The Governor's office has put forward a plan to reduce overcrowding in state prisons and save money by sending some prison inmates to county jails around the state.
I think it's a terrible plan, and I have to take issue with her office on this one, even though most of the time I've been supportive of the Governor's initiatives.
First of all, there is overcrowding in state prisons. However there is also overcrowding in county jails (that is certainly true here in Navajo county, where the jail is often full.) It is certainly true that a lot of prisoners don't need to be locked up and there are alternative forms of sentencing (and I wrote a post questioning whether all the people we incarcerate should be just a couple of months ago) but foisting the problem of which prisoners to keep in prison and which can be released to probation or some other status onto counties is the same kind of 'pass the buck' approach that we've seen at times from Washington and trying to make the problem 'local' does not constitute a solution. Looking at and modernizing sentencing guidelines is actually something that we should be doing both on a state and national level, but that isn't something that this plan does anything to address.
Cost is another issue. The state paying counties to house prison inmates is nothing new, and most county jails now include some state inmates. In general however these inmates are subject to careful monitoring, and the money that the state pays the counties is spent paying the extra costs. But with the significant number of new prisoners that are being recommended for transfer, it is likely that many counties will have to expand their facilities and hire more staff, and so far there is no indication that any money that the state sends them will be sufficient to cover all of this.
The most damning issue, in my opinion though is one of the categories of prisoners who will be tranferred. In some cases, I don't have a problem (for example they want to send repeat DUI offenders-- that's fine.) One category though is prisoners, often violent felons, in the last year of their sentence. The theory is that if they are in the last year (of presumably a much longer sentence) they will be less likely to behave violently, try to escape or do anything else that will tack anything onto their sentence. Unfortunately I don't see that as the case-- I've read plenty of stories about prisoners in the last year of their sentence doing things that earn them more time. Not all prisoners fit the stereotype of the patient older inmate scratching off numbers one by one on the wall of his cell. Many of them are impulsive or don't think things like that through very effectively. More ominously many are members of prison gangs or otherwise are more prone to be violent. Sending them into a county lockup will also give them a whole new pool of potential recruits. Besides all of that, some prisoners want to remain in prison because they can't function on the outside and they know that. So they will often commit crimes against guards or other inmates while in prison in order to buy themselves more time behind bars. These inmates are most likely to be dangerous in the last year of their sentence.
It is true that when prisoners get out of prison they often have no job prospects or any other way making a living except to return to a life of crime (a career path that is always available.) And we do need more job training programs, halfway houses and perhaps even an employment placement office for ex-convicts. But I'm not sure how having them finish their sentence in the county jail is going to help them when it comes time to find a job after they get out.
I am glad that under the leadership and at the recommendation of Mr. J.R. DeSpain, our county commission unanimously sent a letter to the Governor raising several objections to the plan. But ultimately it's not up to anyone in the county, but rather to bureaucrats in Phoenix. I hope that they and Governor Napolitano reconsider this decision and look for real solutions to prison overcrowding instead of handing the problem to the counties.
Showing posts with label sentencing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sentencing. Show all posts
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Thursday, August 30, 2007
NFL should not suspend Michael Vick indefinitely.
Michael Vick has pleaded guilty and will soon be sentenced to prison. I hope he gets the full eighteen months that prosecutors are asking for. In fact, I personally would prefer he get longer than that in prison.
As a direct consequence of his guilty plea and sentencing, Michael Vick will lose millions of dollars, regardless of what decisions the NFL or the Atlanta Falcons make. Vick will lose at least two years during the prime of his athletic career, which is itself worth a small fortune. And no matter how good prison fitness facilities are, or how hard an athlete takes advantage of them, they are not even close to the level of the training facilities he won't be using at the Falcons camp or training room. He won't have coaches to work on his passing style. An athlete who spends much time in prison faces an inevitable erosion of skills; exhibit 1 is Mike Tyson, who was never again the feared and effective boxer he had been before his career took a detour through the clink after he was found guilty of raping a teenage beauty pageant contestant. Further, Vick will certainly not be asked to appear as a spokesman for Nike or others who have paid him lucrative commercial deals in the past; they'd probably sell more shoes if they hired Osama bin Laden as a spokesman than Michael Vick.
To which I'd say, GOOD. Michael Vick deserves to lose all the money he could have made if he hadn't thrown it all away on breeding, destroying and torturing animals.
However, despite how repelled I am at his crime, the decision by the NFL to suspend him indefinitely is WRONG. Commissioner Roger Goodell certainly has the right to suspend players for cause, but he has done so for periods of time. To suspend indefinitely a player implies that he won't be given an opportunity to earn a living through the league in the future.
My problem with this is twofold:
1. The criminal justice system was established for the purpose of affixing punishment. If we don't like the punishment affixed then it is incumbent on any of us to lobby for a change in the law (as in the case of Georgia law which was changed but is still being used as the basis for sentencing in the Genarlow Wilson case.) It is not up to any individual, institution or employer to usurp the justice system and decide how to hand it out.
