With one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, and the death penalty, the US state of Texas seems the last place to embrace a liberal-minded alternative to prison. But when Mitchell Rouse was convicted of two drug offences in Houston, the former x-ray technician who faced a 60-year prison sentence – reduced to 30 years if he pleaded guilty – was instead put on probation and sentenced to read. Published in The Guardian.

“I was doing it because it was a condition of my probation and it would reduce my community hours,” Rouse recalls.

The 42-year-old had turned to drugs as a way of coping with the stress of his job at a hospital where he frequently worked an 80-hour week. But cooking up to a gram of crystal meth a day to feed his habit gradually took its toll on his life at home, which he shared with his wife and three young children. Finally, fearing for his life, Mitchell’s wife turned him into the authorities. “If she hadn’t, I would be dead or destitute by now,” he says.

Five years on, he is free from drugs, holding down a job as a building contractor, and reunited with his family. He describes being sentenced to a reading group as “a miracle” and says the six-week reading course “changed the way I look at life”.

“It made me believe in my own potential. In the group you’re not wrong, you’re not necessarily right either, but your opinion is just as valid as anyone else’s,” he says.

Rouse is one of thousands of offenders across the US who, as an alternative to prison, are placed on a rehabilitation programme called Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL- http://cltl.umassd.edu/home-flash.cfm). Repeat offenders of serious crimes such as armed robbery, assault or drug dealing are made to attend a reading group where they discuss literary classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Bell Jar and Of Mice and Men.

Rouse’s group was run by part-time lecturer in liberal studies at Rice University in Houston, Larry Jablecki, who uses the texts of Plato, Mill and Socrates to explore themes of fate, love, anger, liberty, tolerance and empathy. “I particularly liked some of the ideas in John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty,” says Mitchell, who now wants to do a PhD in philosophy.

Groups are single sex and the books chosen resonate with some of the issues the offenders may be facing. A male group, for example, may read books with a theme of male identity. A judge, a probation officer and an academic join a session of 30 offenders to talk about issues as equals.

Of the 597 who have completed the course in Brazoria County, Texas, between 1997 and 2008, only 36 (6%) had their probations revoked and were sent to jail.

A year-long study of the first cohort that went through the programme, which was founded in Massachusetts in 1991, found that only 19% had reoffended compared with 42% in a control group. And those from the programme who did reoffend committed less serious crimes.

CLTL is the brainchild of Robert Waxler, a professor of English at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. As an experiment, he convinced his friend, Judge Kane, to take eight criminals who repeatedly came before him and place them on a reading programme that Waxler had devised instead of sending them to prison. It now runs in eight states including Texas, Arizona and New York.

In the UK, nearly half of prisoners reoffend within a year of being released from jail. Could programmes like CLTL work on this side of the Atlantic where Ken Clarke, in his first major speech as justice secretary, indicated that more offenders could be given community sentences by putting a greater emphasis on what he terms “intelligent sentencing”?

Lady Stern, senior research fellow at the international centre for prison studies at King’s College London, is not convinced. “Research does show that the public are largely pro-rehabilitation, but when you take an idea that involves offenders attending a university campus to be part of a reading group, instead of being sentenced to prison, it asks a lot of even the most thoughtful and socially conscious public,” she says.

The initiative was initially met with an inevitable flurry of criticism in the US. Waxler and his supporters were described as “bleeding-heart liberals”.

“They were shocked at the idea of offenders going on to university campuses to read books for free while the students were paying their way through education,” says Waxler. “Some even thought the offenders would steal from them. It only takes one person to prove them right, but it’s never happened.”

In Texas, the public have been largely won over by the success rates and how cheap the programme is to run. Instead of spending a lifetime in prison at a cost of more than $30,000 (£19,520) a year, Rouse’s “rehabilitation” cost the taxpayer just $500 (£325).

But it is the experiences of offenders, some of whom have never read a book before, that Waxler points to.

“In one group we read The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway,” he recalls. “The story focuses on Santiago, an old fisherman in Cuba, and opens with some heartache: Santiago is not able to catch fish. We talk about him and the endurance he seems to represent, the very fact that he gets up every morning despite the battering he takes.

