By BitcoDavid Throughout the United States, Federal judges and prosecutors are proscribing prison for drug-addicted, non-violent offenders in favor of treatment programs and community service. Unofficially known as Drug Courts, this is an effort to avoid overly punitive and destructive sentencing. Moreover, the Justice Department has backed this idea, allowing courts to dismiss charges in
By BitcoDavid While reading Prison Riot, I was struck by how similar this story is to the classic Melville novella, Billy Budd. Of course, the latter was written in a much more stilted voice, and was built on Biblical allegory – but the thread of the story is very much the same. Here we have
By BitcoDavid This past Sunday marked Correction Corporation of America’s 30th birthday, making this article about as timely as a CCA guard feeding a diabetic inmate. Let me tell you a little story. In 1905, the state of Mississippi launched an experiment in crime prevention. The program was referred to as the convict lease system.
By Joanne Greenberg Activism usually means my telling someone what to do for someone else, and it generally involves the transfer of money from one group to another. The prison system here is fund-starved, but our idea, the one about grouping deaf prisoners together, isn’t costly at all. Once deaf prisoners in a state system
By BitcoDavid The New York Times did a photo-essay on the burgeoning trend of teaching yoga to inmates, as an attempt at corralling the recidivism problem. Even though states’ spending on corrections has quadrupled during the past two decades, to $52 billion, the rate of recidivism has remained stubbornly high, with roughly four in 10
By BitcoDavid As writers, we become sensitive to certain words and phrases. Just ask me to go 12 rounds on the word folks, and you’ll see what I mean. One phrase that is increasingly starting to bother me is prison industry. It’s a sad commentary on the state of our union when we have to
By BitcoDavid We received this message from a FaceBook follower who – for obvious reasons – asked that I don’t post their name. Okay so I’m going to be a prison guard myself (maximum security male prison if I get what I want) and am going to be learning ASL over the summer (I have
By Glenn Langohr The criminal records system California relies on to stop child abusers from working in schools, and violent felons from buying guns, is so poorly maintained that it routinely fails to alert officials to a subject’s full criminal history. The other side of this issue is that a list of possible matches appears,
Digest Post 4/11/13
By BitcoDavid Two weeks from today, I’ll be 56 years old. Who’d a thunk I’d ever make it this far? Worse, in 3 weeks, my marriage will be 19 years old. All the credit goes to Maureen. Woman’s a saint. I wouldn’t have stayed with me, for a month. I’m working on a new piece
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