Why Do We Lock Up So Many of Our Neighbors?
And What Do We Do When It's Time for Them to Come Home Again?
By Will Hunter at Springfield UU Church
[Read words to Hymn 58, Ring Out, Wild Bells.]
When I agreed to preach today, I wanted to choose a topic that had something to do with the New Year. I was also inspired to say something about prisons, since it’s a topic I care deeply about, and during Jeanne Newjwar’s excellent sermon on the death penalty, she had mentioned that the question of what we do with people we lock up was worthy of a service in itself. A I thought about the whole question of incarceration and release, it seemed to me appropriate to talk about it on this day. For every person who is locked up who will one day walk out into society again, how to bring about a changed life is an essential topic. For those of us who pay the bills for the current system, how to bring about a changed system is equally essential.
The United States has led the world for some years now in the proportion of its residents that it locks up. The chart on the front of this week's order of service shows that it's not even close. According to the Federal government, the rate of incarceration in prison and jail in 2005 was 738 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents — up from 725 at midyear 2004. At midyear 2005 the Nation’s prisons and jails incarcerated 2,186,230 persons. That was 1 in every 136 U.S. residents were in prison or jail. An estimated 12% of black males in their late twenties were in prison or jail in 2005. If recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an estimated 1 of every 15 persons (6.6%) will serve time in a prison during their lifetime. Rates continue to rise, even as we sit here this morning.
Lifetime chances of a person going to prison are higher for men (11.3%) than for women (1.8%), although the rate of female incarceration has been soaring. It's far higher for blacks (18.6%) and Hispanics (10%) than for whites (3.4%). In fact, based on current rates of first incarceration, an estimated 32% of black males will enter State or Federal prison during their lifetime, compared to 17% of Hispanic males and 5.9% of white males.
The racial aspect of incarceration is something that we must not ignore. Unless you are a believer in the inherent inferiority and criminality of black people, and I suspect there is no one in this room who meets that description, the statistics about race are very disturbing. I’ll use just two of the charts on the single sheet that I copied for today. More than 70% of illegal drug users in the United States are white, yet less than 20% of those serving time for drug offenses are white; conversely, while only 10% of the drug users are black, they make up more than half of the prisoners serving drug sentences. There are roughly five times as many whites than blacks in the US, yet there are more blacks than whites in our prisons. Something is not as it should be.
To take care of the overall inmate population, which is now close to 2 and a quarter million, 750,000 men and women work in U.S. correctional facilities. The United States spends more than 60 billion dollars annually on corrections. In Vermont, the Corrections budget is now well more than $100 million, and all indications are that it will continue to gobble up more and more of the State's resources. Back when I served in the Vermont Senate in the late 1980s, the total was about $20 million a year. So that's a five-fold increase in less than 20 years. Vermont has become so eager to lock people up that it has more than filled all available beds in the State, and it now rents beds from for-profit prisons in Kentucky, Tennessee, Arizona and Oklahoma; and it’s looking for more.
The huge numbers are accompanied by what is widely understood to be a failure in what goes on inside the prisons and jails around the country. Recidivism rates are high. Of the 272,111 persons released from prisons in 15 States in 1994, an estimated 67.5% were rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years, 46.9% were reconvicted, and 25.4% resentenced to prison for a new crime. More recent statistics indicate that the vast majority of persons released from prison in the US - estimates run as high as 70% - are convicted of new crimes within five years. Interestingly, though, the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that sex offenders were less likely than non-sex offenders to be rearrested for any offense –– 43 percent of sex offenders versus 68 percent of non-sex offenders.
The high rates of recidivism might have something to do with the atmosphere within prisons, which by all accounts is awful. A recent study by the Vera Institute points out that what happens inside jails and prisons does not stay inside jails and prisons. It comes home with prisoners after they are released and with corrections officers at the end of each day’s shift. When people live and work in facilities that are unsafe, unhealthy, unproductive, or inhumane, they carry the effects home with them. The study points out that as a result of poverty, substance abuse, and years of poor health care, prisoners as a group are much less healthy than average Americans. Every year, more than 1.5 million people are released from jail and prison carrying a life-threatening contagious disease. At least 350,000 prisoners have a serious mental illness. Protecting public health and public safety, reducing human suffering, and limiting the financial cost of untreated illness depends on adequately funded, good quality correctional health care, and quality health care is not a high priority in a law-and-order political climate..
