For many years I would drop into lectures at the University Unitarian
Church, near the University of Washington. These lectures were mostly
secular and mostly Progressive. While my fuzzy aging brain has
misplaced names of these speakers, without spending time researching
them, I clearly recall many of the topics. One that has stuck with me
was a discussion on whether we destroyed or reformed people through
our Penal System.
The speaker contended that we deceived ourselves by proclaiming that
in addition to denying a person's freedom as punishment, our goal in
imprisoning people would also provide opportunity for rehabilitation.
According to this man, a criminology professor, what really drove the
penal system was revenge. It was not enough to remove a person's
freedom as punishment for their misdeeds, but they were placed in a
system that was brutal. If they survived the time they were sentenced
to, they were turned out of prison a marked man(I never heard him
mention female prisoners).
The speaker held out hope for true reform. He believed that we were
learning that by sending people to be punished and then turning them
back into society was counterproductive
That was 64 years ago. I can say with confidence that the good
professor was dead wrong.
But we know that what we are doing with our prisoners and how we treat
those who are returned to society is not productive. In fact, we are
underwriting a system that is assisting in the destruction of our
American Dream.
If we are to survive as a culture, we must replace some of our basic
institutions. Our Penial System is one. But in order to change it,
we must stop denying that it is not effective. We need to take apart
the current System along with its courts, laws, enforcement methods
and release programs.
Today we have a System that is moving toward privatization, paid for
by our tax dollars. Our prison system now incarcerates the largest
percentage of prisoners than any other nation. Furthermore, the
System is becoming a cheap labor force...a slave system, but still
costing American taxpayers somewhere in the neighborhood of $60
thousand per year, per prisoner. But until we analyze the current
System and why it is the way it is, and come to an agreement on what
we expect out of our Penal System, we will continue to create more and
more disruptive behavior in our Working Class population, especially
among the unemployed, the under employed, the People of Color and the
growing numbers of released prisoners.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/9/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Does Every Felony Sentence Need to Be a Death Sentence?
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
08 March 19
I thought that when I was released from prison in early 2015, after blowing
the whistle on the CIA's illegal torture program, I could step right back
into my life and live happily ever after. Nothing could have been further
from the truth. Four years have passed since I got home and things still
aren't back to "normal." With that said, I'm one of the lucky ones. I have
bachelor's and master's degrees. I have 20 years of government experience
with the CIA and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I was an on-camera
commentator for ABC News. But now daily life is a struggle. I work three
different jobs to put food on the table. I'm not at all unique. That's the
rule, not the exception.
Imagine, then what life is like for someone who has been convicted of a
violent crime. Imagine what it's like even if that crime was committed
decades ago, as a juvenile who has since done his time, "reformed," and
gone
on to try to lead a productive life. It's just not possible. That
impossibility - the roadblocks that ex-felons face trying to reintegrate
into society - are what lead to recidivism. If this administration or any
other is serious about prison reform and sentencing reform, reintegration,
coupled with education and job training, has to be at the top of the
agenda.
I want to introduce you to a friend of mine. James Watson did something
stupid when he was 17 years old. He robbed a man at gunpoint after taking
him to an ATM machine to withdraw money. Armed robbery is, of course,
considered to be a violent crime. Taking the man to an ATM was deemed to be
kidnapping. As a result of those crimes and a subsequent gun charge, James
was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He served 15 years.
During those 15 years, the teenage James became the adult James. He took
classes in prison, made restitution to his victim, and did his time without
incident. And when he got out, there was nothing waiting for him. James
tried - hard - to get a job. He was willing to take any job. But there were
none. James has a lot of friends who wanted to help, but were not in a
position to do so. He decided to travel to Greece, and later the
Philippines, to look for work. He even spent time as a mercenary, fighting
courageously alongside Syria's Kurds against the terrorist group ISIS.
That's not a career, however.
James returned to Montana and has been on the verge of homelessness and
bankruptcy ever since. What company would hire a "violent" felon? What
apartment complex would rent an apartment to one? James thought that he had
done his time, only to realize that a felon never really does all of his
time. The punishment, the ostracism, follows you for the rest of your life.
And in the meantime, he's getting older. His body is beginning to break
down
from years trying to earn a living as a professional mixed martial arts
fighter, so hard labor is not possible. It seems that only clemency would
help him.
What does a person do? For many ex-felons, literally the only alternative
to
homelessness and unemployment is a return to crime. Don't forget that,
reformed or not, ex-felons have spent years around other felons. People in
prison love to talk about their crimes and their cases. A person can learn
a
lot. (In my book "Doing Time Like a Spy: How the CIA Taught Me to Survive
and Thrive in Prison," I detail how, in 23 short months of incarceration, I
learned how to manufacture meth, how to set up a Ponzi scheme, and how to
defraud the Department of Housing and Urban Development, among other
things.) It's not the kind of education most people would want.
The bottom line is twofold: Jobs and forgiveness. There is an active
campaign across the country to "ban the box," whereby employers would be
prohibited from asking on a job application whether the applicant has any
felony convictions. That's a great idea in theory, but all an employer has
to do is to google an applicant. They don't need boxes on applications
anymore. What ex-felons need is job training and an apprenticeship program.
Employers could receive tax credits for hiring newly-released prisoners,
training them, and giving them a job. The government, whether state or
federal, could bond them. They'd likely be on parole or probation anyway,
so
the prospect of returning to prison would probably ensure good behavior.
The tougher of the two is forgiveness. How long does society hold a grudge
against a person who has been convicted of a crime? How long does a person
have to be punished? How do people like James support themselves without
having to return to a life of crime? These are questions that we should be
asking of our elected officials. In the meantime, if you have a job
available in the state of Montana, let me know.
Email This Page
John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior
investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the
sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the
Espionage
Act - a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a
result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
e-max.it: your social media marketing partner
