[AccessD] OT - John Colby - volunteer work with Prisons - Minnesota Public Radio program

jwcolby jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Tue Oct 4 15:06:30 CDT 2011


Brad,

 > Because of the high cost of incarcerating criminals, people who visit prisoners may be saving a 
lot of money for tax-payers and not even be aware of this factor.

I have to tell you that a certain right wing political party who happens to control politics in the 
state of NC is slashing all spending on inmates, anything having to do with rehabilitation, and cold 
bloodedly expecting volunteers to pick up the costs.  They attempted to cut every single chaplain 
position, managed to cut 1/2 of them, and will go after the remaining positions in the next budget. 
  Cut funding for re-entry programs which attempt to help inmates acquire the skills to exist 
outside of prison.

Basically their attitude is that it is not the government's business to help people.  PERIOD.

House knocked down by a tornado?  Not My Problem.  Floods in the northeast?  NMP.  Oil spill killing 
the gulf?  NMP.  Inmates handed $45 when they get out and pointed at the nearest store to rob?  NMP. 
  Well... unless I own the store of course...  let me check... Nope, not my store, NMP.

Unfortunately it is no longer the people's job to help people either.  Well, I'm white so maybe I'll 
help the white folk.  But not right now because there's a college football game on...

Sigh.

I take care of myself and my family.  Maaaaaybe my mom, if she was nice to me and will put me in her 
will.  Beyond that, if you are starving and have to die, please do so somewhere where I do not have 
to clean up the mess.  Because of course it is not the government's business to clean up dead people 
either (and I ain't gonna do it!).  ;)

I can hear the snickers hitting poor John's inbox, ping, ping, ping...  Oddly, the sound does my 
heart good! :):):)

In the meantime, in about 2 hours I will be headed to the prison, because it is my problem.  A self 
imposed problem perhaps, but mine none the less.

ping, ping, ping.  :)

:)

John W. Colby
Colby Consulting

On 10/4/2011 2:23 PM, Brad Marks wrote:
> John,
>
> On several of your posts here on AccessD, you mentioned volunteer work
> that you help with involving prisoners.
>
> Yesterday, I caught the tail-end of a program on Minnesota Public Radio
> regarding a recent study that was conducted regarding the statistics of
> prisoners getting into trouble again after they are released.  I believe
> that they said that the number 1 factor of whether a prisoner breaks the
> law or not after being released is the number of visitors that they had
> while in prison.  (The more visitors they had while in prison, resulted
> in much fewer repeat offenders).
>
> Because of the high cost of incarcerating criminals, people who visit
> prisoners may be saving a lot of money for tax-payers and not even be
> aware of this factor.
>
> I will try to see if this program is on the MPR website.  If I find it,
> I will email the link to you.  Pretty interesting.
>
> Keep up the good work!
>
> Brad
>
>



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