I was astonished to read From Prisoners to Good Neighbors in the L.A.Times, reporting “a new vision for San Quentin,” where Governor Gavin Newsom is changing the prison to Norway’s model that perhaps only Michael Moore and I talk about publicly -- and I’ve talked about it a lot.
You're low for the U.S. "Recidivism Imprisons American Progress" https://harvardpolitics.com/recidivism-american-progress. "When prisoners are released in Norway, they stay out of prison. Norway has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world at 20%. The U.S. has one of the highest: 76.6% of prisoners are rearrested within five years."
Hi, Sue ~ As you well know, this topic is right up my alley. I've conducted several weekend seminars here in Sedona on alternatives to incarceration, and I've used the Norway and other Scandinavian models as examples. I think we're headed toward the "game-changing" moment that "Future historians," as Alvin Toffler wrote in his seminal book, 'Future Shock,' will look back on this very period of time in human history and declare it the dividing line between civilized and uncivilized humankind"...what you termed "barbaric," which we truly are right now by comparison with where we could be by simply being willing to understand there are better ways. FAR better ways...and easier.
All right on. It feels like we're on an edge, a dividing line indeed. First things first is to talk about how to get to where people are "willing to understand there are better ways" Something that gets humanity's attention to where there's a collective aha doesn't seem impossible to me.
What a treasure trove. It is so impressive. The bigger box that contains all of these separate things is our criminal justice system, based on punishment. When we get enlightened, we'll base it on rehabilitation, and that will change every aspect that you've presented. We even have a model to go by and it's puzzling how this already proven improvement on what we do is ignored. No doubt because it works with the fundamentals of a world that needs to shift from personal aggrandizement to where we care about each other as much as we care about ourselves. That's the HUGE system change we desperately need.
This humane solution needs to be added to and compared with other humane ones, then contrasted with the ways our humanity is diminished. Would make a significant research project.
If you follow all the links in this, you get the comparison. UBI would be a major system-change that could be written about, where when you look to what's causal to our non-working world everything rests in radical income inequality, with so many people just trying to survive.
Central bank digital currencies are beyond my smarts. Just how the whole world would be brought out of survival is a big question but THAT it should happen isn't questionable. I don’t see the acknowledgement that there aren’t going to be enough jobs because of automation, and the argument that historically as we progress it’s a substitute of different sort of jobs in this instance doesn’t hold. It’s not just altruism, which would be reason enough to take care of everyone, but in fact it's survival for everyone. If there aren’t jobs there aren’t consumers and that would take everyone down.
Indeed. Whenever I talk about UBI lately, which I have long advocated, I always feel the need to qualify that I don't support CBDC as that can be used as a tool for totalitarian control that would make the most notorious dictators of the 20th century blush. So many people seem to think that UBI automatically implies a CBDC, when there need not be any CBDC at all.
People need a plan, an organization and/or a leader with a strong voice and purpose, or "a willingness to understand" is just a nice-sounding catch-phrase that will go the way of "random acts of kindness," which is still alive somewhere, I've heard...but not exactly a call to arms, speaking metaphorically.
Enough people are waking up (not "woke"...puhleeze), that the game is slowly, gradually changing ala the 100th Monkey process that will ultimately steer those who are waking up away from the distant cliffs humanity is headed toward like lemmings. BUT, those who are oblivious to the greater changes now underway aren't even going to try to understand until their toys and distractions are gone and whomever is the emperor du jour nor any of his dominions are found to have any clothes. They're not much better off than their ancestors were at the Roman Colosseum.
Brugh Joy said once...maybe several times..."As to enlightenment, you can't load up the buses and take them there." And so I'll work with those who want the help and the guidance and kindness and compassion that we hold dear. The rest I will just sigh and wish them well...
"You can't load up the buses and take them there." I like that. But evolution has given us the internet and that could make for a different story! We may just lack for a good idea for a way to get to everyone.
This is a lower rate for the U.S. than I've seen in any other piece. Last year from the Harvard Political Review https://harvardpolitics.com/recidivism-american-progress: "When prisoners are released in Norway, they stay out of prison. Norway has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world at 20%. The U.S. has one of the highest: 76.6% of prisoners are rearrested within five years."
Indeed, and interestingly, the notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Maricopa County Jail had an even higher recidivism rate than the USA national average, despite Arpaio's policy of deliberately making his prisoners as miserable as possible. It's almost like sadism doesn't actually discourage recidivism at all.
Almost like sadism doesn't discourage recidivism? Whatever cruelty we inflict on prisoners gets us re-offenders instead of criminals being turned into into law-abiding citizens. What a long time to learn a lesson from the Bible, about eye's for eyes.
People will say, it won’t work, but it looks like it does. Obviously the way we’ve been doing it’s not working so this seems like a smart way to approach it.
I'm surprised there hasn't been backlash. It seems to be largely unknown. I haven't seen it on TV news or anywhere but that LA TImes piece that's a few days old now. Maybe it's so shocking that people don't take it in, like those Spanish ships the Indians presumably never saw.
