ShareThisBy MARC H. MORIAL
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
What happens behind bars in U.S. jails and prisons doesn't stay there. It trickles out into the community. Every year, 13.5 million people _ a disproportionate number of them African-American _ pass through our nation's prisons and jails, with a vast majority _ 95 percent _ eventually re-entering society.
Some leave their periods of incarceration as hardened criminals eager to return to a life of crime. Others do not. In the 1990s, harsher punishments for drug crimes fueled the current prison-population boom. And in light of the FBI's recent announcement that violent crime was up 2.5 percent in 2005, the problem isn't likely to go away anytime soon.
In America's efforts to "get tough on crime," we've lost some of our compassion for our fellow man. We've let cynicism undermine our hope that rehabilitation is possible for all people. All human beings deserve a modicum of respect and dignity. But you really have to wonder if that standard is being upheld in America's prisons. Inhumane conditions _ driven by overcrowding, public-financial woes and understaffing _ have pushed some prisons to the boiling point. They're not places where prisoners have a decent chance at rehabilitation. They are places where criminals become more efficient and violent.
Mind you, corrections is a tough profession. Corrections officers often work long shifts in tense, overcrowded facilities without enough backup, support or training. Many wardens run aging and understaffed facilities in which experienced officers are likely to leave for better-paying, less-stressful jobs. These pressures cause stress, injury and illness among the prison workforce, and contribute to a dangerous culture inside.
The tension is worsened further by racial and cultural differences. In prisons where this culture has evolved, rules aren't enforced, prisoner-on-prisoner violence is tolerated, and antagonistic relationships can erupt into overt hostility and physical violence.
In the 1960s in my home state of Louisiana, the maximum-security state penitentiary in Angola had a reputation for being "America's bloodiest prison." I don't know what prison carries that distinction today, but it is no longer Angola.
That prison's fundamental institutional culture has been profoundly transformed. Everyone who works at Angola treats prisoners with dignity and respect, and prisoners are expected to reciprocate that treatment. Prisoners have been given hope through education and morally based programming, and responsibility through meaningful employment. The fair and reliable enforcement of the rules by staff and prisoners means less violence.
The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons recently released a report, called "Confronting Confinement," that highlights a wide array of dangerous conditions surrounding incarceration _ the violence, poor health care, inappropriate segregation, lack of political support for labor and management, weak oversight of correctional facilities and lack of reliable data.
Of the 30 practical reforms recommended, institutional culture change is perhaps most important. Prisons need tools and training to help change the culture of their institutions. The program teaches them to resolve conflict through communication _ particularly across cultural and racial differences _ rather than violence.
In an era when everyone and their uncle seem to want to "get tough on crime," I realize that institutional "culture change" sounds soft. But prisons that add punishment on top of the sentence will be violent places. Prisons that treat inmates with basic human dignity and respect are more likely to be places where violence and abuse are the rare exception and not the rule.
Marc H. Morial is president and chief executive of the National Urban League and a former mayor of New Orleans. This piece is published in cooperation with minutemanmedia.org.
