One aspect of sentencing and punishment we far too often forget is on the back-end of sentencing: what to do with released prisoners. Although lately there has been more focus on the prisoner re-entry problem, there is still far to go. Which is why I was happy to see that the federal government is holding hearings this week to look at at inmate and prisoner re-entry problems. As noted by the website The Crime Report:
The U.S. House subcommittee overseeing appropriations for the Justice Department and anticrime programs will hold an unusual set of hearings on three days [this] week focusing on prisoners and inmate re-entry issues. One reason for the sessions is to assess appropriations levels for the new Second Chance Act, a federal law providing aid to prisoner re-entry programs. Testifying Tuesday before the panel, which is headed by Democrat Alan Mollohan of West Virginia, is federal Bureau of Prisons director Harley Lappin. The committee also will hear from two representatives of the American Federation of Government Employees Council of Prison Locals. Criminologist Faye Taxman of George Mason University in Virginia will talk later about drug treatment for convicts.
On Wednesday, the committee will hear from criminologists Pamela Lattimore of RTI International and Christy Visher of the University of Delaware and Urban Institute, who oversee an evaluation of a national prisoner re-entry project. Other witnesses on prisoner re-entry will be Deputy Director Dennis Schrantz of the Michigan Department of Corrections, George McDonald of the Doe Fund, Inc., Pat Nolan of the Prison Fellowship, Jennie Amison of the Gemeinschaft Home, and Judge Stephen Manley of the Santa Clara County, Ca., Superior Court. On Thursday, witnesses will be Jeremy Travis, President of John Jay College of Criminal Justice and former Director of the National Institute of Justice, and Prof. James Byrne of the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.
It's an impressive, all star cast who will be testifying at the hearings, and I am glad to see it. Next step would be for the states to take up a similar initiative--although in this dire fiscal climate, my sense is that all criminal justice programs that are not critical (i.e., that can be cut) will suffer. I hope to be proven wrong, however....
I'm delighted to see that someone from Prison Fellowship Ministries was invited to the table. The PFM home page is at this link:
http://www.pfm.org/default_pf_org.asp
Pat Nolan's full testimony is available at this link:
http://www.justicefellowship.org/generic.asp?ID=11462
Posted by: Tim Zinnecker | March 11, 2009 at 07:14 PM
The Second Chance Act is a great idea but in Wisconsin there is NO starting over. It is literally and virtually impossible to pay your debt to society and make a fresh start because everyone that has committed a crime is doomed by Wisconsin's open circuit courts website. It was used to set-up, entrap and have me arrested. Now, I'm a felon but the gals who set me up knew that I would become a felon had I gotten arrested one more time since that is the law in WI. They knew perfectly well what the result would be. Thus I was set-up, arrested and thrown into prison for a year and a half. Now, I'm out. Did my time. BUT THERE WILL BE NO STARTING OVER FOR ME! NEVER IN THIS STATE. Since my arrest other states have expanded and set up legal case websites similar to WI's. Wisconsin was the first state to have such a website posted on the WWW. They put the site together with absolutely no regards to US Citizen's rights to privacy. I don't understand how they continue to have the website in existence when it violates the US Constitutional right to privacy of it's citizens!!!!!!
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