Written by Hassan Shabazz, VAPOC & Senior Liaison/Mentor of the A.C.C. Pre-Reentry "Self-Governing" Community. Augusta Correctional Center.
I was recently watching the news and there was a report on how correctional officers are overworked and underpaid, and how many of them fear for their safety and the safety of their coworkers due to the overcrowding in the system. They are requesting more pay and insurance, but the truth is, that will not solve the problem of prison overcrowding. In fact, it doesn't even put a band-aid over the wound of mass incarceration. The only solution to this problem of public safety is to reduce the prison population in a strategic way that takes public safety into consideration.
The reinstatement of parole would ensure that the prisoners that are released would be screened in the same way that parolees are presently screened before release. This is a common sense approach to the problem that Truth-in-Sentencing has caused. The solution is not to throw more money at corrections, but rather to find a way to take money from it and redirect those funds towards Reentry into society. It should also be mentioned that a vast majority of officers have not brought into the mission of the VADOC, which is to create a healing environment, so why pay more for an employee that doesn't fulfill your vision?
It takes approximately $26,000 a year to house a prisoner and just as much to employ an officer, and the overall cost of prisons in Virginia is $1 billion a year. This money could be used in a more productive manner that would not only produce a viable human resource, but also provide for public safety at the same time. Take for instance the Pre-Reentry "Self-governing" Community at Augusta. With absolutely no funding the mission of the VADOC has been fully realized through the mentoring and positive social reproduction exemplified within the community.
I have watched the men within this community take initiative to be instrumental in their own reform producing the type of men that can provide solutions to social problems and rebuild the impoverished and crime riddled communities that they were once a part of. The sad thing is that we are like the best kept secret in the VADOC because no one in the public knows about us, but the public will know because whatever is in the darkness must come into the light.
In society it is those who are in power that make the rules. If prisoners are not empowered to participate in defining that system of rules then how is prison preparing them to go out and contribute to society where they are powerless to do so. The social contract for the prisoner must be revisited. When prisoners are being trained by the treatment in prison to hate the society that they are returning to it is not a productive use of tax dollars and it is debilitative to both a prison's staff and its prisoners. Prisoners must be empowered and made to feel a part of the country that they live in and the community that they will return to.
When the Governor talks about Virginia having the lowest recidivism rate in the country it is largely because of the type of guys that I work with every day that have made a conscious choice to be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem. The State sponsored Re-entry initiative here in Virginia is not solely the reason for Re-entry doesn't work if the prisoners do not buy into it. We understand that our success lies in self-governing and mentorship. We have seen what the future of corrections looks like, and that picture is being painted by the ones who are most affected by the system; the prisoner.
Now is the time for those who are truly serious about prison and criminal justice reform to take their lead from those who have provided boots on the ground in a grassroots way within the prison community. Who better to help in providing a solution to the problem than the ones most affected by it? Mass incarceration is not just an event, it has become a culture, and as with any culture, the changes within that culture has to come from those that have been living said culture. This means there has to be a holistic effort on the part of everyone involved (i.e., prisoners, citizens, and the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government) to bring about what I like to call, "mass incarceration."
So let us work together to bring about an end to a culture of mass incarceration, for if we don't then the future will reflect our failure to ensure that freedom, justice, and equality is realized by us all, especially the "least of these."
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