7 ms·

California inmate takes unlikely path to freedom: podcasting

86 points by eplanit 8y ago

gammateam 8y ago
Any thoughts on a series of better ways to rehabilitate people and get productive members of society instead of marginalized?
- scott_s 8y ago
  The Vox podcast Future Perfect interviewed Karianne Jackson, a North Dakota prison official, about just that: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/10/17/17983456/future-perfect-podcast-prisons-north-dakota-norway https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/10/17/17983456/futur...
- rhizome 8y ago
  Restorative justice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice
  - jstanley 8y ago
    > Restorative justice is an approach to justice in which the response to a crime is to organize a mediation between the victim and the offender This wouldn't work so well for the large proportion of prisoners who only committed victimless crimes. On second thoughts, maybe it would work even better for those prisoners.
- abledon 8y ago
  mandatory meditation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkxSyv5R1sg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkxSyv5R1sg for someone to just 'sit' and think about their thoughts for 10 days straight without talking, is HELL for a criminal. they are forced to confront reality, or at least their subjective version of it.
  - gdfasfklshg4 8y ago
    10 days of solitary confinement is HELL for anyone. There is a reason that many counties consider solitary confinement to be torture.
    - abledon 8y ago
      vipassana isn't solitary you meditate with other people, usually the course is 20+ people, up to 500
- vkou 8y ago
  I don't think we have a shortage of ideas for accomplishing this. What we have is a shortage of willpower. All it takes is one asshole being put into a rehabilitation program[1], or one sufficiently high-profile crime committed by someone in a program/on parole, for half the country to sour about prison reform. It's easier to send the bad people to the gulag, and forget about them. Treating crime in a constructive way is expensive, and doesn't work 100% of the time, so why bother? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Tori_Stafford#Aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Tori_Stafford#Afterm...
  - briandear 8y ago
    People that kill people or commit violent, life-changing assaults such as rape ought not be rehabilitated, but permanently caged. Nobody accidentally rapes and kills a child. There isn't an argument that a killer/rapist was doing it because they were in poverty and needed money -- instead it's just pure evil. Those types of people should be sent away forever. For non-violent crimes, especially victimless crimes like drug possession, reforms are definitely warranted, but anyone advocating on behalf of convicted, violent criminals gets no respect from me. To get most of the country on board with prison reform, it's not particularly hard: simply exclude anyone who has committed a violent crime from being a part of those reforms. I don't think there are too many rational people out there that want someone to get locked up for 25 years for possessing marijuana or stealing a car.
    - vkou 8y ago
      So, prison reform starts with life sentences, without parole, for all violent offenders? For juvenile offenders, too? (The United States is, afaik, the only country in the world that imposes this punishment on juveniles - of which ~2,500 are currently serving it) That's certainly a consistent approach, but not a particularly popular one the world over. If the only thing you're doing is trying to minimize harm to non-convicts, that's one way to go about it, though. According to the stats for recidivism among persons convicted of homicide, though, you may be over-optimizing. [1] Or not. [2] [1] http://www.newjersey.gov/corrections/pdf/REU/Recidivism_Among_Homicide_Offenders.pdf http://www.newjersey.gov/corrections/pdf/REU/Recidivism_Amon... - In conclusion, none of the 336 homicide offenders committed another murder. However, we found that the highest risk of recidivism for new violent or drug crimes were the felony homicide group (slightly over one-third), followed by the altercation precipitated homicide offenders (27%), which was in sharp contrast to the