CA ASSEMBLY PASSES PRISON REFORM BILL

The Assembly just passed SB 18xxx, the latest “prison reform” bill, which is a significantly watered down version of AB 14xxx which TiPS opposed.

Here is a synopsis of what SB 18xxx will do if passed in the Senate:

SENTENCING CHANGES

• Property crime thresholds. Property crime thresholds, many of which have not changed since 1982, will be updated to reflect the Consumer Price Index (CPI).  It was originally suggested that the threshold for Grand Theft be $2,500 but in response to concerns from the law enforcement community, it was changed back to existing law.

CREDITS

• Inmate Credit Changes. Credits create an incentive for inmates to participate in programs while in prison which in turn reduces recidivism.  Specifically, this legislation (a) provides consistent day-for-day credit earning status for offenders currently eligible for earning day-for-day credit in both jail and prison; (b) authorizes the department to award enhanced credits (up to 6 weeks) for the completion of rehabilitation, education, and vocation programs in prison; (c) authorizes the department to extend existing enhanced credits for fire camp inmates (two days for one day) to inmates waiting to be transferred to a fire camp (d) provides for day for day credits for inmates serving jail terms.

PAROLE AND PROBATION

• Parole Policy. The legislation requires CDCR to use a risk-instrument on parolees.  As part of the package, CDCR will increase supervision levels for the most serious and violent offenders.  New proposed levels will be a supervision ratio of 45:1 instead of 70:1.  As a result, parole officers will have reduced caseloads that will allow them to focus more time and energy on the supervision of higher risk, violent parolees.

• Low and moderate risk offenders with non-serious, non-violent and non-sex offenses will be placed on a less intensive supervision and will not be subject to parole revocation.

• Establishes the Parole Reentry Accountability Program. As part of the program CDCR will use a parole violation decision-making instrument to determine the most appropriate parole sanctions for a parole violator.  Parole violators with a history of substance abuse or mental illness may be referred to a re-entry court.  The court will work with the assistance of parole agents to determine the appropriate conditions of parole.

• Community Corrections. County probation departments would receive a portion of CDCR savings so felony probationers who would otherwise be sent to prison remain under the jurisdiction of the counties. Probation Departments will use these funds for additional officers and evidence-based programs.  Seed money is provided for 2009-10 via a $45 million appropriation from federal funds.

How This Bill Differs from AB 14 (3X), as passed by the Senate

1. Removes the changes to “wobblers.”
2. Removes the creation of “alternative custody”.
3. Removes changes to grand theft and grand theft auto, and limits all other changes to property crime to inflation since 1982.
4. Removes authorization for people convicted of serious crimes from being discharged from parole after completing a 150 day residential treatment program.  Only people convicted of non-serious crimes could participate.
5. Removes the Public Safety Commission.

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TiPS’ power is inherent in our members.  Our successes are due to the support and efforts of our members, and we thank them for everything they do.  Every single membership is important and essential to our ability to reach new potential members and increase the reach of our union.

I wish you well.

Matt Gray
Lobbyist
Taxpayers for Improving Public Safety

Pat Nolan: Take it from experience: Prisons need reform

To: My fellow conservative Republicans in the Legislature

From: Pat Nolan, Assembly Republican leader, 1984-1988

Pat Nolan, a former Assembly Republican leader, is vice president of Prison Fellowship, the world’s largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families

Re: California’s prison crisis

I was as “tough on crime” as any of you during my eight terms in the Assembly. I received the Victims Advocate Award from Parents of Murdered Children. I generally favored stronger penalties and also introduced the Death Penalty Restoration Act.

I led the fight to build more prisons.

I was “tough on crime” to make our communities safer.

But then I witnessed reality – inside prison walls. After my conviction in the Shrimpscam investigation, I served 29 months in federal custody. I was appalled to see how little is done to prepare inmates to live healthy, moral lives when they return to society – and 95 percent of prisoners will be released and return to our neighborhoods. I was frustrated that participation in religious programs is often discouraged. And I was shocked to see many people serving long sentences for minor, non- violent offenses.

Our current system of sentences and imprisonment has veered terribly off course. It costs taxpayers plenty but does not make us safer. I’m partly to blame for California’s current prison crisis. I supported the expansion of our prison system. But while spending on prisons continues to skyrocket, Californians are no safer than residents of other states that have cut their prison population.

