In the scientific and technological fields, we have transcended the impossible. We have walked on the moon, mapped the human brain, performed open-heart surgery, vaccinated polio and small pox, and cloned a sheep named Dolly. However, when it comes to social issues, particularly what to do with those who commit crimes, we remain baffled.

How is that we can elevate our thinking to a plane that allows us to explore the depths of the ocean, carbon date a fossil that is thousands of years old, and predict the next natural disaster, yet when it comes to implementing a paradigm that will effectively curtail our overwhelming crime rate, our evolution of thought reverts back to the Paleolithic Age?

Yes, I am implying that our current approach to corrections is primitive and barbaric. Approximately 750,000 years ago, the Neanderthal was not capable of higher thought; his brain had not evolved to the point where he could make rational decisions. Consequently, his decisions were impulsive, reactive, and guided by emotions rather than intellect. Similarly to the Neanderthal, our criminal justice policy is being motivated by fear, anger, and retribution.

Every time the media flashes provocative and appalling images of a crime scene across our television sets, we cringe in fear and ask ourselves the dreaded hypothetical question: What if someone tries to harm me, or worse yet, my family? Pressure is put on Congress and they respond by passing laws. Virtually no hearings are held, no experts consulted, and no rational debate is held when they pass another set of these impulsive prison terms. Most people in society do not ask about any long-term effects of the “tough on crime bill;” they are just satisfied that their fears are temporarily extinguished and offenders will serve a lengthy prison term for their improprieties. As the result of our emotional approach to deterring crime, the U.S. prison population has swelled to a staggering 2.5 million people!

Can you believe that the United States incarcerates more of its own people per capita than any other country in the world, including countries with large prison systems, such as Russia and China? Well, it’s true! Just as astonishing is how much money we spend on this growing phenomenon. We spend a staggering 40 billion a year on corrections, costs that are having a profound effect on all of us.

For nearly thirty years, “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” has been our stance on crime. We have abandoned rehabilitation, legislated harsh prison sentences, even for nonviolent offenses, and made criminals second-rate citizens. Unfortunately, despite the astronomical number of criminals behind bars and the billions of dollars squandered on warehousing them, crime is still devastating our communities. How can we in good faith continue to expend so much of our economic resources on the criminal justice system and see very little return on our investment. Deterrence, retribution, and incapacitation are ineffective, cost prohibitive, and counterproductive to eradicating crime. At some point, we have to be smarter investors, not only with our finances but also with other human lives.

Please don’t misconstrue what I am saying. I, too, am outraged when I turn on the local news and the anchor vividly describes how a forty-five-year old sexual deviant dragged a twelve-year-old girl into the woods and violently raped her. Instinctively, I am disgusted, livid, and want instant retribution for the little girl who was robbed of her innocence. Moreover, I want him to spend the rest of his natural life behind towering prison walls that are fortified by armed guard towers where he will never be able to harm another one of our children!

Now that the aforementioned forty-five year old sex offender is safely confined behind bars, we believe the harsh conditions of prison and loss of freedom will act as a deterrent, thus preventing him from committing future crimes. Right? In our rational minds, we find it inconceivable that a person who serves fifteen to twenty years behind bars would ever jeopardize their freedom ever again. Too much would be at stake. Who would ever be so foolish?

Well, let me introduce you to Johnny. Johnny grew up in a quiet suburb in Blue Springs, Missouri, where he received the ideal American upbringing. His mother was a history teacher at the local middle school and his father worked as a self-employed psychiatrist. Early on, Johnny’s parents instilled in him the importance of honesty, integrity, and hard work. Johnny was smart, gifted, and charismatic. Teachers and fellow students were enamored with him. He had an uncanny ability to relate to everyone, which helped him to win the coveted position of Senior Class President. Johnny’s contagious personality wasn’t his only asset either. He was a superior athlete, too. He was a two-time all-state track champion and been ranked the best high school quarterback in the Midwest. Johnny’s future was filled with promise and hope. He had scholarship offers from nearly every college in the United States.

Johnny was the boy next door who was voted most likely to succeed by his classmates. However, despite his superior intellect and overwhelming popularity, he was not immune to peer-pressure. As a result, Johnny’s choice of friends had not always been so wise. His best friend Danny was a troubled kid from the darker side of the tracks. Danny had experienced all the rotten breaks of life. His father was in prison and his mother barely home because she had to work two jobs to help her support her three children. With no parental guidance, Danny ran the streets searching for a place to fill in. Consequently, he was driven to the unruly cliques who abused drugs, ran with gangs, and committed crimes. Unlike Johnny’s future, Danny's was bearing down on him.

