Comments on: Brownback believes in second chances

By: joeragman

joeragman — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:36:36 +0000

the problem is simple “fairness” now a guy has 4-5 or 6 dui’s and gets 18 months..$2500. fine and one yr parole..and puts some guy in a nurseing home…. then some poor smuck over in sumner county on first offense,,first anything gets 49 months for one $50. sale (1000 ft school) heard less than 2 feet from 1000. and you think thats fair. and yes i knew him by sight in hutchinson max. thats right they put this guy in the toughest joint in ks. was that fair..i belonged there.can’t recall his name but owned a club there, check this story out, but you won’t because you know its true.know put that in your a smoke on it awhile.been there done that..JR

By: Kev

Kev — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:14:02 +0000

What needs to be done is to force prisoners to not only serve their time but also to meet certain criteria before they can be released EVEN if their sentence is up. Meet the criteria and they could apply for early release. These would include no disciplinary reports for the past 12 months AND at least a GED. Once released, they should be put to work in a public works job until they can find a private job or choose to remain a public works employee. Such jobs would include repaving highways, cleaning up trash, brush, snow and mowing grass and painting bridges. Eventually, if they stay in public works, they can move up to heavy equipment operator or other higher paying positions. If they choose to move on to a private job, they will have the skills, education and MOST IMPORTANT the right habits and attitude to hold a job and be responsible citizens of the community. If they do so after a period- maybe 5 years- they could apply for a pardon and erase the record. We have too much of prisoners being simply warehoused and then being let out with a bus ticket and $100. That is just an invite to trouble. Some prisoners should be warehoused- those convicted of violent offenses or henious crimes that are serving sentences that will make them die in prison. Also people convicted of 3 felonies. But many people in prison deserve a second chance at life.

By: TomPaine

TomPaine — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:28:22 +0000

How about making victimless crimes non crimes?

By: jwink

jwink — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:27:31 +0000

Its my understanding that every prisoner in our many Kansas prisons costs taxpayers $29,000 per year. (?? From Kansas Senator Phil Journey.)

Regarding number of prisoners, an article in the EAGLE recently estimated that ONE PERCENT OF all ADULT Americans are in local, state or federal prisons. As I recall, the article estimated ADULTS TO BE 2/3 of the population so children must be the other 1/3.

So as a rough estimate of incarcerated Kansans in prison today, Kansas has a population just short of 3,000,000 people … so adult Kansans must equal about 2/3 of that number or 2,000,000 adult citizens.

Then assuming the one percent figure is approximately correct, some 20,000 Kansas prisoners must be eating a sparse breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast and drinking coffee in local, state and federal/military prisons this morning in Kansas.

If my figures are correct, federal, state and local taxpayers are spending some $600,000,000 for housing prisoners in KANSAS in 2008.

Years ago, I think the State of Kansas had the mens’ state prison in Lansing and a women’s prison a mile or so east. Also the Hutchinson reformatory was reconfigured as a mens’ prison several years ago. Since that time, considerably more state prisons have been built in Kansas, at Ellsworth, Eldorado, Winfield for example, plus expansions.

Federal prison-wise, we have had the Leavenworth civilian men’s prison since back in the 1930’s and a mile or so east, the Ft. Leavenworth military disciplinary barracks (prison) on the grounds of Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.

Over the years, many Kansas counties have constructed additions to county jails, often times near the county courthouse to provide an easy conduit from the county judges chambers into the jail.

In Kansas, as I understand it, the State of Kansas is not currently building any new prison space, so county governments are expanding their jail facilities to handle growth in prisoners who should be in state prisons.

That’s probably why Sedgwick County Sheriff Steed wants to build an addition on the north side of the Sedgwick County jail. Theoretically, Sheriff Steed only incarcerates prisoners until they are convicted but I suspect he must keep many after conviction for lack of anywhere to take them.

My original point was to compare what taxpayers pay for prisoners to what taxpayers pay to educate a student: $29,000 for state prisoners as compared to roughly $10,000 for education of K-12 students.

State legislators and Senator Journey: please correct my figures if you wish.

Another point I wish to make on this thread. State and local prisons are BIG, BIG business in Kansas. Anything that threatens to disrupt the money line on prisons will sail into turbulent waters. Government tends to want to preserve this generally unwatched expenditure of taxpayer money. Citizens generally put this activity “out of sight, out of mind.”

Some of my suggestions:

1) Sentences are generally too long.

2) More effort should be made to provide out-of-prison resources to re-establish “safe” prisoners in the community.

3) Recognize some bad people are in prison who need to stay there. Generally listen to the people who testify at parole board hearings. I am sensitive on this to one of our WE Bloggers anger on this subject.

4) Personally, I approve of using the death sentence in particularly heinous crimes. These criminals are a danger to prison personnel. But in Kansas the sentence is not actually applied.

Bloggers might have more suggestions on how to improve the prison system. I would like to see your ideas presented here.

By: ksfarmgrrl

ksfarmgrrl — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 15:07:01 +0000

Maybe “heckuvajob” sam is starting to worry about all his republican buddies who may see the inside of a jail cell? I mean, he is devoted to bush/cheney/rummie/condi/ et al. Maybe he is worried about republican rehab?

hehehehhehehehehheh…..

By: writerdog

writerdog — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 13:12:16 +0000

“The only cure for crime is time”, that was the response to my question if the scare straight program worked. “Howard the Duck” ( of course that was his nic-name) was an old hand at the prison system having spent a good chunk of his life locked up.

“A man finally get too old for the Prison scene and its a young man’s game. So he finally goes straight.”.

By: Brownback believes in second chances

Brownback believes in second chances — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:57:14 +0000

[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptSam Brownback, R-Kan., for being one of the key sponsors of the bipartisan Second Chance Act, which President Bush signed Wednesday and will provide $330 million for re-entry programs targeting job training, literacy and substance abuse … [...]

By: Political_mama

Political_mama — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:09:04 +0000

I agree that people who are to be released from prison benefit from help, but I disagree with the religious based (discriminatory) carrot that they hold out in our prisons, which is what Brownback supports.