“The following time the group meet, one of the offenders wants to share something. He’d been walking down Main Street and he said he could hear, metaphorically speaking, the voices of his neighbourhood. He’d been thinking about returning to his old life, to drugs, but as he listened to those voices, he also heard the voice of Santiago. If Santiago could continue to get up each day and make the right choice then he could do too.”

Santiago, a character in a novel, had become the offender’s role model. For many offenders, some of whom have spent half their lives in jail, it is the first time they’ve had a worthy model, says Waxler.

Literacy is a problem. Offenders are unlikely to be sentenced to the programme if they cannot read. However, those with poor reading are not excluded. The groups may read short stories, or excerpts from a novel may be read aloud so that low-level readers can participate.

In the UK, a version of the programme called Stories Connect is running in a handful of prisons with some success, and in Exeter it has recently moved out into the community for people with drug and alcohol problems. But it does not yet have the support of the criminal justice system, so cannot be an alternative sentencing option for the courts.

Retired probation officer Louise Ross voluntarily runs the small group in Exeter. Participants are referred from the Exeter and North Devon Addiction Service, and were, until three-year funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation ran out in April, made to attend as part of a community service order. Now all attendance is voluntary, but stories of how the programme changes lives are no less impressive.

After years of opiate abuse, Steve Rowe, 50, who joined the first Exeter group three years ago, says: “Stories Connect didn’t just change my life, it saved it.” He explains: “We looked at a section of Oliver Twist, the relationship between Bill Sikes and Nancy. One of us pretended we were Bill while everyone else asked questions. The idea was you responded as much as you could from that character’s point of view. It makes you think about what others think and feel, and really helps you to reflect on yourself.”

Mary Stephenson, a writer, who runs Stories Connect, says more funding is needed. To date, in Exeter, 96 people have been through the programme, but of these only 29 completed the course. This, she says, is largely due to the chaotic lives of the participants, many of whom are battling with drug problems, and the fact that the groups are not an alternative to prison, which removes the main incentive.

There are plans, again subject to funding, for the University of Exeter to run a research project into the effectiveness of the programme in the UK, both inside prisons and out. But until then, there are no quantitative results that prove the programme reduces reoffending.

Next week, Stephenson is attending a roundtable meeting with prisons and probation minister Crispin Blunt, at which she will make the point that the programme could be achieving so much more.

“In terms of tackling reoffending, we need both more funding and the political support to explore it,” says Stephenson. “There’s no doubt among the people I’ve worked with that the success in America could be repeated here.”

Waxler agrees: “I think that one of the great testaments of this programme is that it demonstrates clearly that literature can make a difference to people’s lives,” he says. “I already believed that, but I knew it could also be used to rehabilitate offenders.”

Rouse says it is hard to judge how much the reading group should take credit for turning his life around as he’d already made the decision to change.

“I didn’t want to lose my family,” he says. “But the group did give me the guidance and direction I needed in my life, and without it I’d have spent the rest of my life in jail. It gave me a second chance.”

jchev Alternative Sentencing, Inmate Programs, Texas

Some Senate and House members want to enact new alternative sentences for non-violent convicts, saying they would decrease overcrowded state prisons and lighten the financial burden on the state. “Pennsylvania is still in the stone ages when you talk about prison reform,” Rep. Kenyatta Johnson, D-Philadelphia, said. “The appetite for prison reform is now.” Story from the Post-Gazette.

The reforms, which would require several new pieces of legislation, are backed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-Montgomery, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Ronald Waters, D-Philadelphia.

Measures include having non-violent prisoners who are facing short, minimum sentences serve their time at community-based corrections centers instead of a state prison. Alternative incarceration programs would also be sought for lesser offenses, such as drug-related crimes and technical parole violations.

Mr. Greenleaf said nearly half of the state’s prisoners are non-violent offenders. He said the state prison population has skyrocketed from about 8,000 in 1980 to more than 51,000 now. The state’s prison population was temporarily reduced recently when 2,000 prisoners were sent to prisons in Virginia and Michigan, but the number continues to rise.

“We’ve been tough on crime, but we haven’t been smart on crime,” Mr. Greenleaf said.

Pennsylvania spends more on corrections than 44 other states, according to Mr. Waters, who is sponsoring three bills aiming to reform sentencing.

The state’s Department of Corrections budget is now approaching $2 billion a year, more than 55 times what it was nearly 40 years ago, according to Mr. Waters’ figures.

