
Just Got Out of Prison. Now What? - aaronbrethorst
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/magazine/you-just-got-out-of-prison-now-what.html
======
clamprecht
Do California's parole rules allow parolees to associate with ex-felons? When
I was released (federal prison, not California), my conditions of supervised
release prohibited me from associating with other ex-felons. This effectively
makes illegal any kind of "support group" for newly-released people. Now that
I'm way past my supervised release, I'm allowed to hang around a recently-
released friend (14 years after my release), but he isn't allowed to hang
around me because of the same rules. Weird system, it is.

~~~
deftnerd
I think the rules apply to casual association to prevent former parolees from
going back to the same social circles.

I'm pretty sure the rules don't apply to official, especially court-ordered,
encounters. Many parolees are required to go to AA or anger management
classes, and those are full of other people in the same predicament. The same
applies to halfway housing.

I imagine that since this ride was under the control of an official non-
profit, the contact was approved.

I'm not a fan of the rules limiting free association and I think it should be
considered a violation of civil liberties. I don't know if it's ever been
challenged in the courts.

~~~
maxerickson
Re some condition of parole being a violation of civil liberties, how would it
be different than prison being a violation of civil liberties?

I'm not snarking, I'm asking what the difference would be.

~~~
mainguy
IANAL, but if parole is just a way to more cheaply supervise someone still
serving their time it seems like the same thing... Once parole is over
though...well then it would be because you've finished your sentence.

~~~
clamprecht
It isn't as bad after parole, but it's still there. For example, I have lost
my 2nd amendment rights forever, even though I completed the sentence ~13
years ago.

~~~
cmdrfred
I never noticed the asterisk on the constitution that said "*unless we deem
that you are a criminal".

~~~
toomuchtodo
I'm surprised the NRA has never raised this issue.

------
rayiner
> Hammock was sent away in 1994, at a time when stiff sentencing reforms
> around the country were piling more people into prison for longer amounts of
> time. These included California’s ‘‘three-strikes law,’’ which took effect
> just months before Hammock was arrested. The law imposed life sentences for
> almost any crime if the offender had two previous ‘‘serious’’ or ‘‘violent’’
> convictions. (The definitions of ‘‘serious’’ and ‘‘violent’’ in California’s
> penal code are broad; attempting to steal a bicycle from someone’s garage is
> ‘‘serious.’’)

One thing the article doesn't mention is that California's three strikes law
was not the result of Corrections Corporation of America donating a bunch of
money to influential state senators. It was voted-in based on _public
referendum_ with 71% support. So was Washington's, with even more public
support.

You can't get 70%+ of Americans to agree on anything, except apparently
putting people in prison for life for potentially non-violent felonies.

~~~
jonah
Sure, but who convinced 71% of Californians that this approach was a good
idea?

~~~
rayiner
Who did convince them? In 1994, the for-profit prison industry was tiny. CCR
cleared just a few million in profits each year:
[http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/05/business/corrections-
corp-...](http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/05/business/corrections-corp-of-
america-nms-reports-earnings-for-qtr-to-march-31.html).

In 1994, the industry was tiny, and California voted-in a draconian three
strikes law by a 71% margin. In 2012, the industry was booming, with CCA
clearing hundreds of millions a year in revenue, and Californians vote to pare
back their three law with a similar 69% margin.

To me, your implied conclusion is totally divorced from reality. Rather, the
obvious conclusion is that Californians circa 2012 simply came from a less
heartless and bloodthirsty generation than Californians circa 1994.

~~~
x0x0
I'm not a sociologist nor a criminologist, but I do drink with them. There are
a lot of factors:

1 - there really was (an almost certainly environmental lead-triggered) crime
wave that is finally mostly over. Also mix in crack and other drugs.

2 - there was the advent of 24x7 tv news, and when you need something to fill
that air time, scary black man randomly killing white people suits perfectly.
Even though that is a tiny minority of murders.

3 - people don't understand type 1 and type 2 error: every time a person is
set free, some tiny fraction will recidivate (baring incarceration until
death.) Mix this in with #2, and you see how sentences increase monotonously.

4 - republicans discover racism motivates voters. See, eg, the Willie Horton
commercials [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton)

