Christopher Zoukis's Blog, page 20
January 23, 2015
CD Review: Big Apple Blues by Tomas Doncker Band
Image courtesy thefuture.fm
Artist: Tomas Doncker Band
Album: Big Apple Blues
Release Date: October 21, 2014
Reviewed by: Christopher Zoukis
What do you get when you put a Pulitzer prize-winning poet and a famous blues guitarist in the same room? Answer: expressive, heavy duty, industrial strength blues.
The guitarist is Tomas Doncker, who learned his licks during his time with James Chance & The Contortions, Yoko Ono, the Itals, and Prince Charles Alexander, along with a bunch of other A-list...
January 22, 2015
Work Programs Bridging Prisons To the Community: A Recipe for Reduced Recidivism
In the U.K., the one year recidivism rate for released offenders who find a job and a home is about 40%; for those who find neither it is almost 75%.
Yet finding a job after prison is tough. In Britain only about 40% of released offenders find employment, but some interesting programs may be able to improve that figure.
Work training or slave labor
Working in prison is nothing new. British prisoners used to be known for sewing mailbags. Thankfully things have moved on since then, although as in the U.S., there is criticism that some programs amount to little more than slave labor. At Ranby prison in Nottinghamshire, inmates assemble bulkhead lights for Applied Security Design, a private company, for a little over $10 a week.
A shoe-in for post-prison employment
Other programs, however, offer a realistic route out of prison and into employment. Timpsons is a family-owned shoe-repair chain, and a familiar sight on British high streets. The company has three prison training academies where inmates learn the trade. They then go on to work in the company's three in-prison workshops. British inmates are often given daily work-release during their final year. Those who have trained with Timpsons may be given temporary jobs in the firm's stores during this period, then employed full time once they are released.
Railtrack, which runs Britain’s rail network, trains inmates how to lay track, then offers them permanent jobs when they leave prison.
The company that operates Britain's power distribution network, National Grid, coordinates a scheme involving about eighty firms, through which offenders are trained on day-release, and then employed after their release. Over the past ten years, the recidivism rate amongst those who completed the program has been just 6%; that's 85% lower than the national average.
Clink hospitality
Yet another great example is The Clink Charity, which trains inmates for careers in the hospitality industry. The charity currently operates three training restaurants for prisoners, with a fourth due to open at Styal prison in 2015, and Clink Events, an event catering company. Planned expansion should take the charity to ten training programs by 2017.
Offenders enroll with The Clink train while still in prison or on day-release. Once they leave prison, Clink provides ongoing monitoring and support, and works to find them permanent positions within the industry. A number of well-known and well-connected industry experts act as ambassadors to the program, including celebrated chef Albert Roux and accomplished hotelier and Master Innkeeper Graham Bamford. Clink Ambassadors both mentor the students, and use their network of contacts to boost the program's profile and to find training and career positions for program graduates.
A need for similar programs in the U.S.
Initiatives like these not only provide training for real jobs, but also offer continuity from prison to the outside world, and remove at least some of the uncertainty offenders face when leaving prison. When released prisoners have jobs they are much less likely to return to criminal behaviors, or to be dependent on social services, both major benefits to the wider community.
In 2002 the Urban Institute Justice Policy Center recommended involving the private sector in prison vocational training so that similar schemes could be established in the U.S., but there has been little traction. The potential benefits for offenders, society, and the private sector suggest a win-win-win situation. As America looks for ways to begin reducing the enormous prison population, perhaps now is the time to start implementing similar programs across the U.S.
January 19, 2015
Interview with an Aphorist
Image courtesy 50watts.com
Christopher Spranger aphorizes. And he does it quite well. In fact, he is the world’s greatest ‘living’ aphorist. He lives and thinks and aphorizes[1] in Santa Barbara, California, a place where the weather is always perfect.
