There’s more to justice than prison (continued)

THE DAILY BARRIERS faced by ex-offenders can seem insurmountable when coupled with the common experiences of social stigma and a devalued sense of self-worth. "It’s a hard struggle," Nancy says emphatically. "Staying focused is hard — fighting the demons inside your head."

Rodriguez tells me later that many of her clients have "tons of things they’re dealing with," from histories of being abused to mental health problems. The shame and regret associated with a criminal history can be crippling, especially for the 50 percent of men and 75 percent of women in Rhode Island prisons who, like Nancy, have one or more children.

Though Rodriguez makes a concerted effort not to discount the presence and pain of crime victims, empathy is her motivation, perhaps because it has been lacking from the criminal justice landscape of the last 30 years. "We spend so little time," she remarks, "trying to understand what they’re going through."

Empathy will not immediately permeate the public. "I don’t expect the world to change," says the ACLU’s Steve Brown, "I don’t expect politicians anytime in the future to become advocates of knocking down our prison walls." (As Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox has noted, politicians discussing criminals tend to emphasize the three Rs — revenge, retaliation, and retribution – because it leads to the fourth R — reelection.)

Amid such political obstacles, nobody is quite sure exactly which programs work best to keep ex-offenders from returning to jail. More precisely, the consensus seems to be that there is no sure thing. Only a rational approach recognizing the individual needs of an ex-offender can be expected to work for that person. Nuanced solutions are notoriously hard to sell, of course. The success of the rhetoric that has dominated criminal justice for decades owes much to its ability to collapse the complexities of such issues into positive slogans: "Tough on crime," "Just say no," "The war on drugs."

In 1981, former US Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger asserted that "to confine offenders behind walls without trying to change them is an expensive folly with short-term benefits," tantamount to "winning battles while losing the war."

Almost 25 years on, little has changed. The nuanced solutions, however, have something going for them: if at all successful, they are unquestionably cheaper than sending people back to prison. Supporting organizations like the Family Life Center costs taxpayers less than housing an inmate, and the possible long-term benefit of turning an ex-offender into a contributing member of society, although difficult to measure in financial terms, is certainly valuable. A diminishing national focus on incarceration could also potentially divert more resources and attention to improving education and health-care, and alleviating poverty — the very factors that affect incarceration rates in communities like South Providence.

The nascent crossing of party lines to target reducing recidivism may indicate a breach in the traditional ideological divide between Republicans and Democrats. It may also "have a lot to do with money," Brown acknowledges, but "if the result is to deemphasize incarceration, the motivations don’t really matter for me." For the 3700 men and women to be released from Rhode Island prisons this year and offered services that could help keep them out, the motivations might be equally inconsequential.

Alexander Provan can be reached at alex@severalprojects.com.