What changes in America’s prison system would you like to implement?
If I had the power to implement changes to the prison system I would offer more incentives for doing the right thing. Like educating yourself, not getting disciplinary infractions and working on your re-entry. If there was a system to better track these things I feel there would be a better way to measure if a person’s mindset is changing. I also think courts should not impose such extremely long and harsh sentences to non-violent first time offenders. Especially in Drug cases. If they are imposed a parole or specialized team should assess every person at their 50% mark of time served or maybe 10 year mark for longer sentences to see if a sentence reduction could better serve the interests of justice. Justice is not served by people serving extremely long sentences. Most people once they have served 1/2 of their time have “learned their lesson”. If we incentivize peoples efforts to do good and work on becoming better members of society then that would better serve justice and the community.
I think the pattern Assessment tool is a good tool to kind of get a glimpse of people working on needs specific needs to lower their recidivisim by working on these needs some people are able to lower their recidivism but I think it needs to be updated a little to take into consideration that some people no matter how hard they work will never lower their recidivism due to prior offenses therefore I think maybe a tweek or added features to this tool could better serve assessing recidivism.
I would create more work-release programs and life skill programs. People who hold jobs in prison tend to hold lots of responsibility and have the skills necessary to survive in the job market outside of prison. Many people commit crimes because they lack the necessary skills and or job training to live a law-abiding lifestyle. Education should be prioritized in prison. To include more programs of higher education. Not just earning a GED but further than that. For example an Associate Degrees, Bachelor’s degrees, or Master’s Degree. I completed 2 Associate’s Degrees at the end of 2017 one in Social and Behavioral Sciences and one in Business Management. Thanks to a Board of Governors Waiver’s fee in the state of California I was able to get free tuition and I just payed for my textbooks out of pocket. That was a big help and I was able to afford to get higher education while in prison. After that I have not been able to further my education due to lack of Universities that work with inmates to earn a Bachelor’s Degree or beyond. It has been seven years since I got those degrees I know if there were universities to work with prisons I could have probably already gotten a Bachelor’s at a minimum. Recently, Pell grants were restored to Federal inmates but like I mentioned there are no universities that currently work with prisons to be able to utilize this great opportunity to get higher education. In my opinion Education is the key to a better life.
As far as Life skills we need more Self-esteem, Basic Financial classes and more technology. People need to learn basic life skills to survive in the world. The world is constantly changing and technology is overpowering us. We need to be up to date on the latest things that will affect our life once we do leave prison.
If people work on all these things while in prison I feel like they will have a better chance of doing well in society and become a good asset to the community and become law abiding citizens and not come back to prison.
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