Prison Path
Warehouse or Rehabilitate Drug Offenders
In 2013, the United states had 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s inmates. One major cause of too many prisons and too many inmates is the excessive incarceration rate of non-violent inmates. A large number of non-violent inmates are incarcerated for drug offenses. The majority of our prisons and jails warehouse the drug offenders without effective drug rehabilitation programs. This approach unfortunately continues upon the release of inmates into the community.
In 2012, more than 52,000 people were arrested in New Jersey for drug violations. Drug charges are the largest category of arrests every year in New Jersey. In New Jersey, over the last five years, it was recognized by the state and by certain local communities that drug addiction was a disease and not a crime. Gov. Chris Christie has moved the state towards treatment rather than incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders. Governor Christie has advocated prison reform as a way to save tax dollars. In 2012, he helped pass bipartisan legislation mandating drug treatment instead of incarceration for non-violent offenders. He has made it clear that drug treatment and not jail sentences was the path for reduction of crime.
On the local level in New Jersey, in Hudson County, the Correctional Facility director Oscar Aviles, and former Gov. Jim McGreevey, have instituted a holistic approach to treat drug offenders. Hudson’s prison program has provided counseling, group therapy and education to inmates. But this program goes one step further by supporting the former inmates with housing, employment options, and outpatient treatment services.
The recidivism statistics in Hudson County show that true rehabilitation programs will always prevail over warehousing and neglect of the incarcerated. Since 2009, just 23 percent of almost 700 inmates who have participated in the Hudson County program were re-arrested—while non-participants had a 55 percent recidivism rate.
By: Bradley Schwartz
Founder of prisonpath.com
Erica Johnson, Ph.D.
Offender Reentry/Life Skills Coach and Diversity Consultant
I was both shocked and disappointed to learn that rehabilitation of offenders was not a priority of the agency where I was formerly employed. We should equip inmates with skills necessary for successful reentry and not just warehouse them with little interest in their future.
shaukat mahmood
Member Health Foundation at Government Punjab Pakistan
There is a report that there are more prisons in US than the colleges.Apparently govt. Likes to have more prisoners that educated people.BradleyUS is ruled by corporations Only 35 percent of people in US exercise their right to vote in elections.this means governments are not representative of more than half the population.Above all elections are bought by business sector,Prisons are run by private profits.
I’m so tired of repeating myself over this nonsense of “mass incarceration” etc. that I wrote a book to shatter this and all the other myths about our criminal justice system. In 1790 a group of religious fanatics decided that prisons should “correct” people through “penance” by locking them up with only a bible to read. The experiment was a failure but prisons have been stuck with that impossible mission ever since. I say impossible because no other institution in the world expects them to transform people into what they’re not. Churches aren’t held accountable if people don’t turn into… Read more »
I spent 27+ years in State Corrections retiring from the dual titles of Executive Hearing Officer and Department policy and procedure custodian and coordinator. There are two categories of offenders that we have been warehousing with tragic results since the 1970’s; those being non-violent drug addicts and the mentally ill. Many people in both groups are incapable of taking care of themselves in the community at some point in their lives and have few places to turn for help. There are waiting lists at the few treatment facilities that will accept non or under-insured men and women, and even then,… Read more »
Good idea… no need for incarceration for non-violent drug users… while were at it, anyone who skips out on millions in taxes should be put into a program to teach them about the benefits of paying taxes; anyone who doesn’t pay their child support should just be given a slap on the wrist; people selling dope on the street (to YOUR children) should be put through a D.A.R.E. program. All we’re teaching these junkies is that it’s ok to go out and commit a felony crime, we’ll take care of you (and in most cases, foot the bill too). As… Read more »
Interesting topic – I question whether some folks can be or want to be rehabilitated or if there is the public will or money to do so. Some people need to be locked up and SOCIETY needs to be protected from these predators. We will see first hand in California how this actually works. Several things have occurred in the last several years and most recently with the passage of a new law that will show how releasing a large felon prison population interacts with society. Many years ago the USSC issued its edict to California to reduce the prison… Read more »
I have a couple of concerns with this discussion. One is the title suggests that warehousing aka incarceration and rehabilitation are mutually exclusive where they usually are not. Many prisons and personnel run fine rehabilitation programs. As Nick suggested you cannot force someone to be rehabilitated or accept change. But worse is that field professionals are assuming that prisons don’t offer good programming and staff don’t care beyond job self protection. It is simply not true. My second concern is partially a question. What is a non-violent offender? I realize it is determined by statute in each jurisdiction but some… Read more »
