The article discusses Indiana taking a new approach to criminal justice that focuses more on rehabilitation rather than incarceration. The House has proposed a budget that would double spending on community treatment programs to $90 million to help reduce recidivism. It also wants to prevent judges from sentencing non-violent felons to state prisons. This approach is aimed at reducing prison populations and costs, as over half of released prisoners re-offend. Supporters argue it could save billions while improving outcomes, citing Texas as an example. Some question if it is too soft, but most key players support the changes.

1. DAILY REPORTER
HANCOCK COUNTY, INDIANAA6
BREAKING NEWS AT
GREENFIELDREPORTER.COM
Opinion
P
eople either want to beat
bullies up or watch
someone else do it.
But bullies don’t usually need
a whooping before they see the
light. You can often knock sense
into their heads without skinning
your knuckles.
Tim Renshaw is right in his
Feb. 26 Daily Reporter column
(“Don’t let bullies get away with
it,” A6) when he says a store
worker encouraged bullying by
letting a pushy hothead move to
the front of the line at the phar-
macy counter.
So let’s start with that situa-
tion and ask, how could the store
more effectively handle such
a situation? The following tips
have worked for me in all kinds
of cases.
Here are a few things the clerk
could have said regarding the
pushy woman:
“This counter is open for cus-
tomers who respect the people
around them. Sir, please step up
here and tell me how can I help
you.”
“Ma’am, you’re bothering our
customers. I’m not going to take
care of your order until you show
the respect everyone else here is
showing each other.”
“Is this woman bothering any-
one besides me and the gentle-
man over there?”
Each of these statements can
bring a quick and favorable re-
sponse. A feel for the situation
will help determine which type
to use.
One thing’s for sure — custom-
ers will have a strong tenden-
cy to patronize the store that pre-
serves the dignity they deserve
when they’re spending their mon-
ey there.
Customers can set both the bul-
ly and the clerk straight: “Ma’am,
I did not come here to listen to
your disrespect. I’d like to think
I can come back here and spend
my money without having to put
up with your rudeness to this
store’s customers.”
You could also say, “Is anyone
besides me appalled by this wom-
an’s rudeness?”
These statements can perma-
nently reform the bully.
When I was a teacher, a big
boxing champion had the habit of
running through the high school
hallway and making students get
out of the way or be run over.
The first time I saw him doing
this, I made him stop.
He was three times bigger
than I.
I said, “You can’t run through
the school like this. You’re going
to knock people down and hurt
them.”
He looked down at me and
said, “I’m going to be a senior
next year, and nobody’s going to
tell me what to do then.”
He went on to class, but anoth-
er teacher sent him back to me.
I said, “You’re bigger than ev-
erybody else. They can’t do a
thing about it when you make
them get out of the way. I don’t
think it’s too much to ask you to
walk.”
That was the last day he ran
through the halls. He agreed he
had been childish, and he was
glad I appreciated his size and
strength.
Neighborhood vandals are a
kind of bully who often end up in
jail. When I lived in Ft. Wayne,
two of them were busting bottles
in broad daylight on a neighbor’s
driveway in front of my home. It
was an ugly scene.
I stepped out my front door and
walked toward them. “Hey, you
guys!”
They started down the alley,
away from me.
“Hey, wait, wait!” I said.
They turned around. I told
them I was going to go back in
the house and get a paper gro-
cery bag so they could pick up all
that glass.
I returned with the bag, and
they carefully picked all the glass
up. I helped. Then I thanked
them, and we went our separate
ways.
This occurred in a neighbor-
hood most people would consid-
er too dangerous to live in, yet I
have witnessed the same kind of
cooperation in Indianapolis and
anywhere else I happened to be
walking or working.
Almost everyone takes a turn
at being a bully. It happens in the
workplace, at special events and
at home.
Bullying is hardly the worst be-
havioral problem schools deal
with. The bigger problem is the
general rudeness that people of
any age exhibit during any given
school week.
Max T. Russell is owner of Max and
Max Communications and formerly
taught Spanish in Southern Hancock
schools. You can contact him via his
website, www.maxtrussell.com.
W
hen a carpet of snow
covered the backyard
and a century-old low
temperature record shattered
like a falling icicle recently, it
occurred to me just how easily
we box ourselves into corners of
our own making with our words.
It’s one thing to reach for a
laudable, if not entirely appro-
priate, goal by tugging truth a
little at the edges but entirely
another to stretch the fabric so
taut you can see through it.
These little pufferies, half-
truths, not-entirely-accurate de-
scriptions and other self-serving
rationalizations come in a va-
riety of forms but have at their
cores unwarranted, unsupport-
able deceptions that once ex-
posed, leave the windbag who
uttered them struggling like a
Boxer to exit a Beagle-sized dog
house.
And you’d think we’d know
better.
Sometimes, the small words
bite the hardest.
Take the adverbial “that;” as
in, “well, it doesn’t get that cold
there,” a statement I flippant-
ly made in the spring of 2012
that put the big dog in the small
house.
You see, my wife is from
Florida.
But not just from Florida;
she’s a native. But not just your
garden variety born there, been
there, done that sort of native.
Her family goes back so
far near the Big Water of
Okeechobee that her cattle-
ranching ancestors were on
speaking terms with Seminole
Indian Chieftain Billy Bowlegs.
Though there’s no record of
what Bowlegs and the Journi-
gans talked about; conversations
probably ranged from favor-
ite Seminole pumpkin frybread
recipes to how the government
should just mind its own busi-
ness and accept the fact that
no matter what kind of whoo-
pin’ the Feds put on the tribe, it
would still own the Hard Rock
Café sooner or later.
