Rehabilitation/Education of Offenders
In the quest for "punishment," the state of California has given
very little effort to try to rehabilitate or educate offenders. Throwing them
in prisons and dehumanizing every aspect of their existence leaves little or no
sympathy to treating them as humans and trying to help build them into better
human beings.
Even if success rates aren't perfect, there is much evidence that suggests
that the successes are worth it. Sixty-five percent of 3-Strikers are in prison
because of drug related offenses. Rather than expensive prisons, less expensive
rehabilitation programs are worth more for the buck to the taxpayer.
Education is essential for prisoners in our society. Someday, most of them
will be out of prison again. In our growing information age, the
"haves" and the "have nots" are being separated by
education. Recent studies show that educating inmates decreases their
recidivism rates.
California has a few education and rehabilitation programs--unfortunately,
only a few. If California really wants to do something about crime, they should
expand these programs. In addition, other new programs should be attempted and
tested.
FACTS has mixed feelings about jobs and labor programs for prisoners. While
we encourage the teaching of new skills so prisoners have a better chance for
employment when they get on the "outside," we are concerned that the
prison system and society will look at prisoners as cheap labor and therefore
abuse prisoners (and even look at increasing our population of prisoners as a
good thing). One way of preventing this from happening is to continue to allow
prisoners to join the job programs on a truly voluntary basis, maintain safe
working conditions, and then to increase their pay. In addition, FACTS
encourages programs that are challenging and really give prisoners skills for
good jobs on the "outside" (e.g., computer manufacturing).
While there are signals that California politicians may be more willing to
put in place rehabiliation and prevention programs, keep an eye on the actual
numbers of prisoners affected and also recognize that these programs do nothing
for the 3-strikers who have already received unjust sentences. In addition,
when the CDC promotes more "rehabilitation facilities," let's make
sure that the money really is going towards more rehabilitation and not just to
an increase in the prison industrial complex.
The following are some statistics and comments from books and articles on
rehabilitating and education of prisoners. PLEASE SEND US NEW DATA AND ARTICLES
IF YOU HAVE THEM.
Drugs, alcohol linked to 80% of those behind bars.
In a study by Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse, it has been indicated that drug and alcohol abuse played a
part in the crimes committed by 80% of the 1.7 million men and women now behind
bars.
The study also found that inmates with alcohol- and drug-use problems are
the most likely to be reincarcerated, with length of sentences increasing for
repeat offenders. Thus, effective treatment programs could dramatically reduce
future incarceration costs.
The study indicates that hundreds of thousands of inmates "would be
law-abiding working, taxpaying citizens and responsible parents, if they lived
sober lives," Joseph A. Califano Jr., chairman of the Columbia Center
said.
In addition to documenting the central role that drug and alcohol abuse and
addiction play in the soaring population of federal, state and local prisons
and jails, the study concludes that:
*Alcohol is more closely associated with violent crime than any other drug,
most notably crack cocaine, powder cocaine and heroin.
*The leading substance abuse crime in America is drunk driving, accounting for
1.4 million arrests in 1995 at a cost of $5.2 billion for arrests and
prosecution.
Califano said that "the most troublesome aspect of these grim
statistics is that the nation is doing so little to change them."
The number needing substance abuse treatment rose from 688,000 to 840,000
from 1993 to 1996, while the number in treatment hovered around 150,000.
Califano said that much of the treatment is "inadequate."
The study went on to demonstrate that an appropriate treatment costing
approximately $6,500 per inmate would save an annual economic benefit of
$68,800 for each successful inmate that completes the program.
If only 10% of the 1.2 million inmates with drug and alcohol problems were
successfully treated and trained, these 120,000 individuals would generate
$8.256 billion in "economic benefit" in the first year of work after
release, the study estimates. LA-Times,
1/9/98.
Due to lack of treatment programs, California is one of
the leaders in recidivism rates.
About 90% of state prisoners are eventually released (and more than 50%
within 2 years). Therefore, one would hope the state would try to do something
to keep these individuals from returning. But, not California. Sixty-six
percent of California's incoming inmate population are individuals on parole
(for either parole violations or committing new crimes). California's 66% rate
is one of the highest rates in the nation. In comparison, in 1995, New York's
rate was only 22% and the rate for Texas was 29%. .
