American Prisons — No Rehab, They Teach Inmates How to be Repeat Offenders

Here is one issue the presidential candidates never bring up and the news media never ask about — the state of American Prisons.  The current economic downturn has had a disastrous effect on prisons because their budgets are so easily cut.  Nobody cares about prisoners.  They have no powerful advocates.  The result is that no candidate for public office will support spending any money to rehabilitate prisoners,  They would rather spend money on building new prisons to house the ever increasing number of former inmates who offend again and need to be re-incarcerated.

People like new prisons.  It means we are tough on crime.  Providing basic necessities for prisoners is not important because these people are “Animals” who don’t deserve any consideration whatsoever.  They should just be, “locked up and forgotten.”  Well, the result of this attitude is that massive state and federal budget cuts have left prisons severely understaffed and so overcrowded that one prisoner characterized his facility this way, “This place is essentially run by inmates.  Guards or “officers,” simply direct traffic.”    

I am writing this blog because I have a grandson in prison in Stillwater, Minnesota and while I admit that he belongs there, I find it difficult to accept the conditions under which he and many other American prisoners are kept.  The worst part of the system is that almost all attempts at rehabilitation have been cut from budgets so the rate of recidivism (return to prison) is a little over 50%.  I’m hoping that by relating my experience, however limited, (one prison in one system of prisons) that readers can gain a better understanding of prisons, prison life and how our system really works against itself.

In 1965 there were 780,000 adults under correctional authority throughout the United States. Currently, there are well over 7 million people locked up in penitentiaries, county jails, on probation or parole. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tio-hardiman/the-prison-industrial-com_1_b_994221.html That’s more than any other country in the world.

U.S. prisons seem to be nothing more than breeding grounds for recidivism. You can bet that the majority of prisoners when released will wind up back in prison and the reason is that the only skills they acquired in prison were those that allowed them to survive.  They learn that the proper response to a problem is violence.  The reason for this mess?  We have cut prison budgets to the bone and we don’t even try to teach inmates the basics about how to live crime free lives. So rather than serving as places that seek to rehabilitate criminals all our prisons do is reinforce the offender’s proclivity toward criminal behavior.  We add to the crime rate because the one place where we have a captive audience for rehabilitation isn’t used for that purpose.

“The state of California has opened only one college since 1984 — and twenty-one prisons.”

Elliott Currie, Crime and Punishment in America

Here are some startling facts:

• Over 2.3 million Americans (about 1% of the population) are currently incarcerated in prisons alone.  That is the highest percentage in the world, ahead of Russia, China, Iran and even North Korea.
• It costs taxpayers about $23,000 a year to house and feed each prisoner.
• About seven percent of U.S. federal prisoners are female.
• Over 75% of women incarcerated in the U.S. are single mothers.
• Over half of all federal prisoners are there for drug offenses.
• About 73% of American federal prison inmates are U.S. citizens and 16% are Mexican.
• Whites make up 56% of all federal prisoners; 40% are black, 2% are Native American and 2% are Asian.
• Rikers Island in New York is considered the world’s largest penal colony.  There are as many as 15,000 inmates there at any one time.

http://people.howstuffworks.com/prison4.htm

The prison system in the United States is a mess and nobody cares.  Our prisons and jails have become nothing more than crumbling, overcrowded holding tanks…holding prisoners until they’ve served their terms, releasing them and then waiting for them to return.  And…return they will, because for the most part our prisons offer nothing in the way of rehabilitative services.  Unless we start paying attention to this forgotten dark side of our society the revolving door is just going to start turning faster and faster as prisons become more a place to refine criminal skills than to eliminate them in favor of abilities that would keep offenders from returning to the lives that got them into prison in the first place.  Right now in 2012 almost all prisons are overcrowded with some at nearly 40 % over capacity.

Contrary to some beliefs prisoners, for the most part, don’t get much in the way of creature comforts.  While all prisons have their own rules most do not provide TV sets for inmates.  In Stillwater Prison in Minnesota for example, they provide basic cable to cells. If you want TV or radio or an i-pod you must buy your own.  There is no internet available to prisoners so they are not online harassing people.  There is a lending library available to inmates but the selection of books is not wide.   If you want a specific book that is not in the library you have to find someone who will buy it buy it from Amazon and have them send it to you.  Health care is virtually non-existent. Yes, prisons have physicians and infirmaries but before you get to see them you had better be gravely ill.  A toothache, a sore back, even a case of flu won’t get you much if any attention.

