Time for criminal justice overhaul
In Pennsylvania and throughout the United States, prisoners are warehoused for excessive sentences that have been shown to have no effect on deterring crime or reducing recidivism.
Our country makes up about 5% of the world’s population, but houses an estimated 25% of the global prison population.
Working as a lawyer, I have witnessed the darkest corners of our prison system firsthand. It is common for inmates to be refused proper nutrition, forbidden from social interactions and kept unaware of the rights and resources that are available to them.
The fact that someone has committed a crime does not exclude them from basic human rights, and I abhor how our prisons currently operate. Last week, I was proud to join state Rep. Stephen Kinsey, D-Phila., and a bipartisan group of my colleagues in supporting five new pieces of legislation that would make great improvements to our broken system.
To start, we should ask ourselves: Will arresting this person benefit them or society in any way? For many individuals who commit nonviolent, lowlevel crimes, the answer is a resounding “no.” Yet people are arrested every day for petty crimes like possessing small amounts of cannabis.
This wastes valuable law enforcement resources and creates additional social and economic barriers for the arrested individual, especially if they are a person of color or living in poverty. We would save our criminal justice system an incredible amount of time and money by exploring alternatives to arrests, like citations or warnings, for minor offenses.
Under our current system, Pennsylvania prisoners do not have an explicit right to receive visitors, even though maintaining a social support network has proven to reduce rates of recidivism.
Isolating an individual from their loved ones and the outside world has devastating consequences on their mental health, making them more likely to commit another crime upon release.
Isn’t the goal to reduce crime? How does separating a person from their friends and family get us closer to that goal? New legislation introduced last week would guarantee prisoners in state and county jails the right to a minimum of two in-person visitors each week.
According to former Department of Corrections Secretary John Wetzel, as of 2019, Pennsylvania’s elderly prisoners make up an alarming 22% of the prison population.
A study from the American Civil Liberties Union found that the recidivism rate for individuals 50 to 64 is approximately 7%, and 5% for those older than 65.
Additionally, 86% of Pennsylvania’s elderly prisoners take medication, costing taxpayers about three times as much as younger inmates.
Simply, our older prisoners are much less likely to commit another crime and are much more expensive to incarcerate, which is why I strongly support proposed legislation that would streamline and expand our state’s compassionate release program so that more elderly and terminally ill inmates may petition for an early release.
The Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics reported there are approximately 180,000 veterans in prisons and jails across the country, making up 8% of the total incarcerated population.
When a veteran is incarcerated, they can lose some or all their benefits through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Upon release, they are often eligible to get many of those benefits back.
Sadly, very few veterans who serve time in a prison know what benefits they are entitled to, how to apply for them and where to get help or ask questions.
A bill introduced last week would require that veterans incarcerated in Pennsylvania receive a thorough explanation of their benefits and the resources available to them before they are released.
More than 40,000 incarcerated Pennsylvanians depend on their state correctional institutions to provide them with proper nutrition and to monitor their health and wellness. While basic nutrition and health standards exist for these institutions, they are rarely met or enforced. In fact, until 2016, Pennsylvania prisons would knowingly serve inadequate meals as a method of punishment.
To address this gross lack of oversight, I am supporting legislation to commission a study to learn more about the health status of incarcerated individuals in our commonwealth.
Given the grim state of Pennsylvania’s prisons, it’s clear that our criminal justice system is long overdue for a massive overhaul.
This new legislation will be a huge step toward creating a correctional system that respects human rights, helps to facilitate safe re-entry to society and encourages, where appropriate, alternatives to incarceration.
The result will be a better, safer and more just commonwealth.