"It is possible that California does a better job of catching parole
violators than other states, but indications are that the State's high parolee
return rate stems not from efficient supervision but from a combination of
program deficiency in prisons and a failure to provide parolees with needed
services once they are released." Little
Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p. 69-70.
"California's top prison official says recent critical reports about
their alleged failure to rehabilitate criminals ignore the rights of their
victims. Thomas Maddock, acting secretary of the Youth and Adult Correctional
Agency, says more education, job training and drug treatment won't negate the
need for more prisons, which are primarily for punishment, and more felons are
serving longer terms under tougher sentencing laws." Yahoo News, 2/24/98.
Just who are all these victims of people in prison for drug possession and
drug transactions? And, to the extent there are victims, what about future
victims? Shouldn't the CDC be concerned about them--or is their quest for
punishment their only goal?
Treatment will slash drug use and crime much more
than mandatory minimums.
Spending $1 million more on each strategy would have the following results:
(1) mandatory minimums would reduce cocaine consumption by 13 kilograms, (2)
conventional enforcement would cut it by 27 kilograms, and (3) treatment by
heavy users would slash it by more than 100 kilograms.
Rand Corporation, 1997.
Spending $1 million on the treatment of heavy users would reduce about 10
times more serious crime against people and property than conventional law
enforcement and 15 times more than mandatory minimums.
Rand Corporation, 1997.
Public-health experts say medical treatment
dramatically reduces crime much cheaper than prisons.
Medical treatment for drug addiction works as well as treating diabetes or
other chronic diseases, dramatically reduces crime and is a lot cheaper than
jail, says a study released Tuesday by bipartisan public-health experts.
In a separate survey, however, the public believes the opposite--so the
government spends only 20% of the nation's $17 billion drug-control budget to
treat addicts.
The scientists concluded that jailing a drug addict costs $25,900 per
year. A year of traditional outpatient drug treatment costs $1,800,
intensive outpatient care costs $2,500, methadone treatment for heroin users
costs $3,900 and residential drug-treatment programs range from $4,400 to
$6,800 a year.
Drug treatment can cut crime by 80%, said Norman Hoffman, Brown University
addiction director. Brown researcher Craig Love studied female substance
abusers who were in jail and found that 25% who underwent treatment were later
rearrested vs. 62% released without substance abuse treatment. A
California study of 1,600 drug abusers found their involvement in drug sales,
drug-related prostitution and theft decreased threefold after treatment.
Every dollar invested in drug treatment can save $7 in societal and medical
costs, said former Assistant Health Secretary Phillip Lee.
Long-term drug treatment is as effective as long-term treatment for chronic
diseases, said Dr. Thomas McLellan of the University of Pennsylvania.
One-year relapse rates for the diseases and for addicts all are about 50%, he
said. Compliance with therapy is similar, too: Less than half of
diabetics, less than 30% of asthma and hypertension patients and less than 40%
of alcohol or drug abusers comply with their therapy.
Drug treatment also helps society's health, McLellen said. Heroin
users, for example, are at huge risk of catching and spreading the AIDS virus
or hepatitis. A seven-year study of heroin addicts found 51% who never
entered drug treatment caught HIV during that period vs. 21% of treated
addicts.
Yet there is a sever shortage of drug-treatment programs, the doctors said.
About 15% of people who need treatment get it. About seven states
don't offer any methadone clinics for heroin addicts, and every U.S. methadone
clinic has a waiting list. Only between one in 20 and one in five
pregnant drug abusers can get drug treatment because of too few programs,
inability to pay or too few inpatient programs that will accept the woman's
other children, said Pennsylvania's Dr. Jeffrey Merrill.
Unfortunately, 84% of Americans say the solution is tougher criminal
penalties. OCRegister, 3/18/98.
As a follow-up to this article, the OCRegister published an editorial
promoting treatment over jail. OCRegister, 3/20/98.
In recent years, California has slashed educational and
rehabilitative programs for prisoners
In the 1950s and 1960s, California prisons were renowned for educational
and vocational programs. A decade ago, 6,500 inmates were enrolled in college
courses.
But with strained state finances and the "get tougher" attitude,
the Corrections Department abolished college courses for prisoners.
As more inmates arrive with "3-Strikes" sentences, the department
will be forced to cut deeper into educational programs, predicted one prison
official involved in educating inmates.
