Vt. gov.: More treatment, less incarceration

[cali]

Mar 31, 2011 10:57am
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MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin said Thursday the state needs a war on recidivism that focuses on treatment, rather than jail, for nonviolent offenders.

"This is a war that has to be won for two reasons," he said at his weekly news conference. "First, I don't think very many Vermonters are proud of the fact that Vermont has a high number of nonviolent offenders incarcerated. And they're less proud of the fact that a huge percentage of them end up back in prison in less than three years."

Shumlin joined lawmakers and judicial branch officials to highlight efforts to lower the number of people who return to prison after being released by stepping up addiction treatment, mental health counseling and other services for nonviolent offenders.

He and other officials said the state needs to reconsider a strategy in which young nonviolent offenders are given jail sentences of one to two months in hopes that they will be "scared straight."

An initial taste of jail is a strong indicator of future trouble with the law, said Bill Young, executive director of Maple Leaf Farm, an Underhill addiction treatment facility.

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http://www.necn.com/03/31/11/Vt-gov-more-treatment-less-incarceration/landing_nation.html?&blockID=3&apID=55d21c11b829409d8cbe57ba429e91ae

[wtbymark]

1. I had a friend who went to Maple Leaf

she's been sober for 8 years now - and now has a wonderful life, business owner - Goodonya Kelly

[Shagbark Hickory]

3. Little jealous of vt's attitude.

[BanzaiBonnie]

2. This is truly good news

One of the books I'm currently reading is "A Call for a Compassionate Revolution, Beyond Vengeance Beyond Duality" a book about restorative justice, by Sylvia Clute

More than 1 in 100 Americans are currently in jail.

One in every fifteen African American men lives in a prison or jail cell.

The United States accounts for 5 % of the world's population---and 25% of the world's prisoners.

Either we're the worst people on earth, or something has gone terribly awry with our system of justice.

[wtbymark]

4. privatizing the prison industry probably wasn't a good idea n/t

[fishwax]

5. amen n/t

[Shallah Kali]

6. as a bit of trivia ALEC (& prison industry) helped craft states 3-strikes laws

please click through to read the entire piece & for hotlinks to the information cited:

Prison Industry Funnels Donations To State Lawmakers Introducing SB1070-Like Bills Around The Country
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/16/sb1070-prison-lobby

FLORIDA: During the gubernatorial primary campaign between disgraced businessman Rick Scott and Attorney General Bill McCollum (R-FL), the prospect of importing Arizona’s SB1070 became a prominent issue in the race, with both candidates promising to bring a version of the law to the state. While many Florida Republicans recoiled at the idea, which stands to alienate many Hispanic voters, a cadre of state lawmakers and candidates for the state legislature, most funded by the prison industry, announced their support for an SB1070-type law. State Rep. Bill Snyder, who has received $500 from CCA, pledged to introduce a bill more draconian than SB1070. State House candidate Ben Albritton, another outspoken supporter of SB1070, took $500 from CCA, and State Rep. Joe Negron, who has been working with Snyder to sponsor the bill, received $1,000 from the Geo Group, another major private prison contractor which operates immigrant detention centers. Overall, the Republican Party of Florida has been the biggest recipient of prison industry cash in the past two years: $37,000 from CCA and $145,000 from the Geo Group.

– PENNSYLVANIA: In the Key State, State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-PA) introduced the ALEC-drafted “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act,” one month before State Sen. Russell Pearce (R-AZ) introduced his version of the bill in Arizona. Metcalfe is a highly active member of ALEC. He was paid $1,500 by ALEC just to attend its meetings with CCA lobbyists on how to draft the law.

In Tennessee, the average daily number of immigration detainees sank to 40 in FY2009, down from 95 in FY2008. This may change with CCA’s aggressive lobbying for more laws encouraging aggressive arrests of immigrants or people who look like immigrants. Charles Maldonado, who has reported on CCA’s corrupting influence at the Nashville City Paper, notes that CCA may see new business at its West Tennessee Detention Facility with the passage of more SB1070-related laws.

ALEC, with funds from several private prison companies, helped sponsor “truth-in-sentencing” and “three-strikes-you’re-out” laws all over the country for the past two decades. These laws have greatly increased incarceration rates, and have contributed to America’s distinction of having the largest prison population in the world.


Corporate Con Game
How the private prison industry helped shape Arizona’s anti-immigrant law.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/6084/corporate_con_game

The war on undocumented immigrants initiated by Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce (R-Mesa) is not the first time legislation sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has filled the nets and bank accounts of the private prison industry.

In the early '90s, the ALEC's Criminal Justice Task Force was co-chaired by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the country's largest private prison company. During those years, the National Rifle Association (NRA), another task force member (and the current task force co-chair), initiated a campaign to introduce two pieces of ALEC-inspired legislation at the state and federal level: the so-called "truth-in-sentencing" and "three-strikes-you're-out" laws. Truth-in-sentencing called for all violent offenders to serve 85 percent of their sentences before being eligible for release. Three strikes called for mandatory life imprisonment for a third felony conviction.

The NRA campaign, dubbed "CrimeStrike," was seen by many as a reaction to the Clinton administration's efforts to pass gun control. CrimeStrike set forth the precept that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" and derided any legislator backing gun control as being "soft on crime." With memories of the Willie Horton disaster of the failed 1988 Michael Dukakis presidential campaign still on the minds of lawmakers, this accusation hit a nerve and elicited knee-jerk support of the laws by Democrats.

By 1996, CrimeStrike claimed credit for the passage of three strikes laws in Washington, California, Georgia, Delaware and North Carolina, as well as truth-in-sentencing laws in Arizona, Mississippi and Virginia. Subsequently, prison populations surged.

[HereSince1628]

7. One part I like more than the other...

The part I liked:
Shumlin joined lawmakers and judicial branch officials to highlight efforts to lower the number of people who return to prison after being released by stepping up addiction treatment, mental health counseling and other services for nonviolent offenders.


The part I didn't like as much:
He and other officials said the state needs to reconsider a strategy in which young nonviolent offenders are given jail sentences of one to two months in hopes that they will be "scared straight."


...

Why didn't I like the second part? Well it's been shown that confrontation (scaring someone) is a traumatic act. Exposure to trauma is in fact traumatic and produces anticipated products of trauma exposure. Scaring the bejessus out of someone is contrary to best practices of mental health.