I just posted a core article on my Issues page about Mass Incarceration. Here are my seven recommendations in brief:
1. Coin the term “Mass Rehabilitation” and talk about it in substantial ways, to clarify the idea in people’s minds and make it easier for people to refer to the concept.
2. Create a CDCR mission statement committing it to the goal of rehabilitating every offender, and implementing leadership policies that hold CDCR management and employees accountable to, and rewarded by, upholding and pursuing that mission statement.
3. Re-examine all CDCR policies to formally identify the ones that hinder rehabilitative activities and efforts.
4. Recruit “poster children for rehabilitation" from the current prison population in California. Make them the public face of Mass Rehabilitation and learn from their journeys of transformation. Apply those insights to CDCR policies and future rehabilitation initiatives.
5. Award expanded opportunities to earn good-conduct credits (now called “good-time” credits) to every inmate exhibiting good behavior.
6. Establish a sentencing commission to review and revise California’s harshest criminal sentences.
7. Review the conduct file of every first-termer in prison after ten to fifteen years have elapsed, looking for evidence of rehabilitation. Act on that evidence when it is found: supervised work-release, early parole, or even pardon recommendation.
Questions? Comments? What do you think?
1. Coin the term “Mass Rehabilitation” and talk about it in substantial ways, to clarify the idea in people’s minds and make it easier for people to refer to the concept.
2. Create a CDCR mission statement committing it to the goal of rehabilitating every offender, and implementing leadership policies that hold CDCR management and employees accountable to, and rewarded by, upholding and pursuing that mission statement.
3. Re-examine all CDCR policies to formally identify the ones that hinder rehabilitative activities and efforts.
4. Recruit “poster children for rehabilitation" from the current prison population in California. Make them the public face of Mass Rehabilitation and learn from their journeys of transformation. Apply those insights to CDCR policies and future rehabilitation initiatives.
5. Award expanded opportunities to earn good-conduct credits (now called “good-time” credits) to every inmate exhibiting good behavior.
6. Establish a sentencing commission to review and revise California’s harshest criminal sentences.
7. Review the conduct file of every first-termer in prison after ten to fifteen years have elapsed, looking for evidence of rehabilitation. Act on that evidence when it is found: supervised work-release, early parole, or even pardon recommendation.
Questions? Comments? What do you think?
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