Mr. Greenleaf said if the prison population continues to increase at the current rate, Pennsylvania may have to build a new prison every year, at the cost of more than $200 million per prison. Three new prisons are already scheduled to be built by 2014, and they will be immediately filled if trends continue. They will be in Centre, Montgomery and Fayette counties.

Mr. Greenleaf said that one factor causing costs to rise is a category called “technical parole violators,” people who are re-incarcerated for violations such as breaking curfew or failing to report to a parole officer. In 2008, 3,000 of these technical violators were re-incarcerated.

Department of Corrections spokeswoman Susan McNaughton said the department supports the new measures.

“We’ve been tough on crime for a long time but have been kind of painting these offenders under a broad brush,” Ms. McNaughton said. “Not everybody needs to be separated from society . . . What they need is treatment.”

Dauphin County District Attorney Edward Marsico, president of the state District Attorneys Association, said alternative programs should be used, but the state needs to tread carefully with any changes to the criminal system.

“The overwhelming majority of inmates in the state correctional system are there for a reason,” Mr. Marsico said. “While their current offense may be non-violent, they may have a history of violence or a history of repeat offenses.”

He said the state could see even higher costs if offenders in the alternative programs continue to commit crimes. “Even if they commit non-violent offenses, that’s a huge cost, not only to their victims but also taxpayers down the road.”

Rep. Thomas Caltagirone, D-Berks, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he would like to see the prison reform bills voted on by the time the new state budget is enacted this summer and legislators then recess.

The Senate has already approved three of the prison reform bills. The House Judiciary Committee met today to discuss them and suggested that amendments be made, including a provision allowing pregnant convicts to not be handcuffed while delivering children. Final committee action is expected next week.

jchev Alternative Sentencing, Pennsylvania

The total state prison population across the nation declined in 2009 for the first time in almost 40 years. The numbers didn’t exactly plummet — less than half a percentage point, or 4,777 fewer inmates than in 2008. The decrease, however, represents a sharp contrast from 1972 to 2008 when state prison populations grew by 708 percent. News from the Tulsa World.

Even with the slight decrease, the number of inmates in state institutions — 1,404,053 — is equivalent to locking up every man, woman and child in Philadelphia.

Last year, 26 states housed fewer inmates than they did the year before, according to a recent report by the Pew Center on the States. Twenty-four states, including Oklahoma, continued to add inmates — some with a vengeance.

As of Dec. 31, Oklahoma had 26,397 inmates, up about 530 inmates from 2008. That 2.1 percent increase might not sound so bad unless you consider that the prison system:

• Is at 99 percent capacity with 1,500 inmates backed up in county jails
• Is down 700 corrections officers
• Is in a state that has a $1.2 billion revenue shortfall going into the new fiscal year beginning July 1

Oklahoma is tough on crime. Its Legislature, in fact, is habitually TOC, in good times and in bad, and especially in election years. As one retired lawmaker put it: “We’ve felonized just about everything but flatulence and I hear that’s coming soon.”

Even with a funding crisis, the drumbeat to felonize more crimes — 26 — and to enhance penalties for existing crimes — 19 more — continued this legislative session.

Board of Corrections member David Henneke recently called the prison population levels “beyond critical.” Board member Robert Rainey complained lawmakers had mostly ignored the board’s suggestions on ways to save money.

Several states,the Pew report aid, have enacted reforms designed to give taxpayers a better return on their public safety dollars. Strategies include:

• Diverting low-level offenders and probation and parole violators from prison
• Strengthening community supervision and re-entry programs
• Accelerating the release of low-risk inmates who complete risk-reduction programs

Oklahoma has adopted some of those policies but not in great enough numbers to make a major difference.

About 90 percent of the offenders we lock up eventually get out and live among us. But the state spends relatively little money treating inmates for addictions or training them for jobs. And, we make it impossible for most felons to find employment when they do get out. So, too many career criminals take up where they left off when released because they have no other skills and drug abusers return to their addictions. It’s a sure-fire combination for keeping the prisons full.

In the past 20 years, corrections costs nationally have quadrupled and account for one of every 15 state general fund discretionary dollars. Corrections represents the second fastest-growing category of state budgets behind Medicaid.

