American Prisons Don’t Work. California Is Trying Something That Might.
Maybe it’s just a sign of our angry and divided times, but I’m finding that critics often don’t read past the headline or the first couple of paragraphs before sending me a nasty-gram. So, in the interest of reading comprehension, I will start this unlikely-to-be popular column with some caveats.
I believe dangerous predators should spend their lives behind bars. I do not believe incarceration should be a picnic. Although there are some people in our state’s prison system who shouldn’t be there, I’m convinced that the vast majority of them do belong there. I do not think criminals are victims of society.
I also cringe at many California Democrats’ refusal to take seriously public-safety concerns. I think punishment—and not just rehabilitation—is a proper role for the justice system. I also believe protecting innocents is more important than giving people a second chance. The main goal of justice reform should be to assure that any punishment fits the crime, not to make it harder to incarcerate murderers. I even voted for Proposition 36, the anti-crime measure Californians passed in November.
Yet, unlike some of my conservative-minded friends, I am encouraged rather than appalled by the Newsom administration’s $239-million plan to remake the notorious San Quentin State Prison in Marin County “into a Scandinavian-style rehabilitation center complete with a farmer’s market, a podcast production studio and a self-service grocery store,” per the San Francisco Chronicle. The podcast idea sounds dopey, but the rest of it isn’t.
The hulking facility overlooking San Francisco Bay in Marin County is the oldest correctional facility in California, dating to the 1850s. It already has been renamed the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. By the way, the state’s prison agency is called the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, not that “corrections” and “rehabilitation” have been particularly successful here—or in any of our high-security state or federal prisons.
Before you start typing, consider this comment from California Correctional Peace Officers Association Vice President Steve “Bull” Durham after he and fellow guards’ union members toured a facility in Norway: “Corrections officers in California are literally sick and tired from being cogs in a machine that doesn’t work—for our society, for incarcerated persons, or for guards who want a career that doesn’t kill them.” CCPOA isn’t filled with head-in-the-clouds progressive dreamers.
Let’s start with a look at what this model entails. Instead of having cellblocks that resemble scenes from “The Green Mile,” Scandinavian-style prisons lo
Article from Reason.com
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