I've worked in the criminal justice system for a long time and I've always felt that for the most part, we on the "thin blue line" do a decent job despite all the recent negative publicity.
However, over the last 20 years or so I've become seriously disenchanted with the "corrections" aspect of criminal justice.
Most who pay any attention to the news are aware of the many problems we have in this country....Prison overcrowding, lack of any actual rehabilitation, high violence, high recidivism, etc, etc.
Yesterday, on NPR, I listened to a report on the use of solitary confinement in the system. They profiled a fellow who had been in solitary for 12 years....And then was abruptly released. No halfway house, no parole officer..."You're done...Go home"
As you might imagine, the guy had difficulties adjusting.
In this particular case, no one knew (or would say) why he was in solitary to begin with. As a 17 year old youngster, he was sentenced to 25 years for his participation in an armed robbery which resulted in a homicide. He was not the shooter, but was an accessory.
He had originally been placed in the general population in a Louisiana prison but was transferred and put in solitary in another prison. No one knew why. The records had been "lost in a flood". So he sat in solitary for 12 years with no human contact other than the guards delivering food for 12 years.
This would be bad enough as an isolated case but according to the article it's not. People who are placed in solitary are "the worst of the worst"......And are rarely paroled or involved in the "entry to normal life"programs afforded to other prisoners. Rather, they are confined for the entirety of their sentences and then released.
NPR interviewed a prison supervisory officer who had himself placed in solitary for 60 hours. He expected it to be isolated, but quiet. Not so.... He described the experience and incredibly noisy and stressful, nearly impossible to sleep. Adjacent prisoners screaming, ranting, pounding on walls....Often they are mentally ill and essentially receive no treatment while in solitary.
We already know that the prison system in many states is the de-facto mental health treatment system....A report (again from NPR) a couple of years ago indicated that the LA County Jail is the largest mental-health center in the country.
And of course, we know that any sort of prison reform seems doomed at legislative levels as politicians do not want to be seen as "soft on crime"....A death knell in the election process.
However, over the last 20 years or so I've become seriously disenchanted with the "corrections" aspect of criminal justice.
Most who pay any attention to the news are aware of the many problems we have in this country....Prison overcrowding, lack of any actual rehabilitation, high violence, high recidivism, etc, etc.
Yesterday, on NPR, I listened to a report on the use of solitary confinement in the system. They profiled a fellow who had been in solitary for 12 years....And then was abruptly released. No halfway house, no parole officer..."You're done...Go home"
As you might imagine, the guy had difficulties adjusting.
In this particular case, no one knew (or would say) why he was in solitary to begin with. As a 17 year old youngster, he was sentenced to 25 years for his participation in an armed robbery which resulted in a homicide. He was not the shooter, but was an accessory.
He had originally been placed in the general population in a Louisiana prison but was transferred and put in solitary in another prison. No one knew why. The records had been "lost in a flood". So he sat in solitary for 12 years with no human contact other than the guards delivering food for 12 years.
This would be bad enough as an isolated case but according to the article it's not. People who are placed in solitary are "the worst of the worst"......And are rarely paroled or involved in the "entry to normal life"programs afforded to other prisoners. Rather, they are confined for the entirety of their sentences and then released.
NPR interviewed a prison supervisory officer who had himself placed in solitary for 60 hours. He expected it to be isolated, but quiet. Not so.... He described the experience and incredibly noisy and stressful, nearly impossible to sleep. Adjacent prisoners screaming, ranting, pounding on walls....Often they are mentally ill and essentially receive no treatment while in solitary.
We already know that the prison system in many states is the de-facto mental health treatment system....A report (again from NPR) a couple of years ago indicated that the LA County Jail is the largest mental-health center in the country.
And of course, we know that any sort of prison reform seems doomed at legislative levels as politicians do not want to be seen as "soft on crime"....A death knell in the election process.
via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1dDaOPp
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