Certain Federal Offenders Should Receive Alternative Sentencing

I think we need to clarify something. You state that people are guilty; that is why they are in FEDERAL prison. While it is true they were found guilty, the inmates of federal prison are guilty of FEDERAL crimes (not state crimes) AND they are sentenced to prison (not probation). Recidivism is a relapse into criminal behavior, like committing a crime, not violating parole by having a girl spend the night [2]. The number of people re-arrested are not the same as the number of people who recidivate, as these people can be re-arrested for a new crime, a parole/probation violation, or an arrest that doesn’t lead to a charge. As previously stated, your sources were not complete, so I could only use what information was provided. Your second, and core, argument was from 2004, so I used data from that time period. I have new stats from fiscal year 2009, compiled December 2010, I hope this is current enough for you. I would also like to disagree with your statement about another valid option being irrelevant to the debate. The argument would be “certain federal inmates should not receive an alternative sentence because there is a better option”. However, because I admit we should not be arguing the merits of such an alternative (hi-jacking the debate), I will yield this point. NOTE TO VOTERS AND COMMENTATORS: PLEASE COMMENT ON THIS SIDE ISSUE. Now, onto the fun… The population of federal prisons was 208,118 in 2009 [7]; however, the number of people who went to federal prison in fiscal year 2009 was 75,431, which was pretty close to my other number presented [1]. So, I stand by my argument for the savings being overestimated. Also, almost half of these prisoners are NOT U.S. citizens, so they surely shouldn’t benefit from this program. Using these numbers, ruling out non-citizens and assuming the of remainder 37.2% are safety-valve eligible and did not receive the safety-valve at a rate of $27,888 (Pro’s first source states $25,000) per inmate, this would save the DOJ a whopping $432,748,235.97, which is an overestimate for sure. This is to help 15,517 would-be inmates. How does “eliminating” 20.6% of the incoming inmates, which is 7.5% of the entire prison population, only constitute a savings of 7.1% over the entire FY2010 prison budget? One of your sources still did not work, the one regarding drug abuse treatment. I will stipulate that drug abuse treatment, and vocational skills for that matter, help with post-prison success. However, I do not believe your mystery source can justify its claim. If people aren’t buying drugs, then the drug dealers are doing less business, therefore less crime is being committed. Without seeing the study, I cannot agree that these people are less likely to commit new crimes. As I said, I will stipulate that education is a factor of post-prison success, and quite possibly a factor for their initial crimes. Over half of the sentenced inmates in 2009 did NOT have a high-school education. [1] However, the status quo provides for both GED and vocational education [3]. The status quo also provides for drug treatments [4]. Using your source, the safety valve is already in place, and used quite frequently [1,5]. “’1) the defendant has no more than one criminal history point; 2) the defendant ‘did not use violence or credible threats of violence or possess a firearm or other dangerous weapon (or induce another participant to do so) in connection with the offense’; 3) the offense did not result in death or serious bodily injury; 4) the defendant was not a leader or organizer of the offense; and 5) the defendant has fully cooperated with the government.’ The defendant must satisfy all five indices to warrant a “safety valve” departure from a mandatory minimum sentence.” However, this first source you cite is opposed to the current safety valve definition. They argue that more people should qualify, not that a new model should be in place. Speaking of this new model, it doesn’t work as well as you think in Dallas. Now, assuming that those that commit new offenses are included in those that fail, the system, after the first 21 months of the program, has had only 10 failures in 450 clients (2.2%). This program did take on more “high-risk” clients after inception. In those 11 months, they had 15 fails out of 80 (18.6%). They also were in charge of bond supervision for alcohol monitoring, in which 8 failed in the past month, out of 1000 (3.6% annually at this rate). These numbers aren’t too bad, but not great. I would argue that the reason it works is because it costs these criminals between $212.92 and $486.67 PER MONTH, depending on what devices they are forced to wear. This is the main reason why it works as well as it does. “The offenders tend to buy-in to the program more when they are paying the out of pocket cost” [6] Another thing to consider is how this Dallas method, which has DAILY CONTACT, will be applied nationwide. The federal government would have to have offices in each major city devoted to the well-being of these criminals, which would cost quite a bit. Assume each worker of this new program is assigned 30 people for NATIONWIDE DAILY contact, there would need to be 517 new employees. If they are paid salary and benefits of $45,000 (which would be about the median wage [8]), this is a cost of over $23 million, which is over 5% of the savings in wages alone. But even more important than the savings, is the cost to the inmate. Chances are, if they were in trouble with the law, especially with drugs, they had trouble with money in the first place. How can these people afford the supervision? They can’t. Pro is arguing that the status quo is broken, but doesn’t seem to realize that the tools for fighting recidivism, in his mind, are job training and rehab; these tools are already available to inmates. So, Pro thinks that instead of the status quo, we should be forcing the inmates to pay for the supervisors who will force the inmate to better themselves. Isn’t the old adage “you can’t help those who don’t want it”? I stated that the real issue for recidivism is society, largely not being able to get a job. If my personal experience isn’t a viable source (which I understand), then here are a few more. All state that ex-cons find it hard to find work [9]. If they can’t find work, they get desperate. We pretend we want to give people a second chance, but, really, we don’t. This is why government offers grants to those that help, as I said needs to be done, because businesses are very unlikely to take a risk with little chance of reward [10]. There needs to be no new alternative sentences, the status quo is fine. It isn't perfect, but it is not cost-effective to offer services that are already offered in a different atmosphere that causes financial duress on those we're trying to help. Vote Con. Sorry these are a bit out of order, but I reorganized my thoughts… http://www.ussc.gov... http://www.nij.gov... http://www.bop.gov... http://www.bop.gov... http://www.johntfloyd.com... http://www.dallascounty.org... http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov... http://www.bls.gov... http://www.saferfoundation.org... http://www.huffingtonpost.com...