The state spends 3% of its prison budget on education. But more than half
the inmates have less than ninth-grade literacy, and an estimated 17,000
inmates are on waiting lists for prison jobs or education.
"While other correctional operations, such as prison construction and
hiring of correctional officers, have been shielded from deep budget cuts,
education has taken a sever blow," the state-funded Little Hoover
Commission reported in 1994. LATimes,
10/18/94
Legislative Analyst critical of California parole
because of lack of rehabilitation programs.
The legislative analyst recently documented the dangerous and expensive
failure of the state's parole system. California taxpayers spend $245 million a
year to monitor 100,000 newly released inmates. An astounding 67 percent of
them return to prison because they fail on the streets, either by committing
new crimes or by violating the conditions of their parole. That's a higher
parolee failure rate than in any other state. When parolees fail, taxpayers
spend another $1.5 billion to return them to prison and maintain them there.
It's money that would be better spent, as the analyst recommends, on
housing, drug and alcohol counseling and job help, programs to assist ex-cons,
many of whom are mentally and socially fragile, to live productive, crime-free
lives. Some 80,000 parolees are unemployed, but the parole system offers no job
help for most of them; 85,000 are alcoholics or drug addicts, but the system
has only 750 treatment beds; an estimated 10,000 are homeless, but there's
shelter space for just 200. Sacramento Bee, 2/23/98.
Only about 1/2 of California inmates in rehabilitation,
education or work programs.
Despite requirements under the Prison Literacy Act, Prison Industry
Authority, Joint Venture Program and ability to receive work-time credits, CDC
statistics show barely half of all prison inmates participating in programs at
any given time. Little Hoover Commission
Report, Jan. 1998, p. 61.
According to the CDC, as of October 1997, 56.8% of the prison
population--83,699 inmates--were participating in education, vocational or work
programs. That proportion has remained constant in recent years, but represents
a drop since July 1993 when the department reported 62.5% of the prison
population participating in programs.
Prison jobs: 46,000, or a full 30% of all inmates--are working in
prison-support jobs: cooking, cleaning, working in the laundry and
groundskeeping for 5 or 6 hours a day.
The number of inmates in the Prison Industrial Authority and Joint Venture
programs are smaller still: PIA participants number 6,324 -- 4% of the prison
population--and those in the Joint Venture Program total 223--.14%.
Less than 1/4 of California inmates are receiving the
kind of education and vocational training that might enable them to get a job
and integrate into the community.
Academic and job training: 12,423 inmates (8% of prison population) are in
academic programs; 13,674 inmates (9% of prison population) are engaged in
vocational training. Little Hoover Commission
Report, Jan. 1998, p. 61.
Only 3,000 of 120,000 California inmates with substance
abuse problems receive substantial treatment.
An estimated 120,000 of California's 154,000 inmates have substance abuse
problems, but the state only provides substantial treatment for 3,000 reports
The Little Hoover Commission.
In the CDC's multi-billion dollar budget, only $31 million is allocated to
drug treatment programs. LA-Times,
1/18/98.
Until 1997 the CDC operated just 400 drug treatment beds in the entire
state prison system. Those beds consisted of 120 treatment slots at the
California Institution for Women at Frontera, 80 beds at the California
Rehabilitation Center at Norco and 200 beds at the Richard J. Donovan prison
near San Diego. With the opening of the 1,478-bed California Substance Abuse
Treatment Facility in Corcoran in autumn 1997, in-prison treatment slots
throughout the prison system total 1,878. The drug treatment programs are
provided through contracts with private treatment providers. In addition, the
State contracts with 200 private firms statewide to provide various drug
treatment services for inmates after release from prison.
Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p.
63.
San Diego's Donovan Facility has 17% recidivism rate
compared to state 66% average for those receiving no treatment
According to a federal study in 1997, only 17% of inmates who completed the
intensive prison and parole drug treatment program at San Diego's Richard J.
Donovan Correctional Facility returned to custody within one year of their
release. This figure compares to a 66% return-to-custody rate for an untreated
group. Among those who went through the program but did not complete aftercare,
35% were re-incarcerated. LA-Times,
1/18/98
National evaluations of "therapeutic community" drug treatment
programs like those at the State's Donovan and Corcoran facilities, some based
on nine years of follow-up data, show that high-risk offenders who complete
both the treatment program and the community-based residential
"aftercare" have a 25 percent lower recidivism rate than control
groups, as measured in parole violations, arrests, convictions and
re-incarceration. As a drug abuse expert said "I want to convey to you our
conviction that this kind of program works."
