Washblog

A Fox 13 News segment linked to on the PPEP site reports that about 67% of people released from prison are re-arrested within 3 years and that two years of higher education has been shown to dramatically reduce that percentage. There is, nevertheless, a reluctance among some legislators to do anything that is seen as soft on criminals.  Senator Kline, who supported funding for PPEP is quoted on this segment: "This is good social policy.  What I need to do is to get my fellow legislators to get off this supposedly tough-on-crime kick and start thinking about real public safety.  And so many legislators are simply not there."  In his speech, which appears below the fold, Ari Kohn makes a case for adequately funding the Department of Corrections for a wide range of transition services, not only education, that will reduce crime. Tragically, although we are lavishing millions on tough-on-crime policies such as Three Strikes, which are shown to not be cost effective, we appear to be on a path of further cuts to services that are shown to be effective.

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HEADLINE:  The system is at fault
The New York Times quoting President-Elect Obama's new chief of staff Rahm Emanuel: "You don't ever want a crisis to go to waste; it's an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid."
From a speech by Ari Kohn presented at Real Change Annual Breakfast in November, 2008

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We have a crisis.  Let me share with you some numbers and percentages:

• Present day, the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) controls 18,551 prisoners.
• During the 12-month period beginning July, about 8,453 prisoners will be released from their index crimes (there will also be approximately 10,500 probation violations from which prisoners will be released).
• About 46% of these prisoners will release to King County.
• In Fiscal Year 2007, a total of 4,526 former prisoners were released from the DOC to King County.
• 2,815 of the 4,526 were released from violations rather than their index crime(s).
• In 2004, 61.5% of the Washington courts' 28,076 adult felony sentences involved people who had a history of one or more prior offenses.
• According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 67.5% of prisoners released have been rearrested within three years of release, an increase over the 62.5% found for the proceeding reporting period.
• According to the Department of Corrections, 29% of prisoners released in 2000 have been returned to a State facility within three years as a result of a new felony conviction; 37% of prisoners released in 2000 have been returned to a State facility within five years as a result of a new felony conviction.
• Of the 18,551 total prisoners, 82% are parents and have on average 1.91 children.
• Of the 28,671 former prisoners who are actively supervised on probation by the Department of Corrections, 3,867 are known to be homeless.  If the same percentage (13.48%) is applied to the 14,790 who are not actively supervised then the total number of homeless former prisoners under the DOC's Community Corrections Division is about 5,870 adults.

Washington is "straight out flunking" when it comes to reentry and transition programs and homelessness.

Listening to these facts, people tend to think it is the Department of Corrections that is failing horribly, but it is not the Department of Corrections.  Instead, it is our governors and the Legislature, past and present, and "main stream" media and the electorate who are at fault for not making it possible with funding and legislation for the Department of Corrections to provide transitional housing, to provide mental health care, to help people overcome addictions, and to provide for so many other issues.

Last winter, on a bitterly cold night, I left my office at Columbia and Third at about 9:30 to walk up to my car at Key Tower.  There was a woman sitting outside on the sidewalk freezing cold because she was being refused a bed in the shelter that used to be at the Methodist Church on the corner of Columbia and 5th.  She told me she was being refused because she did not have $5.00 for a bed for the night.  I told her I had no cash and walked on by, but once in the lobby of Key Tower I saw the ATM.  By the time I got back to this young woman she clearly had given up hope of being admitted into the shelter and was sobbing to the extent she didn't even hear me walk back up to her with the money she needed.

For the 18,550 people in Washington's prisons, the 43,000 who are on probation, for their 96,600+ children, for the 2,300+ who were unsheltered in Seattle on a cold winter night last winter - and the 8,400 who frequently are homeless throughout King County on any given night - I beg each and every one of you to walk out of here today committed to never shut up, to never stop working, until everyone in Washington has equal rights, until everyone in Washington has had their needs met to the same degree we all want for our children, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers.

I have a lot of favorite tee-shirts, for example, an old ACLU shirt that says, "It's a Bill of Rights, not Suggestions," but my favorite has a quote from Martin Luther King:

"Our Lives Begin to End the Day We Become Silent About Things that Matter."

May we never become silent!!

Thank you!

Photo of Ari Kohn by Revel Smith, Real Change Communications Director.