Despite Danny’s unruly behavior, Johnny felt obligated to his childhood friend. Johnny was the only one who really understood Danny. Though they were polar opposites, they were inseparable. Of course, their affinity was their love for football. They had played together all the way going back to Pop-Warner. Their chemistry on the football team was hypnotizing. Together they had led their high school football team to the state championships two years in a row.

One late Friday night Danny asked Johnny to go with him to heist some beer from Michael’s gas station so they could celebrate their latest win on the gridiron. At first, Johnny just laughed off the juvenile proposition. However, the longer the thought tumbled in his mind, the deeper the peer pressure penetrated. When around Danny, Johnny’s character always felt puny. Deep down, Johnny envied Danny’s ability to live his life without restraint. Johnny had lived in such a sheltered world that he never made a choice without first debating the consequences in his head. However, Johnny’s darker side was growing within him. He was ready to shed his innocence and prove his manhood.

As they sat in the parking lot in a drunken stupor, Johnny ran down the plan for the harmless crime. Johnny would distract the clerk by asking for instructions on how to get to the nearest town while Danny snatched up two cases of beer. Mentally prepped, they sauntered into the gas station, smelling like they had just swam in a pool of Budweiser. As they walked by the counter, the clerk’s trailing eyes followed the two suspicious teens.

Danny was a wreck. His eyes looked like they were on fire, his hair pointed in every direction on earth, and he could barely stand, let alone walk. The more Johnny looked at Danny, the more the thought of being caught grew in his mind. Danny stumbled toward the cooler filled with alcohol beverages. Johnny tried to keep the clerk distracted, but his worst fear kept playing before his incredulous eyes. He could barely contain himself. As each second played out in still frames, fear flushed out the alcohol from his inebriated system, quickly sobering him up to the reality of the criminal act that was about to transpire.

Danny snatched two cases of beer and bolted for the parking lot. Johnny in disbelief stood frozen in statuesque pose. The clerk, in his mid-twenties, leapt over the counter and chased Danny into the dim-lit parking lot. Danny ran to his car, slung the car door open, and threw the cases of beer in the back seat. The vigilante clerk leapt out of the darkness and jumped onto Danny’s back. Danny, stronger, broke free and tossed the clerk onto the hood of the car. Johnny ran out of the store. The clerk, not wanting anymore of Danny, got up and jumped on the back of the smaller and easier target. Not wasting any time, the clerk sunk in a rear naked choke-hold and squeezed with all his might.

Bursts of lights flickered in and out of Johnny’s head as he slipped in and out of consciousness. Danny knew the consequences of being caught, but his loyalty wouldn’t allow him to abandon his best friend. He jumped out of the car, slipped in behind the clerk, and with a force of a bat, smashed his forearm across the right side of his face. A stream of blood spew from the clerk’s twisted body as he lie unconscious in front of the store he tried to protect.

A few sleepless nights later, Danny and Johnny were arrested, arraigned, and detained in county jail on the charges of robbery and murder in the second degree. Johnny’s paid attorney convinces him that he can beat the charges because his role in the crime is minimal. Confident in his attorney’s abilities, he rejects the State’s offer of two concurrent five-year sentences.

Familiar with the criminal justice system, Danny knows the State’s plea bargain of five years is the best offer he will get. He accepts the offer and pleads guilty to stealing and involuntary manslaughter. With good time, his attorney assures him that he could be out in two years.

After an intense and emotional filled four-day trial, a jury, who didn’t quite comprehend the complex statutory definitions of a lesser-included offense, finds Johnny guilty of second degree murder and second-degree robbery. Everyone involved is disheartened, including the prosecutor. The trial judge is frustrated at the jury’s lack of understanding of the law. However, as the judicial officer, he must set aside his personal opinion and follow the letter of the law. Bound by strict sentencing guidelines, he reluctantly sentences Johnny to a twelve year term of imprisonment.

Unfortunately for Johnny, due to the “tough on crime” stampede, Congress passed a series of “truth-in-sentencing” bills which require violent offenders to serve the majority of their sentences. Since second degree murder is classified as a violent offense, Johnny will have to serve a minimum mandatory sentence of ten years before even becoming eligible for parole. Because of the length of his sentence and the State’s ability to receive more funding, Johnny is classified as a dangerous offender and shipped to a level five maximum-security prison. Despite this being Johnny’s first incarceration and only being eighteen, he is dumped in the oldest and most violent prison in the state, known to its denizens as the “bloodiest 47 acres in the United States.” Unlike Johnny, the majority of the cons at the “walls” are serving life sentences for unspeakable crimes.

