Shuffling

It just occurred to me last night. Well, I take that back. I've known about it for awhile, it just jelled solidly in my brain last night. We don't solve any problems. We just shuffle them back and forth and hope they'll go away. Or at least get out of our hair for awhile.

A partner of mine works in a GP house a little ways up the walk from mine. He's kind of young, but has a good head on his shoulders and is pretty good with problem solving. There's been a steady influx of young gangbangers in his house and he's been busy getting them moved out or seperated from the others so that they are less of a problem. Another offender came up to him the other night and thanked him for getting rid of the gangbangers in their wing, to which he replied "I'm trying, but they keep sending us more!"

It's like having half a flyswatter in a house with no window screens.

We do the same thing in Adseg. If they are problems in a GP house, then they get sent to us. If they are a problem for us, we jack up their custody levels and send them to a C-5 camp. When they are a problem in the C-5 camps, they surreptitiously lower their custody levels (supposedly by "accident" or "paperwork error" so they say) and send them back to us.

And the cycle continues. Back and forth.

But there's no correcting the behavior.

No repercussions for acting like a fool.

This is getting to be a real problem. Prison is no longer a punishment. It's a vacation.

And being in the hole is not a punishment. It's a stage for their idiot act.

Prison reform be damned. Let the so-called "reformers" take a handful of these punks and knuckleheads home for a few weeks.

I'm getting less liberal in my old age, I think.

Guess I'll go shuffle some more. Whose deal is it?