Whether this is a product of reduced funding, of lengthy sentences coming home to roost, of a zero-tolerance “tough on crime” policy enacted years ago or of the sheer overcriminalization of our society is an open question (my guess: a mix of them all). When a small state like CT has 1663 crimes defined in its statutes (and that’s in 2006; several more have been added since) and when books are written warning us that we commit three felonies a day, it’s time for someone to sit up and take notice. And by someone I mean those with the power to change the direction we’ve gone in: legislators and voters. So you, all of you.

The repercussions of too many people in the justice system are beginning to reverberate throughout the country: Georgia is on its 4th lawsuit to force indigent defense spending; Michigan is being sued by three defendants who claim that the lack of funding forced their public defenders to pressure them into entering pleas of guilty; the Missouri Supreme Court recently allowed public defenders the nuclear option of shutting down their doors and refusing cases if caseloads got unmanageable; the costs in Ohio are rising quick; the Fresno public defender’s office got permission to lay off 6 attorneys before the end of the year to balance their budget; and contract attorneys in Nebraska have been receiving a $100 flat fee instead of $50 per hour for all misdemeanor cases.

Should I even go near the financial black hole that is the death penalty?  How, in times where basic rights of defendants may be in jeopardy – ordinary run of the mill defendants, mind you – can we even consider sustaining the machinery of death?

This will not end anytime soon and even if there is an alleviation of the financial crisis, the impact on the criminal justice system will be temporary. More crimes will be committed, more knee-jerk reactions will be induced and harsher sentences will be given out. The burden continues to build until there is a fundamental change in the way we think about the numbers, the crimes and the system.

A report from 2000, that I’ve mentioned before, seems to have gotten it right. Too bad no one is listening. I’ll reprint the salient points:

Prison overcrowding has a cyclical pattern in Connecticut — reaching a crisis point about every 10 years. The committee report showed most of the causes of prison overcrowding occurred outside the administration and jurisdiction of the Department of Correction and these complex issues and problems cannot be addressed by a single state agency. Specifically, the program review committee identified five main causes of prison overcrowding. They are:

• Despite the decrease in arrest and crime rates, the number of offenders in prison or jail continued to increase due to the “war on drugs”, increased funding for police, increased role of victims and victim advocacy groups in the court process, added bed capacity in the correctional system, recidivism and technical violations of probation and parole, harsher penalties for certain types of crimes, and narrowed eligibility for community release and alternative sanction options.
• Convicted inmates were remaining incarcerated for a greater portion of their court-imposed prison sentences as a result of the shift from an indeterminate to a determinate sentencing structure, elimination of “good time”, creation of time-served standards for parole eligibility, and the enactment of several “truth in sentencing” initiatives.
• The aggressive “tough on crime” approach supported by the legislature and adopted by the executive and judicial branches allows the criminal justice system to narrow its use of discretion and take a more conservative and less controversial approach to punishment.
• A lack of prison beds, especially high security and pre-trial beds, forced DOC to operate at capacity.
• Poor planning and a lack of an accurate population projection and offender needs analysis contributed to the cycle of overcrowding and hampered DOC’s efforts to adequately plan for new or expanded facilities.

In reviewing options available to manage and control growth of the inmate population, the committee found Connecticut cannot build its way out of a prison overcrowding crisis. However, prison expansion is one model to address prison overcrowding. This strategy has been Connecticut’s primary response to prison overcrowding over the past 20 years. It is the simplest but least effective and most expensive approach. Services in this model are concentrated primarily on the small percent (25 percent) of the offender population in prison.

And yet here we are: more crimes, longer sentences and an almost unmanageable burden. We’re still fighting the absurd war on drugs and on parolees and probationers. While our prison population has seen somewhat of a slight decline from the record numbers of last year, it would be a tremendous mistake to consider that an improvement. The record numbers were the result of the Governor’s ban on parole. But don’t let that obscure the fact that even prior to the ban, the population numbers were already at the breaking point.

And it’s not going to get any better. Per the OPM‘s most recent projections, the population is expected to increase from its current numbers to around 18, 942. [Here are the Dec 2009 monthly indicators.] The most recent breakdown of inmates by crimes is this one from 2007. And here’s the most recent recidivism study [there's a wealth of information in there if you're interested].

So how is this to be done? Over the years, I’ve made many suggestions: legalize marijuana, get realistic about prison sentences, divert all non-violent offenders into treatment and community based rehab, address the problem at its root, etc.