2. We can progressively punish a person in many ways. But denying someone employment when they get out is stupid. If a felon gets out of prison (and most do, sooner or later) and wants to forsake crime and do something else, then isn't it stupid to force him (I use that word by intent because most felons are male) to go back into crime because it is the only thing he can make a living at? It's already hard enough for a felon to get a job. As I once wrote in a post entitled, The prison that follows prison,
For example, we say that convicted felons have the right to seek employment. However, we have for years cut the budgets for prison programs that seek to educate inmates about a trade (I have first hand knowledge of several educational institutions that suspended or ended their prison programs because of state or Federal budget cuts). We have also cut funding for job placement programs and halfway houses for prisoners. So, not surprisingly, when people who get out of a long term in prison with nothing to show on their resume other than a long stint in prison, have trouble getting a job, they often find that the easiest, and perhaps the only, way to earn a living wage, is through returning to a life of crime. This is called, 'recidivism.'
Now, I'm not going to stupidly sit here and say that if we funded more of these things, you wouldn't still have recidivism. Some people are habitual criminals and you could hand them a million dollars in cash and make them the CEO of a Fortune 500 Company, and the next day they would still be out running a con, knocking over a liquor store or beating someone up or raping or killing someone. People like that need to be in prison, and there is little anyone can do to change that. But I am saying that regardless of the success rate (or failure rate) of rehabilitation programs, we as a society have an obligation to TRY. Because except for lifers or people on death row, the rest of the prison population will sooner or later be out among the rest of us, either rehabilitated or not.
It's a fact that Michael Vick knows how to make a lot of money if he doesn't play football. He knows there is plenty of it in dogfighting. Do we really want to force him back to it in order to pay the bills?
Michael Vick is s disgusing human being but it is not up to the NFL or anyone else to usurp the authority of the criminal justice system and hand out their own punishments.
As a direct consequence of his guilty plea and sentencing, Michael Vick will lose millions of dollars, regardless of what decisions the NFL or the Atlanta Falcons make. Vick will lose at least two years during the prime of his athletic career, which is itself worth a small fortune. And no matter how good prison fitness facilities are, or how hard an athlete takes advantage of them, they are not even close to the level of the training facilities he won't be using at the Falcons camp or training room. He won't have coaches to work on his passing style. An athlete who spends much time in prison faces an inevitable erosion of skills; exhibit 1 is Mike Tyson, who was never again the feared and effective boxer he had been before his career took a detour through the clink after he was found guilty of raping a teenage beauty pageant contestant. Further, Vick will certainly not be asked to appear as a spokesman for Nike or others who have paid him lucrative commercial deals in the past; they'd probably sell more shoes if they hired Osama bin Laden as a spokesman than Michael Vick.
To which I'd say, GOOD. Michael Vick deserves to lose all the money he could have made if he hadn't thrown it all away on breeding, destroying and torturing animals.
However, despite how repelled I am at his crime, the decision by the NFL to suspend him indefinitely is WRONG. Commissioner Roger Goodell certainly has the right to suspend players for cause, but he has done so for periods of time. To suspend indefinitely a player implies that he won't be given an opportunity to earn a living through the league in the future.
My problem with this is twofold:
1. The criminal justice system was established for the purpose of affixing punishment. If we don't like the punishment affixed then it is incumbent on any of us to lobby for a change in the law (as in the case of Georgia law which was changed but is still being used as the basis for sentencing in the Genarlow Wilson case.) It is not up to any individual, institution or employer to usurp the justice system and decide how to hand it out.
2. We can progressively punish a person in many ways. But denying someone employment when they get out is stupid. If a felon gets out of prison (and most do, sooner or later) and wants to forsake crime and do something else, then isn't it stupid to force him (I use that word by intent because most felons are male) to go back into crime because it is the only thing he can make a living at? It's already hard enough for a felon to get a job. As I once wrote in a post entitled, The prison that follows prison,
For example, we say that convicted felons have the right to seek employment. However, we have for years cut the budgets for prison programs that seek to educate inmates about a trade (I have first hand knowledge of several educational institutions that suspended or ended their prison programs because of state or Federal budget cuts). We have also cut funding for job placement programs and halfway houses for prisoners. So, not surprisingly, when people who get out of a long term in prison with nothing to show on their resume other than a long stint in prison, have trouble getting a job, they often find that the easiest, and perhaps the only, way to earn a living wage, is through returning to a life of crime. This is called, 'recidivism.'
Now, I'm not going to stupidly sit here and say that if we funded more of these things, you wouldn't still have recidivism. Some people are habitual criminals and you could hand them a million dollars in cash and make them the CEO of a Fortune 500 Company, and the next day they would still be out running a con, knocking over a liquor store or beating someone up or raping or killing someone. People like that need to be in prison, and there is little anyone can do to change that. But I am saying that regardless of the success rate (or failure rate) of rehabilitation programs, we as a society have an obligation to TRY. Because except for lifers or people on death row, the rest of the prison population will sooner or later be out among the rest of us, either rehabilitated or not.
It's a fact that Michael Vick knows how to make a lot of money if he doesn't play football. He knows there is plenty of it in dogfighting. Do we really want to force him back to it in order to pay the bills?
Michael Vick is s disgusing human being but it is not up to the NFL or anyone else to usurp the authority of the criminal justice system and hand out their own punishments.
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