We have recently learned that the national crime rate has been rising.
Even the foreign press has reported that it is mainly the recidivism of criminals released early that it is causing it.
Criminologists told the daily that gangs and the release of large numbers of prisoners were in part responsible for the rising crime.
But I guess that Washington’s Secretary of the Department of Corrections doesn’t get these reports because he plans on doing what he does best: Releasing criminals early.
Washington’s prison system plans to double the state’s work-release program over the next decade to more than 1,200 convicts and will try to spread the expansion equitably around the state, officials said Monday.
The first big $17 million expansion will provide about 120 new slots, with the location and the size of the new facilities to be determined. Potential sites will be announced in a few weeks. Over time, the department wants to open 10 new facilities.
The Department of Corrections operates 15 work-release facilities in 10 counties, with waiting lists for the 678 beds.
The local programs, most run by private contractors under the watch of community corrections officers, allows offenders to spend the final six months of their prison term in community-based, secure halfway houses.
Inmates work during the day and return to the work-release facility at night. Prisoners also may take part in re-entry programs, such as drug and alcohol treatment and mental health counseling.
The plan is to charge the criminals rent for the opportunity to get into the program, which is just a secondary pacifier put in there in the hope of quieting the “tough on crime” crowd such as myself.
Unfortunately for the Secretary, I have read another report.
The one that finds that the death penalty stops crime.
It creates an empty bed in an overcrowded prison too.