BROWNFELD: The main offender
Do you ever think about what happens on the very last day of a person’s prison sentence? We often think that the criminal justice process starts with a crime, the police arrive, they arrest someone, the person is found guilty, sent to prison and done. However, the reality is that this process does not truly end until the prisoner comes back home. In fact, 95 percent of all prisoners will eventually be released from incarceration. So, on that last day of incarceration, as a prisoner waves goodbye to prison and hello to society, what will he find? What is in store for the next chapter of life? Unfortunately, the return to society for most prisoners is a rocky road that tends to lead back to prison again. In Virginia, 53.9 percent of ex-offenders will be rearrested within three years of release. This is an expensive pattern as it costs $57.14 a day to house a prisoner in the already overcrowded Charlottesville/Albemarle jail. Why is it that prisoners fall into this vicious cycle of recidivism? Why don’t they just go out and find jobs and live honest lives? If only it were that easy.