Monster Factories

[Sara S]

from delancyplace.com:

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In today's encore excerpt - veteran prison counselor Sunny Schwartz embarks on the
task of bringing a highly innovative program called 'restorative justice' to the
San Francisco County Prison system. Like most prisons, these prisons - which house
prisoners with records fairly typical of jails throughout the country - are commonly
referred to by guards and others associated with them as 'monster factories'. The
United States has the world's highest incarceration rate:
"I had to make good on the promise of [introducing] constructive programs, and my
first big push went to getting a school in the jail. I discovered that our neighbor
to the north, just behind the razor-wire fence and a stand of trees, was Skyline
Community College. I gave them the hard sell, told them our population needed their
classes more than anyone else, and they'd said they would try. One of the first
things the college did was help us perform a survey of our population's needs so
I would know what kind of programs I should start:
"75 percent [of the prisoners] were reading somewhere between the fourth- and sixth-grade
levels. 90 percent never had a legal job. 90 percent were self-identified addicts.
80 percent were self-identified victims of sexual or physical violence as a child.
65 percent had been placed in a special-education class at some point. 75 percent
were high school dropouts.
"It was dismal. If there was ever a set of numbers that spoke more plainly to the
need for some alternative to warehousing people, I hadn't seen it. Even I was surprised
that 80 percent said they had been abused in the past, and I was stunned that 90
percent had never had a legal job. These were incredible obstacles. ...
"[I learned of a program called] 'Restorative Justice.' The name alone piqued my
interest. Nothing I'd seen in the criminal justice system had ever been in the
business of 'restoring' anything. I'd seen crimes committed, I'd seen people punished,
lives and families ruined, but never restoration. ... The three principles of restorative
justice are offender accountability, victim restoration and community involvement
to heal the harm caused by crime. ... The goal of restorative justice was to heal
the victims, for perpetrators to take responsibility for their actions and make
meaningful restitution, and for governments and communities to be part of the process.
...
"Most people I think believe that prison or jail should be a horrible experience.
People don't think of it as a deterrent so much as just deserts. 'They' hurt 'us'
therefore 'we' should hurt 'them.' For years politicians have won elections by promising
to take away cable television and weight rooms and anything seen to make prison
cushy. We have a culture where jokes about prison rape are made out in the open.
The prevailing wisdom is that prisoners deserve to be treated like animals; they
should fear prison and suffer while they are there. Anyone who has spent time working
with prisoners knows this has largely come to pass. What most people don't realize
is the consequences of making prisons a living nightmare. Most of the inmates I'd
worked with, particularly when I was a law intern, felt punished, but not many of
them took responsibility for their crimes or felt any remorse.
"Martin Aguerro, the pedophile, the first client I had when I started in 1980, was
a case in point. He complained about the squalid treatment and living conditions
in jail, he felt wronged, but I never got the sense that he thought about his crimes.
In fact, everything about the system of prosecution and defense is set up so that
criminals get into a habit of denying their responsibility. Every step of the way
between the arrest and the trial, people accused of crimes deny everything or keep
silent. It's what their defense attorneys tell them to do. After their trial, if
they're convicted, many don't change their mind-set. Why should they? To truly
confront what they've done requires confronting the shame and fear and the reality
of their situation. Few people choose to do this because it's difficult. After all
it's hard for noncriminals to take responsibility for doing the wrong thing, much
less someone sitting in a prison cell. So criminals blame someone or something else
- the cop who caught them or their lousy upbringing - for their circumstances and
spend their time growing angrier and angrier about being treated like an animal.
They are usually full of rage when they are released and less prepared to function
as citizens; the predictable products of the monster factory."
Author: Sunny Schwartz and David Boodell
Title: Dreams from the Monster Factory: A Tale of Prison Redemption and One Woman's
Fight to Restore Justice to All
Publisher: Scribner
Date: Copyright 2009 by Sunny Schwartz and David Boodell
Pages: 93-94, 126-127
Dreams from the Monster Factory: A Tale of Prison, Redemption, and One Woman's Fight
to Restore Justice to All
by Sunny Schwartz by Scribner
Hardcover