The WELL: inkwell.vue.303: Jonathan Simon, Governing through Crime

#101: Cynthia Dyer-Bennet (cdb) Fri 31 Aug 07 09:31

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:31:00 PDT

> they still, somehow, might be a danger to the community

But do you really think it's about "danger to the community" at that point? My guess is that it has little to do with maintaining a sense of safety and lots to do with a gut-level desire for punishment and revenge against ... well, evil-doers. [Read entire topic]

#100: Jonathan Simon (jonathan-simon) Thu 30 Aug 07 22:01

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:01:00 PDT

Events like the terrifying rape, kidnapping, murder of a Connecticut family several weeks ago by a pair of persistent but mostly petty criminals, are a big part of what leads people in California and elsewhere to support mass incarceration. As long as there might be one Richard Allen Davis or two in among the seemingly hapless losers who occupy most prison cells many will believe that it is a good idea to keep them all locked up.

After all Governor Schwarzenegger has been reluctant to grant parole even to elderly or physically disabled killers nearing the end of life, they still, somehow, might be a danger to the community.

My strategy has been all about focusing people on the costs to private freedom and civil life that governing through crime has imposed on us all, as well as looking to other kinds of "fears", cancer, global warming, pandemics, that might move Americans off their obsessions with crime.

Still all it takes is another terrible murder, covered endlessly by cable and local news, or even a reminder of an old one like today's release of the report about the Virginia Tech killings (see my blog for more on that) to bring people back to the conviction that locking them and us up makes sense.

It leaves me at a loss for how to talk people down from this kind of fear. [Read entire topic]

#99: Lisa Harris (lrph) Wed 15 Aug 07 12:44

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 12:44:00 PDT

Yeah, but they also need to eat, and rehab work doesn't pay what lock-em up work pays. [Read entire topic]

#98: Ludo, Ergo Sum (robertflink) Sat 11 Aug 07 14:11

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 14:11:00 PDT

>You make more sense than the "put em in jail and throw away the key" idiots.<

It doesn't take much. Those idiots make us look good even if our ideas aren't much more practical.

I understand that those that actually do the work of rehabilitation often burnout due to frustration. You would think superior intellects would be attracted to such a distinct challenge and the public kudos lavished on those that do the rehab work. [Read entire topic]

#97: Lisa Harris (lrph) Thu 9 Aug 07 07:57

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 07:57:00 PDT

Add mt to the ranks of big fat idiots, then. You make more sense than the "put em in jail and throw away the key" idiots. [Read entire topic]

#96: Jack King (gjk) Wed 8 Aug 07 13:23

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 13:23:00 PDT

I'm a big fat idiot. [Read entire topic]

#95: Cynthia Dyer-Bennet (cdb) Wed 8 Aug 07 09:50

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 09:50:00 PDT

Stop that! You're making too much sense, Jack! [Read entire topic]

#94: Jack King (gjk) Tue 7 Aug 07 16:22

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 16:22:00 PDT

Call me a big fat idiot, but while there are people who certainly need to be kept away from the rest of us for the rest of their lives, I think they're quite few. I only represented a few true cold-blooded sociopaths who could not be reformed in my whole adult life.

I say rehabilitate those who are capable of going straight -- many will be technically violated and sent back to the pokey a few times -- but given treatment, education and support, the majority of those folks we're locking away for life for stuff like possession of too much drugs or simple possession of a firearm, or testing postive for marijuana while on parole, are capable of eventually straightening out and becoming tax-payers rather than burdens on the tax-payers.

Which makes more economic sense: two million behind bars at any given moment, or 660,000 behind bars and 1.34 million extra tax-payers to help pa for those 660,000 who won't or can't behave? [Read entire topic]

#93: Jonathan Simon (jonathan-simon) Sun 5 Aug 07 12:25

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 12:25:00 PDT

Some might be interested in an op-ed I published in the LA Times last week calling on Governor Schwarzenegger to go beyond his refreshing frankness about the failures of the prison system to actually embrace a a major reduction in its size.

You can read it at:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-simon1aug01,0,4401279.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail [Read entire topic]

#92: Jonathan Simon (jonathan-simon) Sun 5 Aug 07 12:23

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 12:23:00 PDT

Jim's points about rehabiltation are well taken and I agree with all of them. In 1976 California law was amended to define the purpose of prison as punishment, but some effort at rehabilitation has never died and has Jim points out, has always found its major support among actual prison managers (rather than legislators). Today there is some real momentum behind the idea of bringing rehabilitation back to the fore. Consider that Governor Schwarzenegger actually changed the name of the Department of Corrections to add rehabilitation into the title (bit duplicative of corrections itself, but thats ok). Still I'm ambivalent. With the system now holding nearly 200 thousand inmates (compared with about 10 percent of that number at the height of the rehabilitative era in the '60s) I question whether talk of rehabilitaiton can do any more than legitimize what is a vastly too large system. Lets slim the system down to a third of its current size or less and then we can start talking about appropriate programs to rehabilitate those inside (we will certainly have plenty of space and personnel at that point). [Read entire topic]