As I returned to my housing unit this afternoon I caught a glimpse of the National Geographic icon on the lower right section of a television screen. I appreciate the informative programs that NGTV produces, so I walked into the room to watch. The program was describing the ways that Saudi Arabia responded to terrorists. When authorities in that country apprehended terrorists who had not yet become murderers, they put the people into a program that would “re-educate” them to the ways of society. While committed to the re-education program, the people would learn more about their religion, they would learn more about society, and they would train for lives of stability. When authorities concluded that the people would not present a further threat, they released them to their family with encouragement to live as law abiding members of society. The re-education program, according to National Geographic, had a 100 percent success rate.
The re-education program in Saudi Arabia contrasts with the much more punitive approach to offenders that we take in the United States. Despite the utter failure of long term imprisonment to prepare offenders for law-abiding lives in society, we continue to warehouse human beings for years or decades at a time. Once the prisoners conclude their sentences, they return to society with the values of the prison culture; such values do not bode well for possibilities of success.
Senator Jim Webb called America’s prison system a national disgrace, but I’m not so sure that American taxpayers who support the prison system understand why it’s such a disgrace. It’s not because of the living conditions prisoners endure. Some prisoners suffer through terribly overcrowded conditions while other prisoners enjoy clean and spacious conditions. Rather than the conditions of confinement, what makes prisons a national disgrace, I think, is the deplorable policy of extinguishing hope. That is the inhumanity of the prison system. It leaves prisoners with the feeling that regardless of how hard they work to redeem the bad decisions of their past, no mechanism exists to recognize the efforts some offenders make to reconcile with society.
When I learned about the re-education program that Saudi Arabia employs, I realized how improbable it would be to introduce such a program in the United States. Too many powerful groups have an interest in this policy of warehousing human beings. Taxpayers pour $60 billion every year into America’s prison system, and the unions, businesses, and lobbyists who feed at this government trough will fight hard to keep the expenditures flowing.
Upon my release, when I can build a larger platform, I intend to work harder to show Americans the reasons why long-term imprisonment for nonviolent offenders makes for bad public policy. But I’m scheduled to serve three more years before I’ll be free to make that contribution. While this ridiculous system continues to warehouse me, I’ll fight the trend as I continue preparations for a law-abiding life upon release.
Ran 10 miles / Did 300 pushups
[consecutive running log: 4,369 miles over the past 492 days]
[pushups in 2010: 39,700]
Sunday, 18 April 2010
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