After the execution of Joseph Corcoran this month, we examine the problem of unmedicated and untreated mentally ill people that commit murder and other crimes and pool in our federal and state prisons, which are overwhelmed with the care and treatment they were never designed to provide.
"The link between academic failure, violence, and crime
is welded to reading failure" --The Department of Justice
Studies show that 66% of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of the fourth grade will end up in jail or on welfare. Like so many things in life, one event, one experience that happened or didn't, can change a life. When learning to read well didn't happen, that life is at risk.
"I don't want to do this." —Brittany, Jobs for Life Graduate
Three days ago we celebrated the graduation of women who have completed a 16-week Jobs for Life course to prepare them for work and help them secure a job. All of them have recently been released from incarceration. Some wore ankle monitors under the classic graduation black gowns and caps...
"This is the most money I have made legally!"— An overjoyed former inmate holding up his first paycheck from one of our partner employersSome people might think a quote like that is pretty negative. Undeniably, it reminds us that this person used to support himself as a criminal. Let's call him "Bobby." Perhaps he broke into homes and sold stolen goods, or was a drug dealer, or worse. Who knows?Ian Cox, who is a true champion of giving people a second chance at one of our employer partners, reported this scene to me. We shared one of those great moments of pride, like seeing your kid make the winning touch down in an important game. For us and anyone hoping for actual rehabilitation of those coming out of long-term incarceration, Bobby's excitement over his paycheck was nothing less than the conversion of a soul—early stages—but proof of new life for sure.Over the months and years Bobby will learn about the deeper benefits that only hon...
He who opens a school door, closes a prison."—Victor HugoFrench writer Victor Hugo wrote about the atrocities of prison in the early 1800s. His seminal work, Les Miserables, is a story of the horrific conditions in the prisons of his day and the life of a man who was never quite free from the specter of incarceration. More than 150 years ago, Hugo clearly saw the link between incarceration and education—a link that is as true now as it was in 1862. The fact is that 85 percent of all juveniles who come into contact with the court system today are functionally illiterate. School dropouts are 3.5 times more likely to be arrested than high school graduates. Nationally, 68 percent of all males in prison do not have a high school diploma. In a world where half the human race is bi-lingual, we are not even making sure all our students can read and write in our own language. Of course they drop out of school. It seems obvious that rather than s...
Fear kills more dreams than failure ever will"—Anonymous Fear is the very basis of everything that holds us back from our true destiny. For a person who is reentering society after incarceration, it can be traumatic to even think about living on the outside. Inmates become "institutionalized," by living in a system that makes every decision for them. Often they are more frightened of living without rules than living forever in a cell.They worry: How will I eat, where will I live? Will I be able to get a job? As crazy as it may sound, many will reoffend just to go back to a place they consider to be "safe." Fear is the jet fuel behind the high recidivism rate.It was Jesus who reminded his followers to "Remember Lot's wife," who looked back at her burning home and turned into a pillar of salt. She was frozen in the past. Institutionalized prisoners are frozen in the past too. Unable to move into the life that is dawning in front of them. ...
If you carry the bricks from your past, you will end up building the same house."—AnonymousFor many of the people coming out of long term incarceration, there is no blueprint to follow with which to build a better life. A majority of reentrants carry with them scars of a difficult youth. They have witnessed violence many times as they grew up, and there was often no one in the family who worked and supported them at a level that would allow them to focus on school work or provide standards of behavior and a loving home. When none of that ever happens, the normalcy of life is all but impossible to embrace.The bricks of their lives are bricks of want and dissatisfaction, of anger and disappointment, of little faith in themselves and others. These bricks were fired in the heat of a prison sentence, and just because they have been released, doesn't mean they have a working plan with which to build a new life.Unless we provide the solid mate...
Every form of refuge has its price"—The Eagles' Don Henley and Glenn FreyEvery so often there are lyrics that take on a meaning of their own. In 1975, The Eagles released "Lyin' Eyes" which contained a sentence that jumped out of the music and into the thought process of a generation.You didn't have to be alive in '75 to know it's true, there is a price to pay, no matter where we stake a claim. Sometimes the value of this refuge is so great we gladly pay it. Other times we realize we have leaned our proverbial "ladder against the wrong building" and found the price is too high.In the mid '60's President Lyndon Johnson reacted to overwhelming pressure to create a War on Crime. By the mid '70s mass incarceration was in full swing. For those who wanted law and order, this form of refuge provided an answer to their fears of danger in the streets. But the ensuing mass incarceration claimed a heavy price that cost us then and continues to cos...