So .......... By 2025, San Quentin will become “the largest center of rehabilitation, education and training in the California prison system, and maybe the nation." It certainly seems that there is a movement going on. Times may well be a-changing. At last!!
I have a whole dossier of suggestions to improve things, that I will keep writing about, but don't have examples comparable to this one where anything substantial is in the works. Could you cite where work is being done, as it is in this instance?
I can see Sue that you're very identified with the improved Norwegian prison system. But I can't help but see this "unless they are not rehabilitated" part as....who is going to decide what "rehabilitated" is? So if you're in jail it doesn't matter whether you really did it...it matters whether you behaved according to what "we" (who ever that is) decides is "rehabilitated". Honesty, I'm a social worker so I know what it's like to be identified with "doing good". It really feels like the right thing to do. But it's not really better because being treated more humanely shouldn't be at the cost of having someone else decide if your rehabilitated or not.
I posted this reply but in the wrong place. Think about a parole board. We know how to do that -- although hopefully better than most of them do it now. Evaluation isn't a foreign concept. If you absorb all the Norway materials I think you'd see how it easily would work.
This is amazing news, Suzanne, re. Gov. Newsom changing the prison model for San Quentin to Norway's model! You have been praising Norway's restorative model for prisoners for years and I am sure must have inspired either Newsom or his staff to see the light. Its wonderful when politicians demonstrate real leadership!
It just seems like a miracle -- which would be even more so if I'd had any responsibility. Who knows, in a more enlightened understanding thoughts are things and maybe they caught my vibe. The other shoe to fall would be about sentencing, where its 21 years max in Norway unless you're not rehabilitated and don't get released. Their money is where their mouth is about rehabilitation which would be a massively changeful thing for us to get behind.
Indeed. This would be such a learning opportunity to get it that the good of the whole is everyone's good. It would be a huge gamechanger at a very deep level for us to do what Norway does.
You're low for the U.S. "Recidivism Imprisons American Progress" https://harvardpolitics.com/recidivism-american-progress. "When prisoners are released in Norway, they stay out of prison. Norway has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world at 20%. The U.S. has one of the highest: 76.6% of prisoners are rearrested within five years."
I feel like the LA Times needed to give you a shout out for inspiring their article. Great job being ahead of the curve Suzanne!
Hi, Sue ~ As you well know, this topic is right up my alley. I've conducted several weekend seminars here in Sedona on alternatives to incarceration, and I've used the Norway and other Scandinavian models as examples. I think we're headed toward the "game-changing" moment that "Future historians," as Alvin Toffler wrote in his seminal book, 'Future Shock,' will look back on this very period of time in human history and declare it the dividing line between civilized and uncivilized humankind"...what you termed "barbaric," which we truly are right now by comparison with where we could be by simply being willing to understand there are better ways. FAR better ways...and easier.
All right on. It feels like we're on an edge, a dividing line indeed. First things first is to talk about how to get to where people are "willing to understand there are better ways" Something that gets humanity's attention to where there's a collective aha doesn't seem impossible to me.
it is hopeful
So hopeful, and so out of the blue. In a whole other context it reminds me of the Berlin Wall falling "all of a sudden."
If we ran an enlightened prison system, every prisoner would have a cat: https://www.reddit.com/r/Catswithjobs/comments/1dvwvgz/prison_worker
Not only is our prison system, that's focused on punishment, where prisoners get hardened instead of rehabilitated, so detrimental to the greater good, but there's also the financial corruption that we pay for in taxes! "Wall Street’s New Prison Scam": https://www.levernews.com/wall-streets-new-prison-scam/?utm_source=newsletter-email&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=newsletter-article
I've subscribed to Beth Shelburne who is so on it with the abuses of our system. Here's a comment I put on this: https://bethshelburne.substack.com/p/this-week-injustice-jan-29-2024
What a treasure trove. It is so impressive. The bigger box that contains all of these separate things is our criminal justice system, based on punishment. When we get enlightened, we'll base it on rehabilitation, and that will change every aspect that you've presented. We even have a model to go by and it's puzzling how this already proven improvement on what we do is ignored. No doubt because it works with the fundamentals of a world that needs to shift from personal aggrandizement to where we care about each other as much as we care about ourselves. That's the HUGE system change we desperately need.
Read up on Norway's system: "This could be a game changer" https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/this-could-be-a-game-changer.
This humane solution needs to be added to and compared with other humane ones, then contrasted with the ways our humanity is diminished. Would make a significant research project.
If you follow all the links in this, you get the comparison. UBI would be a major system-change that could be written about, where when you look to what's causal to our non-working world everything rests in radical income inequality, with so many people just trying to survive.
Amen. I have been advocating for UBI for years now. A genuine, no strings attached UBI without CBDC, to be precise.
Central bank digital currencies are beyond my smarts. Just how the whole world would be brought out of survival is a big question but THAT it should happen isn't questionable. I don’t see the acknowledgement that there aren’t going to be enough jobs because of automation, and the argument that historically as we progress it’s a substitute of different sort of jobs in this instance doesn’t hold. It’s not just altruism, which would be reason enough to take care of everyone, but in fact it's survival for everyone. If there aren’t jobs there aren’t consumers and that would take everyone down.