The Vera Instute report argues that we must create safe and productive conditions of confinement not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it influences the safety, health, and prosperity of us all. Violence and abuse are not inevitable, the Institute maintains. Every correctional facility can provide a safe environment for prisoners and staff. Prisons don’t have to be as dangerous and as violent as they are. The culture of our prisons dictates the level of violence that you will have in them. And if you change that culture, you will reduce the violence.
The Vermont Department of Corrections is probably no better or worse than most similar departments in the country. It has a lofty vision statement: "To be valued by the citizens of Vermont as a partner in the prevention, research, control and treatment of criminal behavior." Its Mission statement is similarly inspiring: "In partnership with the community, we support safe communities by providing leadership in crime prevention, repairing the harm done, addressing the needs of crime victims, ensuring offender accountability for criminal acts and managing the risk posed by offenders. This is accomplished through a commitment to quality services and continuous improvement while respecting diversity, legal rights, human dignity and productivity." It lists as its core Values: Responsibility, Commitment, Integrity, Judgment, Creativity, Enthusiasm, Compassion.
The Department’s guiding Principles are expressed in the following statements.
"We believe:
Despite this rhetoric, though, the reality is grim. State Rep. Jason Lorber, a stand-up comic from Burlington, undertook a deadly-serious project last year. From August to December of 2005, he listened to 53 Vermonters give their opinions of the state of the Corrections system. They represented a broad spectrum of what he called stakeholders, including correctional officers, probation and aprole officers, victims’ advocates, inmates, Department of Corrections (DOC) managers, and a variety of other people. They painted a distressing picture.
One of the most significant issues raised in all the conversations Lorber had was prison overcrowding. Overcrowding has overwhelmed corrections staff. Turnover rates have become unmanageable, exceeding 40%. Uncertain work schedules and poor working conditions are a result of and contributing factors to the high turnover. Whatever their commitment to serving the DOC and its expressed mission, correctional workers and probation officers feel set up to fail. In interview after interview, they spoke of how overcrowding makes it impossible to perform many of the “correctional” aspect of corrections. Staff and inmates agree that offenders serving their time suffer from instability brought about by being shuttled from facility to facility (often including facilities outside the state), the lack of sufficient attention from officers, and the failure to attend to significant mental health needs.
Why are the prisons so crowded? Not because of rising crime rates. The rate of violent crime in Vermont is about a fourth of the rate in the nation, and it’s been relatively flat over the last 25 years. Yet, the number of people incarcerated in Vermont has skyrocketed. There were 414 locked up 25 years ago; now the number is more than 2000. The prison population has doubled in less than ten years. The women’s prison population is going up even faster: it’s now six times what it was ten years ago. At the same time, the number of people on probation has ballooned, putting even more stress on DOC. The recommended caseload for a probation officer is 120, a number which in itself seems impossibly high. In Vermont, because of both large numbers of people on probation and staff vacancies, the caseload is sometimes as high as 300 per officer.
Why should this be, when serious crime rates are not rising? Part, of course, has to do with the wildly unsuccessful War on Drugs, which is particularly a factor in the number of people locked up by the Federal government. In Vermont, while the numbers are lower, they have been rising rapidly. In 2000, there were 2 women and 19 men locked up for felony drug offenses in Vermont; five years later, there were 18 women and 106 men.
Many of the people who are locked up because of drugs have not been convicted of drug offenses, but of stealing to support their drug habit. The Department of Corrections loves statistics, and it keeps lots of them. It publishes a big book each year called Facts and Figures, and I read it over and over again. One of the figures it used to contain was the percent of Vermont inmates who have been assessed as having a “substance abuse” “need area.” It was usually at least 80%. That is, 4 out of 5 inmates had problems with drug or alcohol dependency. Yet, the Department had treatment programs at only a few facilities. That chart is no longer in the book.
