This series will put a face on the formerly incarcerated, examine the obstacles they face upon re-entry and bring the impacts on their families and children into the limelight while looking at the opportunities and challenges that realignment presents.
Getting out and staying out: Lessening the Impact of Incarceration on Oakland (Series Overview) – June 25
Alameda County Ahead of the Curve with Realignment – June 26
Reducing Recidivism: The Revolving Prison Door – June 27
Barriers to reentry challenge parolees looking for work, stable lives – June 28
Changing Your Mind About Doing Time – June 29
Lessening the Grip of a Criminal Lifestyle – July 2
What’s it Like for the Kids When Mom or Dad Are in Jail or Prison? – July 3
Beating The School to Prison Pipeline – July 5
Teens Struggle When Parents Are In Prison – July 6
Safety, caring help youth break the school to prison pipeline – July 9
A blueprint to ending recidivism for Oakland’s families (Analysis) – July 11
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Pingback: Archives for June 27th, 2012 |
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I served 17 years as a Lifer inidse the Wisconsin Prison System(75-92)and will be starting my 21rst year on Parole’. While I support and encourage this effort, and will do all I can do contribute allow me to present a perspective that the above comments’ don’t touch on. Prison construction has become economically RESCUING’ in times of high unemployment, it is the fastest growing industry’ in the Nation and especially in Wisconsin. The U.S. Prison System has become a $60 billion a year industry growing on the backs of this nation’s taxpayers. Judges, attorneys, prosecutors, corrections and jail employees, parole boards, and a host of others depend on the Criminal Dollar’ for their livelihood. Prison construction has become a booming industry in this country, with citizens of small towns like Portage and Stanley Wisconsin, waging massive campaigns to have a prison built in their town, citing economic relief as their major concern. Any effort to thwart this thriving industry’ is going to be met with unlimited manpower and funding they will win at any cost they have no choice. The reality Prisons don’t teach people to live in Society, they teach them how to live in prison they don’t teach them to be good citizens but rather good Inmates’ the problem with that philosophy is that the only place you can be a good Inmate’ is in Prison. Man’s inhumanity to man is being covered up by his own fear and confusion over the ever-growing crime and violence problem throughout this nation; covered up so well in fact, that man’s inhumanity to man, via our Prison System, has become one of the major CONTRIBUTORS’ to Crime and Violence in this nation. I have seen dozens of 11 15 movements throughout my tenure'(38 Years)in the Wisconsin penal System, and while I applaud your efforts, I fear the battle you wage is against a foe much bigger than you can imagine they are Corrupt and Brutal, Scurrilious and without Morality they have spent decades convincing those who support them of their Dire Necessity’, of their need to exist. This is NOT about Crime and Violence, not really, it’s about THEM’ and they are dug in way to deep to ever shut them down. This is about Wisconsin’s near pathological commitment to imprisonment and the $Dollars$ that it generates this is about power and control. The promise of rehabilitation as the Cornerstone’ of Corrections policy has been totally discredited, resulting in widespread confusion over the ultimate purpose of our present-day prison system. Senator Monroe Swan of Wisconsin, in a final report on Adult Corrections in 1979 declared I believe that the Division of Corrections, the Parole Board, and the state Judiciary system should be closely scrutinzed to determine if a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy’ has been created. Lastly, If prisons do not rehabilitate, does the expectation of imprisonment at least deter would-be law breakers? NO! As a crime control measure, prisons have failed. They neither deter nor rehabilitate. For those 2,500,000 or more Americans locked away, our prisons have become breeding grounds for crime and human warehouses for profit. Few institutions illustrate our propensity for self-defeating cruelty better than our prisons and jails. Instead of rehabilitating those who need it, prisons often brutalize those who do not; instead of reducing crime, they help to increase it; instread of exemplifying the rule of law, they are among our worst examples of arbitrary administration. American prisons are both inhumane and ineffective. While I pray for your success, 11 15 Campaign, I fear the Gestapo Mentality will continue to build their Gulags and torture those within them, assuring their return. . .