Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Policy Brief - Second Chance Act
by Brady Beziat, 2007. Copyright, Brady Beziat. Do not use without permission of the author.
“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Introduction and Scope of the Problem
The United States has a huge problem that much of our nation and our government have seemingly ignored for far too long. Recent estimates show that there are over 16 million current or ex-felons in the United States (Uggen, 2000). This represents a population larger than many states. This is also a population that is at a great risk. Each year about 650,000 people are released from prison and nearly two-thirds will be arrested and possibly returned to prison. These numbers clearly show that this is a crisis that our current system is not successful in arming these people with the proper community living skills necessary to reintegrate into the community (Eggers, Munoz, Sciulli, et. al (2005)
Drug addiction, lack of job skills, housing issues, and negative employer attitudes towards hiring ex-felons, all attribute to the types of problems and discriminations that cause the high rates of recidivism. There is a need for our government to increase funding to address this issue or the issue will increase into being an even larger problem. If our prisons are unsuccessful at rehabilitating prisoners, shouldn’t our society step in and try and find ways to fix this? There is not enough money going into preparing this population how to function, instead we spend billions on putting them away and when they come back out, the statistics show that they are not successful. This system is not working.
There has been, in recent times, a new push to spend more on acclimating ex-felons to function positively in our society, rather than to keep spending mega dollars in order not to really deal with this population and their issues. Better job training, better education, better drug rehabilitation, and better attitudes by employers would likely decrease these rates and improve our society as a whole.
Past Policy
While current efforts to improve this situation and develop stronger policies seem to be underway, one must give an overview of past reentry policy and what it tried to accomplish. Current national policies have always earmarked funding/grants to allow for states and local communities to develop and implement their own programs. Each state has its own Department Of Corrections that administers reentry programs. The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 supports this in that Congress found that crime is a local problem the must be dealt with by State and local governments. Many different policies exist that differ at the local and state levels.
When one thinks about it, ex-offenders are most likely subject to different levels of reentry services in different states. Past policies have not addressed this nor the fact that the prison population has grown to over two million people who are currently in prison in the U.S today. The federal government has only thrown money and grants at the problem. There has not been any national oversight of how these programs within the states are working. It is like the government is just giving their money away and not checking to see what has happened with that money.
Furthermore, past policies have been created without taking into account the huge drug problems in our society today. For example, in 2002, drug offenders accounted for 32% of felons convicted in State courts (Durose & Langan, 2004). Recidivism rates for these offenders who do not get appropriate treatment and most research rates that one finds, put recidivism rates as high as 67% (U.S Department of Justice). That’s 2 out of 3 people going back to jail upon release.
While there has been some improvement in treatment programs for drug abuse offenders, there seems to be a need for a national oversight group that will monitor how the states are doing to manage program effectiveness.
Current Policy
Current policies in regards to prisoners seem to focus more on locking up offenders and keeping them locked up. The “Three Strikes” and other mandatory sentencing policies focus certain crimes have focused on being reactive and not proactive in the approach towards crime and repeat offenses. Now States are realizing that they cannot afford to keep expanding their prison systems and building new prisons is not the answer. Texas, for example, estimates that it would have to spend over a billion dollars to prevent a shortfall of 17,000 prison beds by 2012 (Justice Center, 2007). So they, like many other states are now starting to feel that they must take a new approach and invest in service that will treat and prevent.
The policies that our states institute currently seemingly show a no concern for cost and program effectiveness. How can we continue to pour billions of dollars into cold, distant prisons that are just going to keep growing and growing. This is an economic and social disaster. Federal and local governments have current policy that is taking away valuable tax payer dollars being spent in the wrong direction. States are spending billions of dollars to put people away, and could cut that number down if we only had to put them a way one time.
Our current prison system does control many people who have committed crimes that are to horrible to let them come back into our society. But as you saw earlier, many of these people are drug offenders, or other non-violent offenders that our policies do not address. Pouring money into actually fixing their problem would most likely be cheaper than to just keep put them away.
