The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

BY CAROLINA CORDERO DYER/ MARCH 2003

(For) felons who have paid their debt to society? we have to work hard to get them jobs so that they come back into society and become contributors to society, rather than being dependent on it.

Mayor Bloomberg, New York Daily News. August 12, 2002

Our first goal is clear: We must have an economy that grows fast enough to employ every man and woman who seeks a job.

President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address. January

Introduction
The United States locks up two million people each year, with another 4.6 million are under criminal justice supervision (parole or probation). Most of those involved in our criminal justice system have been convicted of non-violent offenses; many for drug charges. A quarter of the entire world?s prisoners are locked up in this country, although the United States represents only five per cent of the world?s population. In fact, the United States has a higher rate of incarceration than any country in the world including Russia, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Indonesia.

Our philosophy of ?locking people up and throwing away the key? has clearly not worked. Sentences in the United States are exceedingly long: five to six times those in Western Europe and Canada.1 Yet, recidivism remains high. Nationally, 51% of people released from prison return within three years.2 In New York, it?s worse: two out of three will return within three years. And, studies demonstrate that a longer prison term doesn?t make someone less likely to get arrested again.3

In spite of all our tough-on-crime rhetoric in New York, most people that we lock up come home. Across the country, more than 600,000 inmates were released into society last year. New York State released 32,000, and 78% of them returned to New York City. In the same period, the New York State Division of Parole had more than 70,000 former prisoners under supervision, the vast majority of whom resided in New York City. In addition, more than 130,000 New Yorkers cycle through New York City's lock ups and jails each year.

All this doesn?t come cheap. New York spends $32,000 annually to lock someone up in a state facility; $64,000 in a city jail. In New York City, we spend $9,739 to educate a young person in a public high school each year,4 but $131,000 a year to detain a juvenile in a facility.5 In a public budget climate of looming deficits of a magnitude we have never seen, incarceration dollars squeeze City and State budgets, taking essential dollars away from health care, education, care for the elderly, and other hallmarks of a civilized society.

If the goal of our criminal justice system is to keep people safer and communities stronger, it is failing. Prisons are a very expensive revolving door. We imprison many, and spend a great amount of money doing it, and then welcome them right back in. They don?t become productive citizens, and there are more victims of crime, not fewer. If we want to keep our streets safer, we need to pay as much attention to what keeps pushing people through that jail door, as we do to what happens when they get out.

Employment stops the revolving door
Marc La Cloche faced a classic "Catch-22" upon his return from a twelve-year bid in upstate prisons. He had obtained his GED in prison and was trained as a barber by the State of New York in its prison system. Yet, upon his release, he was denied certification as a barber's apprentice from the State of New York's licensing authorities.6 New York did not permit him to cut hair -- the trade he learned inside New York's prison walls.

Mr. La Cloche's story is just one example of the challenges ex-prisoners face when they try to get free from the revolving door of incarceration. While there are many factors that contribute to whether someone returning to society is able to make it or not, employment is critical. People with jobs commit fewer crimes than people without jobs. According to the New York State Department of Labor, 83% of people who violate the terms of probation and parole are unemployed at the time of violation. In a Texas study, an unemployed ex-prisoner is three times more likely to return to prison than one who has a job.7 According to the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center, ?Having a legitimate job lessens the chances of re-offending following release from prison.?8

Employing people with criminal records has tremendous benefits to society:

It saves money, a concern that is more important than ever before. For every 500 people with criminal records employed in lieu of receiving welfare, a minimum of $4 million is saved annually. For every 500 people employed in lieu of returning to prison, $15 million is saved.
Employed people are less likely to commit crimes and return to prison, thereby enhancing public safety.
Prisoners return to communities already plagued by high levels of unemployment, poor public schools, and families ripped apart by the impact of crime and incarceration. Providing jobs to returning ex-offenders helps build communities instead of putting even more pressure on fragile neighborhoods.
The challenges to ex-prisoner employment
Inmates released from a New York State facility typically receive $40 and a bus ticket to the Port Authority. The lucky ones have families or friends who will take them in. Many others find their way to the City shelter system -- unemployed and homeless. Finding a decent job that pays a living wage is very hard for someone with a prison record. The challenges come from both the set-up for failure that the prison experience itself creates as well as the roadblocks that government policies have created.