~~~
silverlake
> every time a person is set free, some tiny fraction will recidivate

In the US the recidivism rate is over 60%. That's a gigantic fraction.

~~~
x0x0
Amongst those convicted of homicide, it is nowhere near that. Estimates place
it at 20-30%, and of those, the highest proportion is for those convicted of
homicide during a felony while others such as those who where convicted of DV-
related homicide recidivate at closer to 10% (which makes a certain macabre
sense.)

see eg
[http://nj.gov/corrections/pdf/REU/Recidivism_Among_Homicide_...](http://nj.gov/corrections/pdf/REU/Recidivism_Among_Homicide_Offenders.pdf)

I meant the phrase "tiny fraction" in light of the discussion of T1 and T2
errors: no matter what rule is made, unless you incarcerate all felons until
death, some fraction will recidivate. How to correctly weigh type 1 errors is
difficult.

------
eastbayjake
Malcolm Gladwell's excellent 2006 New Yorker article "Million Dollar Murray"
directly addresses some of the grumbling in the comments below... it's easy
for people who've followed the law to resent spending money on people who've
broken the law, but it would be more efficient to spend a little money on
decreasing recidivism and save a lot on incarceration. Gladwell sums it up
nicely with an example from Denver's homelessness problems:

"That is what is so perplexing about power-law homeless policy. From an
economic perspective the approach makes perfect sense. But from a moral
perspective it doesn’t seem fair. Thousands of people in the Denver area no
doubt live day to day, work two or three jobs, and are eminently deserving of
a helping hand—and no one offers them the key to a new apartment. Yet that’s
just what the guy screaming obscenities and swigging Dr. Tich gets. When the
welfare mom’s time on public assistance runs out, we cut her off. Yet when the
homeless man trashes his apartment we give him another. Social benefits are
supposed to have some kind of moral justification. We give them to widows and
disabled veterans and poor mothers with small children. Giving the homeless
guy passed out on the sidewalk an apartment has a different rationale. It’s
simply about efficiency."

[http://gladwell.com/million-dollar-murray/](http://gladwell.com/million-
dollar-murray/)

EDIT: Changed "much of the grumbling" to "some"

~~~
maxerickson
As your comment is marked 1 hour old, I see little grumbling about spending
money on people who've broken the law (conversely, there are several comments
speaking to the rationality of attempting to rehabilitate people who will be
released).

~~~
padmanabhan01
I don't think anyone likes spending money on people who've broken the law. But
given that the options are 1. Incarcerate and spend more or 2. provide
assistance and spend less, it doesn't look like much of a choice.. unless
someone can think of a better solution

~~~
eastbayjake
Didn't mean to put this forward as a "summary" of the thread, just wanted to
note the moral argument going on in some of the comments -- the injustice that
people who follow the laws pay to rehabilitate those who break the laws
against them, versus the argument that it's far cheaper to rehabilitate people
who break laws than to continually incarcerate people who remain
unrehabilitated -- and point to a similar argument in another contentious
public policy issue.

I've changed "much" to "some" to weaken my claim re: how much disagreement
about that is going on this thread. There is certainly some:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9899924](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9899924)

------
mc32
As many other problems for which we have half baked solutions, we don't take a
systems approach to the issue. We simply want to punish and forget. It's
dollars cheaper, but socially expensive.

We could try more intervention, prevention, and while in, preparation to exit
and productivity the whole time. We'd have fewer people in, those who went in
would come out more productive and ready.

