By David Palmer
It is ironic that here in the land of the free, America, three million citizens are in prison. That’s roughly one in a hundred at a total cost of about $39 billion a year. The emotional cost is immeasurable.
If we are to make any headway in reducing prison populations, we will first have to do better addressing mental illness and drug abuse and secondly focus more on rehabilitation with prison inmates and less on punishment.
When you think about it, being in prison and losing your freedom is significant punishment, particularly in a nation that celebrates freedom more than any other. Additional punishment is certainly indicated to keep order but rehabilitation should be the goal.
Unfortunately, not everyone will qualify. There are some truly bad men and women in prison who are likely to remain a danger to the public. Efforts can still be made to help them, but not at the expense of public safety.
There are also many who, usually under the influence of drugs, used very bad judgment. Properly rehabilitated, they can be restored to life on the outside.
We need to differentiate between these two populations as we contemplate an overall reduction of prison populations, a difficult task, but one worth pursuing.
A few years ago, I had a conversation with Larry Norris, at that time the director of the Department of Correction in Arkansas about relieving crowded prisons while protecting our citizens.
A rule of thumb
A good rule of thumb, Norris said, is to mentally divide the prison population into two groups: “Those we are afraid of and those we are simply mad at. Those we are afraid of we should keep locked up. Forever if need be. Conversely, if we are simply mad at them we should focus on rehabilitating and ultimately releasing them.”
The simplicity of Larry’s approach appealed to me, and, with his approval, I began to dig into the matter as a One Day at a Time project with help from some prison chaplains.
At that time, I was distributing a free quarterly newspaper to Arkansas prisons offering hope and encouragement to those struggling with addictions. In one of my issues, I included a small survey for inmates to complete. I found that, among other things, many of the inmates longed for things to do—like painting, writing, preparing business plans and other creative tasks.
There are programs in prisons now that emphasize rehabilitation and their number should be increased. They include Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12 step programs addressing substance addictions. There are also Christ centered programs like the late Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship and the Kairos Prison Ministry. Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP) based in Houston is modeled after Harvard’s graduate business school program.
In my effort to discover what we might do to increase the use of existing programs aimed at rehabilitation and promote the development of new ones, I found interest and support from Wrightsville prison inmate, Len Yates. I interviewed Len in prison six years ago for the One Day at a Time publication.
Yates arrested
Fifteen years ago, police arrested 30 year-old Yates, an SMU graduate and owner of the Canon Grill in Little Rock, on rape and drug charges.
Classified as “date rape” because of the involvement of the drug Rohypnol, the case was widely covered by the media. Ultimately, Yates was convicted on one count of rape and sentenced to 35 years in prison. He will not be eligible for parole until 2021.
A graduate of Catholic High in Little Rock, Yates fell away from the Catholic faith of his mother and father and into a decade of debauchery, but he began to renew his Christian faith encouraged by Paul Chapman, Missions executive pastor at Fellowship Bible Church (FBC) and others.
“Due to the ministry and gifts of Paul,” Yates says, “prison has been tolerable in ways that are too many to explain, and his ministry has affected many more lives than just mine.
“Through his giving I have been able to live a little easier and help others who literally have no contact with the outside world.
Len and I have corresponded ever since, and I have visited him in prison to talk about recovery, his Christian faith, entrepreneurial focus and ideas for reducing recidivism. I have two file folders full of his letters with his observations about prison life and how it might be made more effective in rehabilitating inmates. He makes no excuse for the crime that put him in prison.
Len launched and edited an excellent prison newsletter that was discontinued by the prison administration several years ago, but he believes it can be revived which would be a good thing.
With prison administration approval he also began planting flower gardens on prison grounds with significant success.
We are now looking at ways, with prison oversight, to make available my book, “Pathways to Serenity. Overcoming your addictions one day at a time in audio format, possibly through the chaplain’s office. We may also be able to provide it in paperback and e-book formats.
A couple of Sundays ago I met with Len in the prison cafeteria, and we talked about how we might help prisons do a better job of identifying inmates who show promise for succeeding on the outside and providing programs that would help them.
The purpose of prison
In a follow up letter, at my request, Len made the following points about how he sees the purpose of prison, punishment and rehabilitation:
1. I understand the punitive element of prison and agree that it can be an effective tool, but it should not be viewed as the purpose of prisons. In its mission statement the ADC says its purpose is simply “to carry out the mandate of the courts.” Incarceration is the punishment.
2. Prison is psychological warfare and can deteriorate into violence at any moment. It is an environment that discourages enterprise and a spirit of collaboration.
3. There is a degree of punishment that can defeat an individual to the point that he quits trying to improve. He may throw in the towel if he sees no reward for his efforts toward self-improvement and settle into a dreary and dangerous life characterized by emotional isolation.
4. An overly punitive environment inhibits rehabilitation particularly for those seeking positive change, and it then becomes part of the recidivism problem.
5. If prison is not about rehabilitation, then the high level of recidivism will continue and so will the high cost of incarceration.
Several months ago I heard Kevin Murphy speak at a meeting of City Connections about prison reform. Murphy recently came out of retirement to serve as assistant director of re-entry and volunteer services at the Arkansas Department of Community Correction (ADCC). He has been involved in prison administration for much of his career.
Founded and cultivated by Jeff Spry, City Connections is a “non-profit grass-roots movement of 250 plus agencies, churches, businesses and institutions aligning themselves to a vision of community collaboration.”
I met with Murphy at his downtown Little Rock office recently, and we talked about helping the prison system more effectively prepare inmates for life on the outside. We agreed to revisit the subject of introducing audio books at Wrightsville.
Several weeks later ADCC received an $830,000 grant from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission for a project that would use prison labor to help speed up the demolition of and estimated 600 abandoned and derelict houses in Pine Bluff.
Pilot study
Murphy has proposed that the Pine Bluff city council consider an ADCC pilot study that would donate prison labor to the city while helping soon-to-be-paroled inmates gain demolition and construction skills.
The labor program would allow up to 40 inmates a chance to learn at least two marketable job skills, along with basic job readiness needed to approach the workplace once they are paroled.
The City Council is considering Murphy’s proposal from a public safety standpoint and from the standpoint of the impact on the local workforce.
As for the truly bad guys in prison, the ones we don’t want to unleash on the public, what can of program can we undertake that would keep the public safe and try to rehabilitate that segment.
Newspaper columnist, Dana Kelly, offered this intriguing idea:
“… the incorrigibles might benefit from a state-assisted return to the ‘simple life.’ Look at what the pioneer life with all its perils and travails against the human spirit wrought in our country and especially in Arkansas.
“If we modeled our maximum-security prisons after early life as an American, violent prisoners might have a chance for real change. Inmates could grow their own food, for example.
“They could be reintroduced to books as a source of information (no more TV/internet/online mischief). And if they can’t read, it’s time they learned. In fact, they’d learn a lot living the pioneer life: work ethic, value of time, worth of effort and in general a more introspective understanding of their reason for being.”
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