S02.E33: Prisoner Reentry

[Athena]

Former offenders face enormous obstacles once they leave prison. John Oliver sits down with Bilal Chatman, an ex-prisoner, to discuss the challenges of reentering society.

[Victor the Crab]

I really was clapping when Bilal Chatman came out, considering how I heard how difficult it was for him to meet with his parole officer. There really shouldn't be a fear of him losing his job, considering how well and productive he has become.

[purist]

That was an incredibly depressing main story, so I'm glad it ended on a somewhat upbeat note with Bilal Chatman.

 

In other news, I really appreciate the effort LWT's graphics people put in to make sure their stock shots are diverse and not all white people. It's a small thing, but so important.

[peeayebee]

How did Bilal manage to meet with his parole officer?

 

I love that the show ended with him tending his tomatoes.

 

I want a LWT coffee mug. Last time I checked the HBO site, they weren't selling them.... I just checked. It's there now. $20. Hmm, I'll have to think about it.

[dcalley]

How did Bilal manage to meet with his parole officer?

I also wanted to know!

[trow125]

I'm kind of surprised nobody has made a Janice From Accounting supercut yet (at least I couldn't find one on YouTube). That is my favorite running gag on LWT.

 

I found this cool article that features an interview with Bilal Chatman when he was still in prison. Very glad he's out now -- he sounds like somebody who has truly turned his life around.

[mjc570]

I'm really grateful that John Oliver uses the show to highlight really important issues, and I recognize that having only 30 min available necessarily means that nothing is covered in any depth, but I am somewhat tired that he really only ever presents one (necessarily simplified) side of an issue.  For example, he is absolutely correct that prisoner reentry is a huge situation that really should be reexamined in a rational way, since it either directly or indirectly affects pretty much everybody (who pays taxes at least).  On the other hand, there really are very good reasons for the public housing restrictions on offenders.  Not every released felon turns their life around, or wants to.  Ask the residents who have neighbors with relatives who resume dealing and other criminal activities (either because they're not reformed or because they can't get a job). 

[peeayebee]

I'm kind of surprised nobody has made a Janice From Accounting supercut yet (at least I couldn't find one on YouTube). That is my favorite running gag on LWT.

I was laughing about that, too! I was wondering if it was always JANICE from Accounting. I guess it was.

[A Boston Gal]

I'm really grateful that John Oliver uses the show to highlight really important issues, and I recognize that having only 30 min available necessarily means that nothing is covered in any depth, but I am somewhat tired that he really only ever presents one (necessarily simplified) side of an issue.  For example, he is absolutely correct that prisoner reentry is a huge situation that really should be reexamined in a rational way, since it either directly or indirectly affects pretty much everybody (who pays taxes at least).  On the other hand, there really are very good reasons for the public housing restrictions on offenders.  Not every released felon turns their life around, or wants to.  Ask the residents who have neighbors with relatives who resume dealing and other criminal activities (either because they're not reformed or because they can't get a job). 

This, this, a thousand times this.  I work in a related industry, and I found it truly was upsetting when JO reduced the entire situation (including handwaving away the safety and peace of mind of residents, many of whom are elderly, disabled, and have a tough enough existance as it is) to merely a guy who was "only caught while helping his mother with the groceries."

[stillshimpy]

John Oliver was making the distinction about non-violent drug offenders and then also the statistic he referenced -- 2/3rds. A full 2/3rds of prisoners returning to the prison system do so not because they have committed another crime, but because of "parole violations".

That's a system that is stacked against the possibility of actual rehabilitation with successful re-entry into society as a contributing and law-abiding citizen. Instead it becomes a system of labeling people as untouchables, for the rest of their lives, without ANY consideration of the type of crime they have committed that was deemed a felony. So the guy who knocked down an an old woman, stole her purse and left her bleeding on a sidewalk is treated in the exact same manner as a person who got caught selling weed without so much as a paring knife on the scene.

Oliver's point wasn't "we should treat everyone the same and cast aside all rules about re-entry" it was that we take a blanket approach to how they are applied. The kid who robbed a grocery store at sixteen -- presumably without any injuries to anyone -- has the rest of his adult life defined by the idiot thing he did as a teenager?

The point wasn't "shouldn't he be allowed to live in that public housing" it's that he had a parole violation for bringing her groceries in her public housing. For being present on the property.

Of course sex-offender registries are useful and needed to help keep people safe. Restrictions on where people live should actually not be applied in such a blanket fashion that the a guy who raped three women and the sixteen year old that pulled a smash and grab (or whatever that kid did) are treated as being equal.

Also, septic tank cleaners? For freaking real, a non-violent offense can bar someone from being allowed to remove sewage from a septic tank?

His point wasn't "let's tear up all the rules!" but rather that there are plenty of people who might turn their lives around, if we changed our approach to allowing them to do so. Not all felony convictions are the same. Not all crimes are the same. Our prison system is not supposed to be the way in which we label and cripple entire communities -- and make no mistake this shakes out along socioeconomic and racial lines to an absolutely stunning degree -- by forever defining a person by their past.

