The creatures that spew out of prisons across the country each day, whether they have served their full term, or have been given an early exit on parole, are ticking time bombs.
Yes, it is uncharitable to suggest that almost all of them will be a menace, but, in truth, that is the case – and almost everyone involved in the criminal justice system knows it.
The recidivism rate in California, for instance, is more than 70 percent – higher than in most places, but reflecting the reality across the land that few of the boys and girls found the Lord when they were behind bars.
For all the intermittent, social service work performed inside prison walls to transform our criminal class into something you wouldn’t be ashamed to bring home to Mom; for every solemn, pseudo-sophisticated parole board hearing that attempts to create the illusion of scientific and legal precision; the end result is that some, many, most of those who walk out the door as “free men” will be back in prison soon enough – hopefully for a crime no more horrific that what they were punished for the first time around.
The dirty little secret of the parole system: Each and every candidate for a get-out-of-jail-free card is unofficially and indirectly given a rule book designed to prevent the criminal justice system from being overly embarrassed when things go bad.
The parolee is expected to return to the neighborhood from whence he came – presumably a bad enough neighborhood so that when the parolee commits another crime, it won’t be front-page news.
And while it is expected that the parolee will be sullen and adrift, he is obligated to pull himself together sufficiently to understand that he may not rape, may not murder, and, to be sure, may not sin in any way against a police officer; a pretty, suburban soccer mom; a child, or a member of the clergy. In other words, stick to your own kind and be sensitive to the public relations associated with parole.
The accoutrements are in place to assure the community that all is well, although, as Massachusetts has discovered to its jarring horror, the safeguards can be more theory than practice – again, not only in Massachusetts, but across the country.
Out And About
Oh, sure, the appropriate folks will be notified that a Creature of the Night is being released into the neighborhood to feast on the good people. An over-tasked, undertrained case worker will monitor the bad boy to be sure he wasn’t late for his job interview with area drug dealers.
But the overarching theme of the nation’s efforts to bring prison costs under control is to keep the criminals out on the street – or to evict them early from their expensive rooms.
At the same moment that Gov. Deval Patrick was purging the parole board and promising magical reforms following the parolee murder of a Woburn police officer, Nebraska was attempting to explain the life and times of one Robert Lewis, who has been convicted of one crime or another 52 times, on charges ranging from drug possession to disturbing the peace to drunk driving. He was just sentenced to four to six years in prison for yet another drunk-driving sin. When he is released, he will be a new man. Count on it.
The vast, right-wing conspiracy has weighed in on the shabbiness of the criminal justice system, suggesting that institutions such as prisons and parole boards and the like be subject to at least the mediocre level of cost-benefit analysis that is applied to other government programs.
As Newt Gingrich explained it, on behalf of the “Right on Crime” initiative, building a bridge isn’t the goal; the objective is long-term reliability.
On the social-service side of the house, the mantra is invariably more money for “community-based” holding pens, drug rehab clinics, and mental health facilities for released prisoners.
Patrick is being praised for being forceful on the parole nightmare, but there is no magic that will prevent the next catastrophe.
As the late, great U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once opined, nobody knows a damn thing about crime. He was kidding. Sort of.
