.
“There is a strong case to be made that the large increase in prison population has made us less safe,” Mr. Wolff said. “If we put non-violent offenders in prison with violent offenders, the non-violent do seem to learn from the violent.”
If the public thinks “rationally about what’s in our own best interests — i.e. public safety,” he added, we should “pay particular attention to which sentences work to reduce recidivism.”
Progressive judges and corrections officials aren’t the only ones taking notice. Grass-roots community groups, religious service organizations and a growing number of civic-minded lawyers have become involved in the movement that diverts non-violent offenders from the conventional justice system, often soon after they are charged.
The concept is called “restorative justice” and it gives offenders a chance to face the community directly — and especially their victims — to accept responsibility for their actions and make amends.
In Springfield, Mo., Greene County Prosecutor Darryl Moore, a longtime prosecutor with a no-nonsense reputation, has built a restorative justice program for non-violent adult offenders — in both misdemeanor and felony cases.
Mr. Moore is convinced such programs make offenders “more accountable” and, above all, that they give victims “a greater satisfaction.” He’s working state lawmakers on legislation that confirms the authority of prosecutors statewide to engage in restorative justice and that protects community groups that participate.
As if keeping the public safer wasn’t reason enough to explore these programs, an added bonus is that restorative justice programs cost less than locking up a person in prison. The inconvenient truth in sentencing is that the public may be safer when non-violent offenders are kept out of prisons.
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14 Comments so far
Show AllYou don't mention that the real reason for the increase in jail time is that we now have a FOR PROFIT prison system in this country. There is NO incentive NOT to jail people, or even to put them on probation instead of just realize that the "crime" just isn't that important. EVERYONE (except politicians and the rich, it seems) who gets arrested will be put into the system, other consequences be damned. There is just too much money involved for those who OWN the prisons and the system.
There are some things that the gov't SHOULD be running, and things that SHOULD be expensive. It keeps them from being the first choice of action. Jails and prisons are in that list. Jail and prison SHOULD be expensive. It keeps them from being the first thing done in ANY situation. Jail should be where you put people who society can't live with being out in public. Why is a person who gets popped with a little weed in that category? Why is that such a henious thing that they have to be jailed? And don't kid yourselves, it DOES happen.
It's time to stop using jails as our first approach, and see it for what it is, a waste of time, lives, and money, especially as we do it now. The authoritarians are gone, time to deal with things with BRAINS for a change, and to take justice out of the for profit realm. Justice for money is no justice at all.
All true. Unfortunately private prisons and prison corporations are now so entrenched in the military-industrial-penal-congressional complex that it would take a very strong movement and a very determined leader indeed to get rid of them. I certainly won't live to see the end of all the horrors the "conservative movement"--which is actually a fascist movement--has wrought upon this country in the last 30 years.
Rainborowe
Sioux Rose
The "restorative justice" approach, mirroring the strategy used by "The Councils on Truth and Reconciliation" in South Africa promotes healing and forgiveness; whereas the general prison system is all about punishment. It is beyond cruel that young persons, (more males than females) who use recreational drugs in a virtually harmless manner end up in jails and prisons where many are subjected to male on male rape. I would suppose that the 45% recidivism rate is in part related to sheer fury, anger, and vengeance.
When I lived in the Florida Keys it was pretty well known that the local judges and attorneys smoked pot, and some used cocaine, and most got loaded occasionally (at the least) on alcohol. Yet there they were, parading into court in their business suits, just going along with the show that saw average Joes convicted, and made to serve jail time for the "crimes" they themselves committed.
When the "Zero tolerance" program got underway, as I seem to recall instigated by Bob Martinez, the freedoms associated with (is it the 4th amendment?) the right to privacy, against unnecessary searches and seizures went by the wayside. Constitionally granted liberties were slowly being massaged away even before Bush and his neocon band of thugs came into power.
And what happens when the formerly incarcerated, now wearing the scarlet letter of "felon" seek jobs? And what happens to families interrupted when a member goes off to serve time? This nation has cleaved so far into violence that it tears its own body politic apart, and then refuses to pay for any rehabilitation warranted by its harmful policies. Another profitable zone of "disaster capitalism" at work.
