True Prison Reform Cannot Include Community Corrections

Kirstin, Jonathon, and Mason attended a talk hosted by the Valley Interfaith Project and given by Arizona Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan.  We were joined by Heather Hamel, Executive Director of Justice That Works, and Luke Black.  The topic of Ryan's talk was billed as "Prison Reform."  Interested in what seemed to be a significant departure for a state department that otherwise seems deeply committed to high levels of incarceration, our executive directors attended.  No reform to report.  This talk was Ryan's sales pitch to the community.  It turns out ADC wants to build another $2 million "community corrections" facility in Maricopa County, under the guise of reform.  Let's be clear.  There is nothing reformative about community corrections, unless it is being used as a step down program for early release.  Even then, its structure and motives are questionable.  It is true - Arizona's community corrections are used (there is a facility already open in Tucson, housed not surprisingly, in a "former" correctional facility) to house parole and probation violators in lieu of a return to prison - which we will acknowledge is the better of the two options.  However, and this is a big however, it will also be used to house those prison survivors released homeless.  This means people no longer serving time remain in the custody of the department of corrections.  Read that again and you will see the fatal flaw that topples this idea of community corrections.  Keeping these folks "locked up" past the end of their sentence, keeping them immersed in the institutional culture that pervades corrections and correctional institutions does nothing to aid in successful reintegration.  That's because it is not reintegration.  It is continued institutionalization.  So instead of investing in community programs that will begin to expose prison survivors to life in the modern world, will start to reintroduce them back into their communities, ADC proposes the continued imposition of a flawed correctional model.  And the corporate profits that go hand in hand with corrections in the State of Arizona.  We resoundingly and vociferously say NO to this program.