[Update: This NYT editorial makes the case for smart reforms, pointing to a slew of legislation pending in NJ to make the prison system more rehabilitation centric. Among some of the proposals is one akin to the ban the box idea implemented in New Haven earlier this year.]

But it’s all a futile exercise. It’s never going to happen unless there’s a fundamental shift in the thinking. That shift may well be driven by the financial engine. So how about taking a different tact. How about we keep detailed statistics: how many people end up going to jail for a violation of probation for drug problems instead of to a treatment facility? Let’s keep a record of that for 3 years and calculate the cost of sending that person to jail. How about defendants sentenced to 7 years in jail where 5 years would have been just as good. Keep a track of the costs there. How many inmates were denied entry into programs for lack of beds and so instead were forced to take a prison sentence? Let’s keep track of that.

At the end of 3 years, let’s add it all up and look at the staggering cost of our penal system. Let’s put it into real numbers and compare it to the budget shortfall. Extrapolate that over the last 20 years and I bet we will see that these “tough on crime” policies have come at a significant, tangible cost to us.

Actually, I have to be honest. I’m pretty ambivalent about this whole thing. It’s a low-level prison and per the reports would require the relocation of 220 inmates. That’s not a whole lot. So by itself it’s not a bad idea to close Webster. The question really is whether there is room at other facilities to house these inmates. Less space + more inmates = overcrowding. Overcrowding = bad idea. Despite the Governor trumpeting the “drop” in prison population from the record high of February 2008 (which, let us not forget, was her own fault), the fact is that CT’s prisons are still woefully overcrowded. 18,000 plus inmates are packed like sardines into a system that was built for 15,000. They’re still sleeping in the gym, they’re still sleeping on floors and there are still far too many per cell.

I have another idea: if you want to close the prison, fine. But instead of shoving them into an already full elevator, why not release the low-risk offenders? CT now has a full-time parole board (which they claim is working efficiently, but let’s remember this is still a government organization), so why not release the one that have no probable risk factors. There always will be the crazy ones that commit crimes that are unforeseeable. There’s no way to account for that or to correct for it. Sometimes, shit happens.

What do you folks feel? Closing the prison a good idea? Bad? Just want to hate on Rell?

S.B. No. 348 (COMM) AN ACT CONCERNING THE VIDEOTAPING OF CUSTODIAL INTERROGATIONS. (JUD)

S.B. No. 349 (COMM) AN ACT CONCERNING THE PENALTY FOR POSSESSION OF A SMALL AMOUNT OF MARIJUANA. (JUD)

S.B. No. 357 (COMM) AN ACT CONCERNING EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION. (JUD)

S.B. No. 537 (COMM) AN ACT PROVIDING COMMUNITY REINTEGRATION SERVICES TO END-OF-SENTENCE INMATES. (JUD)

S.B. No. 543 (COMM) AN ACT CONCERNING SENTENCE REVIEW Modifications. (JUD)

S.B. No. 1159 (RAISED) AN ACT CONCERNING PRISON POPULATION.

H.B. No. 6031 (COMM) AN ACT CONCERNING PAROLE AND PROBATION TRANSPARENCY. (JUD)

H.B. No. 6341 (RAISED) AN ACT CONCERNING COMPETENCY TO STAND TRIAL.

H.B. No. 6342 (COMM) AN ACT CONCERNING DISEASE PREVENTION IN THE CORRECTIONAL SYSTEM. (JUD)

H.B. No. 6581 (RAISED) AN ACT CONCERNING THE ENHANCED PENALTY FOR THE SALE OR POSSESSION OF DRUGS NEAR SCHOOLS, DAY CARE CENTERS AND PUBLIC HOUSING PROJECTS.

H.B. No. 6624 (RAISED) AN ACT CONCERNING THE BOARD OF PARDONS AND PAROLES.

H.B. No. 6685 (RAISED) AN ACT CONCERNING THE REPORTING OF INMATE POPULATION DENSITY AND CORRECTIONAL FACILITY SPECIFIC DATA.

H.B. No. 6697 (RAISED) AN ACT ESTABLISHING A SENTENCING COMMISSION.

H.B. No. 6704 (RAISED) AN ACT CONCERNING PRISON OVERCROWDING.

H.B. No. 6706 (RAISED) AN ACT CONCERNING RESCISSION OF PROBATION.

