The most depressing, counter-intuative line

"Kansas, a conservative state that successfully introduced bold corrections reforms, cut its prison populations between 2005 and 2008 enough to close some facilities. The trend was reversed from 2008 to 2010 because budget pressures led the state to reduce funding for post-release drug treatment and supervision." Inside Criminal Justice, Jan 2012

The Kansas prison population dropped! Reforms were working! People weren't re-offending as much! And then, in response to cuts in the budget, they cut the things that were working-- post-release drug treatment and supervision. Why? I have no idea. But someone probably a politician, said oh, that looks like we are coddling prisoners.

People! The best thing for ALL of us is if we reduce re-offense! To do that, we have to start looking at jail and prison not only as punishment, but reform and education! We need to believe that people can change and can understand the impact of their behavior and then let them out and have them try it. because they are going to bel let out at some point anyway (most of them at least), so why not help them become better citizens?

Mental hospital prisons?

Article on the Inside Criminal Justice website today highlighted the huge problem of the mentally ill getting caught up in the criminal justice system and prisons becoming de facto mental hospitals, which they are not equipped to be. 

I've found this in my own research in the Bronx. While mental illness manifests in about 5% of the general population, nearly 20% of those who come through our doors in the Bronx for misdemeanor offenses are found to flag for possible mental illness. And that is just for those who don't present severe problems that would land them in the Mental Health Court. Many of them are also frequent offenders. Sometimes, jail or prison is the only place stable enough for people to get consistent care, but those places aren't equipped to handle the volume of mental illness they do see, and the real struggle is what happens to people after they leave. In addition, as pointed out by the article, solitary confinement and the jail environment often exacerbates already existing mental problems. A big, tough issue that we really need to address and i'm not sure how.