As the “Gray Goose” (bus) passes through the “gates of hell,” he wonders how he, a suburbanite, with no battleground experience, will survive amongst the coliseum of gladiators. Later that day, after orientation, Johnny is issued a bedroll, three sets of state issue clothes, and is assigned a cell on the third tier in A-Block. As he enters through the steel door of his new housing unit, steps into his new cell house, a band of “booty bandits” is hanging out at the bottom of the stairs, looking for their next victim.

Smelling fear, the cold, vicious pack of predators trail Johnny to his cell. Oblivious to the ominous crowd, Johnny opens the door and steps into his new steel abode. Five shadows sweep in behind him and force him onto the suspended bed. For the 1,800 seconds, he is held at knife point while five muscle bound monsters brutally rape him. When they finish, Johnny is bruised, bloody, and broken.

Inmates adhering to the criminal code turned up their radios to drown out Johnny’s screams. The two correctional officers that guarded the unit were too busy playing the freaks with a group of sycophants to notice that a rape was happening within their unit. Johnny was stranded alone in a cruel world that devoured the weak. With nowhere to run, he succumbs to the inevitable and becomes a penitentiary punk. For the next few years, he is forced against his will to perform unspeakable sexual acts.

Johnny’s psychological prison becomes much more darker and treacherous than the physical one his body occupies. In order to escape his mental cage, he plunges syringes of heroin into his arms. Consequently, his body becomes addicted to the narcotic that makes his cruel and tragic world fade away. Over the nightmarish years, Johnny makes several attempts at suicide, receives numerous institutionally conduct violations for the use of intoxicating substances, and spends most of his time being caged in the hole for disciplinary infractions. The concrete jungle and its unruly beasts have consumed him and all that remains is a shell of a man.

In the last nine years, his grandma, grandpa, and his favorite uncles have passed away. The collateral consequences of having a loved one caged behind bars is too demanding and the proverbial out of sight, out of mind becomes the rest of his family’s unconscious stance. Buried alone, he has no impetus to regain his freedom. Years of adversity have hardened him. He is use to disappointment, sorrow, and mind-numbing loneliness. Being scolded, patronized, and debased by prison staff has become part of his daily prison routine. Johnny has grown cold from the emotional storms of frustration, bitterness, and resentments, eroding any hope for the old Johnny to return.

Eventually, he is transferred to a medium-security prison where only a few cons know his lurid past. He is no longer petrified of the unknown or intimidated by the threat of violence; he has embraced the abnormalities of prison life. Johnny has conformed to the overwhelming rules of the concrete jungle and is now ready to claim a section of the prison yard for himself. He has decided that he is no longer going to be passed around like an unwanted relative, he is no longer going to hold onto anyone else’s shank or drugs, and definitely is no longer going to be anyone else’s penitentiary punk.

Johnny goes from being the “prey” to being the “predator.” He spends his days lurking outside “fishrow” (housing unit for newcomers), stalking his next victim. Johnny now believes that power and control is the answer to restore his manhood. Consequently, young white vulnerable kids become ensnared in Johnny’s web of violent sexual assaults.

Any semblance of compassion, understanding, and love has been swallowed up by fear, intimidation, anger, and violence. Johnny has been taught that the two most deadliest weapons in prison are fear and anger. He knows that every time he brandishes his razor sharp sword coated in anger and fear, intimidation slices through the minds of his victims. He knows firsthand that the psychological act of being brutally stabbed is a million times more lethal than the actual physical act. The atrocities he’s seen and been subject to has left him numb.

After serving a decade in the bowels of prison, he appears before the Board for consideration of parole. The Chairman conducts a five-minute hearing covering the standard set of questions; “Tell me about your crime.” “What do you plan on doing if you are released?” “Why didn’t you take programs?” During the hearing, Johnny expresses no remorse, offers no explanation for his behavior while in prison, and presents no realistic future plans. A cursory review of his institutional file reveals that he has had over a hundred institutional infractions, ranging from sexual misconduct, possession of controlled substances, and numerous assaults with a deadly instrument.

Approximately four weeks later, Johnny receives his parole answer via the institutional mail. His notice of action states: “You have been scheduled for immediate release.” After serving nearly eleven years in prison, he is cast back into society with no high school diploma, no marketable skills, and no psychiatric counseling. He has no money, no clothes, and no place to stay. His family has turned their backs on him after years of manipulation and abuse. He had swindled thousands and thousands of dollars from them for dope and they no longer want anything to do with the man prison has bred. His only means of shelter becomes a cot at the local Salvation Army.