The Donovan program is operated by Amity Foundation of California and began
in 1989. Participants are hard-core felons with extensive criminal histories
who have committed an average of 321 offenses over a lifetime. More than 70%
have committed a violent crime, including assault, kidnapping, manslaughter and
rape. Fifteen percent admit to having committed murder. The average participant
in the program has spent more than half of his adult life in prison.
At the insistence of the Donovan warden, the Amity program was purposely
designed to subject participants to the same kind of temptations to use drugs
they are apt to confront when they leave prison. The 200 inmates in the drug
treatment program therefore are not isolated from other prisons.
They eat, work and share a yard with the general prison population, which
consists of 800 other Level III inmates. Program participants take part in
year-long intensive drug treatment activities for a minimum of 20 hours a week,
often at night and on weekends in addition to their regular 36-hour-a week work
assignments. After release from prison participants are offered the chance to
continue treatment in a community residential facility in Vista, California.
About 35% participate in the aftercare program.
The warden at Donovan, initially skeptical of the program, reported his
surprise over the results when he ordered an unannounced urine test for Amity
participants:
I knew that I had 200 guys with serious drug problems all living together,
and not isolated from the main yard. We were busting guys on the yard for
drugs, so I knew that if the guys in Amity wanted to get drugs, they could. I
assumed that 25% of the people in the Amity program would turn up
"dirty."
Instead, only one Amity participant tested positive for drugs in that test. A
second surprise urine screening in Fall 1996 found not a single positive test
among the 214 Amity inmates. Drug testing of those participating in the Vista
program after release from prison has yielded similar results.
Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p.
65-7.
Study estimates that additional 5,000 inmates in
treatment programs could save California $40 million a year and $110 million in
capital outlay expenses.
In May 1997, the Legislative Analyst's Office estimated that extending
substance abuse treatment to an additional 5,000 inmates could save $40 million
a year in prison operating costs and $110 million in one-time capital outlay
expenses by reducing the need for prison beds. Extending treatment to serve an
additional 10,000 inmates over those served today would increase the savings to
$80 million in annual operating costs and $210 million in one-time capital
outlay.
Even more significant are the economic and social savings that could be
captured from these offenders abandoning criminal behavior. An economist who
analyzed the Amity program using National Institute of Justice data estimated
that in the year before the last incarceration participants were on average
each responsible for $93,000 in emergency room visits, jail costs, welfare
payments for children, court expenses and other costs. Calculated over a
criminal career, unless reformed those felons could be expected to cost society
more than $1.5 million. Little Hoover
Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p. 67.
90% of chronic heroin and cocaine users released from
prison are expected back in custody within 3 years--with treatment, only 25%
would return.
Chronic heroin and cocaine users, who represent between 3 and 10 percent of
all offenders are highly likely to recidivate. The Little Hoover Commission was
told:
Without intervention this group will return to crime and drug use nine
times out of ten after release, and will be back in custody within three years.
With appropriate intervention applied for a sufficient duration, more than
three out of four will succeed, i.e., reenter the community and subsequently
lead a socially acceptable life.Little
Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p. 68.
Cognitive skills programs reduce recidivism by 40
to 50 percent.
For less severe drug offenders and for non-drug offenders, relatively
low-cost "cognitive skills" programs can make an even more dramatic
difference. These programs, which incorporate a range of social, vocational and
literacy training components along with treatment of psychological and
psychiatric problems, have been shown to reduce recidivism by 40 to 50 percent.
One of the most respected of these programs models, "reasoning and
rehabilitation" can be provided for $400 a year per inmate, not including
the cost of training staff. The program consists of 50 sessions completed over
25-40 weeks and can be accomplished in prison or in a community-based day
reporting center or other facility. Little
Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p. 68.
An ex-convict earns top honors at Fullerton College
The first time Jim McKinney stepped on the Fullerton College campus was the
day he was released from prison in 1996.
"I'm very nervous," he said before his speech, "but I have
a message I really want to purvey to the graduates and the faculty and all my
friends that have made all this happen. That message is that we can make a
difference." McKinney, 48, of Anaheim is graduating with a 3.7 grade point
average, and as a community volunteer who helps foster children, a
student-government leader and a middle-aged man who had to schedule most of his
classes at night after work. But in 1994, he was living behind a trash bin in
Anaheim.
