Steve Hudson, M.D., J.D. Issues Statement On Prison Reform

"According to the Pew Research Center, one out of every one hundred American citizens is behind bars.  Even more staggering is the fact that one in nine Black men between the ages of 20 and 34 are incarcerated.  An estimated 29 percent of incarcerated persons are illegally in the country.  An ever-increasing percentage of inmates are being held in privately contracted correctional institutions that are actually companies with publicly traded stocks and are expected to turn a profit. There are also privately contracted companies that provide work programs for the inmates.

If we examine the factors of inmate population rates, the nature of offenses, sentencing standards, and the demographic composition of the population versus their affect on profitability, serious questions regarding the validity of sentencing/parole guidelines and practices arise.  States are now spending on average 7% of their annual discretionary budgets on incarceration.  The DOJ reports annual corrections expenditures of nearly 70 billion dollars annually.  The rate of spending on incarceration is increasing at over 10 times that of enrollment and expenditure on higher education.

Now that it’s past labor day, the candidates have been picked, the confetti has been swept up, and the election season is finally upon us.  Although my opponent is touting a message of great reform, he has consistently ignored a growing problem that is destroying families, dividing our communities, and consuming an exponentially increasing percentage of our state and federal budgets.  It was wrong for my opponent to earmark hundreds of thousands of dollars for Casa de Maryland, which provides legal assistance for illegal immigrants, or to toss a token $250,000 to the Montgomery County Police anti-gang unit without addressing the root causes of the dramatic increase in violent crime in our District. If we strip an individual of everything and make them a helpless ward of the state, it is just plain wrong to toss them into an environment that places them in grave physical and psychological peril with little chance of effective rehabilitation. Congress must consider creative measures that will ease the burdens on existing institutions.  We must re examine the Corrections system from the courtroom to the reintroduction of offenders back into society.  We must address the root causes of these problems and institute variations of programs that have already proven successful.  In short, it is our responsibility to rehabilitate and not just dehumanize the interned population and their families."