In prison, Johnny was feared, respected, and penitentiary-rich. However, he is quickly learning that the behavior rewarded in prison is shunned in society. He is baffled and doesn’t know how to make the transition from prisoner to citizen. Society operates on an entirely different set of rules and principles and morals taught to him as a youth were smothered by the overwhelming negativity of prison life. Being a con is all he knows.

During the course of his lengthy stay in prison, he has met a throng of criminals. It just so happens that several of them live in the area where he was dumped.  After tracking them down, he asks them for a little financial help. Just like Johnny, they had been spewed out into society with no assistance. However, they have learned how to cope in their new but strange environment. Criminal tactics worked for them in the past, so they returned to what works best for them-Crime.

Johnny’s penitentiary associates are eager to help a fellow con. As a sign of respect, they front him a few ounces until he can get on his feet. However, like most dope fiends, he terribly fails in his attempt to sell the drugs for profit. Instead of selling the dope, he ends up abusing it. Several blurred and sleepless days later, he begins breaking into houses to finance his new “meth habit.”

Johnny’s addiction has grown so out of control that his mind and body won’t allow him to rest until he gets his next hit. He stops reporting to his parole officer and goes on the run. Six weeks after he was released from prison he is re-arrested and taken before a judge. His short stay in society is over. During one of the many burglaries he committed, a forty year old mother of two came home, startling Johnny. Tragically, Johnny panicked and blew the mother away.

In Johnny’s case, did deterrence or incapacitation work? I don’t believe so. We sent Johnny to “gladiator school,” a place where he was trained by robbers, rapists, and murderers to be the worst of the worst. How could the seventeen year old impressionable kid not grow worse? He should have never been sent to an adult prison in the first place. Moreover, we should have sent him to a place where he could have learned from his past mistakes and became a better person.

In our attempt to deter crime, we actually spawned a monster. How can we expect to punish an offender for his or her crime, then send them to a place that promotes criminality, substance abuse, exploitation, and violence? What are the lessons we are trying to teach? A pundit of punishment might argue that at least we were protected from Johnny for a decade. I don’t believe this is the case. I believe that in our attempt to deter crime, we created a man capable to even greater crimes, thus making even more victims.

It is evident that from Johnny’s case and the many more like his, our system of punishment does not work, it’s unjust, and is respected by few; not by the citizen, not by the victim, and not by the offender. For some offenders it does not punish, for most it does not deter, and for certain it does not rehabilitate.

The institutions that were initially designed to bring about redemption and reform have collapsed into retributive warehouses. Mindlessly, we dump these breathing corpses into concrete and steel coffins, bury them in lengthy sentences, and abandon them to rot. Entombed, the decomposing nameless corpses are hollowed by the parasites of condemnation, solitude, and banishment. Years later, after a capricious and arbitrary decision, the Board resurrects the prisoner from their concrete cemetery and casts him or her back into a society they are no longer familiar with.

The public views the prison, no matter how horrible, as the pain that an offender must suffer. However, prisoners are sent to prison as punishment for their crime(s) not for punishment. Once an offender is incarcerated, our method should shift from retribution to rehabilitation.

We must contain offenders, correct them if possible, and if they are released, it must be to some form of productive endeavor, and to some rational hope for success. We do not want ex-prisoners or criminals to be released. We want productive and law-abiding citizens to be re-enculturated. For the greater good of society, let’s stop flushing prisoners into septic social systems that are filled with rage, violence, and apathy. Let’s set aside our indifference, abandon our punitive precepts, and implement modalities that are consistent with rehabilitation. So where do we start? How about we begin with the obvious.

Nearly ninety percent of offenders incarcerated were either high when they committed their crime or were committing their crime to get high. In attempt to diminish this epidemic, legislators have passed absurd mandatory sentences for drug related offenses. Often these draconian sentences carry the same range of punishment as violent crimes, such as robbery, rape, and murder. This form of punishment is barbaric, inept, and socially damaging.

It is illogical to think that we can use harsh prison sentences to deter people from abusing drugs and alcohol. For decades we have tried this approach and been terribly unsuccessful. Addiction is a cunning, baffling, and powerful disease that cannot be treated with crude depravation tactics. In order to treat addiction, we must understand that drug and alcohol abuse is a symptom of a deeper psychological crisis. Drugs and alcohol are not the sole problem, rather it is feelings of inadequacy, guilt, sorrow, anger, shame, and a host of other toxic emotions that stem from environmental stresses, such as mental, physical, and sexual abuse. To cope with their crucifying pain, addicts medicate their pain with mind-altering chemicals.