In some cases, that may be appropriate. In others, it absolutely is not and our current system of treating people who emerge from jail -- which is supposed to be about rehabilitating people so they can become productive members of society -- as being forever stigmatized by their past guarantees that they stand no chance of that. When someone like me sits around and thinks, "Huh, what is the worst thing I've ever done?" it's just mulling it over. It won't impact anything other than my current thought process.

Now that's partially because I've never been much for lawlessness, but you know, I'd be kidding myself and everyone else if I told you that was about the quality of my character as much as it is the circumstances of my birth. A happy accident just landed me in a place in the world where even when there was lawlessness, there were the means available to make that go away. Middle class white kids don't forever end up branded by anything other than the worst behavior imaginable.

 

I work in a related industry, and I found it truly was upsetting when JO reduced the entire situation (including handwaving away the safety and peace of mind of residents, many of whom are elderly, disabled, and have a tough enough existance as it is) to merely a guy who was "only caught while helping his mother with the groceries.

But he didn't hand-wave it. He was talking about the blanket application of such rules, even in the face of non-violent offenses.

He's objecting to treating all felony convictions as being the same. He was objecting to the circumstances of "bringing groceries to his mother" being considered a parole violation. That there is no common sense or case-by-case approach to anything. So that the violent criminal hanging out and playing World of Warcraft in public housing is treated the same as a non-violent offender -- who committed that crime as juvenile -- bringing groceries to his mother.

The scales of justice being blind doesn't mean that common sense and something resembling compassion should be thrown out the window.

There was no hand-waving about violent crimes. John Oliver was specifically objecting to every crime being treated the same, when in fact, they can and often are very different.

I hired a guy to be part of a painting crew -- long story but I had to put together a painting crew to help close a real estate deal -- who flat-out told me, "I really need the work, but I need you to know, I have a felony conviction" Okay....not the best thing to hear, but there's a question to be asked after that, "Oh, okay, what did you do?" Turned out he'd sold LSD sixteen years ago.

Was it a smart thing to do? Nope. He was 18 years old at the time though. He did a good job, by the way.

But there was a story behind that a box on a form can't help fill me in on: It wasn't a violent crime. He isn't a repeat offender. He didn't harm a person, animal or place.

When we try and make absolutely everyone the same from the moment they've committed a crime forward, we make it nigh on impossible for people to be rehabilitated, which is what a prison system is meant to do. Justice is not revenge and ruining the scope of someone's entire life without sufficient information as to why (and ticking a box is not sufficient information) amounts to revenge.

Plus the "you have to pay your parole officer" thing is....it's like something out of a satire. "Hi, we've made it impossible for you to make money....you're not even allowed to be a person who vacuums shit out of a container! But you have to pay your way through this parole system." and that absolute divides people along socioeconomic lines, because it means you have to come from a family with enough means to get you all the way through parole, or probation.

It is yet another instance of an attempt criminalize poverty.

So I enjoyed the hell out of the show and I'm really glad John Oliver tries to educate people about things that will likely never touch their lives. On almost everything I have a stance afforded to me by the privilege of my birth and life circumstances. I won't even go into all the people I know who extricated their children from the idiotic things they did in college, in high school, in their young adult lives because they all had the means.

The point of the grocery story isn't "lift all restrictions" but rather "can we maybe apply some common sense to this situation and if the answer to that is 'no' are there perhaps nefarious reasons why that might be?" Ones that have nothing to do with protecting the law abiding citizens of the world and all about monetizing a societal rehabilitation system into a Mobius strip from which their is not escape if you lack the necessary funds.

Edited November 11, 2015 by stillshimpy

[attica]

Of course, one thing that could hasten changing the laws about prisoner reentry is former inmates voting! Which is not permitted in many states. So: things work exactly as they are intended to work, in other words. [/cynical] 

[fastiller]

Also, septic tank cleaners? For freaking real, a non-violent offense can bar someone from being allowed to remove sewage from a septic tank?

Your entire post is great, stillshimpy.  On the bit quoted above, I find it hilarious that in many states inmates are often trained in fields in which a license is required and because a license is required, and having a felony conviction on your record will automatically disallow you from holding a license, so therefore the time & $$ spent training the inmate is 100% wasted.

[possibilities]

I found this cool article that features an interview with Bilal Chatman

y Really enjoyed reading the article. It's great to read about positive initiatives (the yoga program) to counter the avalanche of despair that threatens to bury me with each additional installment of bad news and general horrendousness.

 

I'm really glad LWT features prison issues, because it's an area that a lot of otherwise aware people I know are completely ignorant about. I'm amazed by how well the show is doing, in terms of ratings and buzz, while bringing these kinds of topics to light. It's remarkable that people will in fact take an interest, and the show is not treated as "bad tasting medicine to be avoided" -- there are documentaries and exposes on PBS and LinkTV and PIVOT, and other outlets, and somehow they don't get seen or talked about. I can't get over how much people WILL in fact pay attention if information is delivered in a different way.

 

I want to see him take on the foster system. I'm not sure what else. I love that sometimes he talks about things I have no prior knowledge of (North Dakota Oil Boom).