Andrea Neal, former of the Indy Star editorial page and currently a columnist with an outfit called the Indiana Policy Review Foundation has a column in the Evansville Courier Press which essentially concludes that Dept. of Corrections Commissioner J. David Donahue’s privatization plans are an unadulterated good. Doubtless they have much to recommend them, but according to the column, there is no apparent downside.
Of more interest to me was the commentary with respect to work-release programs as a means by which to reduce recidivism among inmates.
Current practice is to hand an inmate about $75 in cash “and say good luck” as he walks out the prison door, Donahue said. Effective work-release programs make it possible for inmates to truly begin anew with income necessary to support themselves and a family. In Indiana, work-release took on an unjustified black eye in 1989 after an inmate named Alan Matheney killed his ex-wife while out of prison on a weekend pass. Although the pass program was different from work-release, Gov. Evan Bayh essentially shut down state community-based correction programs in response.
Let’s cast our memory back to 1989. Was there anything notable or possibly infamous in the news with respect to letting inmates out into the community before their sentence was complete? Do the names George Bush, Michael Dukakis, and Willie Horton ring a bell? Of course, Gov. Bayh stopped that stuff. Back in ’89, Republicans had a field day beating up on Democrats as soft on crime. If you weren’t foaming at the mouth to execute every jaywalker, you might as well be inviting them to rape your wife. Now you hardly ever hear about getting tough on crime. Now terrorists are the boogeyman. Before that, it was the Communists. But I digress.
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