domestic violence homicide offenders with less than 10% recidivism due to a new violent or drug offense, and the accidental homicides with 17% recidivism due to a new violent or drug offense. [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8689372 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8689372 - A similar study in Finland had a higher recidivism rate for homicide - where people released after serving ~5 years of a homicide sentence were ~14 times more likely then the general population to commit another homicide. The difference could be explained by shorter sentencing. Someone convicted of a homicide at 21, released at 26, is far more likely to be a recidivist then someone convicted at 21, and released at 52.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- thatoneuser 8y ago
  I think the biggest thing we can do is to target individuals in social situations that are more likely to turn to a criminal life and intervene early on. People without parents present, people from places of poverty or crime, etc. Take them in and provide developmental assistance. Maybe that means a mentor, maybe it means giving them respectable clothes or other little items so they can fit into a healthy citizen. People aren’t born criminals. We make them as a society (for the most part). The problems with this of course come down to paying now for a better tomorrow and being able to accurately identify these individuals. Other than that it’s like the problem in health care - we’re trying to treat symptoms that needed to be avoided yesterday.
- pjc50 8y ago
  An epidemiological approach: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/24/violent-crime-cured-rather-than-punished-scottish-violence-reduction-unit https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/24/violent-crime-c... Of course, you have to get past the political demand that there should be marginalised people, and the institutions determined to make some regardless of whether or not they "deserve" it.
jpm_sd 8y ago
This is a great podcast, I've been a fan for a while now. Every episode is worth a listen. Woods' story is just another piece of evidence that "3 strikes" rules have no benefit to society.
- briandear 8y ago
  > another piece of evidence that "3 strikes" rules have no benefit to society. First, I'm glad Woods is out. It's clear he is a changed man. His release was a fair decision by Gov Brown. Would he have been equally as changed if he had only served 3 years? Doubtful, if recidivism statistics are accurate. The Bureau of Justice Statistics report in April 2014. It studied recidivism patterns of 404,638 prisoners released from 2005-2010, from state prisons. Within three years, they were re-arrested at 67.8%, and 76.6% were re-arrested within five-years. 28.6% of inmates were arrested for a violent offense within five-years; 1.7% were for rape or sexual assault and 23.0% for assault. Since a prior criminal record is a good predictor of future offending, the odds are that Woods would have committed another crime had he not been three-striked. As it is, society had 21 years of no further crimes from Mr. Woods as he was incarcerated. Remember, we aren't talking about a petty drug user or shoplifter -- we're talking about a man willing to put a gun in another person's face -- a violent act. I'm happy that Mr. Woods has gotten his life together, but his third "strike" was attempted armed robbery. He wasn't shoplifting a candy bar. We have to ask ourselves, if Woods had gotten 3 years for the armed robbery, wouldn't statistics suggest that he would have committed more crimes, probably violent, such as another armed robbery? 3-strikes rules have no benefit to society? Sure they do -- we had 21 years without another violent crime from Mr. Woods.
  - erentz 8y ago
    Doesn’t your argument also suggest using a 1-strike rule? I think it also calls for looking at why recidivism rates are so high, and what can be done to lower them. If we can lower recidivism rates after the first crime then the benefits would be much greater than using 3-strikes to lower them after the third crime after which two more crimes have already occured.
  - jstarfish 8y ago
RickJWagner 8y ago
What a great story. Good for Woods! I'm going to look that Podcast up, I hadn't heard of it.