Of course some people are just "bad" incurable, but that number should be far
reduced. Most cons should not be treated as pariahs indefinitely, again, with
some exceptions. But we should make a good effort to rehabilitate, perhaps, in
addition to punishment. Punishment being paramount to victims but
rehabilitation being paramount to society.

~~~
Riseed
> It's dollars cheaper

It's only dollars cheaper in the short term, and even then only if one takes a
very narrow view of the issue(s).

Helping people reintegrate into society can cut recidivism rates, as
exemplified by Michigan's Prisoner Re-entry Program [0], which lowered the
recidivism rate from 43.5% to 29% [1] and shrunk the state's prison population
by 12% [2]. "If states could reduce their recidivism rates by just 10 percent,
they could save more than $635 million combined in one year alone in averted
prison costs." [2]

Of course these programs cost money... but the Michigan program receives
$12-20 million of funding per year, and has saved the state "hundreds of
millions of dollars." [3]

And there would also be savings in the areas of law enforcement, property
damage, etc...

[0] [http://www.bhpi.org/?id=54&sid=1](http://www.bhpi.org/?id=54&sid=1)

[1] [http://michiganradio.org/term/michigan-prisoner-re-entry-
pro...](http://michiganradio.org/term/michigan-prisoner-re-entry-program)

[2] [http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-
analysis/reports/00...](http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-
analysis/reports/0001/01/01/state-of-recidivism)

[3] [http://michiganradio.org/post/snyder-administration-cut-
prog...](http://michiganradio.org/post/snyder-administration-cut-program-has-
saved-hundreds-millions-prison-costs)

------
danieltillett
It would be nice if we could take the emotion out of what to do. My thought is
we need to separate prisoners into two categories: 1. Those who will never be
released. 2. Those that will be released one day.

For the first category it does not matter what you do, but for the second we
should be putting every effort into making sure they will be released a better
person. Punish the first group as much as your morals think is appropriate,
but punishing the second is counterproductive.

------
justwannasing
I find these articles interesting but get disturbed when the titles typically
point the finger at me but, I have never been arrested, or in prison, and know
no one who has ever been in such a situation in my 63 years of living.

I am not in a closet or a holy roller either; nor are any of my friends or
family. I live in a mid-sized city and grew up middle-class, became poor when
out on my own, and am now well off.

I would never put myself in such a situation to shame myself or my family or
harm others. But I was brought up that way.

~~~
happyscrappy
Well it is not politically correct to mention personal responsibility in any
fashion, which is actually the heart of the problem.

~~~
angersock
Like the personal responsibility not to shoot a guy with his hands out?

Or the personal responsibility not to continually push for the hardest
sentences you can because it'll help your career?

Or the personal responsibility to recognize that what consenting adults put
into their own bodies in privacy isn't something you should have a say in?

One of those?

~~~
justwannasing
Your first line references a bald-faced lie so your stance is in jeopardy.

~~~
angersock
[http://news.yahoo.com/video-released-shows-police-killing-
un...](http://news.yahoo.com/video-released-shows-police-killing-unarmed-man-
la-074451408.html)

I dunno...sure seems true to me.

------
shaunrussell
get arrested, go back to prison

------
searine
Great article.

------
thisispete
admittedly didn't read the article, but assuming something like this might
answer the question posed in the headline;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRZ2Sh5-XuM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRZ2Sh5-XuM)

------
tsotha
Personally I'm all for harsh sentences for violent offenders, but once your
sentence is up (for any crime) that should be the end of it. You should have
all the rights non-incarcerated people have - free association, voting, gun
ownership.

On the jobs side I have no idea what the right thing to do is. On one hand if
people with criminal records can't get jobs you're pretty much forcing them to
return to a life of crime. But on the other hand... if I'm hiring people I'll
only hire a guy with a serious criminal record if I can't find anyone else.
That's just self preservation.

~~~
zyxley
> Personally I'm all for harsh sentences for violent offenders

Why? There's no clear evidence that particularly harsh sentences actually
reduce recidivism.

~~~
waterlesscloud
What it does do is prevent the violent offenders from committing crimes
against the citizenry for the duration of the sentence.

~~~
s73v3r
Is there any evidence that one violent act means that a person will likely
commit more?

~~~
tsotha
I would have a hard time believing that isn't the case, but I'm open to any
evidence you have.

~~~
s73v3r
Wouldn't the burden of proof be on those asserting that someone who commits
one violent crime needs to be put away so they won't commit more?

~~~
tsotha
Nope. You're staking out a position that's counter-intuitive, so you're the
one who has to get the data ball rolling.