The submitted written testimony in each of these cases can be found here.

A question no more

I have long complained about the failure of governments to engage in any sort of meaningful re-entry for inmates. For a vast majority of released felons, prison is a revolving door. Without any training, education or skills, job prospects are dismal. With no job, there is no money and where there is no money, there is the lure of crime to make some quickly.

Which is why I was pleasantly surprised this morning, while listening to Where We Live on NPR. The guest was John DeStefano, mayor of New Haven, and he was discussing the policy he seeks to implement in the city: ban the box. No, this is not some traffic related policy, as I first thought, but a clever scheme aimed at integrating ex-felons back into the community.

Ban the box refers to banning employment applications from listing a “box” that asks applicants whether they are ex-felons. This allows ex-felons to be on the same footing as any other applicant, by preventing would-be employers from discarding them at the get-go.  I’m embarrassed that this story has escaped my attention for three months now, but the wonderful New Haven Independent is all over it:

The proposal directs the city not just to remove the box, but to refrain from asking applicants about their criminal history during job interviews. If the city decides to offer an applicant a job, then the human resources office will do a criminal background check. If a conviction shows up, then the applicant will return for a subsequent interview to determine whether or not that background renders him or her unfit for the job.

What this does is gives ex-felons a fighting chance at reintegration. And this also gives the city of New Haven some hope. DeStefano has long been complaining about the dumping of released inmates into his city, without any support or supervision from the State. He’s stepped up and taken a route that might lead to a reduction in crime. On the show this morning, he explained his reasoning thusly (and I am paraphrasing):

People say that everybody deserves a second chance – and yes they do – but that’s not why I’m doing this. If the ex-felons are positively engaged in the community and have the hope of a job, then there’s a greater chance that they won’t return to a life of crime and won’t be running around our streets shooting other people.

The numbers are telling. An estimated 70 percent of non-fatal shooting victims and 50 percent of murder suspects have criminal records. Studies have shown that ex-cons who have jobs are less likely to commit new crimes. And banning the box is the first step toward reducing crime and re-integrating felons back into society. It gives them hope and when they have hope, we have hope.

One person after another testified that having to confront the box creates a sense of hopelessness for ex-offenders. “I can’t even tell you how I feel just to even look at that box on an application,” said Derike Anderson. “It’s almost like all hope is lost, because I gotta answer that question … I feel if that question wasn’t there, I’d have half a chance, just to get myself in the door and into an interview, I think I can sell myself very well.”

Kudos, New Haven, you’ve done it again.

photo credit: jepoirrier

Just like the economy, however, this failure of the legal system should come as no surprise. Back in May, I wrote about the mess in Minnesota (and followed up with a June post about Florida) [full coverage here] and our sister blog PD Stuff has been covering money problems for years. Nevada will face some problems starting next year. Things don’t look all rosy in Connecticut, either, as legal aid is taking a hit.

The NYT piece is rightly drawing a lot of attention in the blawgosphere. Bob Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams devoted their recent podcast to this problem by interviewing the Miami public defender Bennett Brummer and NLADA research director David Carroll. [The podcast is at the end of this post.]

This is a very serious problem. As funding for indigent defense declines with no corresponding declines in prosecutions, defendants will experience greater wait times for their trials, resources will be stretched thin and the criminal justice system will produce far more wrongful convictions. There will not be enough time to conduct proper investigations, to hire experts and, frankly, to go to trial.

If a public defender has an obscene number of clients, a number which grows every day, there will a lot of pressure to resolve cases without much advocacy. This is where the rest of the justice system needs to step up. Prosecutors need to take their duty to seek justice more seriously and drop the pursuit of “wins”. Judges need to take a more mediation-oriented approach and broker fair deals and not permit the State to demand the moon.

From the NYTimes piece:

Mr. Jones, in between hushed conversations with clients in the hallway or the holding pen, said he wished he had more time to investigate cases and could go to trial more often, rather than accepting the police version of events and then, after a short discussion, helping his clients make a life-altering deal.

“I’d love to have time to visit the crime scene and do more legal research,” Mr. Jones said.

No defendant should ever have to put up with this. No lawyer should ever be in a position where he is advising a client based on incomplete information. This is not only a money issue, but a Constitutional issue. Skimping on public defenders offices now will only postpone the problem, because there will be a greater number of successful habeas corpus petitions or appeals, which will result in new prosecutions.

