The Mass-Incarceration Reform Movement

Just like the rose that has sprouted in the weed garden and induced the weeds to back away in awe, there’s a movement afoot that’s posing an important challenge to core assumption about punishment in the modern American culture.
The mass incarceration reform movement has gotten quite a boost on the federal level from bipartisan congressional support and an unlikely proponent in President Donald J. Trump. The First Step Act (S 756) signed by President Trump on December 21, 2018, is a positive step in the right direction on the federal level, and as the Act, itself states, is the “first step” of what many hope is more to come regarding prison reform.
Nationally the prison system is undergirded by a thirty-year era of getting tough on crime and offenders policies that have fostered high recidivism rates, overcrowded prisons, and a focus on punishment over rehabilitation. Prison spending rivals that spent on education and health care. And yet the general public is left wondering, are we any better for it?
Research shows that imprisonment without meaningful rehabilitation makes nonviolent offenders into violent criminals and is a revolving door in and out of prison. Yet nationally we continue to spend over a hundred billion annually to merely house offenders only to see them eventually released with little to no real rehabilitation. The overuse of prisons has other unintended consequences, by severing offenders from their children and family for longer than is necessary for “rehabilitation.” These children, who are the hidden or forgotten victims of crime today, are too often the newly imprisoned tomorrow.
Then there are those prisoners who will likely never get out of prison; “lifers”. While the financial and policy concerns surrounding the mass incarceration discussion have gained traction in the public discourse, the more important moral issues regarding life and long-indeterminate sentencing have garnered very little public discussion. The drastic increase in life sentences — or sentences exceeding 20 years — being meted out by the courts over the past several decades gives rise to valid humanitarian concerns that are largely overlooked in the mass incarceration conversation.
As the prison expansion era began in the 1970s, a total of two hundred thousand people were imprisoned in state and federal prisons. Today, more than that number are currently serving life sentences. This number factors to one out every seven of the 1.5 million prisoners having life sentences.
This out-of-control and largely ineffective prison system are fed, ominously by the outdated belief in punishment and a twisted desire for vengeance, rather than restoration and forgiveness. However, common sense dictates that there simply has to be a viable road to redemption for offending citizens, otherwise we are only creating a class of enemy citizens (embittered ex-convicts) who will soon outnumber non-convicted citizens. If we think crime is bad now, imagine a society like that.
One of the key aspects of the First Step Act is the implementation of evidence-based recidivism reduction programs. Participation in these programs provides offenders with actual rehabilitation, providing them with risk and needs assessments at the beginning and throughout their imprisonment. Additionally, prisoners who participate in the evidence-based recidivism reduction programs can earn up to 10 days of good time credit for every 30 days of successful program completion, in addition to the 54 days a year of good time federal prisoners may also earn.
Here in Michigan, the National Lifers of America, Inc., sponsored a Lifer Law, Prison, and Criminal Justice Reform Community Day Rally at the State Capitol in Lansing Michigan on October 10, 2019. Hundreds of citizens showed up to show their support and listen to speakers from The Sentencing Project in Washington DC., Safe and Just Michigan, the ACLU, and others ideas and requests from state lawmakers to take legislative action to reduce Michigan’s prisoner population and provide meaningful rehabilitation opportunities to all prisoners.
We encourage you to speak up. Share your thoughts, suggestions, ideas, or your views on this subject. If you like, please reach out to Michigan lawmakers to express your support for this cause. They can be found at, www.house.mi.gov or www.senate.mi.gov. Let them know your thoughts. Ask them to take positive steps towards reforming Michigan’s prison system by reducing its population and securing future public safety.
