The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections ("DOC"), in cahoots with the Parole Board, would have the public believe that they're in accordance with justice and are keeping society safe from criminals. They want you to believe that they are "rehabilitating" the inmates. They sell the idea that rehabilitation is accomplished by "programs" prescribed by the prison staff. I just don't see this as true. Over an 11 year period, I've seen the system which society's tax-dollars feed, build more prisons and hire more and more unneeded staff while imposing evern lengthier prison sentences to insure that the staff's jobs are safe. At present the DOC is simply a huge corporation, a big business, the second highest grossing state business in 2002! For each inmate, taxpayers spend over $38,000.00 a year, but the money doesn't go to the prisoner or to improve society. The money goes to employ 15,000 leaches and large sums for essentially useless, even silly "programs." The real purpose of these programs is to provide the Parole Board with an excuse for denying parole to inmates who should be back home paying their own taxes. Part of the imprisonment business is for DOC to fail to provide the necessary programs or, to interrupt them, or to interfere with an inmate's efforts to enroll or attend. The Board pretends it requires completion of the programs. DOC pretends it doesn't. The prisons' manual for programs states: "proscriptive programs are not designed to help inmates gain parole." Upon one's arrival in a prison, whether for the first time or as a parole violator, the supposedly qualified DOC staff assesses one's supposed "programming needs" taking into consideration the nature of the crime, drug and alcohol involvement (and alcohol and drugs are common elements in offenses) and so forth. Using myself as the example, and the fine, "D&A" (for drug and alcohol) staff at SCI-Smithfield in Huntingdon County in Central Pennsylvania; I was a "TPV, that's a "technical" parole violator. I hadn't committed any new crime. I'd been sent back to prison for violating a technical provision of my parole. It had nothing to do with drugs or alcohol. For no apparent reason, the unqualified D&A staff felt that I needed FOUR programs to deal with drugs and alcohol! When I challenged the assessment, I was denied. If I don't take the unnecessary programs, I'll be denied reparole. If DOC can't or won't put me in the unneeded programs, I'll receive another parole "hit." The system is actually designed to make inmates fail. And what does all this cost the taxpayers? plenty! Why? It's job security for the many thousands of DOC and Parole Board employees. It has nothing to do with improving society or preventing crime or even punishing crime. It's simply job security for state employees. Pennsylvania prison populations are increasing. That's not due to an increase in crime. It's due to fewer prisoners being timely released. DOC is a big business with the Parole Board being part of the corporation. No matter how the big business tries to explain it, human lives are its source of revenue. It's done by trickery, perversion and nothing short of modern day extortion. - No, not to us, the inmates, but to you, the taxpayers. So, I implore you, talk to your state legislators, do what you must, but see where your hard-earned money is truly going.