Or worse: Federal courts will have to step in and force the state to pay for adequate funding, something no one really wants. So you know, might as well bail them out now, right Prez-elect Obama? Seriously, who better to give federal money to? The banks that set up their own downfall? The auto-industry that refused to innovate? Or the hardworking public defenders that protect your and my rights, day in and day out, doing a community service for little money?

But these are tough economic times. Money is drying up. Perhaps this is a very appropriate opportunity to look at truly reforming the criminal justice system. Let’s provide more alternatives to incarceration and true rehabilitation, let’s not keep non-violent offenders in jail any longer than we absolutely need to. As costs of the prison complex go down, there will be more money to fund the defense of the innocent man. We should start to look at the exorbitant sentences handed down by judges. Do we need a 40 year sentence when a 15 year sentence should do? Do we have to be punitive in our punishments? Must people be on probation for 35 years? A true reformation of the criminal justice system would go a long way towards alleviating these woes.

Then, of course, there’s the death penalty.

[display_podcast]

Back in March, the Vermont Supreme Court issued a very curious opinion reversing a conviction for failure to prosecute in a timely fashion. The Court held that the three-years spent by the defendant awaiting trial violated his right to a speedy trial. Which would be fine if that were all to the story.

The reason for the delay? The defendant’s various public defenders.

In arriving at this decision, we acknowledge that much of the delay in prosecuting defendant resulted from the inaction of several of the assigned counsel who represented defendant during the three years he awaited trial.  As we discuss in detail below, however, the inaction of assigned counsel does not relieve the state of its duty, through implementation of the criminal justice system, to provide defendant with a constitutionally guaranteed speedy trial.  Indeed, the defender general’s office is part of the criminal justice system and an arm of the state.  When, as in this case, a defendant presses for, but is denied, a speedy trial because of the inaction of assigned counsel or a breakdown in the public defender system, the failure of the system to provide the defendant a constitutionally guaranteed speedy trial is attributable to the prosecution, and not defendant.

The Court finds that

irrespective of the reason for the delay, egregious delay in bringing an incarcerated defendant to trial must be factored against the state in a speedy-trial analysis because, as the Supreme Court emphasized in Barker, it is ultimately the government’s responsibility to bring a defendant to trial in a timely matter.  See 407 U.S. at 529 (holding that “the primary burden [is] on the courts and the prosecutors to assure that cases are brought to trial”)

You can read the facts for yourself, but what is important to recognize here is that Vermont is not the only state facing such problems with its public defender system. Normally, a lawsuit would be the appropriate way to remedy the lack of funding, but this certainly may make some ears perk up.

I will reserve judgment on whether the VT Supreme Court was right or wrong, but I get the sense that what the VT Supreme Court tried to remedy was what happens to every client in almost every system (albeit not to this extent), and that everyone accepts as the price of doing business.

Well, everyone except the legislature and the voting public, who are generally outraged that things take so long to go to trial. Maybe they shouldn’t take so long? Or maybe we shouldn’t be creating so many new laws and calling for “hard on crime” policies that clog our systems and lead to overworked public defenders.

We used 80 square feet as an average size – and boy is that a small, small area. The waiting room was roughly three and a half times that size and I don’t think I could keep my sanity after spending one day locked in that room. I can’t imagine what it would be like to spend just one day in your average prison cell.

And it isn’t 80 square feet of open real estate, either. There’s a bed (or two), a sink and toilet and perhaps a shelf or two. Add to that boxes, files, books, a tv, a mirror and other things and you have almost no space but the bed itself.

So, I ask, why? Why must prisons be so confining? It seems to me that making cells that small and restrictive is adding a second layer of punishment. There’s the overall punishment of incarceration in a state-controlled facility: you can’t leave for a specified period of time, you eat and sleep and drink and take a shower when someone else tells you to, you have very limited contact with the real world, you have no access to fresh air or the outdoors – you have no freedom. Why compound that with an incredibly small room that further confines your ability to move around in the already limited environment?

Is it a wonder that people in prison are aggressive and angry – and sadly – many of them have mental health issues?

For those of you who say they deserve to be there, to be further punished, I ask if the taking away of liberty is not punishment enough? How long do you think you could stay sane if you were under house arrest? Imagine living in your house – however big it is – but without the ability to leave. You’re still in your house, but you can’t cook your own meals, you can’t access the internet, you can’t mow the lawn, you can’t go to the mailbox to get your mail, you can’t open a window.

