Posted on 05/21/2014 3:08:00 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
WASHINGTON — Prisoners should be provided free education in order to reduce crime and recidivism, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich declared at a gathering of conservative advocates of prison reform.
Right on Crime, a Texas-based coalition of conservative public figures and elected officials, had a two day Leadership Summit at the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center Tuesday and Wednesday.
Newt Gingrich gave remarks at the Wednesday morning session, describing some of the needs he believed had to be met for meaningful prison reform.
While still supportive of the early 1990's "war on crime" measures championed by the likes of New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Gingrich believed that more had to be done than merely arresting people.
Gingrich told The Christian Post that he believed education was a crucial component for helping to aid individuals released from prison who were able to be reformed.
"When you realize how many of the prisoners score the very bottom of literacy. If you don't learn how to read during a period when we're paying your housing, we're paying your food, we've total control of your life," said Gingrich.
"If we can't figure out a way to use online learning and other systems to help you learn how to read and how to be productive why would we think you are going to get a job when you get out of prison?"
A project of the nonprofit group the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Right on Crime is a conservative-driven effort to reform America's criminal justice and prison system.
The group has a declaration, known as the Right on Crime Statement of Principles, which outlines their objectives.
"As with any government program, the criminal justice system must be transparent and include performance measures that hold it accountable for its results in protecting the public, lowering crime rates, reducing re-offending, collecting victim restitution and conserving taxpayers' money," reads one objective from the Statement.
"An ideal criminal justice system works to reform amenable offenders who will return to society through harnessing the power of families, charities, faith-based groups, and communities."
At the summit, guests got to hear from representatives of the governments of Texas and Mississippi, both of whom had implemented state-level reforms to their criminal justice system.
Speakers spoke about the need to do more than strictly punish offenders, but rather to recognize that convicted criminals were not all hardened repeat offenders.
For Mississippi, their reform efforts included a mixture of lowered drug penalties, changed sentencing procedures, and mandatory minimums.
Texas representatives, which included a message from outgoing Governor Rick Perry, boasted of a decline in crime and imprisonment, with the Lone Star State having closed down a few of its prisons for lack of need.
One of the summit attendees and a signatory of the Statement was Ken Cuccinelli, former attorney general for the Commonwealth of Virginia and a state legislator.
In an interview with CP, Cuccinelli said that he was drawn to the Right on Crime effort due to its strident use of data to help advance prison reform.
"I really believe in using data to come to right outcomes," said Cuccinelli, adding that criminal justice can be "a very expensive arena."
"There are consequences to being wrong. This is about people's lives and public safety. And I want to achieve the maximum public safety I can, consistent with frugality and getting good outcomes."
Cuccinelli also told CP that he felt the federal level will be influenced by the Right on Crime movement as more states adopt the reforms of the conservative group.
"As conservative states not only implement some of these reforms but see the data-driven successes they've had because of them, that's the laboratory of democracy," said Cuccinelli.
"Their congressmen and their senators are more likely to start bringing that to Washington, where the numbers and the dollars are just enormous."
It depends. I think education is a good idea, since most people in jail are not in for major crimes or even for violent crimes. What should be in jail in their stead are all the union teachers, educational union bureaucrats, and politicians who permitted and encouraged the teachers and bureaucrats to conduct a public educational system where a large percentage of the graduates in certain parts of the country were functionally illiterate, and others graduated with absolutely no job skills and unable to do things like math or even arithmetic, which would have enabled them to learn skills on the job. Plus the schools were so lax that they had no work or behavioral ethics. De Blasio just gave a raise to these teachers...in a perfect world, he’d be in jail now.
Prison does give us a captive audience and a chance to catch up on this. Put in trades schools (even get the crafts unions involved) and basic ed and maybe things will improve. I actually have met people who have come out of prison (depending on the part of the country) with a skill or at least the basic knowledge to get into a program on the “outside” and have taken advantage of it.
Some criminals should be put to death immediately because they are vicious; others should be locked away forever for the same reason; others will be in for many years but even if they were learning and doing something in jail, could make the environment less violent and less conducive to more crime; and others will be out in a few years and it would be beneficial to everybody if they could drop the aimless, unstructured life that got them into criminal activities and get a job with real people in the real world.
LOL. Typical Newt. There are a million programs out there already is a number of states that will provide an education for non-maximum security prisoners and guess what — they don’t want it. And I say this as someone who does a lot of charity work in this area. Its sad — but realistic — to say that prisoners are “prisoners” for a reason. They don’t want to educate themselves and work hard.
Prisoners should be breaking rocks in the hot son for 12hrs a day to reduce recidivism.
Newt needs to shut up now, sit his fat butt down and just write books. He has shown himself to be ... nearly useless.
What you say is true. And what Newt is proposing would be productive.
Except that...
...we all know that a government bureaucracy is incapable of achieving even modest aims. I.e., would the Bureau of Prisons achieve a better educational outcome than the Public Education bureaucracy?
Yeah, this is the kind of thing that government should do. But can't do...
Shut up, Newt.
Maybe the best way to reduce recidivism is to make prison a place that no one in their right mind would ever want to return to.
To think at the time I thought he was the best of the GOP candidates in 2012.
Says more about the sad state of the GOP more than anything.