86 points by eplanit 8y ago

Any thoughts on a series of better ways to rehabilitate people and get productive members of society instead of marginalized?

scott_s 8y ago
The Vox podcast Future Perfect interviewed Karianne Jackson, a North Dakota prison official, about just that: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/10/17/17983456/future-perfect-podcast-prisons-north-dakota-norway https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/10/17/17983456/futur...
rhizome 8y ago
Restorative justice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice
- jstanley 8y ago
  > Restorative justice is an approach to justice in which the response to a crime is to organize a mediation between the victim and the offender This wouldn't work so well for the large proportion of prisoners who only committed victimless crimes. On second thoughts, maybe it would work even better for those prisoners.
abledon 8y ago
mandatory meditation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkxSyv5R1sg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkxSyv5R1sg for someone to just 'sit' and think about their thoughts for 10 days straight without talking, is HELL for a criminal. they are forced to confront reality, or at least their subjective version of it.
- gdfasfklshg4 8y ago
  10 days of solitary confinement is HELL for anyone. There is a reason that many counties consider solitary confinement to be torture.
  - abledon 8y ago
    vipassana isn't solitary you meditate with other people, usually the course is 20+ people, up to 500
vkou 8y ago
I don't think we have a shortage of ideas for accomplishing this. What we have is a shortage of willpower. All it takes is one asshole being put into a rehabilitation program[1], or one sufficiently high-profile crime committed by someone in a program/on parole, for half the country to sour about prison reform. It's easier to send the bad people to the gulag, and forget about them. Treating crime in a constructive way is expensive, and doesn't work 100% of the time, so why bother? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Tori_Stafford#Aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Tori_Stafford#Afterm...
- briandear 8y ago
  People that kill people or commit violent, life-changing assaults such as rape ought not be rehabilitated, but permanently caged. Nobody accidentally rapes and kills a child. There isn't an argument that a killer/rapist was doing it because they were in poverty and needed money -- instead it's just pure evil. Those types of people should be sent away forever. For non-violent crimes, especially victimless crimes like drug possession, reforms are definitely warranted, but anyone advocating on behalf of convicted, violent criminals gets no respect from me. To get most of the country on board with prison reform, it's not particularly hard: simply exclude anyone who has committed a violent crime from being a part of those reforms. I don't think there are too many rational people out there that want someone to get locked up for 25 years for possessing marijuana or stealing a car.
  - vkou 8y ago
    So, prison reform starts with life sentences, without parole, for all violent offenders? For juvenile offenders, too? (The United States is, afaik, the only country in the world that imposes this punishment on juveniles - of which ~2,500 are currently serving it) That's certainly a consistent approach, but not a particularly popular one the world over. If the only thing you're doing is trying to minimize harm to non-convicts, that's one way to go about it, though. According to the stats for recidivism among persons convicted of homicide, though, you may be over-optimizing. [1] Or not. [2] [1] http://www.newjersey.gov/corrections/pdf/REU/Recidivism_Among_Homicide_Offenders.pdf http://www.newjersey.gov/corrections/pdf/REU/Recidivism_Amon... - In conclusion, none of the 336 homicide offenders committed another murder. However, we found that the highest risk of recidivism for new violent or drug crimes were the felony homicide group (slightly over one-third), followed by the altercation precipitated homicide offenders (27%), which was in sharp contrast to the domestic violence homicide offenders with less than 10% recidivism due to a new violent or drug offense, and the accidental homicides with 17% recidivism due to a new violent or drug offense. [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8689372 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8689372 - A similar study in Finland had a higher recidivism rate for homicide - where people released after serving ~5 years of a homicide sentence were ~14 times more likely then the general population to commit another homicide. The difference could be explained by shorter sentencing. Someone convicted of a homicide at 21, released at 26, is far more likely to be a recidivist then someone convicted at 21, and released at 52.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
thatoneuser 8y ago
I think the biggest thing we can do is to target individuals in social situations that are more likely to turn to a criminal life and intervene early on. People without parents present, people from places of poverty or crime, etc. Take them in and provide developmental assistance. Maybe that means a mentor, maybe it means giving them respectable clothes or other little items so they can fit into a healthy citizen. People aren’t born criminals. We make them as a society (for the most part). The problems with this of course come down to paying now for a better tomorrow and being able to accurately identify these individuals. Other than that it’s like the problem in health care - we’re trying to treat symptoms that needed to be avoided yesterday.
pjc50 8y ago
An epidemiological approach: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/24/violent-crime-cured-rather-than-punished-scottish-violence-reduction-unit https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/24/violent-crime-c... Of course, you have to get past the political demand that there should be marginalised people, and the institutions determined to make some regardless of whether or not they "deserve" it.

jpm_sd 8y ago

This is a great podcast, I've been a fan for a while now. Every episode is worth a listen. Woods' story is just another piece of evidence that "3 strikes" rules have no benefit to society.

briandear 8y ago
> another piece of evidence that "3 strikes" rules have no benefit to society. First, I'm glad Woods is out. It's clear he is a changed man. His release was a fair decision by Gov Brown. Would he have been equally as changed if he had only served 3 years? Doubtful, if recidivism statistics are accurate. The Bureau of Justice Statistics report in April 2014. It studied recidivism patterns of 404,638 prisoners released from 2005-2010, from state prisons. Within three years, they were re-arrested at 67.8%, and 76.6% were re-arrested within five-years. 28.6% of inmates were arrested for a violent offense within five-years; 1.7% were for rape or sexual assault and 23.0% for assault. Since a prior criminal record is a good predictor of future offending, the odds are that Woods would have committed another crime had he not been three-striked. As it is, society had 21 years of no further crimes from Mr. Woods as he was incarcerated. Remember, we aren't talking about a petty drug user or shoplifter -- we're talking about a man willing to put a gun in another person's face -- a violent act. I'm happy that Mr. Woods has gotten his life together, but his third "strike" was attempted armed robbery. He wasn't shoplifting a candy bar. We have to ask ourselves, if Woods had gotten 3 years for the armed robbery, wouldn't statistics suggest that he would have committed more crimes, probably violent, such as another armed robbery? 3-strikes rules have no benefit to society? Sure they do -- we had 21 years without another violent crime from Mr. Woods.
- erentz 8y ago
  Doesn’t your argument also suggest using a 1-strike rule? I think it also calls for looking at why recidivism rates are so high, and what can be done to lower them. If we can lower recidivism rates after the first crime then the benefits would be much greater than using 3-strikes to lower them after the third crime after which two more crimes have already occured.
- jstarfish 8y ago

RickJWagner 8y ago

What a great story. Good for Woods! I'm going to look that Podcast up, I hadn't heard of it.