A Shocking Expose.....or....Call me in 120 days.

This is part one of a two part post. I'm going to school you rubes on what constitutes a deterrent to crime. Consider it corrections 101, you'll thank me later. Part two, and the actual reason behind this world shaking , ground breaking, piece of gonzo journalism, is about what doesn't work. In the not too distant past, over the last year or so, there have been a number of criminal cases where lives were taken, or irrevocably shattered, and the courts have handed out swift justice. If by swift justice you think I mean lengthy prison terms, you would be wrong. If you think swift justice means 4 months and a wake up, then back on the bricks, you would be right. In part two I'll tell you about some guys who killed people, some of them committed unthinkable acts, short of murder. The thing they had in common, they all got shock time.


Part One

Prison. Everyone in the square world has an opinion about it, what works , what doesn't. It's a country club, it's a warehouse. Depending on who you ask, they will either tell you prison is a house of horrors, or a grad school for budding criminals. I suppose there is a little truth to all of those opinions, and like most uninformed opinions, there is an equal amount of misinformation. That's why you have guys like me to set you straight. So let's get to debunking a few myths for starters.

Prisons are too soft. Those fuckers are living the high life with cable and room service. It's a goddamn country club.
If I had a dollar for every time some uniformed chuckle head made that statement, I wouldn't exactly be rich, but I'd definitely have enough money to make it rain at the local strip joint. Rest assured , even the softest prison in America is a long way from the Indian Hills Country Club. Trust me, the people who claim American prisons are too soft, would immediately change that opinion if they ever ended up in one. They would do an about face if one of their kids screwed the pooch and ended up behind bars. Anytime you cram 2500 people into a space designed for 1500, the conditions will be far from desirable. Prison sucks, and don't get me twisted, it should suck.

Prison is a breeding ground and finishing school for criminals.
No shit Sherlock. Here's another newsflash for you, so was the lifestyle the newly incarcerated felon led prior to getting locked up. You don't end up in the joint because you failed to turn in your choir robe when you left that Mormon Tabernacle gig . The occasional wrongly convicted innocent man aside, people end up in the can because they spent a lot of time and effort getting there. You could track the criminal history of most guys in the joint, and for the most part you would find a long string of offenses, brushes with the law, probation, etc. By the time most people fuck up enough to get sent to the slammer, they are already well versed in being a criminal. Going to the joint isn't going to be the thing that turns them from forger to serial killer.

120 day Shock Time really works. Four short months will reverse a lifetime of irresponsible, anti social behavior.
Anyone want to buy some beach front property in Death Valley?
The truth is, recidivism rates for people who get shock time is about the same as the rates for people who actually serve their sentence. Here is a link to the study from the Missouri Sentencing Advisory Committee where I got my numbers, just so you don't think I'm pulling them from my ass or thin air. Page 46 has those numbers. I didn't need to read the study to know that shock time doesn't work any better than prison time. I've seen the proof time and again in prison. I've seen countless guys get out on shock time, and make it back on a violation or new case in a matter of months. Here is what that study doesn't tell you. More than a few of those cases where the guy re offends after doing shock time, might have been prevented if they would have made him do his original sentence. More important, there would be a few less murder victims today if some of these shit heels had been forced to serve their sentence rather than set free in 120 days. More on that later.

There are more than a few theories about what works in prison, what will turn the offender around. Most of those theories are bullshit, they are designed to promote a particular approach that will keep the coffers full of one organization or another. Don't get me wrong, there are some good approaches. Education, job training, drug treatment, all of these things can help a guy stay out of the joint, but they aren't the end all, be all. It's really simple, no big surprise when you think about it. The thing that will keep a guy from coming back to prison is the same thing that keeps people from sticking their hand to a hot iron the second time. Experience. Sending someone to prison for 120 days isn't going to make a lasting impression. You have to experience a total loss of freedom. Sometimes it takes more than one trip, sometimes it never sinks in. The thing that will keep you from returning to prison is valuing your freedom. We criminals need to reach a point where the potential loss of freedom outweighs the desire to commit a crime that could cost us our freedom. 120 days just doesn't give you a good taste of losing that freedom.

Tomorrow, I'll introduce you to some guys who got 120 day shock time. Some of them killed people and received shock time for that crime. Worse yet, some of them killed people after they got out.