Re-entry or Revolving Door?

I recently received an email posting from “Virginia C.U.R.E.” – an organization dedicated to the successful integration of Virginia’s incarcerated back into society – concerning another Virginia Prison’s re-entry program. Posted by an inmate at Dillwyn Correction Center (a carbon copy of this facility), the writer points out that the re-entry initiative is “alive … but it is not well.” It’s as if he’s seeing the same thing at Dillwyn that I encounter here every day. Worse, as the writer points out, the program is “fully funded” (even while other programs lag due to funding problems) yet still not fully implemented.

            

The premise behind the Governor’s re-entry initiative is laudable. When 1 out of 3 released offenders finds his – or her – way back into prison within a year of release, something is horribly wrong. Prisons must be a place of rehabilitation and preparation for returning offenders to society as productive, law-abiding citizens. The cost to feed, house, and maintain an offender in prison is huge (over $25,000 per year). And, as the inmate population ages (20% of Virginia’s inmates are now over 55) the costs dramatically increase to $75,000 – or more – per year. Ninety percent of those behind bars will walk out. Their success – or failure – has a dramatic economic impact on the Commonwealth.

            

Governor McDonnell understood this from the outset of his term. With a combination of economic practicality and Christian grace theory, the Governor created a framework for preparing soon to be released inmates for return to their communities. But, as this blog has repeatedly pointed out, those “re-entry initiative” goals don’t match with the reality of life behind bars.

            

For one thing, nothing changed inside the walls. There is no impetus for an offender to aggressively seek to change. Be a model inmate, take every program available, work, and you still serve 85% of your sentence. Be a clown, you serve 100%. On a three year sentence that equates to about four months.

            

And the way prisons are run, with little regard for the actual rules and policies in place, creates an environment where favoritism and arbitrary enforcement of policies is the norm. Wardens have unreasonable leeway in enforcing DOPs (Department Operating Procedures); grievance and charge procedures are routinely ignored. It is, simply put, a rigged game and the offender population knows it. Anything proposed by “the police” is looked at with skepticism.

            

The second problem is the inmate himself. The vast majority of men and women behind bars lack basic work skills. They write poorly; they are incapable of even basic math calculations; reading comprehension – following written instructions – is beyond the skill level of most of the incarcerated. I am the exception. Most men here have never known educational success. They have never had steady, meaningful employment; many have never had a checking account, used a credit card (legitimately), managed their finances, saved, or bought a house.

            

The Governor’s re-entry initiative pays lip service to the building of marketable skills. The program instead focuses on inane group programs where offenders are given a “word of the day” and then attend group meetings. What is needed is more like a work skills boot camp with education: reading comprehensions, mathematics, oral and written communication skills, and technology training (computer keyboard use is a must!).

           

But, education and skills training take a backseat to re-entry programs. Nothing makes that case more than stating for the hundredth time that Virginia government provides $0 to prison higher education even though earning a degree in prison virtually guarantees that the inmate will not re-offend after release.

            

Finally, there are the “unit managers” and “cognitive counselors,” the fancy titled employees of the Department of Corrections who run the re-entry program. They come with the mindset of a DOC employee, a mindset that says group matters over the individual (even down to the long-term treatment needs of the offender), and security trumps program. Counselor is a misnomer. There is no counseling. There is also no “thinking outside the box.” They run – and manage – the program line by line as it is spelled out in the department re-entry directive.

            

They enforce silly rules which change almost weekly, and operate their groups with almost god-like power. Inmates who curry favor are routinely given plum assignments. They schedule multiple meetings daily and lead men to give up jobs and miss school to attend their programs.

            

They operate off a script. Our building’s cognitive counselor, a flitty forty-something woman, regularly tells the men “I am your role model.” She hands out syrupy psychological advice from her office covered in posters of kittens, balloons, and trite six-word goal statements while knowing nothing of the men’s pasts or their dreams and aspirations.

            

Completing the program is more important than meaningful change. That’s sad because this re-entry program is showing no better recidivism results than prior efforts. And from the inside, the answer is obvious.

            

There must be department buy in. DOC must be willing to adapt. Wardens, treatment managers, unit managers, and counselors must be held accountable. Their charges’ (the inmates they work with) re-entry success should be used to grade them. And re-entry should be squarely focused on work skills; job training, education, life skills, not the soft, ambiguous program pushed now.

            

Rehabilitation is an expensive process … but so is locking someone up. It’s time those dollars are used effectively – and only once. Prison should be a chapter, not entire life story.