The charts that are there indicate that prison is where the people whom society has failed end up. Ninety five percent of the male inmates under age 22 do not have high school diplomas, and half of them were special education students when they were in school. 40% of the female inmates were sexually abused as children, and more than 70% were physically abused as adults. 45% of the female inmates had attempted suicide at least once.
In his report, Rep. Lorber concluded that prisons and jails have become an alternative to community care. Correctional facilities are populated by a disproportionate number people with mental health, drug, and alcohol problems, and victims of trauma and abuse. Not receiving the treatment they needed when they lived in our Vermont towns, they wind up in jail, an environment that interviewees saw as exacerbating their problems. Interviewees took care to note that prisons are needed for violent, repeat offenders; incarcerating them helps their rehabilitation, their victims, and society. But some interviewees also argue that spending millions of taxpayer dollars to imprison nonviolent, non-repeat offenders often doesn’t benefit society or make it safer; rather, it causes harm.
Even the Department of Corrections admits in writing that its name is inappropriate. I was surprised a few years ago when talking with a friend of mine who was the surpeintendent of a regional correctional facility to find that he agreed with me when I said that I thought people really got worse the longer they were in prison. I had a similar conversation with the then Commissioner of Corrections, and was amazed when he, too, agreed. I thought that perhaps this was something they were willing to admit in a quiet private discussion, but I was truly amazed to find, on the Corrections Department's own website, the following statement: "Vermont law recognizes what is confirmed in the Corrections research literature that traditional prisons, because of their pro-criminal culture, not only fail to rehabilitate but in fact increase the risk of crime. Incarceration, then is a necessary strategy to incapacitate only those offenders whose risk cannot be managed in the community, but is a compromised strategy for helping offenders prepare for responsible citizenship."
Is it any surprise that people who take jobs in the Department of Corrections hate their work? Turnover at Vermont correctional facilities reached critical levels in 2004 with turnover among permanent Correctional Officer I’s at 35% and among temporary correctional officers at 77%. Such high turnover results in large training and overtime expenses as well as significant stress to the remaining correctional officers. The department commissioned a study, which substantiated what everyone already knew: Overall, job dissatisfaction levels are high at all facilities, in all job classifications, and among both new and veteran employees. Employees with between 2 and 5 years of service and more than 10 years of service have higher dissatisfaction levels than those with less than 2 years of service. When asked what incentives kept them at DOC, pay and benefits were most frequently cited. In other words, it's the paycheck and the health insurance that keeps people working in our jails. It's not the sense that they are doing something good for society.
Most inmates will be released, in a worse condition than when they went into State custody. The manner in which they are released is as shameful as the way they were treated while incarcerated. Earlier this year, a former client of mine was released after a lengthy incarceration for a sex offense. I agreed to help him find a place to live and soon learned that no one wants to rent to a sex offender, especially one who has been vilified in the press. As we drove around that day, the day he had been looking forward to for years, I will never forget the moment when he said to me: “This is the worst day of my life.” He had multiple health problems, yet the Department had not provided him with the medications he needed.
Although the pattern has been to abandon inmates once they are outside the prison walls, there is a new emphasis on trying to do better. It shouldn’t be hard. A week from Monday, there is a community forum on Offender Re-Entry. It’s from 5-8 pm at the Springfield Royal Diner. There’s a free dinner at 5, with discussion to follow. The announcement says that when an offender is released from jail it is in our best interest to facilitate the likelihood that this person will become a successful and contributing member of our community. How can the community of Springfield work together to make sure this happens? What ideas and needs do we have? What needs to happen when, to create a seamless, successful re-entry? Within the correctional facility (pre-release)? First few weeks in the community? Ongoing support? If you have any interest, please come.
There are many other opportunities for people to make a difference. Evangelical Christians feel called to serve in prisons, and they have a huge presence in Vermont. I am always saddened by the fact that more liberal denominations are not so visible. The Department is very open to volunteers and others from the community coming in, whether it is to teach courses, lead discussions or worship services, or just provide some indication that there are people in the community who care. Each prison has a volunteer coordinator, and there is a new one at Springfield named Margie Reurink. Even if you just wanted to come into prison once to lead a discussion on poetry or baseball or presidential politics, you would be welcome.
