The awkward question about the meaning of prisons in America part II

Prisons in America are perceived by some as being opportunities of rehabilitation.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In Texas, most of the money spend on offenders is for their room and board and security. A modicum of money is spent on any kind of efforts at rehabilitation. The Windham school is a modest effort thrown at the huge issue of offenders' inability to read, write, and be educated. Medical and Mental Health Services are managed care driven contracts that offer nurse driven medical essential services and mental health symptom management by scarce psychiatric providers and Master level unlicensed clinicians. Additionally, in the Mental Health field, much of the prison behavior is driven by what is understood to be personality disordered individuals that Master level clinicians are marginally exposed to, and through out the field is regarded as "untreatable." In the incarcerated setting, making head way with a personality disordered individual is nothing short of a miracle. And sadly, whatever progress is made with one, 10 more arrive on the chain bus on given unit on any given week.

What this translates into is a large population of offenders who have nothing better to do the larger part of their day except hone their already substantial abilities to think wrong, feel wrong, and do wrong. Grandma was right in this regard, "Idle hands are the devil's workshop." I would add, "idle minds, idle hearts, and idle spirits." Efforts in TDC to rehabilitate anyone regarding any self defeating habit are under available, understaffed, underfunded, perhaps worse of all largely ineffective.

The way Texas has chosen to deal with this program is to create a stealth institution (TDCJ) whose presence is only noted at budget time and when an offender escapes. The rest of the time, citizens are encouraged to refocus their attention on the next court case or on issues of more substance like the Rangers or the Astros.