| 摘要 |
To date, President-elect Donald Trump has not said exactly how he will address criminal justice reform as the nation’s 45th president. He has promised to restore “law and order” and jail those in the country illegally – a stark contrast to the Obama administration’s progressive criminal justice agenda of the past eight years. After benefiting from broad bipartisan support in recent years, criminal justice advocates now fear an uncertain future under a Trump presidency.
What Trump has said is that he thinks America’s inner cities are a “disaster.”
In a speech before supporters in Toledo in October, Trump said American cities are full of “so many problems.” “The violence. The death. The lack of education. No jobs,” he went on to say. In Charlotte, North Carolina, he said that “the conditions in our inner cities today are unacceptable.”
Trump’s right that the state of many American cities is a bleak picture. But helping the estimated 650,000 men and women released from prison every year reintegrate into society would alleviate many of the urban problems Trump decries.
With little more than some pocket change and a bus ticket, “returned citizens” leave prison – where few received quality education or job training – only to struggle to find work, housing, a steady social network and other necessities upon their return to society.
Unsurprisingly, many revert to the same life of crime that sent them to prison in the first place. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that over 40 percent are rearrested in their first year out of prison, 67 percent within three years and over three-quarters within five years.
Meanwhile, our nation’s prison population – which more than quadrupled from 1980 to 2.3 million in 2016 – costs American taxpayers $80 billion a year to incarcerate. And apart from the monetary costs are the human costs to families and communities ripped apart by incarceration.
These costs are especially high in cities, where incarceration disproportionately impacts low-income communities and communities of color. The toll of incarceration on families of prisoners adds to the challenges many face in cities, where intense poverty, dismal schools and homelessness are all too prevalent. Those returning to cities unprepared for life after prison make communities more unstable environments, given that most struggle to find work, and many commit repeat crimes.
In Chicago, analysts have mapped out “million dollar blocks” on the city’s South and West sides, where taxpayers have spent a million dollars to incarcerate individuals who once lived on a single city block. According to the analysts, the city has 851 of these blocks in total. As a 2015 Washington Post article explained, “Most of Chicago’s incarcerated residents come from and return to a small number of places. And in those places, the consequences of incarceration on everyone else – children who are missing their parents, households that are missing their breadwinners, families who must support returning offenders who are now much harder to employ – are concentrated, too.”
In Washington, D.C., over 2,000 men and women make the journey home from federal prison to the city every year. Almost 4,000 individuals returned from prison to Wayne County, Michigan (home to Detroit) in 2008. And in Baltimore, 10,000 men and women leave prison and return to the city every year – almost two percent of the city’s entire population. There, it’s estimated that forty percent – 4,000 – go back to prison within three years.
Research has shown that successful reentry starts while inmates are in prison and extends throughout the reintegration process. Correctional education programs can help lower recidivism and increase employment upon prisoners’ release. One study found that prisoners who participated in correctional education had a 43 percent lower odds of recidivating than nonparticipants, and their odds of being employed upon release was 13 percent higher than their counterparts. The researchers also found that every dollar invested in correctional education generated up to $5 in savings from reincarceration costs. Successful pre- and post-release interventions can save taxpayers money while also setting returned citizens on a better path, making communities safer in the process.
In an era of hyper-partisanship, smart approaches to reentry focused on employment, education, housing and positive social supports for the formerly incarcerated are not the monopoly of either the right or the left. Efforts that work are doing a great service to cities who need it.
Many cities and states have already started to take a leading role on this front through innovative programming, public-private partnerships and even initiatives to help the incarcerated become entrepreneurs. The GOP’s 2016 platform echoes these efforts, encouraging states to “offer opportunities for literacy and vocational education to prepare prisoners for release to the community.” The president-elect should also consider how barriers to reentry – many erected during the “tough-on-crime” era of the 1980s and 1990s – do more harm than good by preventing returned citizens from finding legitimate work and securing stable housing for themselves and their families.
In his 2004 State of the Union address, then-president George W. Bush remarked, “America is the land of second chance, and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.”
Failing to help the formerly incarcerated navigate life after prison contributes to many of the problems Trump has denounced, burdening taxpayers and families alike. President-elect Trump is wise to focus on addressing the well-being of cities. He would also be wise to heed the words of his Republican predecessor and help ensure that those who have paid their debt to society have the opportunity for a better life – not just for their own well-being, but for the well-being of the cities and families to which they return.
President-elect Trump’s approach to criminal justice reform will undoubtedly differ from President Barack Obama’s. But our next president should keep in mind one thing: If you want to help America’s cities, help the people returning to them. |