Many officials brag about the drop in California’s crime in recent years and claim that it was the result of greater incarceration. But what they don’t tell you is that crime dropped everywhere. Indeed, some states that actually cut their prison populations have had a much larger drop in crime than California.

These states have shown that it is possible to cut the costs of prisons while keeping the public safe. The state of New York reduced the number of prisoners while also cutting its violent crime by 63 percent. In New York City, where most of the state’s released offenders go, murders dropped from 2,605 in 1990 to 801 in 2007, even as the state was sending fewer offenders to prison.

And last year, even “tough on crime” Texas enacted sweeping reforms of its prison system that allowed it to cancel plans to build three more prisons. Led by two conservative Republicans, Rep. Jerry Madden and Gov. Rick Perry, Texas redirected a large part of the money saved on prison construction into community treatment for the mentally ill and low-level drug addicts.

The Lone Star State will soon cancel contracts to house 1,900 state convicts in county lockups – relieving the overcrowding in the jails and saving $28 million. And recently Texas announced that for the very first time, there is no waiting list for drug treatment.

Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina and South Carolina have reduced their prison populations as well as their crime rates and saved hundreds of millions of dollars. They reserve costly prison beds for violent offenders while punishing low-risk offenders in community facilities.

They realize that prisons are for people we’re afraid of, and that it is a waste to fill them with people we’re merely mad at. They use new technologies to monitor parolees’ whereabouts and behavior, and more effective supervision and treatment programs to help them stay on the straight and narrow. These policies have allowed them to spend less on prisons while improving public safety.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s modest prison reform proposals are consistent with what Republican leaders in other states are doing – conservative solutions that limit the growth in prison costs while keeping the public safe. California will spend $10 billion on prisons this year. Are we getting the public safety that would justify this huge expense? Not by a long shot. California’s recidivism rate is the highest in the nation: Seven in 10 released prisoners are rearrested. No other business would continue to operate with a failure rate of 70 percent. That is a terrible return on your investment.

But don’t blame corrections officers for these problems. They are merely carrying out policies adopted by the Legislature without the funding needed to back up the long sentences. Why do conservatives defend a government system that costs so much and fails so often? You ought to be leading the fight to reform it.

This is an opportunity for you to do what I wish I had done as Republican leader of the Assembly – put conservative principles to work on reforming corrections.

Source: SacBee

Dueling inmate plans set up spat in California

By DON THOMPSON

Published: Sunday, Aug. 30, 2009

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California’s Assembly is setting up a clash with the Senate over sweeping changes to the state’s criminal justice system in the two weeks before their planned Sept. 11 adjournment.

The Assembly was scheduled to take up a scaled down plan to address the state’s overcrowded prisons Monday. If the Assembly plan passes, it would still leave California about $220 million short and with 10,000 inmates too many to meet its goals.

The Assembly’s rejection of a broader plan passed by the Senate this month reflects a split between Democrats who control both legislative chambers.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento said he won’t take up the plan negotiated by Assembly Speaker Karen Bass of Los Angeles unless the Assembly passes additional measures already approved by senators.

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger joined the fracas last week, praising senators while criticizing assembly members for balking at trimming $1.2 billion from prisons after they earlier cut $10 billion from education.

“They don’t have the guts now to make those decisions, because they are now more worried about safe seats than safe streets,” he said in a conversation with the founders of Twitter at the company’s San Francisco headquarters.

Senators backed Schwarzenegger’s plan to reduce the prison population by about 27,000 inmates the first year and fill a $1.2 billion budget hole left over from the budget compromise he signed last month to bridge the state’s massive deficit.

Steps included making some offenders ineligible for prison by reducing sentences for certain property crimes and allowing home detention with electronic monitoring for thousands of inmates who are over age 60, are medically incapacitated, or have less than 12 months left to serve.

Bass said neither of those provisions has enough support among Democrats to pass in her chamber because of objections from law enforcement organizations.

She stripped them out of the package and eliminated a powerful independent commission that would have recommended changes to the state’s convoluted sentencing laws. She left in measures to free inmates earlier if they complete rehabilitation programs and reduce supervision for thousands of parolees, making it more difficult to send them back to prison for violations.

“We seem to have two versions of the Democrat party on law enforcement reform,” said California State Sheriffs’ Association legislative director Nick Warner, who has been trying to broker a compromise. “This is interesting because it’s usually Republicans and Democrats far apart. This is Democrats and Democrats being far apart.”