"I spent 30 years, from the time I got out of high school, suffering
from addictive personalities," said McKinney, who plans to go into
counseling after earning his bachelor's degree at California State University,
Fullerton. "I went through the alcoholic stage, the workaholic stage. I
went through the drug stage."
In 1993, he was arrested for possession of a quarter-gram of methamphetamine.
When he failed to show up for a probation meeting, he was arrested and sent to
Soledad Prison — home of Charles Manson. OCReg. 5/28/99.
"Alternative" program has success in
rehabilitating women offenders
Half the women who enter Alternatives don't make it through the 14-month
program, says Cleo Smith, the supervising probation officer. Unable to comply
with the rules, they go back to jail. But those who've completed the program
since its inception in 1995 come back only as visitors: 95 percent have not
been arrested again.
When women aren't at the Redwood City program or at mandatory 12-step meetings,
they're home, tethered to an electronic monitor and subject to unannounced
searches by a probation officer.
After six months or more, graduates enter phase two, when they're required to
work or train for a job and attend a weekly evening session. In phase three,
they attend a monthly meeting.
Alternatives teaches women how to cook a healthy meal, balance a budget,
prepare for a job interview, cope with domestic violence and relieve stress
without using drugs or alcohol.
They learn about parenting -- 92 percent are mothers -- and about birth
control. They make quilts for children at homeless shelters, so they can be,
for once, contributors. Alternatives' basic tool is cognitive skills training,
which has been shown to cut recidivism rates. Offenders learn a new way of
thinking. They learn that they have choices. San Jose Mercury News, 4/29/99.
CDC opposes rehabilitation programs.
The CDC, appearing to always want the prison system to expand, opposed a
1997 bill that would have added 8,000 new therapeutic community drug abuse
treatment beds over the next five years. Little
Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p. 68.
Who are the real criminals here?
2/3rds of California inmates read below the 9th grade
level.
Despite the statutory requirement that the CDC offer literacy training to
60% of eligible inmates by January 1, 1996--with the goal that eventually all
prisoners achieve ninth grade literacy--the department reported in 1997 that
only 35 to 40 percent of eligible inmates had access to literacy programs. A
1997 study by California State University, Sacramento put the median reading
level of state prison inmates at between the 6th and 7th grades and reported
that 2/3rds of inmates were reading below the 9th grade level.
Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p.
62.
Texas juvenile program has 80% success rate with
extremely violent youths
At the Giddings State School, 55 miles east of Austin, studies show that
80% of the Capital Offenders graduates have not been re-arrested for new crimes
or rules violations three years after their release (compared with the general
success rate of 40 percent to 50 percent for untreated juveniles).
The U.S. Justice Department has recognized the Giddings program as a model
project worth watching. However, it should be noted that only willing offenders
who complete extensive preliminary therapy are admitted to the program, and
those who drop out along the way are not factored into the recidivism formula.
The program emphasizes psychological therapy. It begins with a
"re-socialization" program that teaches them to respect others and to
identify their "triggers" for bad behavior. A 12-step
chemical-dependency program often follows. Finally they enter the Capital
Offender Program. As the group progresses, it becomes more confrontational.
Members catch others making excuses and remind each other they are responsible
for making "bad choices."
During the process they also tell their "Life Story." In this
first phase of the program, offenders discuss, and later act out, their
childhood hurts. During the second phase, the teens reckon with the devastation
they caused. They re-enact their crimes in the "Crime Role Play," an
exercise designed to drill home the horror of their acts and imprint a vivid,
lifelong memory.
The Giddons program challenges common notions of punishment. Its philosophy
of reform and redemption cuts against the trend of stiffer penalties. Studies
show the popular boot camps of recent years do little to reform offenders
because punishment "just doesn't work," says Frank Cullen, Ph.D., a
juvenile-justice professor at the University of Cincinnati who has reviewed
dozens of rehabilitation efforts. OCRegister, 10/1/97
Education of inmates called best deterrent
A new study reports that prison education programs are cheapest, most
effective means of cutting recidivism. With national rearrest rates for adult
offenders at 60% and nearly 80% for juveniles, the study finds that inmates
with at least two years of college education had better chances of getting jobs
and a recidivism rate of only 10%.
