Saturday, July 5, 2014 A reader asked how I would assess the effectiveness of re-entry programs. I would look at the data showing high recidivism rates and conclude that despite platitudes about corrections, prisons are designed to perpetuate intergenerational cycles of failure. I would say that prisons succeed in keeping people isolated from society, and […]

Friday, July 4, 2014 Another reader asked what programs were available to inmates that would prepare them for re-entry.  The answer would depend on the definition and measurement of “programs” and the term “prepare for re-entry.” A prison that confines 1,000 people may reserve a room and fill it with 5,000 books. It calls that […]

Thursday, July 3, 2014 I was asked how much the U.S. spent on prisons each year, and how prison spending has changed over the past 10 to 20 years. The United States spends more than $75 billion each year to maintain its commitment to mass incarceration. Prison spending has grown at an alarmingly, unsustainable rate. […]

Wednesday, July 2, 2014 Readers sometimes ask me about the rates of recidivism. Rates are misleading, depending on how we measure recidivism. When we measure recidivism, we must consider the following factors: length of time since release, whether an individual is incarcerated for committing a new crime, or whether an individual is incarcerated for committing […]

Tuesday, July 1, 2014 I was asked how imprisonment rates have increased over the past 10 to 20 years. Our nation’s commitment to mass incarceration began in the early 1970s. An article that Robert Martinson, a social scientist, published in a journal spawned that era of massive growth. The article, titled “Nothing Works,” concluded that […]

Monday, June 30, 2014 I received a series of questions from someone who was looking to learn more about America’s prison system. First, she asked how many people served time in America’s jail and prisons each year. We currently incarcerate more than 2.2 million people in the United States. But that figure doesn’t tell the […]

Sunday, June 29, 2014 I’ve been working with a team from Hollywood that has an interest in working with me to create a film. Rather than profiling the bad decisions I made that led to my confinement, the team has an interest in creating a film that shows the strategies and tactics that guided my […]

Saturday, June 28, 2014 I came across an article about Raj Rajaratnam in prison. A federal judge sentenced the billionaire to prison for violations of securities laws a couple of years ago. The article described how one of Rajaratnam’s disgruntled former employees filed a lawsuit against him. The employee sued because he claimed that Rajaratnam […]

Friday, June 27, 2014 For the first time since my release from prison, I ventured back into the stock market. Those who’ve read books that I wrote are familiar with my participation in the extraordinary ride of the “tech bubble” that existed back in the late 1990s. During the early portion of my term, I […]

Thursday, June 26, 2014 When I receive responses from candidates who’ve completed the application that I posted yesterday, I assess whether the candidate would make a good fit for our team. The culture of inside sales professionals that I’m striving to build isn’t everyone. I want to ensure that the people I bring on board […]