The Chronicle had a very interesting letter to the editor (scroll down) on prison reform yesterday from one Richard W. Gilliam...who is an inmate at San Quentin:
If the governor, the Legislature and the Department of Corrections really wanted to reduce prison population and the appalling rate of recidivism in California, instead of just paying lip-service to this growing and costly problem, they would drastically expand primary- and secondary-educational resources in every prison.The guaranteed jobs thing is a pipe dream, not because it's such a bad idea but because it's politically impossible (it's not hard to imagine the attacks on 'guaranteed jobs for criminals'). I think the rest of it, though, is absolutely right. I remember hearing about waiting lists for educational programs when I was interviewing inmates, and it has to be much worse today.
The average education level of California prisoners is equivalent to a seventh-grade student. That means the vast majority of the 170,000 inmates housed in California's prisons do not have a high-school diploma, GED, or the expectation of finding meaningful employment upon their release. (Nintey percent of all inmates will be released at some point.)
The Department of Corrections is mandated by state law to place inmates who test lower than 9.0 on the Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE), into educational or vocational classrooms, but with space for less than 30,000 statewide, many inmates serve their entire term waiting for classroom space.
In a June 20 article, The Chronicle noted that in addition to 170,000 prisoners, there are 130,000 former prisoners on parole. The article also states California has the highest rate of parole failures in the nation. With costs of housing, feeding and medically maintaining inmates estimated at $26,000-to-$30,000 per year, per inmate, the escalating and aging prison population should be of major concern to everyone.
The way to lower the high rate of recidivism, the inmate population and the corresponding costs is to require every inmate to work toward gaining his or her GED, before assigning them to a prison job and an educational waiting list. This would give newly released inmates a chance of competing in the job market upon release. I would take it a step further by having the state guarantee employment to every newly released inmate, if needed. Agencies such as Caltrans, the Department of Water and Power, state and municipal offices and courthouses could offer entry-level positions in maintenance and janitorial positions while providing a degree of supervision to former inmates.
Building more prisons to simply warehouse more offenders does not work and the costs of maintaining prisoners will continue to rise if something isn't done to reverse the trend of revolving-door recidivism.
What Gilliam is talking about boils down to bringing back rehabilitation, which was abandoned some twenty years ago. It would cost us, of course...but not as much as it costs us not to rehabilitate our inmates.
[That's all, folks]
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