Senator John Cornyn introduced this week a Federal Prison reform plan based on the Texas Model. I for one am a bit nervous. As a former Correctional Officer who has been around politicians enough to know well-intentioned politicians often do more harm than good when starting “prison reform.” The bullet points and highlights of this program leaves this former CO with a few questions.
The first question is, since it requires “existing funds to develop and implement recidivism reduction programming (drug rehabilitation, education, skills training, work programs, etc.) for 100% of eligible federal prisoners within 5 years”, where is the money for the necessary infrastructure for released offenders going to come from? With more released offenders, there will be a need for more parole officers and staff to track of them, despite being assigned to a program, they still have to be monitored.
It also requires the “Attorney General to enter into partnership with non-profit and faith-based organizations to provide many of these programs at little or no cost to the taxpayer.” So, who’s going to pay for it? Are we going to see a repeat of the Texas version of the Prison Entrepreneurship Program, whose Founder was banned from Texas Prisons for “improper relationships”? The Founder of that program packed up and left for NY to start the same program there. No charges were ever filed.
If an entrepreneurship program is created, there is the possibility that it sets offenders up in a business but takes the lion’s share of the profits from offenders until they “pay back” the program. On the surface it is a good thing, it helps them get up to speed on changing technology, learn how to file proper paper work, and get started in a business that doesn’t involve crime. This is especially useful to those that have been locked up for a while. The world has changed since becoming incarcerated, so they will need help getting back into the “free world” rather than just being thrown out on to the street. However, the whole “non-profit” part is a façade, nothing happens around a penitentiary for free.
Cornyn’s proposal isn’t necessarily bad, I’m sure it is well intentioned. However, as one that has been tasked with carrying out the prison policies of politicians before, politicians who have never been around a prison need to think their policies through to their logical conclusions, and receive input from actual prison employees.
There has to be thought, policy, and funding given to the end game of these programs. Not having a follow up plan for Parole Officers, and those who are involved with the program on a long term basis, will contribute to offender relapse and make the situation worse than it was in the first place. All too often the unintended consequences of these policies are pressed upon those that have to deal with the offenders long after the politician that implemented them has moved on.
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