At some point (pretty quickly, I imagine), it won’t matter that your house is 3000 sq. feet, as opposed to 80.  The punishment is in the restriction on liberty, not in the confinement like a caged animal (or should be). So, even if you lived in Buckingham Palace, at some point you’d feel confined.

Could you? Could you live in your house with the conditions I impose above for ten days? Two months? Five months? Two years? Two years. Think about everything you’ve done over the last two years before you answer that.

So what’s the harm in making prison cells a little…bigger? Isn’t it enough that we have confined these individuals for long periods of time? Must we also treat them like unwanted pets at a kill shelter? Maybe it’ll improve their mood a little bit, and with that, a chance at rehabilitation. But if you treat people like animals, they become animals. Show them some compassion and something good may come of it.

Take a look at this picture. What do you think it is?

It’s the Leoben Prison in Australia. As has been noted by others on the web, it looks like an Ikea Store. But it’s still a prison. Do you think the prisoners there are happy to be incarcerated? I bet they still feel pretty restricted. Here’s a picture of a jail cell:

But perhaps they don’t feel like society doesn’t give a damn about them and perhaps they feel treated like human beings.

Further related reading: A list of the most interesting, overcrowded, smallest and biggest prisons in the world

One of the most important aspects of our job is maintaining attorney-client confidentiality and it is also an integral component of the adversarial system. We need confidentiality so clients can take us in their confidence without fear of repercussion. Clients need advice and we need the information without the filter of someone overhearing that information and using it against the client.

In the criminal justice system, where the burden of proof is squarely on the State, the confidentiality is even more important. Clients tell us all sorts of things, none of which the State needs to know.

In this era of Prison Nation, however, maintaining that confidentiality has some unique challenges. As the prison population grows, so will the challenges to maintaining confidentiality. For example, defense attorneys in San Diego were outraged when they recently discovered that their telephone conversations with clients were being recorded.

A lawyer for the Sheriff’s Department said the recordings, which defense lawyers say are privileged conversations protected by law, were made because of an inadvertent glitch in the telephone system.

But defense lawyers said the eavesdropping is a felony under state law and can carry penalties of up to $5,000 per call.

They are also concerned that prosecutors – who have access to the recording system from their desktop computers – could have been privy to conversations, too.

It’s bad enough that a “glitch” in the system led to recording highly sensitive and confidential conversations, but the thought that prosecutors had access to those conversations sitting at their desks should be enough to make anyone cringe and cross their legs. Then there’s this silly waiver argument:

However, all of the calls from the jail that were recorded have an automated message at the beginning warning that the conversation was being monitored or recorded.

“I don’t know if it’s privileged if both parties are warned they are being recorded,” Toyen, a lawyer and a special assistant to the sheriff said. “If a client in jail made a phone call to me and I heard that, I wouldn’t say anything that I wouldn’t want recorded.”

So some automated recording serves as an automatic waiver of attorney-client confidentiality? Why spew this nonsense instead of just admitting you messed up?

In Connecticut, there are two “types” of phones in prisons: counselor’s phones and pay phones. The pay phones are recorded and counselor’s phones are not (supposed to be). It is rare, but sometimes I do get clients calling from pay phones in the prison. That’s when I ask them to hang up and let them know I will call their counselor to set up a legal call. But even calls with counselors aren’t always “private”. The counselor’s office is in a cell block, with other inmates outside the door – and often counselors don’t even leave the office while the client is talking.

This problem with talking to incarcerated clients isn’t limited to the phone, though. In person visits with clients also have confidentiality problems. Holding cells in small courthouses are the least confidential of all locations and yet one has to talk to clients there. There are other inmates being held in those cells and there are marshalls milling about.

One of the largest correctional facilities in the State has the least sound-proof professional visiting rooms ever built. There might as well be no walls. Anything you say above a whisper can be heard by the people in the next room and quite probably by the correctional officers standing guard outside.

But such is the system and you learn to work with it. It’s an unwritten understanding that anything heard during these “confidential” meetings will not be used by the State against your client. It has to be – otherwise the State is looking at massive lawsuits. Imagine that they did use a statement or fact learned from such a conversation. The State could quite possibly be forced to build new courthouse facilities, new visiting rooms in prisons: it would be looking at a massive expenditure.

