The notion that we should take away educational programs in prisons in order to be tough on crime makes no sense.
Prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse.
...a common observation, that few are mended by imprisonment, and that he, whose crimes have made confinement necessary, seldom makes any other use of his enlargement, than to do, with greater cunning, what he did before with less.
Redemption isn't giving a bank robber a job as a teller.
The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other. They are worse than ever when, at the termination of their punishment, they return to society.
Where ex-offenders are genuinely trying to turn a corner and live free from crime, it is vital we do all we can to support them.
So what really works? Treatments in jail do some good, but it's mostly too late: finding a family and a job or just growing older make most prisoners eventually give up crime.
We can't just rail against crime. We must speak of the root problems - devastating family breakup, an insidious culture of violence that cheapens human life, skyrocketing prisoner recidivism rates that rob our communities of husbands and fathers - and recognize that there is a societal role in rehabilitation and restoration.
