The most obvious are those who make their living prosecuting crime, such as prosecutors, emergency responders (police officers, private security, medical responders, etc.), or those who make their living defending those accused of committing crime, such as attorneys, private investigators, bail bondsmen, etc. A reduction in crime means, sooner or later, a reduction in the number of people required to keep the system operating smoothly. Sooner or later, these people (court clerks, judges, prosecutors, police officers, attorneys, paralegals, private investigators, private security, etc.) will be laid off because there's simply no need for them. Dig a little deeper, and you begin to realize that this barely begins to scratch the surface when it comes to those who rely on crime, in some way, shape or form, to make a living. Correctional officers are needed to prevent inmates from escaping, administrators are needed to keep the prison operating, farmers are needed to supply food to the prisons, gas stations are needed to fuel the trucks that transport the food to the prisons, the list goes on and on. If crime didn't exist, all of these people would be out of work, and with unemployment already hovering near 9%, this would spell disaster for everyone involved.

So, in my humble opinion, the prison officials' failure to provide the inmate population with things like "better IT training" is far from "short-sighted". In fact, I suspect that a lot of thought went into making this decision, and that it was made with the full intent on keeping the recidivism rates as high as they could get away with. Otherwise, they could have implemented dozens, if not hundreds, of other programs with a proven track record at better preparing the inmate for his or her eventual release, at ensuring that the parolee actually succeeded with their attempt to reintegrate into society.

With that said, I completely agree with your assessment. "[M]any will face updated technologies when they leave prison." Unfortunately, those who run the system either don't care, or have intentionally designed things so the parolee will fail. In the long run, it really doesn't matter whether or not their actions are intentionally designed with failure in mind, only that I recognize that this is what's happening, and that I plan accordingly. Accordingly, I've taken it upon myself to "think outside of the box" as much as possible. I'm using this time now, to increase my educational and employment opportunities, hoping that, if I can't find a job working for someone else, I'll at least have the knowledge and skills to start my own business. It's just a shame that not everyone has the preexisting knowledge and skills to do so, the ability to look ahead, or the tools to learn what they need to learn, and the prison doesn't seem inclined to change things anytime in the near future.

If you're interested, I wrote an article a little while ago about the "Evolution of the Prison System". While it's kind of dry, it provides a pretty good understanding of how the prison industry has evolved into a profitable enterprise.

As far as that Excel formula book's concerned, I want to say again how much I appreciated you taking the time to do the research on it for me. Unfortunately, I lost my job (see my article "No Good Deed") in the library, so at the moment, I don't even have that meager bit of money coming in (about $7 a month for 12 hours a day, 5 days a week). However, since they finally determined that I wasn't doing anything wrong, I should be getting another job in a few weeks, and the first thing on my list will be this book. My next step will be figuring out how to order it without access to the Internet. :)

I look forward to hearing from you again, either here on this blog, my e-mail: shawnlperrot@hotmail.com (I have a friend who monitors it for me, downloading, printing and mailing me anything that's sent to it), or snail mail at the address listed below. Until next time, have a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

Shawn L. Perrot CDCR# V-42461
CMC-East Cell# 6326
P.O. Box 8101
San Luis Obispo, CA 93409-8101
shawnlperrot@hotmail.com