What if the plan doesn't work?

Last week, we had an activity, figuring out several polices that explore the problem of female offending problem and address the problem.

It was hard to decide which role at first place because honestly I am not familiar with the system and don’t know anyone in that system. After we finally decided that we will be policy maker, all the policy seems really unrealistic. However, even though the problem seem difficult to deal with. We still need to figure out something to deal with it because we not suppose just wait and do nothing before things get worse. Therefore, we figure we should have a big goal, such as eliminating the poverty.

Ironically, even though this is the goal of generation of human. No one has accomplished nor does anyone have figure out a way to reach that destination. Neither communism nor capitalism had this figured out. However, the direct correlation between the crime rate and poverty is undeniable.  The reality in this society is already very cruel for common people. At the same time, for people with come criminal record, life is even hard. It might sound mean, but the truth is that their lives barely go back to normal again. Also, no matter how feminist claim the progress they made to change the unequal situation for women in society. Women are still in disadvantages place. Therefore, these offending women really got them in an unfortunate place to live. Alliance or Vision both tried, but didn’t succeed in some sense.

There are several problems that attract my attention in this problem.

Firstly, the staff problem, both the inconsistency and different social background of such an organization is very obvious. A small proportion of the staff members of are actually the college students. This reminds me of the visiting of YASP, during which the Haverford graduate talked about how difficult it was to start to get in touch with them in the first place. I sometimes question myself which role do I see myself in the following visits to places. The very different social statuses are gap that cannot be ignored need to overcome. Also, the more serious problem is the inconsistency in such an organization. To reconnect to society is long process and need a lot of trust from different people and inmates themselves as well. Due to many realistic restrictions, many staff cannot work long time for organizations. The repetitive process of trying to know a new member is hard and definitely won’t be beneficial.

Secondly, the way they approach to this special group of people. I think telling them what to want and taking some common problems, such as arguing too seriously are not helping them at all. Even though I can’t come up with some better plans than what they have at this point. After all, both program really started with good and intentions and carefully planned strategies to work on these problems.

I guess I shouldn’t be so depressed about such problems. How to help offending women will be something people keep working on and people are keeping changing their plans and trying to make plans work better. At least, there are people keeping trying to fix the problem. If this plan doesn’t work out, then come up with a new one.