Journal Entry: Dennis Zeedyk-02/02/2025

Journal Entry

Yesterday, a group of us were discussing the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Here are some key facts & they may be slightly off because we cannot look them up on Google:

  1. There are approximately 170,000 federal prisoners.
  2. The cost to hold a prisoner is approximately $45,000/year.
  3. If you multiply this out, the cost to hold all of these prisoners for a year is $7.65 billion.
  4. There are four levels of security in a federal prison: High, Medium, Low & Minimum. FMC Lexington is designated as a Low Security Prison.

We discussed among ourselves if the Low & Minimum security prisoners were let out today, how many would actually commit crimes again (not counting violations). The number given by various prisoners ranged from 15-80%. In general, it was believed that the sexual offenders have the lowest recidivism rate, followed by White Collar Criminals. This category of criminals would not be likely to return, but those with drug addiction issues would be very likely to commit a crime again and find their way back to prison. We also discussed that there are a category of prisoners who do not like to be free and commit either violations or crimes so that they can go back in. I know of one individual who probably falls into that category.

The next main topic was the level of punishment given to first time offenders. The general concensus was that first time offenders should have received some mercy since they had committed a federal crime for the first time and some of them did not even know that they committed a crime until they were arrested. For me personally, I probably was someone who leaned heavily on harsh punishments, but having gone through it, I do not now believe this for the following reasons (keep in mind that all of us involved in this discussion are prisoners and are thus biased):

  1. I was sentenced to four years, but a 1-3 month sentence would have been just as effective to discourage me from committing another crime. There is always the question how much of a sentence is for punishment and how much is for reform or discouragement to publicly shame someone and therefore scare others from committing crimes. Again, I think 3 months would have had the same impact.
  2. Some prisoners like doctors receive additional punishment because once they are felons, they lose their medical or attorney license, never able to do what they were trained to do. They have essentially lost their ability, as they know it, to earn an income.
  3. Spending $180,000 to keep me in prison makes no sense when I could be out working and paying into the federal income tax system and contributing to the national GDP as opposed be on a form of welfare where I suck money from the government as it houses, feeds & clothes me.
  4. There really is not much possibility for reform in prison. It is hard (if not almost impossible) to learn new skills or become a better version of oneself. Thus, getting them out & into a program on the outside that teaches them a new skill (welding, carpentry, plumbing, HVAC, etc) through a community college or other program would probably give a better long term outcome.
  5. This basically led us all to believe that low & minimum security prisoners should be let out earlier and given home confinement, thus saving the government quite a bit of money. I think this may be part of Trump’s agenda later this year, but am not 100% sure.