Proposed Policy
Congress has recognized this as well. Currently there are bills in the House and Senate that recognize address this situation. It is called the Second Chance Act of 2007 H.R1593/S.1060. The bill was introduced by Representative Danny Davis (D-IL) and The Second Chance Act actually passed in the House of Representatives on November 13, 2007 with a vote of 347-62., it has bipartisan support thus far, and it looks promising. Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) and others have also introduced a version of this bill in the senate. This is a major victory in this arena. Similar legislation has been proposed that last several years but has not made it out of the House of Representatives.
This bill is designed to provide funding to help strengthen or develop programs for released offenders to successfully reenter their communities. It really addresses funding towards drug & mental health treatment, job training services, and housing services. These constitute some of the major barriers that this population faces after “serving their time”. Also, it provides for a level of federal overview of these programs that seem to be lacking in dealing with this crisis.
Housing programs are a major cornerstone of the Second Chance Act. It helps to provide funding for stable living situations for those when released. Obviously this is a basic needs concern and the proposed Act will allow states to offer housing in state-run or find help in securing private sector housing.
The proposed funding for these types of services total about $230 million over two years with appropriations of $65 million/year from the House and 50 million/year from the Senate respectively. While this does not seem like a huge amount a funding, it is a start in the right direction. It addresses many problems and shows that our government is acknowledging them while possibly trying to change them. The Second Chance Act also provides more funding to provide incentives to people who have been incarcerated before by providing federal bonding money to those employers. This is just more evidence that our government is starting to recognize the problems faced by citizens who have spent time in prisons around our country.
It is supported not only in our congress, but it is supported by several outside groups. NAMI, the National Alliance for Mental Illness supports the legislation. They feel that linking prisons to better reentry programs and mental health care in the community will greatly help in the problem of recidivism that we are facing. The American Bar Association, The National Alliance to End Homelessness, and dozens of other groups who deal with this population and their problems regularly all support this bill.
With the passing of the bill in the House of Representatives, and hopefully soon in the Senate, we may now want to think about actually increasing the funding. A more radical idea may be to go a few steps further and to take money that is earmarked for building new prisons, and put that money towards the goals of the Second Chance Act. This would allow for the powers that be to really see how social programs, if funded properly, could really help people. This bill could improve by adding programs that could further help with things like the expongement of records for non-violent criminals, increased federal bonding, and provide for better employment opportunities to this population at risk as well.
Key Organizations/People
American Bar Association -Legal Group supporting this legilislation
740 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
Phone 202.662.1000
www.abanet.org
Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) - Introduced the Act in the Senate
Wilmington Office
1105 N. Market St. St 2000
Wilmington DE, 19801
Phone 302.573.6345
Representative Danny K. Davis (D-IL)-Introduced the Act in the House of Representatives
Washington Office
2159 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone 202.225.5006
FAMM- Families Against Mandatory Minimums- Strong supporters of the Act
National Office
1612 K Street NW Suite 700
Washington, DC 20006
Phone 202.822.6700
www.famm.org
NAMI-National Alliance on Mental Illness- Mental Health group who supports Act
2107 Wilson Blvd. Suite 300
Arlington, VA 22201
Phone 703.524.7600
www.nami.org
National Institute of Corrections
Administrative Offices
320 1st St, NW
Washington, DC 20534
Phone 800.995.6423
Rehabilitated.org
The Rehabilitated Project
PO BOX 1355
San Juan Capistrano, CA 92693
Phone 949.493.6000
Glossary of Terms
Discrimination: 1 the act, practice, or instance of discriminating categorically rather than individual
Expongement: having criminal records removed from permanent record
Federal Bonding: a program by which our government insures companies who hire workers who have felony convictions in order to help them in case the employee commits another crime
Recidivism: a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior; especially: relapse into criminal behavior
Reentry: a second or new entry, a playing card that will enable a player to regain the lead
Rehabilitate: 1. to restore to former capacity: Reinstate 2. to restore to good repute: reestablish the good name of
Bibliography
Durose, M.R., Langan, P.A. (2004) Drug Policy Alliance 2004 State by state. Retrieved from http://www.drugpolicy.org/statebystate/.