The reason that I remain optimistic about the challenges the Corrections system poses comes from my work with Dismas House in Rutland. For those of you who don’t now about it, Dismas House is a 11-bed home in a residential neighborhood where offenders come to live and work at the end of their time in prison. When they first arrive, they are generally on what’s called “conditional reentry” or what used to be known as furlough. They can come and go to work, but their schedule must be planned in advance. Eventually, they may get parole, which gives them more freedom. But during the time they are serving, they are able to work, reconnect with families and try to stay clean and sober. Dismas House doesn’t take sex offenders, and there is a desperate need for a similar place for them. But for the people who can come to Dismas House, it makes a huge difference. One of the most important activities at the House is the evening meal, which everyone is expected to attend if they are not working. During the week, the meal is cooked by volunteers, and my 12-year-old son Sam and I cook there twice a month. It has never failed to be an uplifting experience. As we sit down to eat together, people around the table share “gratitudes,” kind of like joys and concerns. It’s wonderful to see how residents share in the accomplishments of their housemates.
There are two Dismas Houses in Vermont, one in Rutland and one in Burlington. There could be many more, and it would be a far more sensible place for offenders to be than jail. But communities are resistant, in part because of the garbage they hear from the media about hardened criminals and how awful they are. Sammy has been going with me to Dismas House since he was about 7, and I don’t think we’ve encountered anybody I’d call a hardened criminal.
One other thing that all of us can do is help change the nature of the political discussion about crime and punishment. A year ago, Vermont was in the national spotlight because of the sentence Judge Edward Cashman handed down in a sexual abuse case. The loudest voices were those of the loudmouths like Bill O’Reilly, who wanted long mandatory minimum sentences for all sex offenders. It really makes a difference if there are people who speak out at times like that and say, wait a minute. Do we really want to send people away for 25 years without knowing anything about the person other than that he or she has done an awful thing? The political system responds to the loud voices, and unfortunately the loudest voices have often been the most vindictive and the least compassionate.
We live in a throwaway society, but we cannot afford to throw away our neighbors who have strayed. We all need to speak up so that that does not continue to happen.
I’ll close with some words from Victor Hugo’s wonderful book Les Miserables. At the start of the book, Jean Valjean is released after 19 years in prison and finds no one wants to take his money for a room because he is a convict. He is finally told to knock on the Bishop’s door.
"See here. My name is Jean Valjean. I am a convict from the galleys. I have passed nineteen years in the galleys. I was liberated four days ago, and I have travelled a dozen leagues to-day on foot. This evening, when I arrived in these parts, I went to an inn, and they turned me out, because of my yellow passport. No one would take me. What is this place? Do you keep an inn? I have money. I am very weary; twelve leagues on foot; I am very hungry. Are you willing that I should remain?"
"Madame Magloire," said the Bishop, "you will set another place. You will put white sheets on the bed in the alcove.
The Bishop turned to the man.
"Sit down, sir, and warm yourself. We are going to sup in a few moments, and your bed will be prepared while you are supping."
At this point the man suddenly comprehended. He began stammering like a crazy man:--"Really? What! You will keep me? You do not drive me forth? A convict! You call me sir! You are a fine man. You are an inn-keeper, are you not?"
"I am," replied the Bishop, "a priest who lives here."
"Monsieur le Cure," said the man, "you are good; you do not despise me. You receive me into your house. You light your candles for me. Yet I have not concealed from you whence I come and that I am an unfortunate man."
The Bishop, who was sitting close to him, gently touched his hand. "You could not help telling me who you were. This is not my house; it is the house of Jesus Christ. This door does not demand of him who enters whether he has a name, but whether he has a grief. You suffer, you are hungry and thirsty; you are welcome. And do not thank me; do not say that I receive you in my house. No one is at home here, except the man who needs a refuge. I say to you, who are passing by, that you are much more at home here than I am myself. Everything here is yours. What need have I to know your name? Besides, before you told me you had one which I knew."
The man opened his eyes in astonishment.
"Really? You knew what I was called?"
"Yes," replied the Bishop, "you are called my brother."
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