The Second Chance Act: Call Your Member of Congress!

I don't write enough about the issue of prison reform on this blog and I really should, because, as far as I'm concerned, it's one of the most important issues in America today and is barely even discussed. I have been working with a retired federal corrections officer for a little while now, helping him to get the word out about his experiences and the inside dirt on sentencing laws and prison reform. This guy is a decorated lieutenant who was basically forced into early retirement as a direct result of his activism. Since then, he has worked as a community leader with organizations like the November Coalition that focus on prison reform. Unfortunately, this dedicated gentleman has been in poor health for a while now and ilives mainly on disability checks, which amount to very little. Recently he was contaced by the authorites and told that his activism (for which he makes no money - he is not a non-profit organization and works on a strictly volunteer basis) amounts to work, and if he's healthy enough to do that, he's healthy enough to work. They told him to cease his activism or lose his disability pension, which he is entitled to as a retired warden who worked for over thirty years in the federal prison system and who has been officially deemed eligible for disability by approved doctors. The whole thing stinks. Yes, it is about race, of course, but like most things in this country, it's really about money. More and more prisons are either owned and run by private companies or have many of their services contracted to private companies. As with most privatized services, the almighty dollar is the top priorty, at the expense of not only prisoners but alo the rest of us in the free world. Rehabilitation programs - be they educational, psycholgoical, addiction treatment, whatever - are becoming a thing of the past. The implicit goal of incarceration is to ensure recidivism. A single free man or woman represents a loss of an average of $40,000 per year to the private prison industry. In many cases, private corrections firms have contracts with local businesses and provide prisoners to work for virtual slave labor wages. So the community suffers in that not only are inmates basically encouraged to offend again, leaving children fatherless or motherless and families struggling to get by on single incomes, but also in that jobs are lost on a great scale. And, for the prisoners who do this work, finding work upon release is practically impossible as the only skill they have is to do a job that is done by prisoners. So they have no income, and guess what? They offend again. I believe Joseph Heller wrote a book about this type of situation...

Yes, race is a huge part of this. Of course minorites suffer more under this sytem as their already marginalized positions in society make them far easier targets. And since it's all about money, money can keep you out of the system. And who has money? Oh, that's right -whitey. But not every whitey- at the end of the day, like most issues that are cast in a the light of race, class is of almost equal importance. A black man is more likely to be stopped by the police than a poor white man, but once they enter the system and are given court-appointed attorneys, they are equally screwed. The ultimate cash prize for the private prison system is the death penalty, which is why the state agencies that fund defense of death penalty cases are virtually bankrupt.

This is one of those issues that all makes such crystal clear sense, but no one seems to know or care about it. This is because of the stigma of crime. Like terrorism, there is so much innate fear surrounding this issue that it is all but impossible for most people to discuss it rationally. Any discussion of prison reform can be squashed with horrifying tales of coddled pedophiles who emerge to kill tiny children. Pedophiles are the 9/11 of prison reform - an anomaly that is used to distort the whole argument.

Okay, the point is that this Tuesday, November 13, the Second Chance Act is coming up for a vote in Congress. This is one of the first prison reform bills to see the light of day in years. Here are a few of the things this act would do (I pulled this from the Human Rights Watch website:

1. National Offender Reentry Resource Center. Establishes a national resource center for states, local governments, service providers, faith-based organization, corrections and community organizations to collect and disseminate best practices and provide training and support around reentry.

2. Federal Taskforce. Creates a federal interagency taskforce to identify programs and resources on reentry, identify ways to better collaborate, develops interagency initiatives and a national reentry research agenda. Review and report to Congress on the federal barriers that exist to successful reentry with recommendations.

3. National Family Caregiver Support Program. Removes the age limitation of at least 60 years of age for grandparents to receive support and services while caring for their grandchildren due to parental incarceration.

4. Technical Amendment to Drug-Free Student Loan Provision. Ensures that the Drug-Free Student Loans provision only applies to offenses committed while receiving federal aid and encourages treatment.

2. Protection Against Dangerous Felons. Provides grants to states and local governments that may be used to develop or adopt procedures to ensure that dangerous felons are not released from prison prematurely.

3. Assessment Tools. Provides grants to states and local governments that may be used to utilize established assessment tools to assess the risk factors of returning inmates and prioritizing services based on risk.

4. Mentoring Grants. Provides grants to community-based organizations that may be used for mentoring of adult offenders or providing transitional services for re-integration into the community.

5. Demonstration Grants. Provides grants to states and local governments that may be used to provide mental health services, substance abuse treatment and aftercare, and treatment for contagious diseases to offenders in custody and after reentry into the community.

6. Collaboration with Community Colleges. Provides grants to states and local governments that may be used to facilitate collaboration among corrections and community corrections, technical schools, community colleges, and workforce development employment services.

7. Post-release Housing. Provides grants to states and local governments that may be used to provide structured post-release housing and transitional housing, including group homes for recovering substance abusers, through which offenders are provided supervision and services immediately following reentry into the community;

8. Family-Based Treatment. Provides grants to states and local governments that may be used to expand family-based treatment centers that offer family-based comprehensive treatment services for parents and their children as a complete family unit.

If you think this stuff is important, please call or e-mail your member of congress tomorrow!!!