Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring recently announced a plan to reduce recidivism rates in Virginia by creating a statewide re-entry coordinator position. Re-entry programs have already been implemented with success in several Virginia counties, like Arlington, where 68 percent of offenders who completed the program did not end up re-incarcerated.
Because such programs have already been successful on a smaller scale, it makes sense to standardize them throughout the state. A coordinator for the whole state of Virginia can examine programs which have been effective in certain areas and help implement them in other counties which have yet to try them.
One of the main arguments Herring presented in favor of such a program is that reducing recidivism rates saves taxpayers’ money, as putting an inmate through the re-entry program one time would cost much less than incarcerating him or her a second time. This is solid logic, and surely taxpayers like the idea of saving money. But we must also remember that there is a human element to this issue which is even more important than the financial element. Incarcerated people are too easily dismissed as unworthy of the public’s concern, because they are dangerous, because they have only themselves to blame for their fate, or because they are fundamentally bad people. But the majority of prisoners are non-violent offenders, and the correlation between socioeconomic status and incarceration rates should make us pause before drawing broad conclusions about the morality of prison inmates.
As Herring said, “The goal is to make sure any trauma or abuse in the past that may be leading to criminality is addressed,” and he was speaking in particular about female inmates. With the immense popularity of the Netflix series Orange is the New Black, people are beginning to understand the human aspect of prisoners, particularly women. Piper Kerman, the author of the source material, has grown a pretty powerful political voice as the show has grown in popularity. Kerman argues for sending less non-violent offenders to prison in the first place.
Herring’s initiative is a positive step toward reducing the size of the prison population, but what would be even more effective at accomplishing that goal is incarcerating fewer people to begin with. For example, in 2013, 24 percent of new incarcerations in Virginia were for drug offenses. If the money that usually goes toward incarcerating people for drug crimes was instead used to put them in in-patient rehabilitation programs, there would be significantly less people in prison, and the people who struggle with drug addiction would have a better chance of improving their lives.
Such a change would be more difficult to implement, because it may require getting the Virginia General Assembly to change state laws regarding drug offenses. But it is fruitless to continue to send to prison people whose crimes hurt no one but themselves. Herring’s re-entry program initiative will be effective, but hopefully he will go a step further and will attempt to work with the legislature to bring even greater reform to the justice system in Virginia.
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