The Pew report, however, found that the public is warming to prison alternatives.

“The public is supportive of using community corrections rather than prison for nonviolent offenders,” authors said. For instance, in a 2007 voter poll, 71 percent of Texas respondents preferred a mandatory intensive treatment program as an alternative to prison, a level of support that increased to 83 percent when respondents were told the diversion of lower-level offenders could help avert $1 billion in new prison costs.

Declining state revenues are starting to make policy leaders realize that the public’s support of incarceration may wane when it’s done on a scale that robs mightily from other state services.

Advances in supervision technology, including GPS monitors, faster drug tests and ATM-like reporting kiosks, offer authorities new technologies to monitor the whereabouts and activities of offenders in the community.

“These capabilities are giving lawmakers, judges and prosecutors greater confidence that they can protect public safety and hold offenders accountable with sanctions other than prison,” Pew authors said. Policy leaders are realizing that they can effectively reduce their prison populations, and save public funds without sacrificing public safety.

“That’s a drastically different policy environment than the one that existed in the 1970s and 1980s, when states decided that building more and more prison cells was the answer to crime,” authors said.

For some offenders incarceration is the appropriate punishment. Other offenders might serve their debt to society through less costly means, freeing up funds for other priorities such as seeing that students are educated, that roads, bridges and other infrastructure are maintained, that the elderly and fragile are protected and that the health care system is adequate.

In punishing lawbreakers it’s important to distinguish between those we fear and those we’re just mad at. We have to prioritize spending. Do we throw Bubba in prison or do we throw grandma out on the street? When we put people behind bars who might be punished through less expensive means, we sometimes end up punishing ourselves.

jchev Alternative Sentencing, Economic Issues, Oklahoma, Overcrowding

Initiatives to reduce incarceration, according to Jane Klekamp, the director of the La Crosse County Justice Sanctions program, are not always popular. Story from the News Republic.

Speaking to about 14 members of the Portage community Tuesday in St. Mary’s Catholic School cafeteria, Klekamp said that various programs used in her home county have helped to decrease the incarcerated population and prevented millions in incarceration costs.

“We have focused so much on the punishment side of this that I think we have just lost sight of what would be the most helpful,” Klekamp said.

Justice Sanctions takes advantage of various initiatives that focus on changing people’s behavior instead of just punishment — initiatives like a alcohol and drug court systems that focus on treatment instead of jail for certain offenders, and programs that help people reinstate their drivers’ licenses after they are revoked.

Klekamp said that the program saves the use of about 244 beds per day in the county at a savings of $73 per bed. Meanwhile, Klekamp said it costs her program about $13-$19 per day for each of those they are trying to keep out of jail.

Klekamp said that despite the successes of Justice Sanctions it is still hard to get political support for their programs.

“Motivating the system to change is as complicated as getting any person to change. It is no easier,” she said.

The speaker was hosted by the Columbia County Community Corrections Council, which operates the Circles of Support program. The Circles of Support program helps mentor individual offenders once they leave jail. The program is funded by Columbia County and depends on volunteers.

John Kinsler, who is with the council and is also a volunteer in the Circles program, said Tuesday that the Council is looking for a new program to initiate. He said Klekamp and future speakers will help the council decide where they can be most effective in Columbia County.

“Right now what we are trying to say is that Circles of Support is somewhat stable. We need more volunteers but it is making an impact on people’s re-offense and so what else can we do,” Kinsler said.

The more avenues of support, Kinsler said, the better.

“If you have only got one spoke on a wheel, it is kind of a rough ride, and as you add more spokes it kind of smooths it out a bit,” he said.

Whichever spoke the council decides to work on next, he knows that it will need to have a minimal cost and function primarily on community support or grants. There is no available money in Columbia County’s budget.

Columbia County Supervisor Richard Boockmeier, who represents parts of Portage on the board and serves on a committee that oversees the county’s justice system, said that the alternative programs have merit but said that there is little financial or political support to be found in the county government.

“Circles of Support is a pretty effective program but it is not a popular program among county board supervisors. A lot of them don’t like it because it is too liberal. They want to buy bars,” Boockmeier said.

That is not how Boockmeier sees it though.

“The less people we have in jail the better our community is going to be,” he said.

jchev Alternative Sentencing, WI La Crosse County