My only real experience with prisons is just the one facility in Stillwater, Minnesota where my grandson is incarcerated.  I understand that the gopher state system is better than most and yet it is severely lacking.  While prisoners can get jobs in prison they are meaningless jobs that offer little in the way of skills that can be used in the outside world.  Disassembling old computers and serving food in a cafeteria are not occupations that lend themselves well to surviving in modern society.

In Minnesota if prisoners need something they must either buy it from the prison store or have it sent to them by the manufacturer.  I am not allowed to send my grandson a pair of tennis shoes.  I can send money to his account at the prison and he can buy tennis shoes through the prison store.  I can’t even send him a book.  I have to purchase the book from Amazon and have them send it to him.  I cannot send him food or clothing and when I see him I am not allowed to hand him anything.  Every letter we write is opened and read by someone before it gets to him and in some cases it is censored or not delivered at all.  Occasionally you can send something to an inmate that never gets to him.  There is no explanation and you are never notified that it happened unless the inmate tells you about it.

When you visit an inmate in Minnesota you do so in a very large room filled with other inmates and their visitors and under the watchful eyes of cameras and guards.  When my grandson knows he will have visitors he is brought to this room and told to stand still in an area watched by a guard until we arrive.  Upon entering we are allowed a brief hug and then must sit in chairs across from him that are about five feet apart.  Touching is not allowed.  If the inmate has children, they may touch and sit on the inmates lap until age six…after that, no touching even by a 7 year old child who doesn’t understand why all of a sudden he or she can’t sit on daddy’s lap.  When we leave he again must stand in a certain spot  close to a guard and we are allowed a goodbye hug as the guard watches to make sure nothing changes hands.

As in all prisons, gangs rule and belonging to one is dangerous.  Gangs offer protection (for a price and I don’t even want to know what it is) from other gangs.  If you are not in a gang, though, you are in even greater danger.

My experience in Minnesota is only as the relative of an inmate and as a visitor but I am always astounded at how much goes on that the guards either do not see or just ignore.  Security, from my perspective, is very tight.  When you visit you must empty your pockets (can’t even carry your car keys in) and place all your belongings in a locker that you have to pay for).  Then you must walk through a metal detector that is so sensitive it will pick up metallic lint if you have any.  If you look the least bit suspicious you can be taken aside and searched.  Then only very few people at a time are allowed through a double set of mechanical steel security rooms where you leave your ID and get your hand stamped with a special invisible ink.  Finally a mechanical door will open into the public visiting room and you have a maximum of one hour to visit.  Two hours if you are from out of town and only at certain times on certain days.  Sometime you may arrive to find that your inmate has been disciplined for some reason and you cannot see him even if you travelled a long distance and no one will call you to tell you not to come and you will never find out what the offense was unless the offender tells you.

I have no idea how people bring contraband into the prison but they do.  Illegal drugs, alcohol, drug paraphernalia, money, cigarettes all kinds of things find their way in and conjugal visits are not allowed so they certainly aren’t getting in that way.   Almost every prisoner is covered in tattoos…but tattoos are illegal in prison.  I don’t know where they get the tattoo pens, the ink or even find the privacy to actually do a tattoo but they do.  These skin drawings are illegal because of the potential for Hepatitis C and other diseases but apparently it is unstoppable because I see new tattoos every time I visit.

I hope this blog gives the reader something to think about. I am not asking for prisoners to be treated with kid gloves but rather that society consider doing more than just locking them up until release time.  Rehabilitation may not always work but I’ll bet it’s cheaper to try to rehabilitate even a few prisoners than continue to pay for the prosecution and incarceration of those who keep returning to the system because they didn’t have the tools to survive in a normal society.  While it is difficult for many “Law and order” people to get beyond the “animal” characterization of prisoners they must.  That term probably applies to a specific few like serial killers and child molesters but not to all.  All I ask is to think about it a little…think about how you’d feel if someone you knew and loved was in prison.  Generalizations can be very dangerous…give it a little thought before you make them.

Thanks for reading this.  Your comments are welcome in the space provided below or you can write to me personally at bob@aronson.org.

I am a heart transplant recipient and hope that you are an organ donor.  If not please consider becoming one because one donor can save or positively affect up to 60 lives.  You can read my blogs on the subject at www.bobsnewheart.wordpress.com and you can join our Facebook Group Organ Transplant Initiative.  The only requirement for membership is to have a desire to increase the number of transplantable organs in the United States.  Want more information about organ donation?  Visit www.organti.org and watch “From the Bottom of my Donors Heart.”