This
is true, I’m not kidding.
Last week, a report, which cost over two million
dollars, was released to the public.
The
name of this report was “A Portrait of prisoner
re-entry in Texas”. As much as I know you are
rushing out of the door to obtain your own copy,
stop right where you are and read on. I’ll give you
the gist of what this is all about. The study, which
took over three years to complete…basically states
that criminals who are being released back into
society from prison are going home to the poorer
parts of our society.
This is news? This is what we get for two million
dollars? Someone actually spent three years
researching this information? How do I get one of
these jobs?
I
suspect any police officer in the country would have
been able to tell you this information for much less
money…maybe just a cup of coffee. What were these
people thinking?
Of
course the majority of paroled ex-cons end up back
in the neighborhood they came from. The reason they
were convicted in the first place is mainly because
they are poor. They don’t have a job; they don’t
have any money so they resort to drugs and theft to
stay alive. They get arrested, they get convicted
and when they get released, where do they go? Home,
where else? They don’t get to move into some swanky
downtown high-rise as a reward for serving time.
Sure we see rich people getting arrested and
convicted of various crimes, but usually not the
type of crimes being discussed in this report. Nope,
the big rich guys get convicted of stealing mega
millions, spending mega millions on lawyers and then
if convicted coming back into society to spend some
of that looted cash or write a book about their
experiences. The book advances alone are more than
the average criminal will ever earn in a lifetime.
Is this fair? I didn’t say it was, but it’s a fact
of life. I don’t watch television programs, read
articles or books authored by ex convicts. Somehow
it doesn’t feel right to me to put more money into
the pockets of someone who was caught stealing in
the first place and then tries to get richer as a
result of the experience.
No,
this report is dealing with convicts who come from a
poor neighborhood, commit some crime and then get
released back into that same neighborhood. Is this
good, perhaps not, but here again, it’s a fact of
life.
So,
what’s the answer? Well, for one thing I feel we
should allow anyone to be released from prison
unless they can read and write. You want to get in a
bad mood? Look at the national averages for
illiteracy for ex-convicts, it’s a disgrace. If we
failed to require our citizens to obtain an
education while attending school, then we failed.
Obviously the teacher can’t be held responsible for
all of the social ills they must face, but let’s get
real here. If someone can’t read and write before
they are sent off to prison, what kind of a chance
do they have if they can’t read and write when they
come out of a prison?
With the present overcrowding situation in our jails
and prisons throughout the country, the emphasis is
on releasing the inmates sooner and sooner. This
poses a number of problems. It overtaxes our current
resources by trying to absorb these individuals back
into our societies when they cannot find work to
support themselves. It also places a burden on the
neighborhoods since they often become the victims of
crime again from the parolees once they are
released. The poorer elements of our society gets
shafted by those living next door, a
self-perpetuating cycle of misery.
I
wish we could wave a magic wand and make this
problem go away, but that’s not going to happen
anytime soon. I think I would have rather heard of
two million bucks being spent on trying to find
better ways to rehabilitate convicts so they will be
better prepared to cope with society instead of
telling us things most of us already know. Surely,
we’re not the only country in the world to be
experiencing this problem. Isn’t there someone out
there doing a better job than we are? If so, who is
it and what can we do to copy it?
Like someone once told me…”Give a man a fish; you
have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and
you have fed him for a lifetime”.
How
true, how true…
