It was the Beatles who gave us the line, "it was 20 years ago today, Sergeant
Pepper taught the band to play...." That was an anniversary worth
remembering. Here at LCC, next Friday will mark 20 years since this facility
was opened and the administration is going all out to celebrate. How odd, they
want to celebrate a place where 1 out of 3 offenders ends up cycling back in to
the system within the first 12 months of release; they want to celebrate a
facility that costs Virginia taxpayers over $27 million each year to house,
clothe, feed, and not much else; approximately 1000 offenders, most of which have
been through the system at least once before. They want to celebrate their
successes, except there are no matrix to measure success.
You know how things run around here--the worst building on the compound is the
"re-entry" building. The guys are off the chain and the staff will
tell you they have little control over how things run. The state spends over
$100k on an "evidence Based" manager of reentry who is regularly
cussed out by the residents of his re-entry pod because he isn't a straight
shooter. The re-entry programs--which the state spent millions on to a private
contractor--are long on touchy-feely “clap for the word of the day" and
short on actual drug and alcohol programs and work skills necessary to succeed.
Participants in re-entry can miss school; their re-entry programs are
"that important" to the offender's overall "success."
Really? Every study done suggests offenders (at least 50% of whom lack even a
high school diploma) need more education, more training in real skills for
living outside of ere.
But that doesn't matter. See DOC operates as an independent body; there is
little government oversight over control. No one, it seems, is looking at the
massive expenditures in money and manpower wasted throughout the system. And
before you say, "these guys deserve it," LCC is not a high security
facility. Most of Virginia's prisons are level 1 and level 2 which means the
vast majority of the men (and women at other spots) are within 5 years of
release.
Where is the oversight? Where is the independent audit and control? Where is
the real effort at "corrections"? It certainly isn't here.
Know why all these prisons are around? Because Bill Clinton, facing public
embarrassment and scorn sold his soul to the Gingrich controlled congress and
signed the Prison Litigation Reform Act. In it, the Feds gave billions in block
grants to the states to build more prisons. And the states did just that. Only
it backfired because the fed money dried up, incarceration rates went through
the roof and the system became even more bloated and corrupt. Both Bill Clinton
and Newt Gingrich admit today they erred; both now are advocates of criminal
justice overhaul.
Anniversary celebration? Celebrate this--entire generations of low income, low
educated citizens are cycling through the system and nothing being done in here
is either making you safer or correcting the problem. You want punishment, that's
fine. But the ramifications of a corrupt system that overwhelmingly punishes
and fails to rehabilitate is anger, bitterness and the likelihood that once
released you'll be back.
"Happy" anniversary--hardly. Those folks who live out here know the
real score--no other businesses want to locate near the prison. And the staff?
They've been busy taking employee surveys to understand why morale is so bad
and attrition is so high. Instead of an anniversary celebration perhaps there
should be a wake.