If we want to end the perpetual cycle of crime and addiction, we must address the impetuses that cause substance abuse and antisocial behavior. Furthermore, if we want a true and sincere conversion, we must provide addicts and criminals with extensive counseling, cognitive restructuring, behavioral modification, and situational techniques. We must provide safe environments where prisoners can feel safe to meticulously excavate the ancestry of their fears, resentments, inadequacies, shame, and anger. We must teach them how to cope with stress and emotions and arm them with tools that will enable them to live on life terms. Then it is the responsibility of the prisoners to reconcile with their past and forgive their trespassers, including themselves.

To be truly effective in our attempt to rehabilitate, we must implement a treatment modality that begins the minute the prisoner is received by the diagnostic and reception center. I suggest the following:Every prisoner entering the Department of Corrections should immediately be seen by a trained professional counselor. Together, the prisoner and counselor would review the prisoner’s crime report, details surrounding the offense, age of commitment, social and economic background, substance abuse, education, and observations of behavior and offer suggestions for correction.

After thoroughly examining the prisoner’s case file, the counselor would prepare a detailed report that would outline recommendations for rehabilitation., the prisoner would have to complete all mandated programs, e.g. if the prisoner had a history of substance abuse, he or she would be required to undergo extensive drug counseling. (There must be a range of programs available for the counselor to choose from, such as victim impact, therapeutic community, substance abuse counseling, A.A., N.A. Breaking Barriers, Transactional Analysis, Youth Services, Self-esteem, Criminality, Addictive Thinking, Life Skills, Successful Relationships, Long-distance Dads, Wounded Boys, Victim Mediation, Cage Your Rage, Alternatives to Violence, etc.)

Along with the cognitive and behavioral classes, college classes and vocational training should be provided in every institution. A prisoner’s odds of not re-offending increases exponentially when they enter back into society with a marketable skill. Every ninety days the counselor shall meet with the prisoner to ensure that he or she is making therapeutic progress. Correctional officers, case workers, supervisors, volunteers, and other relevant institutional personnel should periodically submit reports on the prisoner’s attitude and institutional adjustment.

Prison life should mirror society as much as possible without infringing upon the safety and security of the prison. Prisoners should be rewarded for exemplary behavior and punished for unacceptable behavior. Every prisoner should be required to perform restorative justice, giving back to the community from which they took. Every able-bodied prisoner should be required to provide a full and meaningful day of labor and be rewarded for their productivity. The prisoner’s labor should be directed to helping the prison become self-sufficient, thus saving the state money.

To ensure compliance, the Department of Corrections should operate on a point system, which would determine the prisoner’s release date. Prisoners who complete self-help programs, college classes, vocational training, employment, counseling, and restorative justice and display exemplary behavior would be rewarded points. Prisoners who receive disciplinary infractions, refuse to participate in self-help programs and counseling and display an overall lack of therapeutic gain would lose points, thus extending their stay in prison. Under the point system, every prisoner would be directly in control of their fate. Prisoners who refuse to comply should be housed in a prison with others who hold the same mentality, thus eradicating the incorrigibles from the corrigibles.

Once the prisoner received an out-date, they should be transferred to a prison that offers work-release, family integration, and furloughs, thus giving the prisoner an opportunity to slowly reintegrate into society. Upon release back into society, prisoners should be linked to sponsors who would help the prisoner to obtain his or her driver’s license, find employment, transportation, and housing.

Annually, parole officers should escort parolees back to the prison from which they were released. Once inside, the parolee would meet with prisoners to share his or her strengths, hopes, and experiences. This vital program would serve two purposes: encourage prisoners that they can successfully reintegrate into society and remind the parolee where he or she came from.

All parolees should be mandated to participate in volunteer programs such as Y.M.C.A., Salvation Army, A.A., N.A., Habitat for Humanity, and other programs that give back to the community. Being linked to such programs would offer the parolee a sense of meaning, thus decreasing the likelihood of recidivism.

We can no longer simply dump the offender back into society after years of incarceration. By doing so, we have built almost-certain failure into the system. When we release an individual, unimproved by his prison exposure, often into the environment from whence he came, with limited financial resources and impaired social skills, it will be a rare bird indeed who does not return to what he knows best, the criminal culture and crime, to support himself psychologically, financially,  and socially. All we can hope for then is that he will be re-arrested, re-convicted, and re-incarcerated, all at great human and economic cost to our culture.

Too many lives are at jeopardy to not rehabilitate the segment of citizens that could continue to do something about our criminal justice system. It’s time that we apply our human genius to the field of social sciences. If we can map the human brain, clone sheep, and invent weapons of mass destruction, then surely we can implement a rehabilitation model that will restore the sanity of society.