I AM A KILLER
This is the name of a fascinating show on Netflix that is in its fourth season. It features prisoners who have been incarcerated for many years and are then released into the free world. The show takes its name from the fact that even murderers can serve a long sentence and get out if they behave in a civilized manner while incarcerated. This show features inmates who have been released from various facilities around the country. At least two of the episodes have been dedicated to prisoners released from prisons in the Greater Houston, Texas area. One episode involved an inmate from the facility where I’m now employed.
This is not surprising, but it is disturbing, since I work at a pre-release facility. This means that the inmates at the facility where I work should be deemed ready to fit into society two years after they come to my facility. One requirement is that the inmate be relatively healthy. That means that my coworkers and I don’t deal with a majority of the inmates at our facility. Unless that inmate has a chronic illness such as insulin dependent diabetes or seizure disorder, we only see them when they have minor illnesses. Therefore, it’s sometimes hard to recognize those inmates once they have been released. There are exceptions to every rule, though. Two come immediately to mind.
The first was on the show that I mentioned in the title of this day’s blog. He didn’t have a serious chronic illness and rarely came to the medical facility. He was noticeable, though, because he towered above most of the other inmates. That is the only way that I remembered ever seeing him when he was featured on the above mentioned Netflix show. During the episode I saw of the show, he admitted to still having homicidal tendencies, even though he had been released into the free world. His hope was that his sponsor, a tiny elderly woman, could keep him in line. I don’t harbor much hope for this for two reasons.
The first is the most recent person released from the facility where I work. He committed murder and was sentenced to life in prison two years after his release. He is not an old man, so this will be a lengthy sentence. I did recognize him, because he was one of the inmates who took advantage of having medical care at an affordable price (often free). I’m disappointed, but not surprised.
The facility where I work has a fifty percent return rate on inmates who are released into the free world. That is after being obligated to hold a job and take classes five days a week to help them reorient into society. That sounds like a high return rate, until you figure in the overall return rate to prisons: eighty percent.
Why is the return rate so high? Admittedly, I haven’t researched this topic thoroughly, but I would wager that the return rate thirty years ago was much lower. I would ride by the “P. Farm” and observe inmates picking cotton by hand in the last century. While I have never participated in this activity, both my parents and an uncle who became a successful cotton farmer all did as children (before laws against such things existed). All three assured me that it was extremely hard work. All three of these individuals are people I would consider hard workers. All three said it was probably the hardest work they ever did.
In the last twenty years, though, inmates have filed petitions complaining about “unfair working conditions.” These inmates won their lawsuit. Some inmates do still pick cotton, though, while sitting in an air conditioned combine. That’s the way they harvest most of the crops grown on prison property. Those combines cost anywhere from $100,00.00 to one-half million dollars when new. They are compliments of the taxpayers when supplied to the prisons. In addition to cheap (or free) medical care, the inmates are guaranteed a place to sleep (but not necessarily a soft one), three meals a day (three hots and a cot) and are told every move to make. Some still don’t comply.
Most of an inmate’s punishment comes when s/he is released from prison. That’s because s/he (if convicted of a felony) cannot hold any type of medical license (even a transporter who only pushes wheelchairs all day) or, I believe, any type of engineering license.
While I applaud the inmates who use their time in prison to get their GED, or to learn to be an auto mechanic, I doubt the usefulness of a traditional college degree for a convicted felon. No elementary, middle or high school would hire a felon to teach (or even empty the garbage), and most colleges would frown on someone who was incarcerated teaching classes. Businesses would probably shy away from letting a felon handle business accounts, and many agricultural licenses are restricted to felons. That leaves two viable options.
A felon can possess a class B commercial license and drive a big rig. He/she cannot, however, possess a class A license and drive a limousine or a city bus. There is a reason for that. We live in the internet age, and inmates' records are public. If someone recognizes that person as a felon, s/he probably will be back in the unemployment line quickly. That leaves being a mechanic.
While classes that teach inmates to drive 18 wheelers and to become mechanics are taught in prison, the State shies away, as much as possible, from giving inmates access to computers, with good reason. Many are in prison because they used a computer to help them commit a felony. That would eliminate that person working in IT or computer programming, unless his/her family owns a business.
Computer programs seemingly change on an almost daily basis, and most mechanics rely on computers to help them diagnose problems with cars that also are controlled by computers. Someone who has been locked up in prison for twenty years won’t understand how to use a computer that didn’t exist when s/he was locked up. Not many mechanics have the patience to teach another person how to use the technology they are privy to.
As a result of all of the above mentioned problems, most inmates return to prison, if they don’t die in the outside world first. Prisons are supposed to be designed to rehabilitate the inmates, but they only, in my opinion, make them more dependent on others for their needs. Unfortunately, I see no good answer to this problem. Prisons are supposed to be designed to make an inmate uncomfortable enough to stay out of them. In my opinion, prisons have become too comfortable for the inmates, making it harder for them to adjust to the outside world.
I’m d.c. scot, with one man’s (correct) opinion. Please join me tomorrow for another eipsisode of Cal.E.’s Korner.
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