Two Million Prisoners' Wasted Potential

Nearly two and half million people are locked in our country's prisons and jails. Most of them will someday be freed, only to get locked up again within three years.

In a great Huffington Post piece this week, Alan Elsner reminds us of this fact as he goes inside a New Hampshire state prison for women to take part in a writer's forum with prisoners. What he found there, he writes, was a world of wasted potential and missed opportunities.

Elsner, who has written extensively about the criminal just system, says he was impressed by the women's passion and intelligence, but saddened to think that so many would serve years  inside without learning the skills they need to survive once they leave. When they're released, they're starting already lagging in the game.

It's an issue I write about frequently here, but the picture painted by Elsner caught my attention. What if every American had the chance to visit a prison and see what Elsner saw last week? Maybe then we wouldn't stand for three-strike laws and 10-year sentences for nonviolent crimes.

Right now, the best we can hope for is zero growth in prison populations or a slight decline. America's mammoth prison population is not going away overnight. But to break out of the grinding prison cycle we've built, two things desperately need to change. First, we have to address over-sentencing for nonviolent crimes, and the inequalities that keep poor people incarcerated longer than the wealthy. One way to do so is to end the drug war -- after all, at least 300,000 American prisoners are behind bars for drug crimes. Many could be in treatment in the community instead, rebuilding their lives and participating in their neighborhoods.

Even if we were to see a drastic shift today in sentencing and enforcement policy (which will be very slow), though, we also need to change the way we treat our 2.4 millions prisoners, and increase the opportunities we provide for them upon release. Innovative programs like San Quentin's Prison University Project, Texas' Prison Entrepreneurship Program and the Fortune Society's reentry initiatives in New York should be the model -- and not the exception -- for a new generation of prison education and reentry programs.

While President Obama's new budget includes some small dollar amounts for "smart on crime" initiatives and alternatives to incarceration, it includes much more in increased enforcement and prison maintenance. Our priorities are still out of whack.

The prison system is good at sustaining itself -- and recidivism is one way it does so. But as Elsner reminds us, by preparing prisoners for post-release success, we can support those whose potential is currently wasted behind bars, and inspire an overhaul of the system in the process, too.

Photo Credit: g-hat