Eggers, M., Muñoz, J., Sciulli, J., Crist, P., & I, I. (2005). The Community Reintegration Project: Occupational Therapy at Work in a County Jail. Occupational Therapy in Health Care. 20 (1), 17-37.
FBI Stats http://www.cor.state.pa.us/stats/lib/stats/BJS%20Recidivism%20Study.pdf
Harrison, B., & Scher, R.C. (2004). Offenders and post release jobs: Variables influencing success and failure. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 39(3) 35-68.
Justice Center. “Recent and Projected Growth of the Texas Prison Population.” The Council of State Government. January 30, 2007.
Kethineni, S., & Falcone, D.N. (2007). Employment and ex-offenders in the United States: Effects of legal and extra legal factors. Probation Journal 54 (1), 36-51..
Kurlycheck, M.C., Bram, R., & Bushwa, S.D. (2007). Enduring risk? Old Criminal records and predictions of future criminal involvement. Crime & Delinquency 53(1), 64-83
Lam, H., & Harcourt, M. (2003). The use of criminal record in employment decisions;The rights of ex-offenders, employers, and the public. Journal of Business Ethics 47(3), 237-252.
"Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968." Major Acts of Congress. Ed. Brian K. Landsberg. Macmillan-Thomson Gale, 2004. eNotes.com. 2006. 4 Nov, 2007
Pager, D. (2003). The mark of a criminal record. American Journal of Sociology 108(5), 937-975..
Pogarsky, G. (2006, August). CRIMINAL RECORDS, EMPLOYMENT, & RECIDIVISM. Criminology & Public Policy, 5(3), 479-482.
Ruddell, R., & Winfree, L.T. (2006). Setting aside criminal convictions in Canada: A successful approach to offender reintegration. The Prison Journal 86(4), 452-469.
Uggen, C. (2000) Work as turning point in life course of criminals. A duration model of age, employment, and recidivism. American Sociological Review 67:529-546.
U.S Department of Justice Website http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/reentry/recidivism.htm
“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Introduction and Scope of the Problem
The United States has a huge problem that much of our nation and our government have seemingly ignored for far too long. Recent estimates show that there are over 16 million current or ex-felons in the United States (Uggen, 2000). This represents a population larger than many states. This is also a population that is at a great risk. Each year about 650,000 people are released from prison and nearly two-thirds will be arrested and possibly returned to prison. These numbers clearly show that this is a crisis that our current system is not successful in arming these people with the proper community living skills necessary to reintegrate into the community (Eggers, Munoz, Sciulli, et. al (2005)
Drug addiction, lack of job skills, housing issues, and negative employer attitudes towards hiring ex-felons, all attribute to the types of problems and discriminations that cause the high rates of recidivism. There is a need for our government to increase funding to address this issue or the issue will increase into being an even larger problem. If our prisons are unsuccessful at rehabilitating prisoners, shouldn’t our society step in and try and find ways to fix this? There is not enough money going into preparing this population how to function, instead we spend billions on putting them away and when they come back out, the statistics show that they are not successful. This system is not working.
There has been, in recent times, a new push to spend more on acclimating ex-felons to function positively in our society, rather than to keep spending mega dollars in order not to really deal with this population and their issues. Better job training, better education, better drug rehabilitation, and better attitudes by employers would likely decrease these rates and improve our society as a whole.
Past Policy
While current efforts to improve this situation and develop stronger policies seem to be underway, one must give an overview of past reentry policy and what it tried to accomplish. Current national policies have always earmarked funding/grants to allow for states and local communities to develop and implement their own programs. Each state has its own Department Of Corrections that administers reentry programs. The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 supports this in that Congress found that crime is a local problem the must be dealt with by State and local governments. Many different policies exist that differ at the local and state levels.
When one thinks about it, ex-offenders are most likely subject to different levels of reentry services in different states. Past policies have not addressed this nor the fact that the prison population has grown to over two million people who are currently in prison in the U.S today. The federal government has only thrown money and grants at the problem. There has not been any national oversight of how these programs within the states are working. It is like the government is just giving their money away and not checking to see what has happened with that money.