Democrats can pass the majority vote bills without Republican votes.

The bill passed the Senate without a vote to spare, but Bass said the dynamics are different in the Assembly because so many members face elections next year. They include three Democrats running for attorney general – Ted Lieu of Torrance, Pedro Nava of Santa Barbara and Alberto Torrico of Fremont – whose votes on a prison package could be used by opponents to portray them as soft on crime.

Bass said the emotion runs deeper than politics.

“When you are talking about crime, corrections, it’s a visceral issue. What you’re going to do is you’re going to think of the latest homicide that happened,” she said while postponing an earlier Assembly vote.

Her new plan would leave behind bars about 10,000 inmates who would be released under the Senate plan, creating a $220 million budget hole.

“We grasp the politics of the situation, but we’re here to do a job and we’re going to be short a couple hundred million dollars in balancing our budget. I hope the Assembly has some suggestions,” said Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who chairs the Senate Public Safety Committee.

The difference would be made up by closing a juvenile prison and in other areas of the budget, said Bass spokeswoman Shannon Murphy.

The administration had said its plan would also come close to meeting, over two years, a demand earlier this year by a special panel of federal judges that the state reduce the inmate population by 40,000.

“We’ve been playing with fire with the courts too long to allow us to have our knees buckle under us at this point,” said Sen. Gloria Romero, a Democrat from Los Angeles who voted for the Senate plan.

Not a big Romero fan, but she is right on target with her comment.

Source: SacBee

Jim Nielsen CA Assemblyman: Tough sentencing is not prisons’ problem

By By Jim Nielsen

Sunday, August 30, 2009

A week ago, the state Senate passed – on a bare majority vote of 21 to 19 – a plan by Democrats to cut $1.2 billion in the Department of Corrections budget in a way that I believe will have a very chilling impact on the safety of our families if it becomes law.

The Assembly did not take up this plan for a vote last week, but is supposed to vote on a similar plan very soon. I hope my colleagues across the aisle will take a step back and really think through the consequences of our actions before we make a tragic mistake.

There are ways to find sufficient savings in Corrections without threatening public safety. But the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and some liberal legislators give lip service to public safety while promoting policies that will put Californians at great risk.

For starters, they are pushing for the early release of thousands of so-called “nonserious” and “nonviolent” offenders to reduce overcrowding. This means individuals convicted of crimes like threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction, illegal weapons dealing, stalking and violent child abuse could be set free well before justice is served.

Some liberals blame mandatory sentencing laws for our prison overcrowding and growing prison budgets. They are calling for the creation of an unaccountable sentencing commission that would be given broad powers to gut these laws, without a vote of the Legislature or the people.

For years, Sacramento liberals have tried to gut California’s tough-on-crime mandatory sentencing laws like 10-20-Life and “three strikes.” The people have said “No” time and time again at the ballot box. California families understand how important these public safety protections have been in lowering violent crime rates by 50 percent.

It’s time for a reality check. As a former chairman of the state Board of Prison Terms, I’ve had firsthand experience in implementing California’s sentencing laws as we worked to keep dangerous criminals locked up behind bars where they belong.

Despite what we heard at the time when laws like “three strikes” passed, California’s prison population has not exploded. At the time of its passage, Corrections estimated that our inmate population would grow to 245,000 inmates by 1999. In reality, the number of in-state prisoners was 169,825 in 1999, and today it has dropped to 161,596.

The real reason prison budgets are skyrocketing and our prisons are overcrowded is not sentencing laws, but rather irresponsible action by the Legislature and CDCR’s intransigence and then ultimate settlement of numerous extraordinarily costly inmate lawsuits. California spends more per inmate than most other large states. In 2007, California spent $46,437 per inmate. By the same token, Texas spent $19,223 per inmate, and it houses nearly the same number of inmates that California does.

Over the past decade, prison spending has grown far more than population and inflation growth. At the same time, the Legislature has failed to take any realistic steps to increase prison capacity and modernize and replace aging prison facilities.

Between 2005 and 2008 alone, prison administration grew by a breathtaking 105 percent. Since 1997, inmate medical care costs have increased 325 percent. Even though our in-state prison population declined in the past decade, we have added 18,416 Corrections employees.