Nancy Mahon, director of the Center on Crime, said that the study by the
nonprofit group showed that prison-based education "may be the single best
crime prevention approach we have."
LATimes, 10/1/97.
CDC has a number of shortcomings with work, education and
treatment programs.
The Little Hoover Commission Report of 1998 unidentified a number of
shortcoming in California's work, education and treatment programs that limits
their potential to reduce future crimes and long-term prison costs:
No program planning for inmates: Inmates are not assessed to
determine which programs--education, job training, counseling, drug
treatment--could be expected to help them not return to prison.
Reliance on inmate labor: Because CDC depends on inmates to
perform prison support tasks, the department gives institutional needs
precedence over the need for inmates to receive meaningful job training or
attend classes.
Lack of pre-release planning: The CDC has not expanded
re-entry programs designed to give inmates intensive counseling, job experience
and help finding a place to live and work after they are released. The
department has the same number of work furlough beds (which have recently been
renamed "re-entry centers") that it had a decade ago -- about 1,350
-- even though the prison population has more than tripled in that time.
Limiting programs to low-level offenders: CDC restricts
participation in re-entry programs to low-level offenders because work furlough
and other re-entry programs require moving inmates to halfway houses for the
last few weeks of the prison term. The irony--those who need re-entry the most
do not get it.
Delivering inmates to re-entry programs to late: Under
current law, most inmates can be transferred to re-entry work furlough
programs, which offer education, job placement and other services to inmates
when they are within 120 days of release. But providers who run the programs
say in mates on average arrive 55 days before the release date as a result
there is less of a chance that the services will be effective.
Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p.
64-5.
Rehab Program helps women be mothers and their children
learn to trust
Keith Village is an 86-unit apartment complex in Compton where parents and
children are taught to resume their respective roles, once warped by drugs.
Keith village specializes in the toughest cases: long-term addicts, some of
them third-generation substance abusers, each of whom has up to 10 children,
many of them troubled.
The program's premise is that to make families whole, they must be mended
as a unit through intensive counseling for mothers stunted by years of
addiction and children brimming with anger from the neglect they endured. On
average, about 50 women and 250 children receive two years of treatment and may
continue living in the facility another two years while they head into the
working world. About 40 graduates now work at AT&T, the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority, the post office and elsewhere.
SHIELDS for Families Inc., is the nonprofit organization that purchased and
runs Keith Village.
During individual and group counseling sessions, mothers dissent the
painful events that have often fueled their addiction--physical abuse, domestic
violence, sexual abuse and the resulting low self-esteem. They also coached on
the more mundane, but wholly unfamiliar, details of daily survival: how to pay
bills, run a household, do laundry.
The children, meanwhile, participate in their own counseling. From tots to
teenagers, they discuss how to feel good about themselves, how to control their
tempers and how to avoid becoming addicts, halting the ruinous cycle that has
cost them and society so dearly.
Since opening four years ago, Keith Village has compiled an impressive
record of recovery. About 7 in 10 women graduate drug-free. Among other
programs in LA County, about 1 in 4 graduate.
LATimes, 11/17/97
Detention camp teaches basic carpentry
At the Los Pinos Conservation Camp, a juvenile detention camp high in the
Cleveland National Forest, Natividad "Nati" Alvarado Jr., a carpentry
teacher from Capistrano-Laguna Beach Regional Occupational Program, has started
a program where detained juveniles learn to build huge playhouses.
Alvarado, an ex-gang member from Santa Ana, introduces creativity and
construction basics to some of the 128 Orange County Youths at the camp.
"I wanted them to know the names of different parts of a house,"
Alvarado said, "you know, like rafters, top braces, king studs and
trimmers. So if . . . a foreman asked, "What's this?" they would
know."
For the youths, taking Alvarado's class is an opportunity. It helps break
up a monotonous camp routine that involves getting up, eating, taking academic
classes and keeping the campus clean.
"Every day, I started with a lecture," Alvarado said. "OK
guys, what are these?" And they would say, 'Trimmer.' And, these?
'Rafters.' We would go through the entire project so they wouldn't be ignorant
of the parts of the house."
The goal is to provide a bridge for at-risk youths, Dennis Snyder, Los
Pinos' director said. Each youth taking the course will receive a certificate
notifying potential employers of their achievement. "The idea is to have
the boys enter an ROP in the community when they leave here and then have a
chance for employment," Snyder said.