Furthermore, past policies have been created without taking into account the huge drug problems in our society today. For example, in 2002, drug offenders accounted for 32% of felons convicted in State courts (Durose & Langan, 2004). Recidivism rates for these offenders who do not get appropriate treatment and most research rates that one finds, put recidivism rates as high as 67% (U.S Department of Justice). That’s 2 out of 3 people going back to jail upon release.
While there has been some improvement in treatment programs for drug abuse offenders, there seems to be a need for a national oversight group that will monitor how the states are doing to manage program effectiveness.
Current Policy
Current policies in regards to prisoners seem to focus more on locking up offenders and keeping them locked up. The “Three Strikes” and other mandatory sentencing policies focus certain crimes have focused on being reactive and not proactive in the approach towards crime and repeat offenses. Now States are realizing that they cannot afford to keep expanding their prison systems and building new prisons is not the answer. Texas, for example, estimates that it would have to spend over a billion dollars to prevent a shortfall of 17,000 prison beds by 2012 (Justice Center, 2007). So they, like many other states are now starting to feel that they must take a new approach and invest in service that will treat and prevent.
The policies that our states institute currently seemingly show a no concern for cost and program effectiveness. How can we continue to pour billions of dollars into cold, distant prisons that are just going to keep growing and growing. This is an economic and social disaster. Federal and local governments have current policy that is taking away valuable tax payer dollars being spent in the wrong direction. States are spending billions of dollars to put people away, and could cut that number down if we only had to put them a way one time.
Our current prison system does control many people who have committed crimes that are to horrible to let them come back into our society. But as you saw earlier, many of these people are drug offenders, or other non-violent offenders that our policies do not address. Pouring money into actually fixing their problem would most likely be cheaper than to just keep put them away.
Proposed Policy
Congress has recognized this as well. Currently there are bills in the House and Senate that recognize address this situation. It is called the Second Chance Act of 2007 H.R1593/S.1060. The bill was introduced by Representative Danny Davis (D-IL) and The Second Chance Act actually passed in the House of Representatives on November 13, 2007 with a vote of 347-62., it has bipartisan support thus far, and it looks promising. Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) and others have also introduced a version of this bill in the senate. This is a major victory in this arena. Similar legislation has been proposed that last several years but has not made it out of the House of Representatives.
This bill is designed to provide funding to help strengthen or develop programs for released offenders to successfully reenter their communities. It really addresses funding towards drug & mental health treatment, job training services, and housing services. These constitute some of the major barriers that this population faces after “serving their time”. Also, it provides for a level of federal overview of these programs that seem to be lacking in dealing with this crisis.
Housing programs are a major cornerstone of the Second Chance Act. It helps to provide funding for stable living situations for those when released. Obviously this is a basic needs concern and the proposed Act will allow states to offer housing in state-run or find help in securing private sector housing.
The proposed funding for these types of services total about $230 million over two years with appropriations of $65 million/year from the House and 50 million/year from the Senate respectively. While this does not seem like a huge amount a funding, it is a start in the right direction. It addresses many problems and shows that our government is acknowledging them while possibly trying to change them. The Second Chance Act also provides more funding to provide incentives to people who have been incarcerated before by providing federal bonding money to those employers. This is just more evidence that our government is starting to recognize the problems faced by citizens who have spent time in prisons around our country.
It is supported not only in our congress, but it is supported by several outside groups. NAMI, the National Alliance for Mental Illness supports the legislation. They feel that linking prisons to better reentry programs and mental health care in the community will greatly help in the problem of recidivism that we are facing. The American Bar Association, The National Alliance to End Homelessness, and dozens of other groups who deal with this population and their problems regularly all support this bill.
