U.S. Shifting Prison Focus to Re-entry Into Society

[flashl]

Source: NY Times

Back in the 1970s and ’80s, high crime and “get tough” laws meant longer sentences and more emphasis on punishment than on rehabilitation, and the federal and state governments spent billions building prisons.

Today, as a legacy of those policies, not only are record numbers incarcerated, but also about 700,000 state and federal prisoners are released annually, many of them with little education or employment prospects and destined to be imprisoned again within a few years.

In a sharp change in attitudes about incarceration, many states and private groups have recently experimented with “re-entry” programs to help released prisoners fit back into their communities and avoid new crime.

The strategy will get a major boost this week. President Bush is to sign the Second Chance Act in a public ceremony on Wednesday, making rehabilitation a central goal of the federal justice system. In a sign of how far the pendulum has swung, the measure passed Congress with nearly unanimous bipartisan support.

NY Times

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/washington/08reentry.html?ref=us

[sasquatch]

1. Holy pissin' Christ, GWB did something I agree with

*faints*

[Mojorabbit]

4. Move over

or I might land on you on my way down to the floor.

[Skittles]

2. good but - how about more focus on teenagers going astray

GET 'EM REALLY YOUNG and do some REAL INTERVENTION

[spindrifter]

3. It's about time!

If we don't do anything to educate and socialize the re-entrants, we are looking at some really bad outcomes--for us as the community they return to and, of course, for them. The people who got the really long, harsh drug sentences are the ones in desperate need. The world has changed a lot since they were out and about.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. Not. Far. Enough.

If civil society wants to incarcerate people in the numbers it does and at the rate it does, then civil society should pay for it. Once we stop for-profit prisons and the slave labor that it profits from, you will see a cessation of this orgy of incarceration.

Incarcerating citizens is not some feel-good exercise in vengeance, bread and circuses. It is probably one of the most serious responsibilities civil society accepts. By turning it into an industry, that responsibility is trivialized and the doors of the penal system are thrown wide open for abuses.

As we have seen.

[Juche]

6. Jesus

Now there are 2 things I agree with Bush on. His HIV/TB/Malaria program (trying to up it to $10 billion/year) and this.

[eagertolearn]

7. Wow! I can't believe it. Is that enough money though?

I wish they had this 20 years ago then maybe my brother would still be alive. I hope they really mean it!

[mac2]

8. Seems they ran out of room in the prisons?

OR is there an election coming up? OR he needs them in the military?

[SlowDownFast]

12. You get it. n/t

[World Traveller]

9. Budget Deficits - Less in Prison - Way to Save Money

Yahoo had an article on this very topic 2 days ago. About states (California, Kentucky, etc.) facing major deficits because of recession, housing bust, lower tax receipts, etc. so they want to cut back on number of prisoners, since it is VERY expensive to keep a person in prison.

Federal budget is feeling the same pressure.

In the future you won't hear near as much "I'm tough on crime" from politicians. You'll hear about "smart alternatives to imprisonment", re-integrating prisoners back into society (so the state or federal governments don't have to pay their living expenses), etc., etc.

[High Plains]

10. About 700,000 people are coming out of prison each year.

After getting graduate training in the college of criminal knowledge.

About 95% of all prisoners will one day walk back into society.

[flashl]

11. More than that, jails and prisons are incubators of unchecked infectious diseases. nt