What changes in America’s prison system would you like to implement?
On the sentencing side of the system, I think it’s crazy that there is a criminal history element that factors into your sentencing range. When a person has a crime that is 15 years old, that they already did time for, why are they doing time for it again in the form of extending the range for the instant offense? The sentencing range is already extremely high and in my opinion outweighs the crime most of the time.
As far as changes inside prison, I think that more vocational programs and college classes with measurable benefits would really help people want to live a productive life. A lot of people in prison have never worked their way up in a company, or had additional opportunities presented to them after earning credentials in education. I think that the more people in prison are exposed to earning advancement in society through productivity, the fewer people will come back to prison. I think that the quality of BOP staff has to increase a lot in order to do this however. Far more often than not, it seems at least, people come to prisons to work because they don’t really have to do much, they get paid well and get great benefits. That’s a tough problem to solve in an agency as large as the BOP, especially when the unions have so much power.
READ NEWSLETTER ARTICLE HERE: https://prisonprofessorstalent.com/journal-entries/newsletter-7/
