Many folks view educational and training opportunities for those incarcerated as undeserved and incompatible with the desire to punish those who offend us. Offenders are sent to prison as punishment, not to be punished. Our treatment of those incarcerated has a direct impact on their success when released.
Simply warehousing them and failing to give them counseling and treatment, education and job training is the reason they continue to recycle back to prison. That, along with the harsh mandatory minimum sentencing laws has our prisons busting at the seams.
We need rehabilitative programs to reduce recidivism and we need sentencing reform to modify the existing laws so that the many not deserving of an entire lifetime behind bars can pay for their offenses and return to their families.
Lowana Krewson
Stanwood