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Jim Webb Takes on Prison Reform
Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) is about to take on one of the most thankless issues in America: prison reform. Here's the Washington Post, explaining Webb's interest:
With 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States has imprisoned a higher percentage of its population than any other nation, according to the Pew Center on the States and other groups. Although the United States has only 5 percent of the world's population, it has 25 percent of its prison population, Webb says.
A disproportionate number of those who are incarcerated are black, Webb notes. African Americans make up 13 percent of the population, but they comprise more than half of all prison inmates, compared with one-third two decades ago. Today, Webb says, a black man without a high school diploma has a 60 percent chance of going to prison.
Webb aims much of his criticism at enforcement efforts that he says too often target low-level drug offenders and parole violators, rather than those who perpetrate violence, such as gang members. He also blames policies that strip felons of citizenship rights and can hinder their chances of finding a job after release. He says he believes society can be made safer while making the system more humane and cost-effective.
It may seem like a strange passion for a former military man from a state that is 75 percent white and that, pre-Obama, was proudly conservative. But this effort may be successful precisely because people assume the gruff, hard-charging Webb is a law-and-order type. It would have less credibility if the leader on this issue came out of the Congressional Black Caucus, a scenario that would probably create wrongheaded whispers about how the priorities of likely-to-be-incarcerated young black men were being placed above America's safety. (Of course, a Senate effort couldn't be led by a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. There are currently zero black senators.)
But Webb may have to go it alone on this issue, due to the fact that anyone who suggests improving our truly lamentable prison system gets quickly labeled as "soft on crime." We'll soon see if he has the savviness and political clout to make something happen. And have no doubt, something must happen. As Mother Jones illustrated in our July/August 2008 cover package called "SLAMMED," the state of America's prisons is a disgrace, and an unsustainable one at that. If you didn't know, click the link and get educated.
I support Webb's efforts, of course the devil is in the details. I have an idea, let's use these prisoners to fight in Afghanistan and beef up our military, after all the military laxed its recruitment requirements to allow fellons into the armed forces.
Right Cowboy
That's what we need . You sound like one who's been to war , you could reup and go do your part. Comments like your post leave me with a sense of hopelessness for the future of the planet. How about we all spend a little time reading some history, Afghanistan will not be won by military force and certainly not by the unfortunate souls that have fallen victim to our broken criminal justice system. (in most case's).
Drug addiction is not a criminal problem it is a medical problem. The drug war is lost , as will be the war in Afghanistan, read , read read. Many have tried and all failed in Afghanistan. Let 's just declare victory and leave and save the lives on both sides.
Obviously a good man, this Webb. But an utterly hopeless cause. Very worthy, but hopeless.
DanZ
Ending the drug war would go a long, long way towards solving this problem, but I notice that is nowhere in the discussion.
Typical...
Both wings of The Oligarchy Party & their Media pals are happily married to the War on Drug Users.
You won't hear a peep about ending the drug war from anyone in federal government except from the 'wackos', like Dennis Kucinich in the Democratic party & Republican Ron Paul (who also had the gall to be right about the financial crisis years before it broke), and the media won't dare embarrass The Party by bringing up the Drug War question.
Texas Cowboy - Dumb comment. You know nothing of military history where mercinarys or prisoner fighters performed very poorly against foes who were fighting for something they believed in. Just look how bitchin' our draughted forces did in Vietnam. Volunteer pros ALWAYS succeed in the field...no matter who the opponent.
Fear drugs - be scared!!!!
No matter what, longer terms for crimes committed with weapon and possession of a weapon without a license. Forever would be OK with me.
Bravo to Jim Webb! My husband, Michael G. Santos, is a long-term prisoner in his 22nd year of cofinement for a first-time, non-violent drug crime. He earned his bachelors and masters degrees from prison, and has studied prisons from the inside out. He is an accomplished, published author who contributes daily content on the issue of prison reform at prisonreformblog.com. This excerpt from a recent post Michael wrote addresses the cost and failures of the system as it exists today, and the measures meaningful prison reforms must include...
Our nation now locks more than 2.3 million prisoners inside boundaries. The lobbyists representing the powerful unions and businesses that serve the prison industry welcome the surging population levels. By confining more people for longer terms, legislators must allocate higher budgets to fund the bloated prison system. Congress found that between 1982 and 2002, taxpayer expenditures on corrections increased from $9 billion to $60 billion.
The escalating financial costs, although troubling in and of themselves, fail to reflect the truly devastating consequences that flow from our packed prisons. What about the human costs? Decimating hope for millions of Americans has long-term consequences on our society. Just as the abominable practice of slavery caused systemic problems for generations of Americans, long-term confinement contaminates many more lives than those of the prisoners themselves. Children and family members of each prisoner suffer as well. Sundry costs and consequences accumulate when society's institutions extinguish hope.
If taxpayers want prisons that do more than perpetuate cycles of failure, then prison reforms ought to require administrators to shape and influence prisoner attitudes. The task should not prove so daunting. After all, prisons are total institutions. Those who preside over the prison provide the basic needs for each prisoner, including shelter, clothing, and food. With complete discretion to create total infrastructures that determine how each prisoner spends each hour of his day, administrators simultaneously influence perceptions, values, and attitudes. When administrators implement policies that fail to provide mechanisms for prisoners to distinguish themselves in positive ways, administrators invite rebelliousness. I saw repeated examples during the many years I served in high security penitentiaries. Prisoners who served sentences that would keep them locked inside walls for decades did not see the value in preparing for the challenges they would confront upon release. They adjusted to the rigid, oppressive, control obsessed atmosphere that administrators established. Instead of conditioning prisoners to learn how to think or communicate, the penitentiaries where I served time conditioned prisoners to learn how to hate and use a knife.
