Kiriakou writes: "The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) announced recently
that it would soon implement more 'family friendly' policies in an effort to
encourage the easy reintegration of prisoners into their communities. I
nearly choked when I read the news. And then I checked to make sure I wasn't
reading The Onion."
Attorney General Loretta Lynch. (photo: Michael Dwyer/AP)
Loretta Lynch's Prison Reforms Don't Meet the For-Profit Standard
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
28 June 16
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) announced recently that it would soon
implement more "family friendly" policies in an effort to encourage the easy
reintegration of prisoners into their communities. I nearly choked when I
read the news. And then I checked to make sure I wasn't reading The Onion.
Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said in a speech in Houston that the BOP
had created a five-point program, announced earlier by Attorney General
Loretta Lynch, which would directly aid the more than 40,000 federal
prisoners who are released annually.
These programs include one that would expand video visits to all federal
prison facilities. Great idea, right? Wrong. These video teleconferences are
contracted out to private providers and, in many facilities, are replacing
in-person visits entirely. Furthermore, the video visits are prohibitively
expensive. Prison Legal News reported last year that the typical 30-minute
call costs $10, an expensive proposition when so many prisoners are
destitute to begin with and monthly salaries for federal prisoners average
between $1 and $5. Even worse, video visits do not imply that a family
member can just log onto Skype and have a conversation. In many cases, they
must travel to a BOP-approved private video center and pay for the call on
their end, too.
A second tenet of the program is to provide prisoners with an
"individualized reentry plan" based on that person's needs and specific
risks to the community. Another great idea. But it's unfunded. Congress
hasn't appropriated any money to do any such thing. Indeed, there's no money
in the BOP budget for anything related to rehabilitation. There are no
educational opportunities, no training, no vocational classes. Nothing. So
"individualized reentry program" notwithstanding, this just isn't going to
happen.
Third, prisoners would be provided with "education, job-related training, or
other programs, such as mental health or substance abuse." Again, great
idea. But there's no budget for this, nor has there been for many years. And
in an election year, no member of Congress is going to campaign on a
platform of giving more money to federal prisoners.
Fourth, the program would "assess and improve the care that halfway houses
provide about 80 percent of newly-released inmates." When I was released
from prison after serving 23 months for blowing the whistle on the CIA's
torture program, I was assigned to a halfway house in Washington, DC.
Located in the worst neighborhood in the worst part of Washington, far from
all public transportation, "Hope Village" was known as both "Hopeless
Village" and "Abandon All Hope Village." The only employment assistance that
any of the more than 140 residents got there was a bulletin board that had
one job advertisement for a dishwasher position at Fuddruckers. I'm serious.
When it came to immediate post-release employment, we were on our own.
The problem with halfway houses is not necessarily funding. They are
private, for-profit entities. They want to send the prisoner home as quickly
as possible because they can "rent" the bed to as many as six or seven
people at the same time. Here's how it works: I got out of prison and was
assigned to the halfway house. I signed a contract saying that I would pay
the halfway house 25 percent of my gross pay for the remainder of my halfway
house/home confinement period, in my case three months. So I was sent home
immediately. I never spent a single night there. But there were four other
men assigned to the same bed. They also were sent home, and we all paid 25
percent of our gross pay. The halfway house made good money. It was supposed
to. It's a private company. But "education," "programming," and
"rehabilitation" were not a part of the deal.
Finally, the Justice Department established a toll-free hotline that
newly-released prisoners can call for information on government programs and
services, and they rewrote the manual that all prisoners are given upon
release. This last point is likely the only one that will actually help
anybody. And it cost almost nothing.
Attorney General Lynch probably means well. She probably really does want to
help people transition from prison back into society. But the entire Bureau
of Prisons, the entire U.S. system of mass incarceration, is broken and must
be scrapped and rebuilt. Dancing around the edges of the problem isn't going
to help anybody. And announcing a new policy with only six months left in
office doesn't help either.
