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

John- some of this will change in the next election.  Unfortunately, too
many people need to learn things the hard way.  And learning that voting
carefully, not emotionally, is actually important.  Politics is not a
reality TV show - it's real people really getting hurt.

Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby
Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 3:07 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT - John Colby - volunteer work with Prisons -
Minnesota Public Radio program

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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