Saturday, March 17, 2012
What about the children - an Ordinary family no more after incarceration
Ordinary Families ~ no more
Another perspective on incarceration from the inside out
Incarceration impacts everybody in society. Someone that is incarcerated today is surely someone’ relative e.g. father, mother, sister, brother, nephew, niece or son / daughter. The mass incarceration rates in America has more than tripled and although some states are seeing reductions in their prison populations, others continue to advocate for more stricter sentencing laws and lack of support for those laws already on the books that seek a “tough on crime” attitude and outright attack on the drug abuse in this country. It also continues to illustrate a disproportional ratio of affecting minorities, the poor as it appears to be waging a class war with those socioeconomically disadvantaged.
Incarceration impacts every family either directly or indirectly. It also continues to dealing with the social and emotional aspect of incarceration there are other factors to consider as families are disrupted and broken into pieces. The eventual demise of a family is based on their inability to sustain incarceration costs for their loved ones and depending on contributions from other family members, it is only a matter of time before financial support and social assistance is withdrawn or eliminated as their own budges are strained beyond repair if they continue to offer the incarcerated more resources they can afford.
The matter is complicated, emotional and impractical. The consequences are harsh and the family unit is disrupted. The contact is regulated and in some places costs are imposed to visit or make phone calls at expensive rates or fees. The family’s privacy has been invaded, and the once soundness of being independent has turned into a need for public assistance. This strains both family and social relationships creating another victim depending on state assistance for their children and remaining family members impacted by the fractured family circle.
Without going into the social or emotional side of this matter, the law doesn’t care how the family copes with their incarcerated relative. It don’t care about the anger, the lack of support for the children, divorces or financial ruin and turns their backs on this matter very effectively by targeting them as “criminals” along the way based on their relationship or willingness to help those incarcerated. This splinters them from their other family members, their neighbors and their friends creating a solitary situation that adds to the depression and desponded manner the family has to cope with the problem. Abandoned by the very system that was created to protect them, they ultimately feel the anger and frustration that no matter what they do, it is never enough to help their cause to ensure their children, their incarcerated relatives are taken care of properly.
Therefore, no longer an ordinary family, they are stigmatized and stereotyped into ‘bad people’ with bad behaviors in our society standards.
Surely you can see the domino effect here. Once incarcerated, the chances of being re-incarcerated are tripled in most states. Children who were abandoned and neglected are prime targets for incarceration at a later stage of their lives. They suffer in fragmented circles of confusion and disruption creating poor educational opportunities, a high risk for the development of disruptive behavioral models and emotional issues related to anger, loss, humiliation and other stressors that create a negative atmosphere for those needing to heal. Even with having both parents at home, children are showing these signs of distress as you can imagine how the absence or the withdrawal (separation) creates even more stress and anxiety within the family circle.
Source:
http://works.bepress.com/kimberly_alderman/6/
http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=kimberly_alderman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNVk2qjR8AQ
County attorneys: Releasing prisoners will not save money
Read article:
Despite claims by some, schools wouldn't benefit, but crime would increase
.Former state Rep. Bill Konopnicki presents a false choice based on selective data in claiming Arizona's investments in public safety have come at the expense of education ("State can save money by reducing prison population," My Turn, March 3). Overwhelming evidence and history clearly prove that we do not have to rob the criminal-justice system to cover the legitimate costs of education. Both are constitutional duties and responsibilities for Arizona.
Konopnicki is correct in noting that Arizona is seeing a decline in its prison population for the first time. Yet this is not because we're releasing more prisoners. It's primarily because fewer people are being sent back to prison for minor or technical probation violations. In parroting the popular fallacy that releasing more prisoners would free up funds for education, Konopnicki ignores the reality that putting inmates on the street would increase crime and the attendant costs on society.
His misguided idea also begs the question: Who should be released? Konopnicki states that "nearly 20 percent of our prison population are non-violent offenders." But he ignores the fact that this "non-violent" population includes people convicted of drug trafficking, multiple or aggravated DUIs, child molestation and other offenses classified as Dangerous Crimes Against Children. Apparently, Konopnicki is eager to welcome these people into his neighborhood. But most Arizonans would shudder at the thought, which is why there is strong support for truth-in-sentencing laws that keep these offenders behind bars.
In focusing only on the cost of incarceration, Konopnicki overlooks the tremendous savings Arizona has enjoyed by preventing repeat offenders from committing additional crimes. Research data compiled by the Arizona Prosecuting Attorneys' Advisory Council found that Arizona's strengthened sentencing statutes have led to the incarceration of an estimated 3,100 additional offenders in Maricopa County since 2005 who would not have otherwise been imprisoned. Based on cost-of-crime models of leading crime economists, keeping these offenders off the streets prevented 98,038 additional crimes and generated a cost savings of more than $360 million dollars that would otherwise have been spent on crime-related damages to people and property.
