You want to fix the prison system, reduce recidivism and save money? Go back to the original penitentiary design. Single cell the inmates and keep them locked down. This would have the following benefits.

1) Sentences wouldn’t have to be as long for this to achieve the wanted results for this to be a punishment and deterrent, saving money.
2) You wouldn’t need to have as many staff if the inmates are kept locked down, saving money.
3) No more fights/assaults.
4) No more PREA incidents.
5) No more gang activity.
6) No more drugs coming in through visiting room as visiting would not be allowed.
7) As this would be a somewhat unpleasant way of doing time recidivism would decrease, saving money.
8) They could still receive mail and work on their education in their cells and have Bible/religious items.

How about running that by Sen Webb, Iwhyte?

I am still waiting for the change. Just as bad now as before, maybe a little worse.

If Maslow is right in terms of safety and security needs being met prior to any hope of esteem and self-actualization needs being addressed, why the continued overcrowding? Why do we not single-cell every offender in every prison of the country?

If the answer is cost, I submit many cost issues can adequately addressed through means of technology.

My one concern in reading Senator Webb’s article is that most drug offenders in state prison are there for marijuana possession only charges. My experience is that most offenders at the state level aren’t there for a one time marijuana possession charge. In most cases just to receive a state sentence the offender would have to have a possession to sell offense. I also get tired of the continue comparison to other countries. In many countries they execute offenders for many offenses so of course their incarceration rate if very low. It’s matching apples to pears and not apples to apples. I think Senator Webb should be asked to back up these statistics.

I’m going to be interviewing Sen. Jim Webb’s press secretary about his proposed bill to “overhaul the criminal justice system” later in the week.

Sen. Webb is suggesting that the whole prison system is in need of reform and is proposing an 18 month study to decide what types of changes should be made. It seems that, given the momentum of the new administration, the bill has an excellent chance of passing

I want to know what types of questions other members of the Corrections Community would like to see answered during my interview. I am the editor for the online magazine, CorrectionsOne.com. I will be posting my whole interview on our website as part of a special report on Webb’s prison reform bill.

What I want to do is provide members of the corrections community with the opportunity to ask the senator their own questions (whether anonymously or not); to create an “open source” interview environment. Thus, if you have questions for Webb, please post them on this feed so I can ask them during the interview.

Here are a couple links with more information on what Sen. Webb is proposing:
– An article Webb wrote for Parade magazine: http://www.parade.com/news/2009/03/why-we-must-fix-our-prisons.html
– The full text of Webb’s bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c111:1:./temp/~c111c5QrPU:e0:

Correctional agencies might be the future of law enforcement. Large growing budgets and staff, unions, lots of social programming and a captive audience. How can the left not capitalize on this opportunity? Bureacracy defined. Besides, some of the programs might actually do some good.

After all, we cannot continue a futile war on drugs by incarcerating marijuana smokers or cocaine users. These things are illegal simply because of the real war waged by lobbyists on the part of pharmaceutical companies and alcohol distillers and brewers.

I am afraid you will see many let go from prison. Not that I disagree with this, but I would rather see non-violent offenders, such as substance abusers, turned loose, than having my job cut.

Well, I guess you have an answer now. In Ohio, Gov. Strickland wants to let thousands out of prison because of the budget. So much for Obama’s help. If the state passes this new sentencing law prisons will be shut down and people will lose their jobs. The funny thing is, our union supported Strickland and Obama. They are the biggest threat to our jobs in my 20 years in ODR&C.

Will Barack Obama and his new administration have an impact on corrections issues?