I Don't Believe in Prison Reform Pt. 3
The One That Changes Everything
If you have missed Part One or Part Two of this series, they are available through the hyperlinks. Portions of this post are paywalled to protect unique concepts in consideration for publishing. While talking with Troy last week about our final installment in this series, he told me about a serial killer once housed in one of his facilities.
“Apparently, this guy had a pair of handcuffs without a set of keys. He would pick up prostitutes, murder them, and then cut their hands off to get his handcuffs back. He ended up making a deal with the prosecutor and got like 30 years.
I remember thinking, ‘God Almighty, I hope you never get out of here.’”
We agree that there is a stark difference between people who chop up other people and those who kill someone in a DUI accident. Sadly, however, our justice system doesn’t really care to make a distinction— it doles out punishment in arbitrary and disconnected ways.
Case in point: Troy got 60-90 years for a terrible, life-altering, split-second decision and that serial killer (from just a few counties over) got 30 years for four premeditated rapes and murders.
This is why ‘reforming’ the prison system a little bit every year gets us absolutely nowhere. For far too long we have shoved all criminals into the same cages, treating them as though they are alike—
They are not.
Intake
Though it varies slightly across the country, prison intake is generally a plug-and-play operation. All new prisoners are driven to the same high-security ‘reception’ facility where they begin incarceration. Here, they are quarantined in cells for 23-hours per day for approximately 6-8 weeks.
During this stay, inmates undergo basic medical, psychological, and educational evaluations. It is here that they also receive their official ‘security classification.’ The latter will tell how dangerous they are according to measures on their charges, escape risk, behavior history, known enemies, and protective custody needs. Troy discussed the end goal of this process in an email:
“D.O.C. classification basically asks, “How dangerous or unmanageable is this person?” and then applies mechanical control accordingly.”
After some basic health screens and an brief ‘orientation,’ it’s back to solitary where they wait until they are abruptly bussed to the next stop on their journey— The Big House— where the ‘badder’ you are, the more attention and resources you get.
“From the moment we enter prison, we are jockeying to convince others of our dangerous nature. Prisoners wear those high classifications like badges. In here, it is good to be considered unmanageable and unpredictable because in a dog-eat-dog environment, the meanest dog wins the prize.
You could be in for jaywalking but it’s easy to become a top dog— all you have to do is act out, refuse to lock down, or threaten a C.O. and they will quickly give you an official certification declaring you Billy Badass. Level IV and Level V are assumed to be the real scary ones— the ones about which we make movies.”
Really though, those tiers are full of little boys who never got any attention for the right things.
Categories
The current process lumps all ‘offenders’ into the same playpen straight away.
Though most crimes are classified as failures of civic responsibility (an offense against society’s rules), Troy and I concede that even the most basic rule-breaking can be viewed as some type of moral failure (an offense against human decency or conscience). In fact, we believe we need to be a bit more specific here.
When a person commits a crime, they are acting out of one of the following:
Moral/mental deviance
Moral disability
Moral incompetency
“In the first category, moral and mental deviance refers to individuals who commit crimes in a fully-informed state, with foreknowledge and cruel intent— like the serial-killer example above. We are talking about predatory individuals who take pleasure in harming or exploiting others.
These people are inherently dangerous, and they need to be incapacitated.
If we apply justice with our Aristotelian ethics, this group should be housed in a facility that supports their full human potential under close psychiatric care for, likely, the rest of their days. The models we are about to discuss do not include space for these individuals.
This whole category is a consideration for another day.”
Troy’s blueprint will be laid out below for those who fall into categories two and three.
“My ideas apply to those with poor impulse control, ignorance, or impaired reasoning. These individuals have not been ill-willed so much as they are ill-skilled. Most examples of drug, property, and public order offenses fall into this category— the crimes by which most young people initially get caught up in the system.
These folks are in the grips of addiction or another serious condition of lack— lack of education, lack of social support, lack of resources, or lack of cognitive awareness.”
Only after we agree that not all criminals can be placed in the same long chain-gang of deplorables can we move forward with some fresh ideas for how we ‘do’ prison in America.
Here are Troy's big ideas—