LATimes, 11/20/97.
In LA County, 80% to 90% of child welfare cases involve
substance abuse.
In Los Angeles County, 80% to 90% of child welfare cases involve substance
abuse. By some estimates, at least a quarter of all children in Los Angeles
County deal at some time with an addicted parent.
It is here, inside millions of home, where society's most entrenched
problems are born, where victimized children grow up to victimize others--a
generational cycle costing taxpayers nearly $200 billion annually in criminal
justice costs, health care and social programs.
And this is still happening even though we have been having our greatest
war on drugs in our nation's history. LATimes, 11/16/97.
New program for mothers in prison
Some drug-abusing mothers convicted of nonviolent crimes will be eligible
for a new program that lets them keep their children with them while they serve
a sentence that includes treatment at a residential correctional facility.
Children under the age of 7 will live at the facility as their mothers undergo
drug abuse treatment and learn how to become better parents.
This alternative sentence may be granted at a judge's discretion. Pregnant
inmates with a history of substance abuse may also qualify.
The need is great: 340 women had babies last year in the state prison system.
Dubbed the California Department of Corrections Family Foundations Program,
it's the idea of Robert B. Presley, secretary of the state Youth and Adult
Correctional Agency. He authored the legislation when he was a state senator
from Riverside County. The first facility, built at a cost of $4.5 million from
state prison bond proceeds, opened earlier this month in Los Angeles.
There is room for 35 women and their children. Those admitted will get
substance abuse treatment, take literacy classes, learn job skills and
participate in counseling for themselves and their children. They will also be
required to perform chores.
Other facilities are scheduled to open next year in San Diego and Fresno. After
the women finish 12 months of drug treatment, they must participate in a
yearlong transition intended to help them complete parole requirements and live
independently--an after-care program that should increase their chance of
success. LATimes, 5/20/99
At the minimum security prison of the Soledad Correctional Facility in
Northern California, 52 prisoners work daily, installing chips and inspecting
motherboards, repairing printers and cleaning monitors as part of a massive
effort to equip the state's classrooms for the 21st century.
Inmates are getting valuable training that could help them once they leave
Soledad for the outside world. Computers for Schools Program is the brainchild
of the nonprofit San Diego-based Detwiler Foundation.
Foundation coordinators wrote more than 600 Silicone Valley businesses
seeking donations of old computers or parts to get the program started. To
date, prisoners have built or refurbished more than 1,800 machines using
donated parts.
Inmates spend 3 to 4 months in classes before going to work in the computer
shop. Depending on their job, prisoners are paid $20 to $48 a month, the same
as inmates who do other types of work at the prison such as gardening.
Computer work is especially desirable, and there is a waiting list for the
52 slots available in the program. Three of the seven inmates paroled since the
program began 18 months ago have been able to get jobs in the field.
Marvin Mutch credits the program with helping him find direction after more
than a decade of knocking around in the justice system. Working with computers,
he said, has taught him to think logically and to be patient. He's also learned
Pascal and C++ as well as Basic programming languages. "That's one thing
about prison," he said. "You've got nothing but time to fill.
Scrubbing floors and doing dishes does nothing to prepare them for the 21st
century." San Diego
Union-Tribune, 10/7/97.
Federal system also locks up drug addicts at record
levels
In 1971, 17 percent of federal inmates were drug offenders who served an
average of 23 months. In 1995, 60 percent of all federal inmates were drug
offenders serving an average of 69 months. Federal Bureau of Prisons, cited in
Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p.
30.
Perspective of a Sacramento Superior Court Judge
A Sacramento Superior Court Judge described the needs of those who come
before him for sentencing:
A lot of the people I see have given up. These kids say, I have no job
and it looks like the system is organized to keep me down. They feel nothing
good is ever going to happen to them. Most are at the 9th or 10th grade level
and they don't have a prayer of fitting in.
Sixty percent of them are drug offenders. They see dealers with big
cars, and they decide, I'm going to keep selling so I can get drugs and the
system will never catch me. One person I sentenced recently had spent all of
the last 20 years except for about nine months in prison. He came in on a third
strike and he told me: "I can't get off this drug thing."
It takes a lot to get a person off drugs. You've got to build up a
person's self-esteem and courage, show them they have a shot at a future and
give them a reason to get off drugs. For that they need job skills.
