Prisoners re-enter society
 

Hi everyone, I think that every person has his right to live in a society no matter even if he was a prisoner in his early life. Most of the prisoners are racial or ethnic minorities and have difficulty in re-entering the society as they are faced with poverty and this leads to crime for which they are re-arrested are convicted and re-incarcerated and this adds a burden on the government in respect of tax-payers. What are your views on this?

We need a reintegration program to help remove the "ex-con" label and reduce the likelihood that they will re-offend and be sent back to prison.

A lot of these individuals have lost their family and career prospects. When you have nothing to lose you have a reduced stake in conforming to laws. Tax payers should have no problem investing in some safety nets for these individuals because it will translate to safety nets for society. It's also cheaper to work on the front end than to have to pay for the (overpopulated) criminal justice system.

Poverty doesn't lead to them committing crimes. Them being criminal douchebags leads to them committing crimes.

I don't feel the least bit sorry for a criminal who goes to prison who has a tough life thereafter. As an employer, I have the right and maybe even a duty to be informed as to whether my employees are violent felons or people who are likely to steal money from me.

Typically, if someone is in prison, it's only because they got caught. They likely committed quite a few other crimes for which they were not caught. Being an ex-con shouldn't give you any special rights or free money. Karma is a bitch.

There are plenty of ex-cons who choose to be gainfully employed law abiding citizens. Life is about choices. Don't make dumb choices.

Correct, poverty doesn't cause crime because that would mean that everyone in poverty was criminal. It is, however, a correlate for certain types of offenses and increases the likelihood of offending for these offenses if other conditions are present.

It isn't really about the ex-prisoner's "choice" to be employed. It is more about the choice of the employers to hire ex-prisoners. Considering the structure of the penal system, the average parolee (one who isn't in love with being incarcerated) would much rather have a job and family to turn to rather than go back to prison.

Considering the structure of our penal system, it isn't just about "criminal douchebags," either. There are a lot of low level and nonviolent offenders whose offenses would not have resulted in incarceration had they not been poor and without legal representation.

Main point: Tax payers and concerned citizens can pay now or pay later. But we WILL pay. Pay in a literal and/or figurative sense.

We need another million man march.

Criminality is a choice. Sure, that choice is influenced by outside factors. However, if we start to excuse that choice due to those factors, we tend to absolve people of responsibility for their own actions. I don't want to ever see someone be able to legitimately raise the defense that "society" made them steal a car, etc.

And they get those jobs in many cases. In many cases they don't. Given the limited ability of the government to hep folks, I'd prefer to return the money to our productive taxpayers rather than use it to improve the prospects of ex-cons.

I wouldn't want to hire those people either -- I don't want addicts and white collar criminals working for me. It's something employers have the right to know and if they're smart, they will discriminate against these people. It's fair because those people did the crime they were convicted of and it's smart because the employer is just shielding himself from having issues down the road.

Put yourself in the place of the employer. What are you going to do when you have two applications on your desk -- one is a felon, the other is not. What is your choice going to be?

So these wastes of oxygen are either going to rob us literally or rob us via government mandate? If that's the case, we might as well make them work for it :)

As I said, tax payers can pay now or pay later. You will pay. :)

:rolleyes:

You pay too. The criminals will be living in your hood not mine.

The death penalty for repeat offenders solves the problem.

You mean, I'm a tax payer, too? :eek:

I borrowed this line in the Foreclosures thread .. hope that was ok with you :)


There are some things we do for the betterment of society in general. Some people just don't get that.

:)

(Just PM me the royalty check.)

So for whatever reason I missed this thread until the clone-thread popped up in "Chit Chat" yesterday. However, I thought I'd put in my 2 cents.

I don't know how familiar anyone is with "specialty courts" like Drug Courts or Mental Health Courts but to me, these programs are a large improvement on the current criminal judicial system for certain types of defendants. Having these courts acknowledge that a significant portion of criminal defendants are committing crimes based on the influence of substance abuse or based on their struggle with a severely debilitating mental illness. I think that having these programs are the first step in trying to rehabilitate certain defendants who might simply need a more comprehensive program integrating medical professionals with the legal system. One thing I'm 100% convinced of is that the current incarceration/parole system does not work to help defendants with severe drug or mental health issues get over the issues that led them to breaking the law to begin with. And unless we have a system that works, we're either going to have to pay to keep these people incarcerated or have to deal with their crimes that are a symptom of a greater problem.

As far as gaining employment, that is a touchy subject. Other than passing some type of legislation eliminating liability for an employer who gives someone a job knowing that person was convicted of a serious crime (which would be crappy for fellow employees that might become victims) there really isn't much of an answer besides spending a lot of time in low-level jobs proving that you can hold a job and not revert to past behavior. Maybe some type of tax benefits to employers that have a certain percentage of former felons? I don't know what the answer is, really.