[Winona Online Democracy]
Great discussion! Before moving to Winona, I was a teacher on special
assignment, working with young offenders at a correctional facility and at
a residential treatment program in the metro area. At the time (late
80's/early 90's), we heard a lot of discussion about a change in attitude
from the MN Dep of Corrections, swinging away from treatment and back to a
"traditional" punitive-only approach. In fact, the treatment program ended
up closing its doors because fewer and fewer counties were willing to spend
the money on a treatment approach. Despite plenty of evidence to the
contrary, I think there was (and still is) a viewpoint that gets easy
access to the media, to the effect that treatment doesn't work, and the
solution instead is longer sentences, indefinite sentences, cutbacks on
educational options or psychological services, etc.
My experience tells me that Terri is absolutely on the right track when she
says that you need the carrot of treatment coupled with the stick of
punishment. (This is a crude simplification of what she wrote!) I agree
with Chris Nelson that county jails are not about treatment. However, I
just wanted to point out that there was a time in the not-too-distant past
when corrections as a system did see treatment as a part of what it
provided. At the local level, we're lucky to have great and innovative
programming done by PO's and others on the preventive and restorative side.
I think those of us who see the need should be communicating that to state
legislators and office holders, because the current political situation at
the state level is almost certainly going to be bringing us more of the
same lock-em-up-period philosophy we've heard for the past decade. From my
admitedly partisan point of view, I think it behooves those of you of
Republican persuasion to argue within your party for a loosening of the
current lockstep assault on our state human services!
If Gene Pelowski is lurking out there, maybe he could add his two cents
worth?
----------
"The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are
selling--their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons,
their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few.
They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible,
she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."
Arundhati Roy
"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."
Zora Neale Hurston
sent by:
Scott Lowery
461 Sunnyview Drive, Rollingstone MN 55969
home phone: (507)689-4532
school phone: (507)454-9573
home email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
school email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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