We need a cross between jail time and a program that offers different
kinds of services under the probation department, especially drug treatment and
job training. And we need a tough probation department to do random drug tests
with definite consequences--a period of time served for every dirty test.
It would be nice if we had job training that's tied to a real job--you
learn a skill and it leads to a job at Hewlett Packard. And it has to be a job
that has a chance of earning a living wage.
It may be that we can't save everybody. But we have to do something more
than what we're doing now because what we're doing now doesn't work. For some
people, state prison is no big deal. Once a person gets 25 to life, they don't
care, but society is paying a good price for that--people who give up hope like
to hurt other people.Little Hoover
Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p. 47.
Federal inmates who go through treatment are 73% less
likely to be rearrested than those not going through treatment.
A Justice Department study reported progress in weaning from drugs those
who have served time in federal prisons. It said those inmates who received
drug treatment were 73 percent less likely to be rearrested and 44 percent less
likely to test positive for drugs in the first six months after their release
than those who did not receive treatment. The study involved 1,866 inmates at
30 prisons. "Clinton Wants to Cut Illicit Drug Use by Half,"
WASHINGTON (Reuters) 2/14/98.
Youths who receive sexual abuse treatment have a 90%
or higher success rate.
At the state and national levels, therapists report success rates in the
range of 90% and higher for youths who have been treated in sexual abuse
programs.
A program in Stockton California started in 1994 has not had a single youth
come back for committing a sex crime. In addition, during an 8-year period, the
Whittier program had only two of the 120 offenders returned for repeat sex
offenses. By comparison, of all 8,500 California Youth Authority inmates now in
custody, 70% to 75% have been there before, agency officials said.
In a smart move, Senator Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) and Assemblyman Robert
Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) are proposing a bill that would add $10 million to
increase such programs. LATimes,
2/16/98.
Program that puts convicts in touch with children in
need of care has positive results.
A program in New Jersey requires convicts to spend two hours a week of
community service by taking care of children in need of care. Some have AIDS.
Others are addicted to drugs. Many have been abused.
The program began 10 years ago and situates a half-way house called Garrett
House and few doors away from Dooley House, which houses children in need of
care.
"Many of the ex-offenders say that their experience at Dooley House is
often the first time that they felt that they have been completely accepted by
somebody who doesn't know or care what their past ahs been," said Jan
Kauffman, a spokeswoman for Volunteers of America Delaware Valley, the
nonprofit agency that runs Garrett House.
LATimes, 2/16/98.
Vipassana meditation shows some signs of success
as a rehabilitation.
The state of Washington has been experimenting with a new rehabilitation
program called vipassana meditation. For 10 days and nights, the inmates
are forbidden all worldly diversions: no talking, no touching, no reading, no
writing, no smoking, no TV.
For years it was tried in Indian prisons and for the first time has been
used at Seattle's North Rehabilitation Facility. With help from
instructors, participants learn to observe their breathing and other bodily
sensations. They learn to feel and itch and not scratch it, and they see
the possibility of doing the same with the anger and craving that have ruled
their lives.
"It's not a magic trick or a pill," jail administrator Lucia
Meijer said. "It's hard, conscious effort. It teaches them
how to control themselves, how to go inside and deal with what's there."
It's too soon to tell how well the Seattle program keeps inmates on the
virtuous path after release. But jail officials say behavior changes were
striking after the first course in November of 1997, which graduated 11 men.
Everyone mentions Ernest, a huge, menacing ghetto warrior who spoke in
grunts before the Vipassana course. Afterward, he was hugging everybody
and declaring that love is the answer.
OCRegister, 3/15/98.
Texas youth rehabilitation programs shown to be
successful.
The Texas Youth Commission says a new study shows that teen offenders who
undergo specialized treatment programs are much less likely to end up back in
state custody. The study shows that recidivism rates for all those incarcerated
in TYC facilities have declined since 1993.
The agency said the results indicate that even as TYC recidivism and rearrest
rates have improved overall, specialized treatment programs have had an
additional impact on the basic resocialization program that all offenders
receive.
TYC Executive Director Steve Robinson said the study results are
``energizing.'' He said: ``We have known for a long time that it is not enough
to just to build institutions and warehouse kids. This latest research is
evidence that appropriate rehabilitation treatment can and does work.'' Yahoo
News, UPI, 3/23/98.
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