This makes no sense. Californians are not well-served by a prison system that spends more and more on prison administration with nothing to show for it but unrehabilitated felons and higher costs to taxpayers. It’s time the Legislature got serious about cutting bloated prison bureaucracy and rising inmate health care costs, excessive litigation and instead focus on building additional inmate capacity and other measures to make early release unnecessary.

We must reduce our Corrections budget responsibly, without threatening public safety. Compromising justice and making all of us potential crime victims are not the answer.

Jim Nielsen represents California’s Second Assembly District.

My opinion is Jim Nielsen doesnt know enough about the CA prison system to qualify him making this type of broad overview….

The Slammer

Although this website doesn’t fit into the ‘Hot Blog’ category, I have decided to share “The Slammer” with you all.

Just ran across the site yesterday, via a connection on Twitter…check it out- lots of good information and articles there!

Take a walk from the reception area of almost any prison or jail facility in the country to any cell block or other detention area, and you’ll have to pass through a series of heavy spring-loaded steel or barred doors designed for security. As you pass through each door, it shuts behind you with a resounding metallic SLAM. The sound is unforgettable, and lets you know you’ve been separated from freedom, and have entered a different somewhat-oppressive world, the “slammer.” It’s a world where shouting, bravado and anger flare every day, and fear, despondency and tears reign silently in the dark of each night. Its role is to protect society, to discipline the guilty and to rehabilitate amenable offenders.

The-SLAMMER is dedicated to all the people that spend time behind those doors in that other world — the inmates, former inmates, the correctional officers, other law officers, administrative staffs, chaplains, medical personnel, visiting attorneys and civilian volunteers.

Recent Stories

• Chopping Recidivism: Get Out and Stay Out – Part 1
• Some Actions Underway to Reduce Recidivism; Not Enough
• California Not Soon Likely to Free 40,000; Maybe 27,000
• Follow-Up: Senate Panel Approves Cell Phone Jamming
• Equal Prison Time: Crack Cocaine vs. Powder
• 1 in 11 Inmates Are Serving Life Sentences
• How to Keep Your Kids Out of Prison
• Recidivism: Work-First Programs May Help
• Hearing: National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009
• Why Tolerate Prisons That Produce 70% Recidivism?

• Chopping Recidivism: Get Out and Stay Out – Part 1
• California Not Soon Likely to Free 40,000; Maybe 27,000
• Two Sides to Prison Cell Phone Jamming
• Why Tolerate Prisons That Produce 70% Recidivism?
• “Doing Time” by Jack (Murf the Surf) Murphy
• Government Takes Aim at Prison Rape
• State Budgets Dictate Alternative Sentencing
• Recidivism: Work-First Programs May Help
• Release Geriatric Prisoners to Save Money?
• How to Keep Your Kids Out of Prison
• Budget Fiasco Means Higher Recidivism
• Why Parole Does Not Work in California

http://www.the-slammer.org/index.php

Finding a Job After a Criminal Conviction

If you have been convicted of a crime, you may wonder if you will be able to find employment. Employers are becoming increasingly concerned about knowing whether applicants have criminal records. Part of this concern stems from large jury verdicts that have been rendered against employers for negligently hiring people with criminal histories who subsequently caused harm to others while on the job. Another concern for employers relates to whether they will have to disclose the criminal conviction. For example, if a company is trying to raise capital, it may need to make certain disclosures to a bank. Will the company have to disclose that an employee has a criminal conviction for embezzlement or money laundering?

The laws about which criminal records an employer must or may access, what an employer may ask a potential employee and what the job applicant must reveal vary widely from state to state. If you have a criminal record and seek a job, it is in your best interest to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in criminal law and employment law so that you go into the job search fully informed of your rights.

Conflicting Public Policies

On the one hand, the public wants to reintegrate into society people with criminal histories, rehabilitated and gainfully employed. A routine schedule and regular income lessen the likelihood that a person will reoffend, but a person with a criminal record may face prejudice in the job application process. On the other hand, it is important to protect the public from contact with prior offenders who may have propensities to re-commit. For example, convicted sex offenders should not work with children or vulnerable adults.

How Much to Reveal

Depending on the state, an applicant may not have to reveal any or some types of potentially damaging information, such as arrests not resulting in convictions or convictions for minor matters. Some states have procedures to judicially “erase” a criminal record. A criminal defense attorney can help determine whether you may be eligible to get a conviction sealed, expunged or otherwise legally minimized.