Imprisonment undermines an individual's future work prospects. While prisoners hold "jobs," these jobs do not prepare them for work in the real economy. Typically, prison jobs teach inmates to work "dumber" by splitting one job into several small jobs. Nor are there consequences for doing a prison job slowly or poorly. No reward is given for creativity or initiative, and certainly none for teamwork, a concept that makes corrections officers uneasy. An inmate who has adapted well to prison has not been primed for a job in the community. Behavior learned in prison to survive -- toughness, "attitude", and isolation -- is the exact opposite of what is needed to be successful on the outside.

The restrictions that prisons impose on an adult's independence, spontaneity, and self confidence are internalized over time. After years in a crowded and confined environment, a prisoner reacts to the world's ordinary stresses with despair, hypersensitivity to disrespect, and alternating fearfulness and anger. The regimentation of prison life can erode a person's capacity to plan an orderly day, navigate the subways, make it to an appointment on time, or respond flexibly to the smallest of stumbling blocks. Because they lack usable work experience, many are pessimistic about their prospects for finding employment upon release. This pessimism expresses itself in many ways. Some ignore the future and refuse to make plans for employment. Others make plans that are unrealistic or require illegal behavior.

When released, the former prisoner enters the job market yards short of the starting line. Eight in ten have a history of substance abuse, and many are sober for the first time in their lives. Many have never been employed outside of prison. The majority of those returning to New York City do not have a high school diploma. Many have poor critical thinking skills and cannot read.

The recession and the September 11th attacks brought an immediate reduction in the low-skilled, entry-level jobs that former prisoners are qualified for -- maintenance workers, clerks, messengers, food services workers. And the competition for these jobs in the New York City area -- always great -- has become greater than ever. Because the dismal state of the New York economy has led to layoffs, more highly skilled workers, who once would have rejected the jobs former prisoners seek, are now desperate for a job -- any job.

Further, former prisoners carry an additional disadvantage that shows itself every time he encounters an employment application's unforgiving question: Have you ever been convicted of a crime? In addition to fears and prejudice on the part of employers, many are restricted from certain types of employment, including caring for the elderly, airline security, healthcare, plumbing and even as we've seen, cutting hair.

Improving the system
How do we change the system to increase the chances of ex-prisoners finding the jobs that can keep them from repeating their crimes?

One, prisons and jails should provide realistic job training programs to every inmate, giving them skills that are marketable when they get out. At a minimum, require all prisoners to get a GED while incarcerated and provide the capacity for them to do so.

Two, we should expand the use of community supervision, including work release and parole. It is ironic that politicians proclaim that ending parole or restricting work release enhances public safety. On the contrary, these programs serve as an important bridge between confinement and an independent, productive life on the outside. We should certainly not release inmates directly from maximum-security prisons and special housing units (SHUs or "prisons within prisons"). There is a radical difference between the amounts of independence and decision-making an inmate can exercise while incarcerated, and what he is expected to exercise upon release. Inmates released directly from SHU's and maximum-security facilities are simply unprepared for what is expected of them. We ought to be moving inmates into less restrictive environments as they come closer to release.9

Three, provide a continuity of pre- and post-release services. Corrections staff lack information about available community resources for those they are releasing. Workforce development agencies working with former prisoners cite missed opportunities and an inability to coordinate efforts with the pre-release transitional services performed by corrections departments. Basic documentation -- birth certificates, Social Security cards, training and educational certificates for programs completed in prison -- are not readily available.10

Four, we must address the unintended consequences of welfare reform and the "work-first" model. By championing the work-first philosophy, society mandates an immediate income. But longer-term success in the labor market depends on the ability to develop skills and contacts -- both of which former inmates are not likely to gain in the jobs that are immediately available to people leaving prison. New and expanded employment programs should combine work and job skills development to meet the immediate need for income and the longer-term need for skills and relationships. Federal and state funding should support these efforts. In the long-term, it's cost effective.