________________________________________
John Kiriakou is an Associate Fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies
in Washington DC. He is a former CIA counterterrorism operations officer and
former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
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.
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Attorney General Loretta Lynch. (photo: Michael Dwyer/AP)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
Loretta Lynch's Prison Reforms Don't Meet the For-Profit Standard
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
28 June 16
he Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) announced recently that it would soon
implement more "family friendly" policies in an effort to encourage the easy
reintegration of prisoners into their communities. I nearly choked when I
read the news. And then I checked to make sure I wasn't reading The Onion.
Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said in a speech in Houston that the BOP
had created a five-point program, announced earlier by Attorney General
Loretta Lynch, which would directly aid the more than 40,000 federal
prisoners who are released annually.
These programs include one that would expand video visits to all federal
prison facilities. Great idea, right? Wrong. These video teleconferences are
contracted out to private providers and, in many facilities, are replacing
in-person visits entirely. Furthermore, the video visits are prohibitively
expensive. Prison Legal News reported last year that the typical 30-minute
call costs $10, an expensive proposition when so many prisoners are
destitute to begin with and monthly salaries for federal prisoners average
between $1 and $5. Even worse, video visits do not imply that a family
member can just log onto Skype and have a conversation. In many cases, they
must travel to a BOP-approved private video center and pay for the call on
their end, too.
A second tenet of the program is to provide prisoners with an
"individualized reentry plan" based on that person's needs and specific
risks to the community. Another great idea. But it's unfunded. Congress
hasn't appropriated any money to do any such thing. Indeed, there's no money
in the BOP budget for anything related to rehabilitation. There are no
educational opportunities, no training, no vocational classes. Nothing. So
"individualized reentry program" notwithstanding, this just isn't going to
happen.
Third, prisoners would be provided with "education, job-related training, or
other programs, such as mental health or substance abuse." Again, great
idea. But there's no budget for this, nor has there been for many years. And
in an election year, no member of Congress is going to campaign on a
platform of giving more money to federal prisoners.
Fourth, the program would "assess and improve the care that halfway houses
provide about 80 percent of newly-released inmates." When I was released
from prison after serving 23 months for blowing the whistle on the CIA's
torture program, I was assigned to a halfway house in Washington, DC.
Located in the worst neighborhood in the worst part of Washington, far from
all public transportation, "Hope Village" was known as both "Hopeless
Village" and "Abandon All Hope Village." The only employment assistance that
any of the more than 140 residents got there was a bulletin board that had
one job advertisement for a dishwasher position at Fuddruckers. I'm serious.
When it came to immediate post-release employment, we were on our own.
The problem with halfway houses is not necessarily funding. They are
private, for-profit entities. They want to send the prisoner home as quickly
as possible because they can "rent" the bed to as many as six or seven
people at the same time. Here's how it works: I got out of prison and was
assigned to the halfway house. I signed a contract saying that I would pay
the halfway house 25 percent of my gross pay for the remainder of my halfway
house/home confinement period, in my case three months. So I was sent home
immediately. I never spent a single night there. But there were four other
men assigned to the same bed. They also were sent home, and we all paid 25
percent of our gross pay. The halfway house made good money. It was supposed
to. It's a private company. But "education," "programming," and
"rehabilitation" were not a part of the deal.
Finally, the Justice Department established a toll-free hotline that
newly-released prisoners can call for information on government programs and
services, and they rewrote the manual that all prisoners are given upon
release. This last point is likely the only one that will actually help
anybody. And it cost almost nothing.
Attorney General Lynch probably means well. She probably really does want to
help people transition from prison back into society. But the entire Bureau
of Prisons, the entire U.S. system of mass incarceration, is broken and must
be scrapped and rebuilt. Dancing around the edges of the problem isn't going
to help anybody. And announcing a new policy with only six months left in
office doesn't help either.
John Kiriakou is an Associate Fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies
in Washington DC. He is a former CIA counterterrorism operations officer and
former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
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.
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http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