From an academic point of view you are correct Ms. Seward. However, in the trenches, inside our prisons, the number 1 concern of every offender is survival. Yes there are good people and programs in many systems. There are many who strive their entire careers to make positive improvements to the system and in the lives of those offenders they are able to help. I like to count myself among those. But you must be aware of recent research that suggests that once an offender completes treatment in a prison based program and is returned to general population, within 6… Read more »
I wonder why no one seems to be drawing the conclusion that mandatory sentencing and “warehousing” of offenders has at least had some impact on crime rates. All across the country, crime rates are for the most part down…..and this was during an economic down trend. Inmate numbers are also at an all time high. Seems the instructors I had in college that taught us the police did not impact crime because it was related to societal ills were wrong ! Without beating a dead horse here, we don’t have sanitariums anymore and we have never been successful at “corrections.”… Read more »
Antoine Ensley Antoine Antoine Ensley Human Resource Analyst/Recruitment Consultant at City of Charlotte I am often taken back when I read some of the comments related to these issues in various forums. Unfortunately, most are substantially unaware of the substantive issues related to mass incarceration. As a nation we ventured away from prisons being a place for potential rehabilitation many years ago. The indutry is far too lucrative for real solutions. This is already a national issue, when it becomes a national priority we may see some a movement. Familes and children are negatively imapcted by this current failed system.… Read more »
Unaware of the substantive issues related to mass incarceration ? Really ? I’m at least enough of a realist to question the mindset of having only one prison in Florida ( Florida State Prison – home of death row) and the rest “Correctional Institutions.” And I disagree with the suggestion that I am unaware. I believe it would be more accurate to say I,and others, simply see the world differently. I respect your opinion, I just don’t agree.
By Mike
This subject has been demagogued to death lately… Many drug offenders have a priori violent criminal record as well, so be mindful when throwing around that all purpose label as you look to open the gates of hell… Incarceration is about warehousing? News flash! It serves incapacitation and retribution, two well known purposes of punishment… In most cases rehabilitation is pointless, it’s more like habilitation would be the goal… This mantra over America’s high incarceration rate is disingenuous: we are a country of law & order, so the high incarceration rate should only be evidence of consistent success. Have you… Read more »
I agree with Thomas Anderson’s comments. The issue of drug generated crime and those caused by the mentally ill zombies walking our streets are tremendous issues that need to be addressed. Even though I believe Reagan was one of the greatest presidents we have ever had; when he was Gov. of California he removed funding for almost 50% of the mental health facilities we had on-line at the time. Once he did that, the care and housing of those individuals fell the jails and prisons, who were and currently are ill-equipped to handle these people. The care of many of… Read more »
Just a few observations. If hospitals had success rates in the 20 to 30% range they’d be out of business. I’ll have to let everyone in Canada and Europe know they live in lawless societies. There are many things that impact on crime rates like unemployment rates and the size of the age cohort that commit most crimes. In NJ we reduced our prison population from 31000 in 1999 down to 21000 in 2014 while not increasing our crime rate and maintaining one of the lowest recidivism rates in the country. Government made a major investment in reentry progams for… Read more »
The deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill began in the 1950’s but reached it’s peak in 1973 when a federal court ruled that mental patients who performed work during confinement were employees and should be paid minimum wage. It was down hill from there. Instead of making mental institutions more humane, as they needed to be, they were closed and it became harder to commit someone. The good news is that for the past 20 years the CJS has been transforming by problem solving strategies. All this punishment vs rehab stuff is old school. The common mission of the CJS is… Read more »
All of the opinions expressed have made interesting points. Yet, it does not make any sense tax wise or moral wise to lock up the mentally ill. It is too easy to say that crimes rates have fallen because the incarceration rates are at an all time high. One of the factors for increased crime rates in the 1970’s–1990’s was the closing of the state hospitals which had treated the mentally ill. Approximately, 700,000–800,000 former patients were released during this period into the local communities. Many did not receive treatment and became part of the increased crime rates. This is… Read more »
The same deinstitutionalization mentality that was behind the closing of mental hospitals is behind the prison reform movement. Reformers would argue that they want prisons to remain open but only for the most violent offenders such as serial murderers and rapists.
