Con: Risks outweigh rewards

Everyone wins when released felons can integrate successfully back into society as law-abiding, productive citizens. Unfortunately, successful integration is unlikely in Idaho. A Department of Justice longitudinal study discovered 83 percent of felons will recidivate within nine years after release from prison; Idaho stats show a recidivism rate of 75 percent within five years.

Idaho’s prisons are overcrowded. Knowing this, it is no surprise Josh Tewalt, Idaho’s Department of Correction director, is looking for options to deal with the rapidly growing state’s prison population. The state has decided to build what it calls Community Re-entry Centers as a solution to its overcrowding problem. These centers are essentially minimum security prisons housing felons with up to 18 months of their sentence still to serve. The state is considering building one of these facilities in Kootenai County.

Many studies have been conducted examining various re-entry programs. Urban Institute’s study found Idaho’s SB1357, the Justice Reinvestment Act, did not achieve its goal of reducing recidivism and establishing long-term employment for felons. This study determined, lacking evidence-based procedures, re-entry facilities are basically indisputable failures and an ineffectual use of taxpayer dollars and public resources. This study further concluded no statistically significant difference between those who participate in a re-entry program and a control group regarding lowering recidivism and establishing long-term employment. Let me stress, whether run publicly or privately, prisoner re-entry programs DO NOT work. What one of these prison facilities will do if built in our county is import a significant amount of crime into our neighborhoods.

My experience as a counselor in a re-entry facility for male juvenile felons revealed felons tend to not take responsibility for their criminal behavior and its consequences.

For an example of the criminal mindset: “You reap what you sow … you should expect [felons] to also have the same disdain and disregard for you and steal from you and victimize you because[felons] don’t see you as worthy of respect either.” These words were spoken by a felon after serving 15 years in an Idaho prison. He now lives in Kootenai County.

With little to no rehabilitation taking place while incarcerated, Idaho’s penal system basically has a revolving door. Mental health issues are extremely high within the prison population. Individuals who enter prison do so with obvious problems, having lived among hardened criminals for years as role models and associates, they generally come out with more problems. Even Idaho’s rider program has a high 63 percent recidivism rate.

Felons tell us, they spend their time in prison playing cards and watching television rather than participating in rehabilitation efforts.

Approximately six months before their parole date, prisoners are offered some type of cognitive restructuring program. A few months of effort toward getting a felon’s mind right just prior to release isn’t enough as the quote above proves. Lacking efficacious rehabilitation, released felons are disadvantaged educationally, economically and socially. After spending many years incarcerated they are also emotionally stunted.

Mr. Tewalt has stated the individuals he plans to bring to Kootenai County will come from 10 northern Idaho counties. They are the ones, he said, who have given the department of correction, parole, probation and their communities the most trouble. These are the hardened criminals, those most prone to recidivate multiple times. Regularly in The Press are stories about felons having re-offended and were returned to prison. The murderers of the Groene family, Bo Kirk and Greg Moore, were all felons; three were under state supervision when they murdered their victims.

IDOC is considering housing sex offenders and violent criminals in these prison facilities. Currently a murderer is in the Nampa facility. Although these prisoners are highly supervised, some still commit crimes. This begs the question, “How much more likely will felons once released from state supervision be prone to re-offend?”

With an endless influx of felons brought into our community from various other counties, our social service system will be overtaxed. Families will follow the felons; many of these family members are struggling with issues of their own. Communities where these re-entry facilities are placed do see a pernicious cycle of decline. These communities become less and less able to provide a supportive environment for those leaving prison as their numbers build up in an area.

With the high cost of living in Kootenai County we would likely see a growing homeless population as these individuals struggle to afford housing. Individuals with a drug or felony conviction are ineligible for public subsidized housing. Even the federal government acknowledges felons are at high risk of causing trouble. A lack of stable housing increases the possibility of re-offending. Furthermore, a prison facility in our county has the likelihood of having a negative impact on our tourism industry.

Studies reveal areas where many residents have weak attachments to each other and to conventional living will expose ex-cons to social situations that are conducive to crime. Mainly for economic reasons, felons will be drawn to such neighborhoods. These individuals will confront fewer sanctions for their deviant, anti-social behavior in such an environment and will discover increased opportunities to commit new crimes. Criminality becomes a powerful competing manner of life. This kind of instability makes it difficult for felons to establish themselves as productive participants of their community. Bringing felons to Kootenai County from multiple counties will create a magnified version of this above deleterious situation in our county.

Life’s true purpose must be revealed to and embraced by felons while they are incarcerated and before they re-enter general society for successful reintegration to take place. Idaho’s correction department is failing everyone in this effort. Ninety percent of prisoners will be returned to general society. IDOC needs to work on rehabilitation from day one of incarceration rather than waiting until prisoners are being released back into our communities.

The reckless arguments in favor of these prison facilities are canceled by the grim statistics. Mr. Tewalt said if our community doesn’t want this prison facility here he won’t build it here. He also said, “Putting bad people with good people doesn’t make bad people better.” We must strongly oppose his plan in order to not risk losing any semblance of control over the character of and the level of safety in our community.

Visit “Say No to Prison Release Facility in Kootenai County” on Facebook for more information and to sign the petition expressing opposition to building a prison facility in Kootenai County.

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Deborah Rose is the Say No to Prison Release Facility in Kootenai County Campaign director.