More time for good time

In the book-lined chapel at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Oakdale on Monday, a half-dozen inmates bent the ears of state Sen. Bob Dvorsky.

They wanted his thoughts about a bill they'd drafted as part of a civics class - one that would boost the cap on good time to a possible 1.5 days from the current 1.2 days for each day of good behavior.

Doing so would help inmates get out of prison faster and encourage them to take up programming designed to help make sure they stay out.

It also could save the state as much as $35 million - a number the men figured using the difference in cost of incarceration and probation. Not an inconsiderable sum.

It's similar to a bill that failed in the House last year after it was introduced by then-Rep. Ray Zirkelbach, who has worked as a counselor at the Anamosa Reformatory. The Oakdale inmates wanted to know what they might do to get the issue back in front of legislators.

Will anyone even listen to a bunch of inmates, they wanted to know. Dvorsky's answer: Some probably won't. But most will. The trick is to start with legislators who are especially interested in justice issues - the “corrections nerds.” Dvorsky, who has a corrections background himself, offered the men his help.

Their teacher, volunteer Mike Cervantes, told me the men had been working on the project for months - in just the kind of hands-on research project he used to coordinate as a Metro High School government teacher.

“When people learn how things work and what a citizen can do to try to make their voice heard, the better citizens they are,” he said.

But before all of that, seeing as how it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day and everything, Cervantes read part of a speech about forgiveness that King delivered in Montgomery, Ala., on Christmas 1957: “Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act,” he read. “It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship.”

It might be a little cute to point out here that King wrote that speech from a jail cell - and it wasn't civil disobedience that landed these guys behind Oakdale's security fences.

Still, each will return to Iowa communities after they've served their time, either as residents who are wiser, more engaged and law-abiding - or not. They're the ones who will choose how the story goes from there.

Meantime, I wish them luck in helping the corrections system reward right choices.

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