|
|
|
|
|
|
|
by William J. Brune
"The penal code shall be founded on the principles of reformation, and not vindictive justice."
Many years ago, a kind and gentle nun taught us that "Idleness is the Devil’s workshop." At that time we thought she was trying to tell us not to throw "spitballs" at Johnny across the room. Much later, however, we came to understand that the true connotation was that if we were to avoid getting into trouble, we were to keep our thoughts and deeds on wholesome and productive matters.
This saw was brought to mind a few weeks ago when I read a news article off the national wire service that the economy and employment in the country are up, and incidents of reported crime are down. The article went on to draw an inference from these two statistics that there may be a correlation between them. [Is the nun’s admonition of yore at work here?]
In my opinion, the two factors are inseparable. During my six years as prosecutor and twenty-two years as a judge in this county, I was privy to every conceivable type of crime and the types of people who committed those crimes. Excluding "white collar" crimes and crimes of passion, I found that most criminal offenses were perpetrated by people who were poor financially and educationally deprived. One need not be a genius to understand that if a person cannot read or write and is otherwise unskilled the odds of that person falling into the unemployed ranks increase tremendously.
Attempts to prevent crime from occurring or recidivism of crime have spawned many types of rehabilitative programs for the convicted person who is not incarcerated. Many of these programs are successful, but they generally deal with persons who are more amenable toward rehabilitation – those first time offenders of non-violent crimes, who are employed – many in good jobs – and who can appreciate the many material and aesthetic assets they stand to lose if they don’t "rehabilitate." But there are virtually no meaningful attempts to rehabilitate those individuals who are sent to prison.
The vast majority of these convicts – offenders who are of the non-violent nature – are in the category referred to above: illiterate and unskilled. Indiana’s Constitution states: "The penal code shall be founded on the principles of reformation, and not vindictive justice." [Art. I, Sec. 18]. Yet, we spend millions of dollars building new maximum security prisons that are constructed to house the most dangerous type of criminal, but they actually house mostly persons convicted of non-violent crimes such as drug possession and theft.
At the same time, no effective amount of money is spent to address the endemic problem of crime: rehabilitating the unskilled, the illiterate and unemployable inmates in order to make them productive individuals upon their release from custody. And all inmates who have received a sentence less than capital punishment or life-without-parole, will be released in time.
Unless a new innovative approach that conforms with the Constitutional mandate is undertaken, and the unemployable are made to be employable, history has shown that these same individuals will return to criminal behavior, and generally, "progress" to committing more serious crimes than before.
I believe the Indiana Department of Correction [IDC], that agency charged with the responsibility of rehabilitation, can best accomplish its goal by establishing regional "Community Rehabilitative Services" institutions that would furnish qualified personnel to teach, train and counsel the inmates in need of their services.
We in Vanderburgh County are fortunate to have such a facility that attempts to satisfy some of these recommended services [work-release, some drug and alcohol counseling], but it is handicapped by having a staff with limited professional training, and insufficient financial funding for such a staff or for a safe and modern facility, necessary ingredients for a successful program. ["Insufficient financial funding" not withstanding the county’s annual contribution of over four million dollars!]
Equally important, is that it is not under the direction of the commissioner of the Indiana Department of Corrections [IDC], as it should be inasmuch as that agency is charged with the responsibility of the care and custody of inmates.
Therefore, I would suggest the State of Indiana, perhaps with the assistance of the federal funding, establish a pilot program to establish the first state regional facility to serve the southwestern counties of the state, and more particularly, Vanderburgh County.
It should be built in an area where, geographically, it can serve the largest number of potential residents.
It should include classrooms and shops where those inmates in need of educational improvement and skills in such areas as carpentry, mechanics, electrical, and numerous others, could be taught.
In addition, statistics establish that the highest incidents of crime are committed by those individuals who are in some way involved in illegal use of drugs, alcohol abuse, or both. The longest in-house treatment for these addictions in our area is usually thirty days.
Experts in the field of treating drug and alcohol addicted patients acknowledge that, in many cases, only long-term in-house treatment programs show any long term success. To remedy this inadequate system of addressing the drug and alcohol abuse problem, the community rehabilitative institutions should be equipped to provide this necessary service since the residents will be available "in-house" for the longer period needed.
The legislature should set standards as to what type of individuals would be qualified for admittance into such a facility, but denying admission only to those whose crimes were murder, rape, infliction of serious bodily injury and mental anguish or worse upon the victim, and most sex crimes, particularly those perpetrated upon children.
The over-all responsibility for the operation and enforcement of in-house rules would be that of the Director of the IDC and financed entirely by the State as it does the IDC.
These suggestions are but a few that can be initiated, and I believe that a committee of people, appointed by the Governor, who specialize in dealing with criminal rehabilitative reforms, can best assist in the finalization of a plan that would incorporate not only the ideas set out here, but implementation of many more beneficial programs within the institutions.
For years we have been throwing money at trying to find a solution to the crime problem. But all that money, as stated above, has gone into putting more convicts into maximum security prisons, and at a cost of over seventeen thousand dollars a year per inmate, according to a IDC spokesperson, – an amount that is, oddly, well below the national average of over thirty thousand dollars per inmate. Presently, the inmate contributes nothing toward his/her care or maintenance. Under the theory of community rehabilitative institutions, one of the rules for admission would be that the inmates would be required to reimburse the State for his/her upkeep in an amount based upon individual’s ability to pay, and thereby dramatically defray the cost of housing an inmate.
There is another more subtle reason to justify the state’s undertaking of the fiscal responsibility of providing for the community rehabilitative corrections institutions and that is its moral obligation to correct a wrong that it has vicariously participated in. Nearly fifty percent of the state’s budget goes to fund its public school system, and it cannot escape shouldering some of the blame for allowing a number of its citizens to go through that system and not come out with the necessary education and skills to obtain meaningful employment.
In the wake of recent developments to re-organize the Vanderburgh County Corrections Complex program, now would be the time for local reformists to meet with our state and federal legislators, county officeholders, judges, educators, and medical providers to formulate an agenda to promote the state-run community corrections facility concept.
I realize that in today’s public climate, the desire to want to pass more criminal laws and to put more people in jail seems to be the popular goal, but a long history of this approach has shown it to be counter-productive. Isn’t it time that we, after nearly one-hundred and fifty years, at least TRY to comply with our Constitution? Community rehabilitative institutions may be our best opportunity to rid our society of the "Devil’s workshop."