It’s easier to turn a deaf ear. But when the conversations are being recorded, the pretense of ignorance has been shattered.

photo credit: rekha6

Anyone who has followed this blog for the past year will no doubt be aware of several high profile criminal justice stories in CT: the Cheshire incident, the David Pollitt incident and the more recent New Britain incident. Starting with Cheshire, reform of the criminal justice system has been on the minds of many residents of this State, mostly pushed forward by our esteemed legislature and Governor. We were once on the path to reducing our prison population and now we are growing and bursting at the seams with no relief in sight.

Prison sentences have been beefed up to unimaginable levels in the name of public safety, rehabilitation programs have been abandoned and common sense no longer prevails.

Yet there are people who do not feel this is enough. Read the comments to any Courant article on criminal justice and you will see that there are people who feel that any sentence short of life is inappropriate.

This State, fueled by the vote-seeking legislators, has become gripped in what might be the biggest “tough on crime” wave in the country.

The paradox, however, is something that I have long suspected. People are clueless about what sentences really are given in this state as compared to others. The truth, folks, is that Connecticut never handed out light sentences. Go sit in any Part A court in this State and you will see what sentences are routinely handed out. In most cases, discussions begin with numbers in the teens.

It is a rare case in which a defendant does not receive jail time. Sexual assault in a consent case with no record (like my first judge for a day hypo)? You’re looking at 12-15 years. DUI accident, but no serious injury? 3-6 years.

People seem to have forgotten that a year is a long, long time. These are just numbers now; the higher the better.

It seems that, out of fear or embarrassment or God knows what, a portion of judges have abandoned their discretion in sentencing. The point in permitting judges the power to evaluate each case on its merits and each defendant on his characteristics in making the determination of length of sentence was to allow for concessions for a general good character; to take in account the fact that a defendant may have lead a successful, law-abiding life prior to the incident in question.

Now, it seems that no matter how many letters of support a defendant receives, the victim culture has taken such a strong hold that you might as well not offer any. They will not make an impact.

There really is no difference anymore, in my opinion, between our sentencing scheme and sentencing guidelines. When judges fail to exercise their discretion, we might as well give them a rigid range of numbers from which to pick a sentence.

Yes, there are isolated judges who still use their discretion, but I can count on both hands who they are.

Why is this? Why this bloodlust? Why impose 80 years when 35 will do? Why impose 2 years when all the defendant needs is counseling? When will we take the blindfolds off our eyes and realize that ever increasing prison terms will not solve the problems. When will we learn that if we want to reduce crime, we must tackle the causes of crime. When will we stop sacrificing generations in the name of public safety?

I don’t know the answers and I’m pretty sure no individual is solely to blame, but at some point, we have to realize that what we’re doing is not working. It is our responsibility – those of us working in the system – to start the change.

So it makes me happy to see that one city is trying an innovative tactic. Philadelphia’s mayor announced today that employers would receive a $10,000 tax credit for hiring ex-cons.

Mayor Michael Nutter announced a program, being headed by an ex-offender, that gives $10,000 a year in municipal tax credits to companies that hire former prisoners and provide them tuition support or vocational training.

This is a fantastic program and one that should encourage more employers to hire ex-cons. Speak to any ex-con and you will hear stories of countless interviews, empty promises and, in the end, rejection, despair and frustration.

I can understand the point of view of employers, don’t get me wrong. People are hesitant to hire ex-convicts, because of the stigma. But that’s like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg. If ex-cons, who are willing to make a change in their lives, who want to make that change, aren’t given any opportunities, then they will get lumped in with those that have no such aspirations. They won’t get jobs, they won’t have housing or insurance or any money earned legally. Something’s gotta give and what better way to entice businesses than with money.

The scope of the ex-offender problem in Philadelphia was detailed in a report last fall that showed about 40,000 former inmates return to the city annually from federal, state and local incarceration.

At any given time, according to the study by the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice, the city of 1.4 million is home to 200,000 to 400,000 ex-cons, many in need of not only jobs but also education, health care and addiction counseling.

The study cites federal statistics showing that nearly two out of every three inmates released from state or federal prison are expected to be rearrested within three years.

This volume cannot be sustained. There has to be a way to provide opportunites for these masses and to curb recidivism. The savings in prison costs also warrant a mention. Let’s hope this program succeeds and that other states follow suit.

No state needs such an innovative program more than CT. Almost half the inmates in CT prisons are incarcerated for a violation of probation. I wouldn’t be surprised if more than half of those inmates returned to a crime for lack of legal employment.

One can hope.