Human beings respond better to the promise of incentives than they respond to the threat of further punishments and controls. This fact applies to prison populations as well as it does to any other segment of society. If taxpayers want more prisoners to prepare for law-abiding, contributing lives upon release, then they ought to support prison reforms that will encourage prisoners to work toward earning gradual increases in freedom.
I work at a prison, and I have to say that prison reform is something that gets a lot of talk but very little action. The basic problem is the nature of prisons themselves: they're for rehabilitation and they're for punishment. As a result, they do both poorly. If we just want to offer education, diversion programs, reintroduction systems, therapy, and job training, the system would probably have better results. And if we just wanted to make prisons a complete hellhole where no one wishes to be for however many years the sentence is, then it would probably get results too. Instead, we have a hideous chimera of sort-of punishment and half-assed programming that accomplishes little but wasting the time of the inmates and the money of the taxpayers.
No prison system can reach all the inmates, not all inmates need harsher punishment than the fact that they're away from real life, and some will consider any sentence as nothing other than another belt notch for their street credibility.
But with state budgets being what they are, the drive to punish with longer and longer sentences is going to have serious conflicts with actuarial tables, healthcare costs, a public that's going to demand penny-pinching, and a lot of other factors. I'm thinking the real reform is going to come from budget clerks rather than any lessened desire to be "tough on crime".
The courts will change the sentencing laws faster than the legislatures, and after much bitching and moaning the legislatures will wink and nod while still saying they're tough on crime.
Legalizing marijuana would probably decrease crime, but which politician is willing to have millions or billions of potentially-lost criminal money being placed against his position? As a private citizen, even a state prison employee, I can say I'm for legalization. But I sure as hell wouldn't say it if I was in a political position where I could actually do something about it. There's too much filthy money behind illegal drugs for legalization to ever be something any powerful politician could promote without being killed.
I don't like thinking that, but I can't see why thinking people seriously believe the drug war is working. The only logical explanation for so much stupidity is fear. And I can't say I blame them.
Constitutional Right to Adequate Medical Care Violated
By A. Caldwell - Jan 23rd, 2009 at 7:03 pm EST
Inmate Remains In Excruciating Pain For Almost Two Years
On May 04, 2007, and the following year on May 22, 2008, John M. Caldwell ADC# 090188, filed formal grievances with prison officials pleading for a hernia specialist (i.e. Urologist, Gastroenterologist) to correct his extremely painful bilateral inguinal hernias.
Respectively, on August 14, 2007 and again on August 18, 2008, Caldwell's pleas were denied by Arkansas Department of Correction, Deputy Director Wendy Kelley. According to Deputy Director Kelley's written response, it was on February 14, 2008, that Dr. Scott found Caldwell's hernias to be reducible. Caldwell disagrees with this erroneous assessment; as he has had a history of inguinal hernias which, as a free man, were promptly treated with major surgeries.
Caldwell's pleas appear to have fallen on deaf ears. Throughout May and June of 2008, Caldwell indicated to prison officials, "I am suffering needlessly with extreme pain that only gets worse and worse. I've been medically abandoned". Caldwell has stated that the pain he suffers is so intense that it prevents him from eating and sleeping normally. There are times when he must painfully pull and/or push his intestines back through the abdominal tear to prevent strangulation. His hernias have been known to bulge beyond the intestinal cavity. Caldwell also states, "As the right side starts pushing my guts into my scrotum - thus causing pain that now words can describe." At minimum, Caldwell's symptoms include chronic intermittent hemorrhaging from the colon and abdominal swelling from the base of his rib cage down to the pelvic area.
Despite, Caldwell's tremendous physical pain and mental anguish, the prison and its contracted physicians have not afforded Caldwell with the requested specialist that would provide the much needed hernia surgery to correct his abdominal tear(s). The prison's indifference to Caldwell's excruciating pain and mental torment is nothing short of torture.
I just wrote Senator Webb.
I just wrote Senator Webb. I told him the awful experience of our bi-polar son here in Johnson County, Texas.
The Adult Probation system in Johnson County is a for-profit system. It's been corrupt for many years and has been featured in the Fort Worth Star Telegram for its flagrant corruption. Especially when dealing with petty drug crimes.
Our son got into drug use in his teens because we didn't know he was bi-polar, and he wanted to "feel normal." For one-half of a Thorazine without a prescription, he received 120 days in jail, 120 hours of community service, a $5,000 fine and 10 years probation.
I told this to Senator Webb, and I told him the name of the District Attorney. State officials at Austin have showed a number of errors to our son that the County made. They get paid from the State by the charge, so they will give the perpetrator one set of paperwork, which they will send to the State. But they also send in another charge against that name which is different.
It's a sad, sad joke. One judge told me that she would fight this District Attorney, but she was scared to. He is only a County Attorney now, but he gets a kickback on every charge that is made in this County.
I don't know if Senator Webb can do anything. Our son isn't a criminal. He's an addict, and he's sick. I told that to the arresting official, and he said he knew that, but that jail was the only place they could put them.
When I was on the Family Crisis board in Johnson County, we received $60,000 a year from Adult Probation. I'm sure it's more now. This has to stop. Making a profit from sick people is no different from what Bernie Madoff did.
Write Senator Webb and give him all the support you can. He's gonna need it.
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