When I was at NIC a popular cliche was that we should lock up people we were afraid of and not those that we were mad at. My response was that any policy based on either fear or anger was bad policy. As I said before, answers should be based on reason instead of pure emotion.
By Ed
I agree that answers should not be based on pure emotion and that’s why my answer was based on facts.Present incarceration policies should be based on what really led to such high incarceration rates and what can resolve these issues.
By Bradley
Bradley. You did base your answer on facts. The point I was trying to make is that now that we’ve deinstitutionalized the mentally ill and created a bigger problem, that same mentality seems to be at work in the prison reform movement (except of course for the most violent offenders as they would tell you).
By Ed
Don’t know about the probation side in NJ but on the parole side I doubt that’s happening. Our parole officers are considered law enforcement and carry weapons. Don’t see them ignoring new crimes.
Ninty Five % of offenders will be released. We need to insure while they are in our care and custody that we attempt to impact the behavior that led to to their CJS involvement.
Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 1 hour ago.
By James
It is true that drug abuse can cause on health & develop many type of disease. The main point is that many Religion are against the use of “Alcohol & Drugs”, therefore people do not use drugs. These countries have less problem for keeping people in jail or in hospital for treatment which save money for these countries. [This problem should be [discuss] taught at very young age that will reduce the drug abuse].
By Manny
Drug abuse should not be a crime.. It is a physiological problem that needs to be treated with services the AA NA rehabilitation centers… If it was decriminalized the prison system would lose money!!! So I would have to say yes it is warehousing inmates.. I feel that if we can rehabilitate people and provide the proper services for them. Crime rates would go down and job rates would rise.. And tax payers wouldn’t be stuck with the bill to house them in prisons.. Save the prisons for real criminals that are deserving of punishment… Just desert
By Felicia
Felicia. Crime rates have gone done by quite a lot. Please read my prior post with the stats. This is despite more unemployment.
“Save the prisons for real criminals that are deserving of punishment… Just desert”
Who are these people that do and do not deserve punishment and incarceration or the “real” criminals?
By Ed
I read your last comment. Yes I’m not sure how low recidivism rates dropped but if we could combine restorive justice with retubutive justice we might have a real chance for recidivism rates to genuinely drop because people see the error of their ways and want to change not because parole/probation officers are being told not to violate them for minor offenses…
By Felicia
Prisons should be used for real criminals.. Drug addicted people don’t deserve to be in prison.. The need help just like the mentally I’ll is being put in jails and prisons when they need to be in a hospital…
By Felicia
You have a good case for tuition reimbursement…
By Jose
Felicia. You seem to believe the fantasy spread by your professors and others that our prisons are filled with people who are guilty of nothing more than “using” or “abusing” drugs. This brings to mind some poor slobs minding their own business in the privacy of their own homes smoking weed or doing a few lines of coke when the SWAT team breaks down their door and hauls them off to the big house. Like I’ve said countless times before, there’s not a single police force in the country or the world that has the resources or time to spend… Read more »