Reading Konopnicki's argument, one might conclude that prison is the default for non-violent offenders in Arizona. In fact, our state has been a leader in offering prison alternatives such as substance-abuse treatment and diversion programs to most first- and second-time offenders. Konopnicki has it backwards when he suggests we should follow Mississippi's example in this regard. The reality is that Mississippi is following ours. The truth about Arizona's truth-in-sentencing laws is that they have put the right people in prison for the right reasons: More than 95 percent of our incarcerated population are violent or repeat felony offenders.
Incapacitating these criminals is certainly one reason Arizona is enjoying a much larger drop in crime than the nation as a whole. Releasing prisoners will not save money. It will not make us safer. And it will certainly not help our education system. To argue otherwise is irresponsible and inconsistent with an intelligent public-policy-making process.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/2012/03/16/20120316county-attorneys0317-releasing-prisoners-will-not-save-money.html#ixzz1pOFeu2qv
My comment:
And.......... so now, the prosecutors and the ALEC PRIDE empire strike at their own to keep their mission of mass incarceration intact. Funny how this works and how they pick and choose areas of the criminal justice system that have just been recently improved and still not in the growth stage it should be in order to "brag" about these recidivism numbers. They don't mention the quality of these returned prisoners but rather "fewer" returning to prison. They don't mention the failed mentally ill that move back into your communities without treatment. They don't mention the increased violence inside prisons, the homicide and scuicides and assaults on staff that cost us $$ beyond what is allocated by the legislature. This is how the public is bam booozled by slick talking and slipperly slope walking people who want more prison beds at the expense of education, our children and burdening the taxpayers with a 'money pit" that has no bottom .... yet.. I think that is what former state Rep. Konopnicki was trying to say before "assassinated" by his own kind in Arizona. It's time to start believing those brave enough to tell the truth instead of those who spin their own truth and agenda.Did you notice the sarcasm, the fear factors and the condescending attitude when someone who is smart, intelligent coureous and has the knowledge what he talks about is treated by these groups? I know Rep Konopnicki from down in Safford when I was a deputy warden and he took the time, the effort, the research and the truth to put this together because he saw first hand the wasteland called Arizona prison industrial complex that is growing and asking more $ each year for a mission that is failing and keeping political appointees alive with funding through both public and privat prison enterprises. Open eyes wide open people, you are getting a snow job and not just in the northern parts of the state but all the way down to Yuma and Douglas too.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/2012/03/16/20120316county-attorneys0317-releasing-prisoners-will-not-save-money.html#ixzz1pOFI5DBS
Friday, March 16, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Open letter to Governor Brewer (video format)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cZuQ6CDSDI
Will she respond??? Time will tell ~~ in the meantime, the ACLU lawsuit explores all those allegations made inside her prisons with deep scrutiny and thorough reviews of the facts as they become known to the public and the Governor's Office.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Can you imagine that you would see this at work?
Does this star reflect the gesture in the cartoon? I don't think it does for the majority but there are that 10 % that are being empowered by managers and supervisors who think the same way~~ to continue their personal wrath as a correctional officer in Arizona prisons.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Pay for your Stay inside Jails or Prisons ~ the big picture
There has been much discussion on whether jails or prisons should be public or privately operated. The concept is simple ~ many say that if public prisons were to be turned over to the private prison industry they would say operating money. Others have said that giving the public prison industry their jails and prisons saves no money for the state or county but does show a profit for the private prison entrepreneur-minded or their contractual partners.
For example there is much profit to be made from the rental of the prison bed, the food served, the commissary goods sold at that prison, the pay phone system, the medical co-pays of their medical services etc that helps infuse funds into their respective budgets. Whether this is right or wrong is up to the individual morality of the person but is the most interesting ingredient for the growth of the private prison world. Charging a fee to be incarcerated is regulated by state legislators who either agree or disagree via the passing of bills that turn into laws permitting such activities. Making profit from inmates is hardly a new concept since slave labor was used in the past for those who had influence with the corrections commission, the wardens or the contacts set up for such business.
You can save costs on supplies by using different companies that make soap, mattresses, towels, sheets, etc. Food costs can be reduced if your state prisons will allow you to purchase their premixed foods (frozen) and then just reheating them at your facility.
Commissary goods are charged at more than retail cost; phone rates are higher than competitive public rates and there are many ways to charge an inmate for these services more than once if you do it smart. Contracting phone services and vending machines creates revenues of unbelievable proportions. Involved are some simple solutions to make money through rebates or revenue sharing benefiting the prison to some degree but essentially set up to benefit a third party who ‘piggyback” off these contracts and provide products or services creating a lesser cost for them through greater volume buying and lower prices that will be doubled or tripled at retail cost or higher.
On top of this pyramid structure of sales are opportunities for all involved to participate in expanding their ability to make money and expand to offer services in cash bail bonds, fines, court costs, child support payments etc offering the agencies with a flexible yet controlled method to make money and offer essential services to the inmates that have to meet court ordered sanctions or conditions either in pre-trial status or post trial status while in jail and then onto the prison where they are sent. In other words, the payment of such services offsets some of the costs of keeping them inside the facility offering quicker and an increasing ability to secure release, comply with court orders and reduce their stay while in the jail with the use of a credit or debit card.
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