I believe the current moves toward all-encompassing surveillance, national databases, construction of incarceration facilities and development of crowd-control weaponry has little or nothing to do with a War on Terror, and everything to do with the preparation for crackdown on an immense scale when the realities of the coming economic and ecologic devastation become too much for the general population too handle...I believe those in powere are anticipating large-scale, violent revolt, and are using the current climate to not only build this terrifying infrastructure, but to further condition the average person to it's increased use as a 'good' thing to control 'problematic' individuals...one of the reasons I'm secretly hoping that we will have an enormous environmental issue thrown at us soon, is I don't really see a way for the average citizen to fight back against the communications control and awesome weaponry the powers have created...some of these things have the ability to knock out electricity over large areas, and to fry large amounts of people at once...not to mention the obvious traditional wepons like bombs and guns and stuff...
Sioux Rose
DUBET: I think you may be onto something. I saw this coming when I wrote a futuristic novel in l990 and this topic was peripherally involved. I saw the intellectuals being locked up... and called that phase "The Transition." Everything in the novel is based on the year 2020 A.D. "After the Transition." When I planned to title this work 2020 Vision, imagine my surprise to learn the military had that exact title in mind for its own more deadly devices, fiction or otherwise. I believe theirs had to do with weaponizing space.
Finally ! An article on the issue of prison reform in the US. Thank you CD for bringing this up. MO is probably in such a rotten state that it really cannot afford "zero tolerance" lockup policies much as the Prison Industry Complex would like to keep it that way. Besides, like the Army, more prisons are privatized with contractors to keep the costs somewhat and artificially "low" and even allow unfair torture through contractor loopholes or something like that. It's kind of like a public employee getting punished while a private employee gets "free" for the same crime.
Not to mention that it costs TAXPAYERS an average of 30,000 dollars PER year to house an inmate rather than spend just ONE-YEAR'S cost of incarceration on a quality education!!! Geeee....do I want to spend 30, 60, $90,000 (1,2,or 3 yr prison term cost) housing an offender (who might even be innocent if there were enough well-paid court appointed attorney's w/ funds to adequately represent their client) or do I think that money could be better spent giving that person an education and training to become a better, self-sufficient citizen and productive member of society?? HMMMMM I need to sleep on that one.
And the cost of electronic monitoring is about 20% of a prison cell.
Here in Wisconsin,as in numerous other states,prison siting has been used in the most cynical ways.They're mostly located in rural areas with high jobless rates,and far away from the urban centers where the majority of the inmates lived.The lowlife ex-governor,"Toxic Tommy Thompson",actually built a "Supermax" prison that his own head of Dept. of Corrections said was unnecessary.But sadistic urges [and the resultant profits] must be sated,right?
A kind thought is extended to Leonard Peltier,who suffered yet more indignities recently.
I agree 100% regarding non-violent offenders. What about Buch and Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, Yoo, Peare, et al. Is there a better place for them than jail? Besides a grave.
Want alternatives to prisons? End the insane War on Drugs!
Of course end this painful, ridiculous war on drugs. End prohibition. This is just lining the pockets of the private prison industry which wants to promote law breaking to grow their industry. Those people should be the ones locked up and as far as Im concerned they can get the chair.
The BIG downside...how will various Republicans who earn their too rich daily bread "earn" an obscene living when their pet for-PROFIT jails are not as full. Seems to me, demonizing "criminals", often really demonizing "the other" is VERY PROFITABLE, almost as good as a invading some Nation on False pretexts. What WILL we do with these newly "poor" Repos...put THEM in jail?????????
oh...all the comments about getting people ready for EVEN MORE FASCISM vis more jails, intrusion, doublespeak and so on...this IS NOT science fiction. Think of what HOLY PROFIT would flow to those who are themselves "holy" in the BushCo paradigm. We need to be vigilant, the bastards may have souls, but they have NO HEARTS or anything related to NORMAL HUMANITY. I still think Brin's THE POSTMAN -(NOT the movie with Kevin Costner, not in any way, shape or form- it may have been made to stop the book being read for all I know!) - has some very telling insights as to what we are up against, and Republicans are clearly mentioned as part of the toxic stew that the book deals with.