With the passing of the bill in the House of Representatives, and hopefully soon in the Senate, we may now want to think about actually increasing the funding. A more radical idea may be to go a few steps further and to take money that is earmarked for building new prisons, and put that money towards the goals of the Second Chance Act. This would allow for the powers that be to really see how social programs, if funded properly, could really help people. This bill could improve by adding programs that could further help with things like the expongement of records for non-violent criminals, increased federal bonding, and provide for better employment opportunities to this population at risk as well.
Key Organizations/People
American Bar Association -Legal Group supporting this legilislation
740 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
Phone 202.662.1000
www.abanet.org
Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) - Introduced the Act in the Senate
Wilmington Office
1105 N. Market St. St 2000
Wilmington DE, 19801
Phone 302.573.6345
Representative Danny K. Davis (D-IL)-Introduced the Act in the House of Representatives
Washington Office
2159 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone 202.225.5006
FAMM- Families Against Mandatory Minimums- Strong supporters of the Act
National Office
1612 K Street NW Suite 700
Washington, DC 20006
Phone 202.822.6700
www.famm.org
NAMI-National Alliance on Mental Illness- Mental Health group who supports Act
2107 Wilson Blvd. Suite 300
Arlington, VA 22201
Phone 703.524.7600
www.nami.org
National Institute of Corrections
Administrative Offices
320 1st St, NW
Washington, DC 20534
Phone 800.995.6423
Rehabilitated.org
The Rehabilitated Project
PO BOX 1355
San Juan Capistrano, CA 92693
Phone 949.493.6000
Glossary of Terms
Discrimination: 1 the act, practice, or instance of discriminating categorically rather than individual
Expongement: having criminal records removed from permanent record
Federal Bonding: a program by which our government insures companies who hire workers who have felony convictions in order to help them in case the employee commits another crime
Recidivism: a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior; especially: relapse into criminal behavior
Reentry: a second or new entry, a playing card that will enable a player to regain the lead
Rehabilitate: 1. to restore to former capacity: Reinstate 2. to restore to good repute: reestablish the good name of
Bibliography
Durose, M.R., Langan, P.A. (2004) Drug Policy Alliance 2004 State by state. Retrieved from http://www.drugpolicy.org/statebystate/.
Eggers, M., Muñoz, J., Sciulli, J., Crist, P., & I, I. (2005). The Community Reintegration Project: Occupational Therapy at Work in a County Jail. Occupational Therapy in Health Care. 20 (1), 17-37.
FBI Stats http://www.cor.state.pa.us/stats/lib/stats/BJS%20Recidivism%20Study.pdf
Harrison, B., & Scher, R.C. (2004). Offenders and post release jobs: Variables influencing success and failure. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 39(3) 35-68.
Justice Center. “Recent and Projected Growth of the Texas Prison Population.” The Council of State Government. January 30, 2007.
Kethineni, S., & Falcone, D.N. (2007). Employment and ex-offenders in the United States: Effects of legal and extra legal factors. Probation Journal 54 (1), 36-51..
Kurlycheck, M.C., Bram, R., & Bushwa, S.D. (2007). Enduring risk? Old Criminal records and predictions of future criminal involvement. Crime & Delinquency 53(1), 64-83
Lam, H., & Harcourt, M. (2003). The use of criminal record in employment decisions;The rights of ex-offenders, employers, and the public. Journal of Business Ethics 47(3), 237-252.
"Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968." Major Acts of Congress. Ed. Brian K. Landsberg. Macmillan-Thomson Gale, 2004. eNotes.com. 2006. 4 Nov, 2007
Pager, D. (2003). The mark of a criminal record. American Journal of Sociology 108(5), 937-975..
Pogarsky, G. (2006, August). CRIMINAL RECORDS, EMPLOYMENT, & RECIDIVISM. Criminology & Public Policy, 5(3), 479-482.
Ruddell, R., & Winfree, L.T. (2006). Setting aside criminal convictions in Canada: A successful approach to offender reintegration. The Prison Journal 86(4), 452-469.
Uggen, C. (2000) Work as turning point in life course of criminals. A duration model of age, employment, and recidivism. American Sociological Review 67:529-546.
U.S Department of Justice Website http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/reentry/recidivism.htm
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)