They fought the Law, and the Law won.
Many of them (the “preferred minorities”) are already offered free college BEFORE they go to prison; they just couldn’t be bothered.
“I think education is a good idea, since most people in jail are not in for major crimes or even for violent crimes.”
I thought only hard cases were being imprisoned at this point (to control costs); have you seen the rap sheets on the perps of some of today’s criminals? Twenty years ago they’d still be in prison for their crimes; now they’re turned loose pretty quickly (if they do any time at all).
“What should be in jail in their stead are all the union teachers, educational union bureaucrats, and politicians who permitted and encouraged the teachers and bureaucrats to conduct a public educational system where a large percentage of the graduates in certain parts of the country were functionally illiterate, and others graduated with absolutely no job skills and unable to do things like math or even arithmetic, which would have enabled them to learn skills on the job.”
So true; I can’t believe the difference between the capabilities of today’s kids and their own perception of their abilities. They (and their parents) have truly been deceived...
Yeah, me too. As the circus guy said, you can fool some of the people all of the time, or something like that. Newty had me fooled, bigtime.
Sure! Let's just give them the keys to the lock boxes and combination to the vault while we're at it!
I almost added a (/sarc) tag to that, but on second thought, they'd probably steal a hell of alot less than the Government and Wall Street.
The white box sounds good. So is the black dolphin. Google black dolphin prison.
Do away with the convict schools.
Do away with the TV’s and the movies.
No radios. No phones. No recorded anything.
No gyms. No healthy never get fat meals.
You, convict, stole from us, but then we have to pay fopr years, to keep you alive?
You, convict, murdered us. But our families get the privilege of watching you grow old, and all they get is a stone marker?
Make the jails the place they were meant to be, punishment.
A convict has a bad heart? Make them run laps!
A convict has cancer? Again, we, are expected to pay for that. Not this kid!
Hey, maybe there is an ex-con out there, sucking up your disability money, because of their brought-on-by-themselves-medical condition????
No mercy from this kid towards an ex-con, period.
I agree...learn to read, write and obtain certification in a trade. One day prisoners will be back in society and live in our neighborhoods. If they have a skill and are able to make a living and pay taxes..we are all better off. Newt is right.
News flash....
Most people in prison are there for drugs or victimless crimes. Your entire argument just crumbled. If your punishment is worse than the crime, you might have an issue. Do you like to resolve issues or do you bury your head in the sand like a coward and double down on stupid?
Do you know any convicts or people that have been to prison? I do and most want nothing more than to move on with their lives. They were all there for drugs. These people are no better or worse than anyone else in society with addictions. Unfortunately they chose the wrong addiction. It’s okay to be a fat ass and burden society, or a drunk, or a pill head, but not illegal drugs. That makes you a piece of garbage worth destroying. Have you ever seen the inside of a prison because I doubt you have and I highly suggest you take a field trip or do some reading. Prisons are not a fun place and neither is jail. It is completely dehumanizing and we wonder why people are worse when they come out. You cant make people into animals then get upset when they do animal things. Im not advocating we make it the holiday inn but our current policies are a TOTAL FAILURE. That cannot be denied... period.
Our Founding Fathers did not intend this country to wrap itself and persecute itself through legalism. Attaching a title to someone because of a mistake does not make you a better person. Closed fist types like you seem to be unable to comprehend the current state of our Judicial and Criminal Justice System and the destruction is wrecks on our society. It doesn’t fix anything, unless you want cheap labor, someone for those who are small on the inside to stand on so they feel “big”. Everyone at any time is one step away from prison thanks to incompetence and the crazed and unethical zeal of our current crop of State Prosecutors. “Show me the man and I will show you the crime”.
Honestly, who believes in the sociopathic nonsense you just spewed? Our criminal justice system is completely out of control. In a vast majority of criminal cases, your freedom depends on your financial status and ability to secure proper counsel. While the poor suffer, rich brats like Bush and Obama get away with doing the same illegal and banned activities who’s prohibition they enforce.
It all comes down to these questions. What is the goal of our criminal justice system and is it working? Are people who leave prison being rehabilitated or not? Once a criminal always a criminal is only true when you encourage it. The system needs to be balanced, not the one sided human suffering show you so coldly advocate.
Now to address the article,
Those in prison should no leave without comprehensive rehabilitation. The issues that got them in should be evaluated and a program put in place to try and correct it. Education, job training, and a legal and ethical career is a far better option than our current plan which is what, put them in timeout for a few years and hope they don’t end up screwing up again? Prison and jail alone is not an effective deterrent against crime. At no point in our history is this more evident than NOW, considering our prison population continues to grow.
Put a program together and implement it. Create achievable goals and scrutinize and evaluate it. If it doesn’t work, burn it and go back to the previous plan or make a new one. There is no excuse for doing nothing. If it is broken, fix it.
Newt is still full of crap and this Right On Crime group is NOT conservative in nature; it’s full blown liberal.
Prisoners already have classes and access to a library. Just think of how many have acquired credits in law school and often have been able to file their own appeals, etc.
Great idea! Then they can populate Mars.
Says more about old age, something I have plenty of experience with. Somehow I have avoided becoming a mush headed liberal, but maybe there is time left.
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