Five, remove employment restrictions. At least six states bar ex-prisoners from public employment, and many state licensing agencies bar former prisoners from professions such as the law, real estate, medicine, nursing, teaching, physical therapy, and even, barbering. Not only must such licensure restrictions be reformed, but we must actively move to change public opinion on employing ex-offenders. A recent survey in five major United States cities revealed that 65 percent of all employers said they would not knowingly hire a former prisoner, regardless of the crime.

And, finally, we need to invest far greater government resources on transitional and employment services for people coming out of prisons and jails.

And, here is the surprising part: there is plenty of money available for this. The funds are available in state prison budgets but are being spent on ineffective strategies: locking too many people up, for far too long, based on far too arbitrary sentencing guidelines. Mandatory sentencing laws, such as the Rockefeller Drug Laws and Second Felony Offender laws in New York, should be repealed. Reform of the Rockefeller Drug Law, something the State of New York has been unable to do since 1973, could save $610 million annually if we provided alternatives to incarceration to just 19,000 drug offenders. The price of building the prisons to house those drug offenders saves another two billion dollars in capital costs.

Politicians must stop pandering to the public's fears. Tough on crime, the war on drugs, three strikes -- these are all empty sound bites that have led prosecutors to seek longer and longer sentences, legislatures to lengthen sentences in order to cure every societal ill, led to criminalizing more behavior, led to the incarceration of our young people, led to the demonization of prisoners and former prisoners, led to the devastation of families and communities, and led to barriers to employment for those who have served their time.

The irony of it all is that so much of what we have done to contribute to this mess has been done in the name of public safety. But to ignore the needs of the 600,000 returning to society does not make our streets safer. It is instead extraordinarily costly, increases the likelihood that new crimes will be committed, and puts further strain on fragile communities.

We can do better and we must do better. We must shift our thinking about crime and punishment and turn our focus to crime prevention; addressing the root causes of crime such as lack of employment; and devoting our resources to community building, education, and workforce development that provides jobs at a living wage. The future of our communities and our society depends upon it.

About the Author
Carolina Cordero Dyer is Associate Executive Director, The Osborne Association, 36-31 38th St., Long Island City, NY 11101,
www.osborneny.org, (718) 707-2648.

By transforming the lives of those involved in the criminal justice system, the Osborne Association's programs demonstrate that there are policies and procedures our nation can adopt that can foster a more effective and efficient criminal justice system and a safer and more just society. We believe that relying only on imprisonment as a response to crime is a costly and counterproductive approach that fails to take into account people's basic capacity to change.

You can reach Carolina Cordero Dyer at cdyer@osborneny.org.

Footnotes
Norval Morris and David J. Rothman, The Oxford History of the Prison, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2002.
P.A. Langan & D.J. Levin, `Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1994.` Bureau of Justice Statistics (2002).
The Correction Association of New York, `Juvenile Justice Project Fact Sheet,` http://www.corrassoc.org/juvenile_fact.html.
ibid.
Clyde Haberman, "Ex-Inmate Denied Chair (And Clippers)," The New York Times, February 25, 2003.
Eisenberg, M., Project Rio: Twelve-Month Follow-up, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Pardons and Parole Division.
Jeremy Travis, Amy L. Solomon and Michelle Waul, "From Prison to Home: The Dimensions and Consequences of Prisoner Reentry." Urban Institute Justice Policy Center. June 1, 2001.
Elizabeth Gaynes, "Transitional Services for Inmates: Practice Issues", Offender Programs Report, Civic Research Institute, Inc. (May/June 2001).
Buck, Maria L., Getting Back to Work - Employment Programs for Ex-Offenders. New York: Public/Private Ventures (Fall 2000).



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