A Hope for Prisoners: Vick’s Rehabilitation Complete
James Dugan
RMTip21Who is worth 100 Million dollars? The Philadelphia Eagles have decided that Michael Vick is. Whether this will give the hapless Eagles their elusive Super Bowl ring is uncertain, but indubitably, this has given new worth to a former convict who, just a few years ago, had no worth at all.
I lauded the Eagles for their action in hiring Vick in 2009 in More Than Touchdowns: Vick's Reentry from Prison. Prison Statistics are still showing the disproportionate amount of African Americans in jail for 5-10 years mostly because of non-violent or drug offenses; the call for a second chance is still relevant. Not only is Michael Vick worth millions of dollars, his rehabilitation is complete as he has been full accepted as of vital economic importance to our society.
Only Vick Can Prove the Eagles Right by Bob Ford details his rising fortunes, but there are many stories with sharp trajectories from the depths of non-relevance to being the most important ingredient to success for a corporation. No amount of personal resiliency can force social acceptance without a chance. I do hope Michael Vick realizes his fortunate break and uses some of the cash to help ex-cons do the same.
Michael Vick’s rise is proof that our prison system can rehabilitate if there are economic opportunities available. Repeated crime may not be created by the lack of morality, but by the lack of opportunity. If we could all be worth 100 million dollars one day, what would stop us from performing the necessary actions to fulfill our potential?
warpafxPart of Barack Obama’s new Job Act should address this concern. With the highest rate of crimes and repeat offenders inhabiting certain areas, these should become empowerment zones for a new program. As part of a federal program to help shrink the prison population and help curtail repeat offenders, the Federal government and State, depending on the prison of release, should pay the employer’s salary for an ex-prisoner for one year. This would give the ex-con a chance to reestablish himself, find a place to live, adjust to socially acceptable norms, and find acceptance in society.
The New Job Act should address these concerns with the prison population as African American unemployment is at its highest rates, hovering around 20%. The new Act should take in large part the training of prisoners and revitalize the idea that prisons are meant to reestablish and heal the broken bonds between the prisoner and society. There are more whites in prison than any other race and the Hispanic population grows with each passing year. This is a gender issue as male unemployment has suffered immensely in the past forty years. President Obama can help the most alienated in our society with this program as just part of a sweeping jobs bill to revitalize the American worker and economy.
Michael Vick is an example of prison rehabilitation and the Eagles are a corporation who has benefitted from offering this athlete an opportunity. It is important that we learn from our mistakes but it is more important that we give people a chance to make amends. If we do not, then prison will be a black hole for millions of American males with no chance of parole as Victor Hugo makes clear.
"Such is the remorseless progression of human society, shedding lives and souls as it goes on its way. It is an ocean into which men sink who have been cast out by the law and consigned, with help most cruelly withheld, to moral death. The sea is the pitiless social darkness into which the penal system casts those it has condemned, an unfathomable waste of misery. The human soul, lost in those depths, may become a corpse. Who shall revive it?"
Reader Comments (1)
Um, yeah. Any inmate that can run a sub 4.3 40 yard dash, has a rocket for an arm and is the best scrambling QB in NFL history will most likely get a second chance to achieve NFL glory. While Michael Vick will not be applying for Mensa anytime soon, I cannot imagine him being ignorant enough to even harbor a thought of straying outside the box and risk what he has regained...not with a $20M bankruptcy debt hanging above his head.
I agree with your overall theory that with the amount of young men taht are incarcerated in this country every year...we need to do a better job of rehabilitating them to make them productive members of society and make it appealing for society and the workforce to allow them to try and attain some sort of repsectable working life. Vick is a bad example. He is the only man who was released from jail in the last 2 years that had million dollar skills that would not allow him to fall back into his previous life. 99.99% of the released prisoners do nto have the security blanket of an NFL team and the fatherly guidance of a Tony Dungy to look forward to and with little or no options, fall back into their previous criminal habist with no other choice.
Vick was not a [human] murderer, drug lord, rapist or bank robber. He was an ignorant yong man who grew up in rural poverty that embraced a barbaric culture of dog fighting. I do not believe he felt remorse as much as he simply just got caught. Half of the players in the NFL think he got scapegoated and railroaded in the first place and could not wait to welcome him back. This is not the case of a low level drug dealer who served 10 years in Federal and came out to a minimum wage job at McDonalds.