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The criminal justice system isn't broken

The Indianapolis Recorder - 10/19/2017

Is the criminal justice system broken?

If you are like me, you answered a resounding "yes."

However, we have it wrong. Really wrong.

This week, the Marion County Re-entry Coalition hosted a conference focused on re-entry. Attendees of the conference included several nonprofits that work with ex-offenders, housing representatives, elected officials, criminal justice professionals and various individuals who represent city and state departments.

The keynote speaker of the conference was Deanna Hoskins, senior policy advisor for Corrections and Re-entry, Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance.

When Hoskins posed the question of whether or not the criminal justice system was broken, most attendees said yes.

But as I mentioned before, that was the incorrect answer.

As Hoskins noted, the criminal justice system is not broken. As a matter of fact, it is operating just as the powers that be planned for it to operate.

According to the Federal Interagency Reentry Council, "The cost of imprisonment and jail in the past 20 years has grown at a faster rate than nearly any other state budget item."

It costs an average of $78.95 a day to house an inmate, and the United States spends an excess of $68 billion a year on corrections - federal, state and local.

Now do you understand how the criminal justice system is working optimally and exceeding expectations?

There probably isn't a person reading these words who has not been impacted by the penal system in some capacity or another. Either you have personally been incarcerated, a family member has been incarcerated or even a friend. Or, you may be impacted in another way. Perhaps you are an employer who hires ex-offenders, or maybe you work for an organization that helps that demographic.

I recently had an extensive conversation with someone whose husband is currently in prison. We spoke about a wide variety of things relative to prison and the criminal justice system in general.

Prison takes a toll on inmates and their families. While I firmly believe people should be punished for their wrongdoing, I also believe that the punishment should be fair and consistent across the board. Unfortunately, that is not the case, as data show that time and time again, Black and brown people are incarcerated far more often than their white counterparts, and the time that minorities serve is significantly longer than the time served by whites - even when the same crime is committed and the individuals' criminal history (or lack thereof) are consistent.

For the sake of privacy, I will refer to the woman I spoke with as Mary. Mary's husband has been incarcerated for three years, and he has four more to go before he is eligible for release.

Mary and I chatted about simple things like the phone calls inmates are allowed to make. The prison her husband is at only allows inmates to talk on the phone for 300 minutes per month - regardless of how much money they may have on their books designated for phone calls. An important part of an offender's effective re-entry into society is that they have some sense of understanding of the outside world upon their return. They also need to be emotionally sound - having consistent conversations with family and friends help in these efforts. However, five hours per month of conversation with an "outsider" is not a lot of time for an inmate. In addition, the cost of the phone calls is astronomical, making it impossible for many inmates who don't have a lot of resources or outside support to converse with loved ones. Inmate calls can be as much as $1.50 per minute. To make calls, most family members of inmates must set up accounts with private companies who hold money deposited by family members to support the calls. The companies generally have contracts with federal and state prisons, in which the prisons receive commission from the call revenue. Under President Obama, the Federal Communications Commission pressed to limit the cost of prison calls; however, President Donald Trump's FCC leader reversed that action.

Again, do you see that the criminal justice system is actually working?

Prison is supposed to reform inmates. Access to education while incarcerated helps inmates prepare for life outside of the prison walls, but now, many prisons have little to no educational programs for inmates. As a matter of fact, some only have GED-type programs, which do nothing for an individual who has graduated high school or even completed college. If prisons are receiving nearly $80 a day per inmate, there should be more resources available to them while incarcerated.

Don't get me wrong; I know that prisons aren't designed to be luxury hotels or even model college campuses. However, if we truly want to see recidivism reduced and more inmates effectively reintegrate into society, we must prepare them for it while they are on the inside.

Ex-offenders face so many challenges once released. Simply getting acclimated to life outside prison walls is a challenge, just as finding employment and securing housing are challenges for ex-offenders.

The government has made a business out of prison, specifically by incarcerating minorities and price gouging basic services such as phone calls. As the criminal justice system is designed now, upon release, many offenders are expected to fail. That is why the work of local organizations that aim to help ex-offenders is so important. That is why it is also imperative that each one of us holds our elected officials accountable by ensuring any promises they made regarding criminal justice reform are actually executed.