A few of the more famous dead aphorists are E.M. Cioran, Joseph Joubert and Karl Krauss. Christopher is their equal, and, in my humble opinion, their better. Cioran can be depressingly morbid. Joubert often verges on the flighty. And Krauss get...
January 16, 2015
Book Review: Hard Time
Shaun Attwood / Image courtesy blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com
Hard Time: A Brit in America’s Toughest JailBy Shaun Attwood
Mainstream Publishing 2010
ISBN: 1845966511
$16
Reviewed by Christopher Zoukis
Most people are happily ignorant of the difference between the term ‘jail’ and ‘prison.’ And since you don’t learn the difference until after you’ve been arrested, ignorance is indeed bliss. Jail is where prisoners are held while their cases are pending. If convicted, prisoners are sentenced and shipped...
January 15, 2015
Manuscript Finished!
Hooray!
The completed manuscript will be submitted to the publisher - Headpress of the U.K. - in the next few days.
The book was a collaborative effort between Christopher Zoukis and John Lee Brook.
Zoukis and Brook are sanguine that Sean Fannin - Great Britain's world famous abstract artist - will provide the background artwork for the book's cover. As soon as the cover design is available, we will share it with you
Check back to our site http://www.christopherzoukis.com/ for further updates.
Manuscript Finished!
Hooray!
The completed manuscript will be submitted to the publisher - Headpress of the U.K. - in the next few days.
The book was a collaborative effort between Christopher Zoukis and John Lee Brook.
Zoukis and Brook are sanguine that Sean Fannin - Great Britain's world famous abstract artist - will provide the background artwork for the book's cover. As soon as the cover design is available, we will share it with you
Check back to our site http://www.christopherzoukis.com/ for further updates.
January 14, 2015
CD Review: Eugene by Goste
Image courtesy huffingtonpost.com
CD Review: Eugene
Artist: goste
Genre: Organic, Electronic, Singer/Songwriter
Release Date: Dec. 4, 2014
Reviewed by Christopher Zoukis
Somewhere in Brooklyn there's an "experimental electronic artist" who goes by the singular name of "goste." As far as I can tell, the term means "to like" in Portuguese and "ghost" in Old Middle English. Goste's -- he does not capitalize his pseudonym -- real name is Owen Ross and he is a product of Berklee College of Music. His...
January 12, 2015
College For Convicts: Available for Purchase
Title: College for Convicts: The Case for Higher Education in American Prisons
Author: Christopher Zoukis
Publisher: McFarland and Company
Pages: 300
Genre: Social Sciences/Education
Purchase at AMAZON
Provide education to prisoners and they won’t return to crime. America accounts for 5 percent of the world’s population, yet incarcerates about 25 percent of the world’s prisoners with about 2.3 million men and women in U.S. facilities. Examining a wealth of studies by researchers and correctional p...
January 9, 2015
Manuscript Finished!
Image courtesy stagevu.com
The manuscript of Christopher Zoukis' latest non-fiction project is finished! Hooray! The completed manuscript will be submitted to the publisher -- Headpress of the U.K. -- in the next few days.
Tentatively titled United Blood Nation: The Untold Story of the East Coast Bloods, the book was a collaborative effort between Christopher Zoukis and John Lee Brook.
Mr. Zoukis and Mr. Brook are sanguine that Sean Fannin -- Great Britain's world famous abstract artist -- wil...
January 7, 2015
Music Review: 'Bittersweet' by Anne-Simone
Artist: Anne-Simone
Style: Pop, Indie Pop, Electro Pop
Release Date: Jan. 11, 2014
Reviewed by Christopher Zoukis
The music guy sent us some PR-info on Anne-Simone, whose CD, called Bittersweet, and was released on January 11, 2014. According to the specs, she hails from Seattle by way of Vancouver, Canada. Her instrument is the keyboard; her compositions are described as "a futuristic breed of electro pop and indie with a resilient, uplifting feel."
Ms. Anne-Simone summarizes herself in the follo...