Tips for Workplace Re-entry

• Be honest. Employers are interested in employees they can trust, and almost all information on a job application can be checked and verified. Even if it may close the door to certain positions, telling the truth is the best way to get a job that the applicant can keep over the long haul. Remember, in some states not all convictions must be revealed nor can potential employers ask for certain information.
• Start the job search with family, friends and acquaintances that may be more likely to take a chance on hiring someone they know, despite a criminal record.
• Do not expect the first job after a conviction to be your ideal job. It is more important to get started somewhere and create a track record, since employers know that a good indicator of future job performance is past job performance. Consider temporary or entry-level positions to build your résumé.
• Understand where the employer is coming from. It has to balance its legal and ethical obligations to you, to its employees and to the public.
• Investigate employment services. Most states have public agencies that administer programs to help people find employment, sometimes specifically designed for those with criminal histories.
• Refrain from alcohol and drug use. Some employers require employee drug testing.
• Consider the nature of your past offense. Apply for jobs where that kind of offense is less likely to be an issue of concern.

Conclusion

Completing a prison term or paying a fine can be just part of the price of a criminal conviction. The conviction can also affect post-conviction employment opportunities, but some employers are willing to give those with criminal records chances in appropriate circumstances. One job – any job – can be the first step toward rebuilding a career and a life. A lawyer can talk about various options and offer advice on planning for the future.

Copyright ©2009 FindLaw, a Thomson Business

California to close its largest juvenile prison

The Heman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility in Chino will be converted into an adult prison. The move is part of a plan to ‘right-size’ staff at the Division of Juvenile Justice.

By Michael Rothfeld

August 28, 2009

Reporting from Sacramento

The state is closing California’s largest youth prison as the population of juvenile offenders in state custody continues to decline, corrections officials announced Thursday.

The Heman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility in Chino will be converted into an adult prison, state officials said. The move is part of a plan to “right-size” staff at the Division of Juvenile Justice, which is reducing its workforce by 400 employees by the end of this year to save the state up to $40 million, said Bernard Warner, the chief deputy secretary for the division.

The plan also is geared toward reducing the annual cost of incarcerating and caring for each ward from $252,000 to $175,000, state officials said.

California’s youth prisons have been troubled for years. The state five years ago settled a lawsuit brought on behalf of the juveniles, who said they were locked up for long periods in dirty, dim cells without the education, rehabilitation, healthcare and other treatment the state was supposed to provide. Last year, lawyers for the juveniles mounted an unsuccessful effort to have the system put under court control.

Sue Burrell, a staff attorney at the Youth Law Center in San Francisco, said Stark had been “an especially horrible place” since the slaying of Ineasie Baker, a female officer there, in 1996. An inmate was convicted of her murder.

“That sort of ushered in this repressive era,” Burrell said. “It really never got better. The past [13] years have been filled with lockdowns, beatings and various sorts of cages.”

With the closure, the state will have five youth prisons, down from 11 in 2003. Three minimum-security fire camps for juveniles have also been closed.

The number of juvenile offenders in state custody has declined to 1,700 over the last decade from a peak of nearly 10,000, the result of legislation that now puts most of the youths in county facilities where they can be closer to their families.

The Chino facility opened in 1959 and now houses fewer than 400 juvenile inmates. They will be redirected to other youth prisons. An exact closure date has not yet been determined.

Currently, the state has been using the youth prison, which has a capacity of 1,200, to house about 600 adult inmates displaced after a prison riot this month at the nearby California Institution for Men. To convert it into a full-time prison, it would have to be retrofitted to make it more secure, subject to approval from state lawmakers, prison officials said. Warner said the retrofitting would be cheaper — about a third as much — than the $500-million price tag for a new prison.

An adult prison on the site could house sick or mentally ill inmates, said Scott Kernan, the state’s undersecretary for operations. That could relieve some pressure from a panel of federal judges who have ordered the state to reduce the number of inmates in its overcrowded prisons by 40,000.

A statewide coalition of human rights groups Thursday urged state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown to devise a plan to comply with the court order rather than appeal it.

“California’s correctional system is in a tailspin that threatens public safety and raises the risk of fiscal disaster,” said activists from the group Californians United for a Responsible Budget.

Brown and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have said they plan to appeal.

