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Comment by gavinhoward

3 years ago

This is an incredible post, and I encourage everyone to read it.

I wish I knew better how to help incarcerated people. Based on the Norway(?) model, I feel like help would reduce return rates, but I don't know how to go about it.

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gavinhoward

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qingcharles  3 years ago

I just got out after 10 years. I work with a lot of people just coming out (just been helping a guy locked up for 40 years, he's doing great).

The biggest issue is that 95% of them will be returned within a few months. Drugs is the main cause. You get out, you have no ID, no job, no family, no friends. You're stuck in a halfway house that is just like being in prison (lots of rules, line up for meal service etc). All the other guys there have a ton of drugs and you swear you won't touch them, but then you do because you're bored and sad. And then you're addicted again. And now you need money to buy more drugs. So you go do something goofy to get money and you get caught and locked up for another 10 piece. Or your parole officer drug tests you and violates your parole and you go do another 3 piece. Or the halfway house owner gets sick of you coming in after 7pm smelling of alcohol so he calls your parole officer and you go do another 3 piece.

Cycle repeats until you die in prison.

  • simplicio  3 years ago

    The no ID thing is interesting. The article mentions that as a major issue as well. Seems like it'd be a pretty cheap intervention to just issue all out-going prisoners a gov't photo ID on their release.

    • qingcharles  3 years ago

      It is so terribly insane that this isn't done. You are being held by the state. The state has elevated access to state services. How easy would it be for them to hook into the state ID/DMV system and print you a state ID or driver's license before you leave?

      If they can't verify your identity while you are in prison, then what are you even doing there?

      All they did before I left prison was try to sign me up for Medicaid (I'm not elligible because I'm an illegal immigrant).

      They did kindly let me keep my prison ID when I left which has my photo on it and says IN CUSTODY in giant letters. (they used to say INMATE but that word has gone out of fashion and they couldn't think of another word to use on the badges)

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chroma  3 years ago

Recidivism rates are astonishingly high in all countries. Norway has the lowest at 20% within 2 years. The real rate is higher because most crimes aren’t solved. So in the best case, rehabilitation makes someone 300x more likely to commit crime than the average Norwegian.

  • modeless  3 years ago

    It's unfair to say it "makes" them that way. They were incarcerated because they already proved willing to commit a crime. It failed to change them back into an average citizen, sure. Understandably a very difficult problem. It's quite possible that it makes them worse instead of better but we'd need different evidence to show that.

    • BirAdam  3 years ago

      Not everyone who is incarcerated committed a crime. Some are in custody for having marijuana which has since been decriminalized in some areas. Others are there because they plea bargained due to pressure. Almost no one who is in custody ever had a trial despite this being a “right” in the USA.

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  • halffullbrain  3 years ago

    By that logic, the worst possible recidivism rate (surely 100%) would make someone 1500x more likely to commit crime than a non-offender. That’s still a pretty good case for having effective rehabilitation (unless you insist on the death sentence for all prisonable offences)

    • chroma  3 years ago

      You don’t have to execute them, just lock them up until they’re too old to be a threat.

      I’ve been a victim of violent crime at least a dozen times in my life. I wasn’t the first victim for any of my attackers. Far from it. And I wasn’t the last. Every single one of them escaped. They probably got caught on some other occasion, and maybe they spent some time in prison for that crime. And then they got out and continued robbing and assaulting innocent people. They’ll keep doing this as long as they are physically able.

      I don’t really care what happens to them, because they’re basically constantly-exploding bombs that force the rest of us to pay more in taxes for police, invest in more security systems, avoid certain areas at certain times, and generally worry about safety much more than we otherwise would. Most criminals have been given countless chances to not commit crime, and they keep doing it. The sooner they’re separated from society, the better off we’ll all be.

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