Indeed. Whenever I talk about UBI lately, which I have long advocated, I always feel the need to qualify that I don't support CBDC as that can be used as a tool for totalitarian control that would make the most notorious dictators of the 20th century blush. So many people seem to think that UBI automatically implies a CBDC, when there need not be any CBDC at all.
People need a plan, an organization and/or a leader with a strong voice and purpose, or "a willingness to understand" is just a nice-sounding catch-phrase that will go the way of "random acts of kindness," which is still alive somewhere, I've heard...but not exactly a call to arms, speaking metaphorically.
Enough people are waking up (not "woke"...puhleeze), that the game is slowly, gradually changing ala the 100th Monkey process that will ultimately steer those who are waking up away from the distant cliffs humanity is headed toward like lemmings. BUT, those who are oblivious to the greater changes now underway aren't even going to try to understand until their toys and distractions are gone and whomever is the emperor du jour nor any of his dominions are found to have any clothes. They're not much better off than their ancestors were at the Roman Colosseum.
Brugh Joy said once...maybe several times..."As to enlightenment, you can't load up the buses and take them there." And so I'll work with those who want the help and the guidance and kindness and compassion that we hold dear. The rest I will just sigh and wish them well...
"You can't load up the buses and take them there." I like that. But evolution has given us the internet and that could make for a different story! We may just lack for a good idea for a way to get to everyone.
A very persuasive statistic: "In the United States, an estimated two-thirds of people released from prison re-offend. In Norway, it’s about 20%."
This is a lower rate for the U.S. than I've seen in any other piece. Last year from the Harvard Political Review https://harvardpolitics.com/recidivism-american-progress: "When prisoners are released in Norway, they stay out of prison. Norway has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world at 20%. The U.S. has one of the highest: 76.6% of prisoners are rearrested within five years."
Indeed, and interestingly, the notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Maricopa County Jail had an even higher recidivism rate than the USA national average, despite Arpaio's policy of deliberately making his prisoners as miserable as possible. It's almost like sadism doesn't actually discourage recidivism at all.
Almost like sadism doesn't discourage recidivism? Whatever cruelty we inflict on prisoners gets us re-offenders instead of criminals being turned into into law-abiding citizens. What a long time to learn a lesson from the Bible, about eye's for eyes.
People will say, it won’t work, but it looks like it does. Obviously the way we’ve been doing it’s not working so this seems like a smart way to approach it.
I'm surprised there hasn't been backlash. It seems to be largely unknown. I haven't seen it on TV news or anywhere but that LA TImes piece that's a few days old now. Maybe it's so shocking that people don't take it in, like those Spanish ships the Indians presumably never saw.
So .......... By 2025, San Quentin will become “the largest center of rehabilitation, education and training in the California prison system, and maybe the nation." It certainly seems that there is a movement going on. Times may well be a-changing. At last!!
I'd say not "at last" but a slow progression, where this is a great step along the way.
AGREE!! Absolutely!!
There are perhaps a dozen essential reforms to Make America Sane Again. This is one of them. Money out of Politics is of course high up there.
I have a whole dossier of suggestions to improve things, that I will keep writing about, but don't have examples comparable to this one where anything substantial is in the works. Could you cite where work is being done, as it is in this instance?
I WANT THAT HAT!
I can see Sue that you're very identified with the improved Norwegian prison system. But I can't help but see this "unless they are not rehabilitated" part as....who is going to decide what "rehabilitated" is? So if you're in jail it doesn't matter whether you really did it...it matters whether you behaved according to what "we" (who ever that is) decides is "rehabilitated". Honesty, I'm a social worker so I know what it's like to be identified with "doing good". It really feels like the right thing to do. But it's not really better because being treated more humanely shouldn't be at the cost of having someone else decide if your rehabilitated or not.
I posted this reply but in the wrong place. Think about a parole board. We know how to do that -- although hopefully better than most of them do it now. Evaluation isn't a foreign concept. If you absorb all the Norway materials I think you'd see how it easily would work.
This is amazing news, Suzanne, re. Gov. Newsom changing the prison model for San Quentin to Norway's model! You have been praising Norway's restorative model for prisoners for years and I am sure must have inspired either Newsom or his staff to see the light. Its wonderful when politicians demonstrate real leadership!
It just seems like a miracle -- which would be even more so if I'd had any responsibility. Who knows, in a more enlightened understanding thoughts are things and maybe they caught my vibe. The other shoe to fall would be about sentencing, where its 21 years max in Norway unless you're not rehabilitated and don't get released. Their money is where their mouth is about rehabilitation which would be a massively changeful thing for us to get behind.
Excellent! Though clearly not sadistic enough to satisfy the deep-seated primal lust for vengeance that so many Americans seem to have.
Indeed. This would be such a learning opportunity to get it that the good of the whole is everyone's good. It would be a huge gamechanger at a very deep level for us to do what Norway does.
Gahhhh..I read all the way down to here before I noticed the dates are from a year and a half ago.