3,193 Parts

So here you are, sitting at another reentry coalition meeting and everybody finally finds a seat. The meeting opens and after all the introductions are made someone eventually offers up their opinion that “the system is broken”. I’ve heard this many times over the past 30 years and there was a time not too long ago that I use to nod my head in agreement with this assessment until I realized that my brain was in neutral. This was an incredibly over-simplistic statement with terms that are not well defined. It was like saying “People will be people”…. What does that mean?

Another observation I made was that no one in the room would, or will ever, call attention to this undefined statement because that would imply that you’re a hater and in Minnesota we rarely address things in public, we wait until later and chop people up around our hot dish. Asking for clarification has somehow become negative and invites all sorts of labeling.

So at the risk of being the topic of discussion around hot dish – let’s take a look at this statement and see if we can define what we mean by the term system and perhaps even the term broken.

A few months ago I took the time to read John Pfaff’s book Locked In. What I quickly learned is that once again I had overlooked something that was pretty obvious. When we’re talking about the criminal justice system we need to ask ourselves if we are referring to state, federal or county systems. All three are very different and operate somewhat independently. Think about it – there are 3,142 counties in the United States and each one runs their own system. There are 50 state systems that differ from each other and then there’s the largest single system, the Federal Bureau of Prisons. That works out to be 3,193 parts connected to this "system". In each of these systems you have police, sheriffs, state patrols, parole, probation, community supervision, courts, judges, prosecutors, defenders, task forces, DEA, FBI, U.S. Marshals, work release, prisons, halfway houses and on and on..

I have worked within both the state correctional system and the federal system. You would think they are similar but that's definitely not the case. I think my first 3 months with the feds was learning all the new acronyms. Eventually I began to see the contrasting approach to sanctions and violations with probationers as well as the complexities of working with multiple layers of bureaucracy .

Now if we use the term “broken” in reference to the system, what part of the system are you referring to? Even if you believe all of it is broken let’s at least be able to have a conversation that uses well-defined terms and then perhaps focus on specifics that are unique to each system. This might eliminate a few people who use this statement and those that are left just might be able to not only identify specific parts that are in need of repair, but also get to work on bringing solutions. Getting good information on the right parts from well informed people is crucial. Perhaps this is one reason why we’ve seen so little progress over the years, people get involved with this simplistic view of the problem and then soon realize that it’s a whole lot bigger than they imagined.

Another strong point that Pfaff makes is how we look at the prison population within a state. The prison population is driven more by county-level factors than anything on the state level. Local county politics, prosecutors, incentives, and police departments have more to do with the population than anything at the state level. If it’s more than a year and a day, the state incarcerates them, less than a year and a day and the county houses them along with everybody in custody waiting for charges, sentencing, or trial. The national number for this category is somewhere around 612,000.

I often suggest that people go and spend a day in prison shadowing a staff person or sit down with a probation officer and ask them what their day consist of. Check out a work release facility or a federal halfway house and see what the staff there deals with on a daily basis. These are people working within a system that answers to a much larger system, and often more than one system at a time – wrap your head around that. I complain about the halfway house all the time (it can be a crazy place at times) but their challenge is to satisfy the BOP, probation, the organization that owns them, the residents, and maintain public safety.

So, you say the system is broken and we need to fix it. I'm inclined to agree if you can give me specifics and you've thought through what you're going to fix and how you aim to do it, hey - I'm all in! If not, you’re just one more person at a public meeting wanting to hear their own voice. I guess its people being people. Let's go have hot dish!