F is Still For Failure

I read an article in Time by William Lee Adams describing a new prison in Halden, Norway. I've been intrigued with Scandinavian and Nordic prison systems ever since I read about their different approach (from America) to responding to offenders. Rather than obliterating an offender's sense of hope, a practice that is both perpetuated and perfected in American prisons, the Norwegian prison system aspires to boost the chances of reforming offenders so that they will reintegrate with society as law-abiding citizens — and they're succeeding. According to Adams' article, in Norway, where 80%of the people who serve time succeed upon release, those who choose to work in prisons have the noble goals of encouraging prisoners to lead meaningful lives while they serve time.

In the United States more than 60% of those who serve time return to confinement after their release. Why? Experience and my work (that includes interviewing thousands of prisoners over the past 23 years) convince me that one significant reason so many American prisoners revert to crime upon release is that our repressive prison system fosters continuing cycles of failure. To triumph over the nefarious conditions of America's prison system requires conscious personal discipline and commitment — behavior that relatively few prisoners here can either muster or sustain over the numerous years that they must serve.

America's prison system lacks courage, direction and leadership. That's why it costs taxpayers so much to operate and that's why it induces continued, cyclical failure. The lobbyists who represent the unions and companies that feed off the $60 billion in government expenditures to operate this massive human warehouse do not want to see prisons that prepare offenders for law-abiding lives upon release. As one prison administrator told me: "We don't care anything about your life after release. All we care about is the security of the institution."

Rather than funding and endowing programs that encourage prisoners, legislators and administrators pour taxpayer funds down the drain by operating a prison system that serves to destroy family relationships and isolate those in prison from prospects for a successful life upon release. The broken bureaucracy that taxpayers continue to fund blindly is expertly designed to condition recurring cycles of failure for prisoners and their children. It is a system that many refer to as modern slavery, and as Senator Jim Webb declared, America's prison system is a national disgrace.

Photo Credit: geishaboy500