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Monday, July 16, 2007

Throw away the key? Thats not the Answer.

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posted by Bob at Monday, July 16, 2007

4 Comments:

Blogger Bob said...

Throw away the key? That's not the answer
RUBÉN ROSARIO

Article Launched: 06/03/2007 12:01:00 AM CDT


Keith Ellison is working the crowded room like a game show host.

"Now we are entering the speed round,'' Ellison tells people holding microphones or lining up for them. "You got 60 seconds or less.''

This is hardly "Wheel of Fortune." It's a forum on offender re-entry.

It's a social topic seemingly of great concern to the Minneapolis congressman, as much as the controversial conflict in Iraq.

Ellison understands full well that the issue of helping ex-offenders return to communities - considering the constituency, lack of public knowledge and the "tough talk'' that still tends to dominate policy and the politics of crime and punishment in America - hardly brings in the votes or significantly replenishes campaign war chests.

For that, he is better off working the power brokers on golf courses instead of hosting this kind of forum in North Minneapolis on a dreary, rainy Wednesday evening.

But this is exactly one of the reasons why Mr. Smith - ahem, Ellison - says he went to Washington. As the freshman lawmaker describes it to me two hours before the forum's start, he did not go to Congress to become something. He went there to do something.

"If we don't make a way for these people to be successful, then they are going to recidivate,'' Ellison says. "If they recidivate, we'll have another crime victim. Whether you are the most conservative of Republicans or the most bleeding-heart liberal like me, somebody failing on probation or parole is a bad thing. All of us have an investment in trying to stop that from happening.''

An estimated 6,000 people walk out of Minnesota prisons annually. Another 134,000 released from the state's community corrections system are currently under probation supervision. Nationally, 600,000 are released from custody annually.

The forum brought together local and national criminal justice experts, ex-offenders and the operators of social programs that try to find jobs, housing and other services for released offenders.

One of the forum panelists, Ira Barbell of the Maryland-based Annie E. Casey Foundation, believes we are at a point in time when "the policy environment and the political environment'' are shifting on the issue. Barbell is a senior associate with the foundation, which focuses on child welfare issues.

Joan Fabian, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, broke down money approved by the Legislature and Gov. Tim Pawlenty this session to help address the problem.

It includes:


$600,000 set aside for 2008 to boost the department's re-entry services for at-risk offenders. The amount increases to $1 million for 2009.

$200,000 for employment-related programs in North Minneapolis, which arguably is home to the highest concentration of ex-offenders in the state.

Roughly $1.4 million earmarked for youth intervention initiatives that include mentoring grants to children of incarcerated parents, as well as programs to address children 10 and under who cannot be legally prosecuted but have had numerous contacts with police for delinquent or criminal behavior.

Sets up a legislative "collateral sanctions'' committee that will explore how barriers to jobs and housing create ripple effects that affect a relapsed offender's family, and by extension the community where that offender resides. A national version, the proposed Second Chance Act, was introduced this year but will not likely become law.
Several constant themes emerged from the forum. One was that the difficulty of finding jobs and housing for ex-offenders, primarily because of an explosion of criminal background checks, is a growing problem that affects rural, suburban and urban communities.

Indeed, state Sen. Linda Higgins, DFL-Minneapolis, held up seven pages of jobs that ex-felons are prohibited by state statute from holding. The list, depending on the offense, includes predictable ones like day care and child care providers to occupations such as horse racing jockey and dentist.

John Pritchard, an official with Midwest Challenge, a faith-based nonprofit group for ex-offenders and others struggling with chemical dependence, revealed he had two felonies dating back 30 years. Yet, "I was turned down for a job because of it less than five years ago," he said.

Guy Gambill, who works with the Minnesota Council of Crime and Justice, rang the alarm bell on the increasing numbers of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans coming in contact with the state's penal system.

"We got large numbers of guys coming back, and many of them are troubled and getting into prison,'' Gambill said while delivering at the same time a history lesson involving Bedlam. The word we most commonly associate with chaos and disorder was actually a notorious lockup in Great Britain many years ago.

"Bedlam was a place where there was no distinguishing between criminal behavior and people who had mental illness or other disorders,'' Gambill explained.

"They threw them in, indiscriminately, together,'' he added. "In some ways, as a society, we built a time machine that traveled back to that same paradigm, where behavior that is not deemed OK by the larger society is remedied by throwing people in prison.''

There was no C-SPAN, no prime-time coverage for this forum. Too bad. It was one most Minnesotans and Americans would have benefited from watching.

In the end, as Ellison noted, it's an issue that affects us all, whether we like it or not.

"America has chosen, consciously or subconsciously, to deal with the issues of mental health, poverty ... with correctional facilities,'' he points out before the forum. "We need to reserve prisons for the dangerous. Not for the people we are mad at.''

Makes sense to me, Mr. Ellison. This game deserves better play, or we will continue to lose at it.

Rubén Rosario can be reached at rrosario@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5454.

7:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

For the record, Bedlam was actually St Mary's of Bethlehem Hospital in London, started by Henry VIII for the mentally ill. It included public tortures. The term 'tom foolery' came out of Bedlam as the 'Tom O'Bedlams were expected to act like fools to entertain the paying customers. Bedlam would have been a good place for Henry's daughter Bloody Mary, who had syphillis on the brain. The last of the institutions like bedlam, the Lunatics Tower of Vienna only closed down in 1850.

The west's persecution of mental health issues goes back to the stone age.

We now know the answers to many of these obscure illnesses, and money for research produces answers for more.

The issue is reform, as the US trails the civilized world in its treatment of 'mental' conditions. We simply cannot afford the waste, or as a past Chair of the Senate's Human Resources Committee said, "It's a national disgrace when we know what to do and we don't do it." Appears bureaucrats are part of the solution and part of the problem.

This is a very thorny and difficult issue, perfect for ADemocracy, and I'd like to see more on it, as it is extremely costly to our country.

8:49 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Our government has made an industry of crime and punishment to secure votes in elections,
all at the expense of an ignorant public.

Congressman Ellison shows real leadership.

9:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

More lip service is all it is. They talk their "empty talk" and people like Kathy Lantry keep trying to turn the screws tighter and tighter trying to make sure someone with a "past" doesn't get a place to live, and without that place to live, you have a guaranteed reoffender.

10:39 PM  

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