Source: LA Times

The Watered Down Prison Reform Package

August 27, 2009

Assembly unveils revised prisons cuts language

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass released the Assembly’s version of the prisons cuts bill today. The Assembly is expected to take up the plan Monday, spokeswoman Shannon Murphy wrote in an e-mail.

As expected, several key elements of the Senate-passed plan have been eliminated, including the creation of a sentencing commission, the release of some inmates to electronic surveillance or alternative custody and changes to the prosecution standards for “wobbler” crimes, which can currently prosecuted either as misdemeanors or felonies.

Read a summary of the bill and changes here or the bill language here.

The Future of California?

SacBeeBozoBouncer

Generously offered use of this masterpiece….

The Future of California

Take All Prisoners

Inside the fence

by Marisa Mauro, Psy.D.

Marisa Mauro, Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Therapeutic Steps Towards Rehabilitation of Adult Male Inmates

Can inmates be rehabilitated for parole to the community?

As a psychologist working in a prison, my primary rehabilitative goal is to assist inmates in their development towards becoming productive members of society. I see my role in this process as that of a facilitator. It is my duty to provide the education and skills to the inmate who is then ultimately responsible for choosing to use them for good upon parole.

I believe that rehabilitative efforts and changes should begin within the confines of the prison. This allows inmates to try out new skills and behaviors while they are still in treatment and possibly become more productive inmates. I have also found that the actual implementation of new skills increases an inmate’s engagement in treatment. He is more likely to ‘buy into’ the treatment and commit to the change.

Although the content of the rehabilitative process is unique to each inmate, my procedural approach towards individual rehabilitation can be generalized using the following five steps:

First, I build a rapport with the inmate. I have found that many inmates are distrustful of others. For me, the most important factors related to building rapport with inmates are genuineness and compassion. As such, I tend to add some person-centered techniques to my sessions. If one has not worked with this population, the idea of compassion towards them might be foreign. I assure you that if you are interested in this line of work, you must only remember that you are there to treat, not judge. Nevertheless, all therapists have blind spots and it is likely that you will have an inmate/patient with a case that, due to your blind spot, you should not treat.

Second, I conduct a clinical intake with a strong focus on social/developmental history. My intent is to discover where the inmate left off, as it were, prior to his incarceration, because I will need to assist him with the building of skills he needs to catch up. I find that I tend to focus on assessing his fund of knowledge, level of education, work skills, personal traits, interpersonal relationships, emotional maturity, morality and ability to access and use community resources. This is important for two general reasons. First, I do not want to assume that the individual has learned or can apply some essential function that he may never have been taught. Something that is a given for me, lets say job interview etiquette, may not be for him. Second, some aspects of a person’s developmental growth and/or daily living skills seem to stall during the period of incarceration. Therefore, it is quite possible that a 30-year old who has been incarcerated since age 18 may, upon parole, identify most strongly with the struggles of those 12 years his junior. This experience can be frustrating and embarrassing. Repeat violators also report feelings of hopelessness and uselessness soon after each parole. These feelings, when combined with the inescapable forestalling of certain personal growth during incarceration, seem to lead unprepared inmates towards failure on parole.

Third, I work with the inmate to develop treatment goals. Both short and long term goals are developed. If acute mental health or crisis symptoms exist, those are of primary importance and need to be resolved before any rehabilitative goals are addressed. In their absence, or resolution, we work to create goals that address self-understanding, emotional growth, skill building and parole planning.

Fourth, we engage in treatment, which always involves aspects of psychoeducation, therapy and ‘homework’ assignments. I tend to assign my therapy patients tasks to complete outside of the actual therapy session. This keeps them engaged in the treatment throughout the week and is a good training tool for building self-motivation, accountablity and persistence – all of which are skills that they will need to succeed on their own upon parole. I always ask the inmate to create a detailed plan for parole, including living arrangements, employment, community resources, etc., when he is ‘short to the house’, or ready to parole. We also revisit goals and, when needed, revise them throughout the course of treatment.

Finally, treatment is terminated.

The nature of my job precludes me from really knowing if my inmate/patients succeed upon parole – if they have in fact become productive members of society. At present, I must assess my success rate, so to speak, based solely upon those improvements made prior to release. And, in review, I do feel that I have seen a great deal of improvement in the men who are really willing to engage in therapy. I can only hope that they successfully transitioned to the streets.

Source: Psychology Today

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