taking reentry seriously
6 posts, 3 voices
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| Officials in Salem, Oregon are taking notice. Just look around the city - Oregon State Penitentiary, Santiam Correctional Institute, Mill Creek Correctional Facility, Oregon State Correctional Institute, maximum security, minimum security, Marion County Correctional Facility, Hillcrest Youth Facility, Oregon State Hospital for the criminally insane, and a brand new Juvenile Detention Center - and that's just in the city of Salem. Officials are noticing because they have to. Punitive punishment is alive and well in Oregon. | |
ohma
2 posts
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I see a lot of good things in the government proposal for the reentry act and also in the Illinois prison that was highlighted. I am not sure the state I teach in is really ready to seriously engage in this process. There is a lot of talk about rehabilitation, it sounds good, looks good on paper but I do not see the reconstruction that would be required to overhaul the system within the prisons as well as post release programs to address the federal proposals. Drugs is definitely a major contributor to the recividism rate. Lack of education both in the academic area and the vocational preparation are also a major issue in recividism. Another major area that needs to be addressed is life skills required to cope on a daily basis with the normal everyday stresses in society. I am an academic teacher, working on my doctorate in Correctional Education, and I feel that in this area we are not addressing the issues for successful reentry if all we are doing is covering the academic skills needed for the GED. Many of us are still using the pedagogical strategies for teaching when we are teaching adults and should be paying more attention to the research on adult learners and the theory of andragogy. I have done a lot of thinking about this area after seeing a statistic on the recividism rate of inmates who had completed their GED. I realized that we were missing something. I have interviewed inmates who left prison with good job skills and ended back in prison. One of the things that I have learned is that we are not providing these inmates, who often have been in the correctional setting since childhood, who come from families with generational incarceration and who do not possess the basic life skills to function successfully in society. We are addressing this somewhat in anger management and other areas. However, I have come to see that we as academic teachers need to be using curriculum materials that teach academic skills within the context of life skills. We can teach reading, writing and math |
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ohma
2 posts
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I have been reading and researching the correctional education programs in Oregon. It appears that your state is doing more than many in the area of reentry programs and working to reduce recividism. You are correct that there are too many correctional institutions in all states. A major issue that we are missing in this whole process is seriously addressing family literacy in order to provide a stronger support system for children in the elementary school levels who are falling through the cracks. Children whose parents are literate and educated can make up the difference and support the classroom learning process at home to insure that their children do not fall behind. Illiterate, uneducated parents can not. We also need to address the generational incarceration cycle present in many families. Foster care and child welfare also contribute to the high recividism rate. A high percentage of children from foster care end up in the correctional setting, without an education and total lack of life skills needed to be successful in society as adults. The problem is huge and in that we have not gotten serious about attacking all of the factors it continues to escalate out of control. However, I saw some promising light in Oregon's programs. |
| I think you are on the surface of a solution in that teaching adults in the context of career planning and goal setting, however, this process of learning goes much deeper than that. Evidence Based Practices is the new lingo from the National Institute of Corrections and it is based on extensive 'what works' or other research from controlled studies AND it validates the importance of differential case management based upon risk assessment and examining criminogenic factors, then addressing them with proven intervention techniques. Motivational interviewing, TCs, cognitive restructuring, extensive role playing of positive behaviors, writing 'feeling reports', are some of the most advanced techniques that help an offender get inside his/her own mind and to begin to reframe criminal thinking, challenge and redirect antisocial responses,disassociate from criminal peers, address substance abuse behavior, etc. Plenty of criminals have positive self esteems,they can get or have jobs, and they can read and write, but they still commit crimes. A starting point might first be to enter and begin to redirect the value systems(or lack thereof) of the person as we also provide education and other skills of life. | |
nrollo
1 post
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Listen. Every 3rd year we are hit with yet another trendy, politically based approach to what you obviously have no experience with or useful insight into ... the world through the eyes of the incarcerated felon. The bottom line is that what the system values and thinks devients need (and deserve)has zero correlation with what impacts the will and behavior of people defined as outside the circle of social acceptance. Since when, sir, does anything composed within an academic, 'research-based' or 'policy' perspective have any useful application on a reality-based, real world level??? Anyone with 10 years of direct experience, as an offender or practitioner, should know 'what works' and what doesn't. If they are intellectually honest, that is. The current 're-entry' farce is just a superficial effort to rebirth a long defunct parole process. Moreover, it is an overt effort to extend the power and control of prison life out into the community; to keep the client under the boot of the govt. 'unto death.' 'Re-entry,' as labelled by J. Travis, has nothing to do with pointing people toward a better world ... only to making the right-wing jump from post-release 'supervision' to hard core 'surveillance and apprehension.' Last, integrity of application of any behavioral-change activity demands consistency and continunity of program or service delivery. These are simply non-existent across adult or juvenile corrections in America. To suggest otherwise is contrary to fact. Within a negative frame of reference, changing the number and position of white tacks/circumstance may alter its immediate appearance but has NO influence on the nature and ramifications of the frame itself or its outcomes. Adult corrections has no factual will or mandate to empower persons defined as 'outlaws.' As a matter of fact, it is just the opposite. Thus each and every correctional trend is simply the same old Tide packaged in a new box. Because no matter what new policy or practice you apply, in the end it is all a part of a 10 |
| Obviously, no one is. Reentry is due to ill-punishment. Criminals are not being punished, they're being rewarded for their crime. How can someone justify giving a murderer of a 'common person' Life with Possible Parole, and a murderer of a 'prominent person' the Death Sentence? Something's screwed up somewhere. Murder is Murder. When a criminal gets a pat on the hand and more rights that they had on the streets while in prison, of course they won't mind coming back. I wouldn't either. | |
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