Counterproductive Corrections Agenda
By Renford Reese
Daily Bulletin (Ontario, CA)
April 3, 2009
I just returned from taking a group of 18 Cal Poly Pomona students to Amsterdam to study social service outreach and to volunteer for the Amsterdam Salvation Army during their Spring Break. The students learned about the progressive Dutch strategies of dealing with social problems. The use of soft drugs such as marijuana and prostitution are legal in The Netherlands. My students learned that the Municipal Health Bureau has clinics that give long time heroin users free heroin. This would be blasphemous even to consider in a conversation in the U.S.
As we listened to the chief psychiatrist at the Municipal Health Bureau explain, there is nothing you can do for a heroin addict until they are ready to do for themselves (get clean)-so instead of evading the problem, the Dutch treat it where it is. From a public policy perspective, when they give the heroin addict their shot, they stop that person from robbing, stealing, and engaging in criminal activity. They also reduce the exacerbation of HIV/AIDS because of the use of clean needles. Their prostitutes operate in a safe zone. They have biweekly health visits. They are unionized.
My students also learned of the "Prison Gate" program. Once a prisoner leaves the gates of the prison, Amsterdam's health bureau, housing bureau, and the Salvation Army are there to meet them. Their collective objective is to meet the multiple needs of the parolee and to ensure that person does not return to prison. It is the "Prison Gate" theme that inspired me to write this commentary.
In February, a panel of three federal judges ruled that overcrowding in California prisons deprived inmates of their right to adequate health care. The state's 33 prisons, which house 158,000 inmates, were designed to house 84,000. The judges tentatively ruled that the state must reduce its prison population by 57,000 people.
California's corrections budget hovers around $10 billion. It is now evident that needlessly hyper-punitive policies are, ironically, punishing the state during this fiscal crisis. There is no public policy agenda in our state that is more irrational than our corrections policies. It is the combination of insensitivity, callousness, and collective self-interests that contribute to the irrationality of this agenda.
Who are the self-interested culprits in this counterproductive game of "Lock'em Up and Throw Away the Key?" Politicians want to be re-elected so they uniformly tell their constituents that they have a tough-on-crime agenda. Few politicians will take a risk on advocating sensible corrections policies for fear of being perceived as being "soft on crime." The public wants to be safe so they embrace this tough-on-crime agenda-until one of their family members gets caught in the system. Prosecutors want to become judges or politicians so they boost their won v. lost records on the backs of black and brown youth. Ostensibly noble judges want to be re-elected so they also participate in the punishment game-usually at the expense of black and brown youth. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association wants job security for its 30,000 members so they advocate for disproportionate sentences for non-violent crimes. These collective self-interests are the culprits of a woefully inadequate correctional system that becomes increasing worse with each dollar spent on it.
On a recent Saturday morning I was startled by the chants outside my loft in downtown Pomona. When I looked down from my balcony at the corner of Mission and Garey, I heard hundreds of teachers, students, and parents chanting "Save our teachers" "Save our schools."
While qualified teachers in the state are losing their jobs we are steadily spending money on an ineffective corrections system. We are paying $35,887 to annually house an inmate and $4,338 to monitor a parolee. This $40,225 could be going towards the salary of a teacher. In other words, for each person we keep from going to prison, or going back to prison, we can save a teacher's salary. I did not get the chance to meet President Obama on his exciting to Pomona but if I had a moment to chat with him I would have exposed him to our misguided education vs. corrections agenda.
The overarching theme of what my students learned on their trip to Amsterdam is that you have to meet a social problem where it is. You cannot ignore the problem because it will not just go away. You cannot just punish it because it will not just go away. My students learned that social problems are not magically fixed with a monolithic solution agreed upon by a self-interested collective. Social problems are effectively addressed by progressive, innovative, and creative policies that are advocated by people who share the will to do the right thing.
--Renford Reese, Ph.D., is a professor in the political science department and director of the Colorful Flags program at Cal Poly Pomona. He is the author of American Bravado (2008), Prison Race (2006), and the widely discussed American Paradox: Young Black Men (2004). He is also the author of the Starbucks "The Way I See It" cup quote #294.
See his work at: http://www.RenfordReese.com