These people lived well south
of The South, and the Confed-
eracy was where they vaca-
tioned, when they wanted to
cool off and get away from the
mosquitoes.
“Whatever you do, doll,” my
wife’s grandmother admon-
ished in the gravest tone possi-
ble, “don’t marry a Yankee or a
game warden.”
What fool could possibly think
a good idea was relocating
someone whose blood is so thin
it evaporates to the Midwest?
Especially a fool born north
of the Mason-Dixon Line whose
urging flies in bald defiance of
his wife’s revered grandmoth-
er, a gator-thumping, prayer-
warrioring, Flat Lander who
thought Robert E. Lee was a
quitter.
God rest her soul.
Who would think of such a
thing? More on that later.
The claim that it doesn’t real-
ly get that cold in the Midwest
flew fairly below the radar dur-
ing the winter of 2012-13.
The adventure was still fresh,
and Old Man Winter didn’t bite
that hard.
That all changed the follow-
ing year with record snowfalls
and a morning weather telecast
that brought my wife to the liv-
ing room staring at the weather-
man’s wind-chill pronouncement
as if he was speaking Chechen.
“What did he say?” she asked,
her voice kicking into that upper
register women use to indicate
they know exactly what he said.
The whole minus thing in the
temperature forecast threw her,
and I knew there was no run-
ning from this one.
Then we got the winter of 2015
when, oh, by the way, it hadn’t
been that cold here since 1899,
which I suppose means it actual-
ly does get that cold here.
So, regardless of how much
snow falls, regardless how far
the mercury plummets, no mat-
ter I’m so cold my knees clatter
like castanets, I’m forever stuck
like a tongue on a frozen flag
pole to the mantra: It’s really
not that cold.
You’d think we’d learn.
Jim Mayfield is a former staff
writer for the Daily Reporter. He lives
in Irvington.
Midwest winters bitter
for a former Floridian
Stopping bullies everyone’s responsibility
Indiana taking new
tact to fight crime
KPC News
Spending to help reform criminal offenders
could more than double in a new state budget
proposed by the Indiana House
of Representatives.
The money — nearly $90 mil-
lion over two years — would
go to local communities for
treatment programs aimed at
keeping people from returning
to crime.
“We want to make sure it’s not
used simply to build jails,” the
bill’s author, Rep. Greg Steuerwald, R-Avon, told
a newspaper reporter who covers the Statehouse.
The bill also would forbid judges from sen-
tencing the lowest-level felons to state prisons
starting next year.
It’s all part of a growing movement in Indiana
to stop spending so much on prisons and start
trying to reduce the need for so many cells.
Reports say groups such as the Indiana
Sheriffs’ Association support the idea, which
improves the chances of success.
Why do we need to change directions? The
numbers show that between the years 2000 and
2010, Indiana’s prison population rose from 19,000
to 28,000. The cost of operating those prisons
increased from $480 million per year to $680 mil-
lion today.
All that spending was not producing the de-
sired results. More than half of people who went
to prisons were committing crimes again when
they got out.
It’s time to try something different. The new
prescription calls for treatment to help drug ad-
dictions, supervision by more probation officers
and helping prisoners find jobs.
People who commit crimes have to survive
somehow when they eventually get out of prison.
If they can’t find jobs, they return to crime, then
go back to prison, where taxpayers provide their
room and board.
Is this a namby-pamby, soft-on-crime ap-
proach? Don’t tell that to Texas, which Steuer-
wald is holding up as a model for his ideas.
According to reports, Texas spent $230 million on
community corrections programs and ended up
saving $3 billion on state prison operating costs.
Impressed by the Texas example, the Indiana
House of Representatives recently refused to ap-
prove $51 million for a plan to expand two state
prisons. The request now goes to the Indiana
Senate, where a key senator told a reporter he is
dead-set against spending more on prisons.
With so many key players on board, Indiana
appears headed toward a new strategy in fight-
ing crime. We don’t have to be tougher than
Texas, but we can be just as smart.
This was distributed by Hoosier State Press Association.
Reader: Letting market
set wages won’t work
To the editor:
In response to the Eric Schans-
berg article from Tuesday, March
3 (“Prevailing-wage fight mostly
about politics,” A4): He raises
some very pointed questions
about the ethics of market-con-
trol wages versus government
regulation to support a certain in-
dustry, a specific group or a pow-
erful lobby.
I have worked in the unionized
construction industry, am now re-
tired, have health insurance that
I can afford and can live in digni-
ty, not wondering how to pay my
bills, not with my hand out.
I have worked in the industry
under attack. I have talked to
nonunionized people doing the
same job as I did. These folks
would join a union in a heartbeat,
but now in Indiana, a union-orga-
nizing effort is doomed, money
being the deciding factor.
I have seen illegal aliens work-
ing on tax-supported projects, a
religious sect working on schools.
If anyone thinks these folks are
paying into the system, which
they use, they are living in a
fool’s paradise.
By all means, let us remove all
government interference in wag-
es, letting the market set wages.
While we’re at it, let us remove
all ag subsidies, all tax abate-
ments for business, all tax sup-
port for public/private
enterprises.
This can be done by saying this
is only fair to the taxpayers and
will result in savings to the pub-
lic, which will certainly result in
lower taxes. Not.
At a time the middle class is
shrinking and more wealth is be-
ing concentrated in the top 1 per-
cent, I would think the thoughtful
man would be pleased to see a vi-
brant middle class, able to send
their children to college if so de-
sired and live their final days in
security, in the long run ensuring
social stability.
I am not an adjunct scholar. I
have not received the wisdom of a
degree but have had many life ex-
periences that lead me to the con-
clusion this anti-worker, anti-fam-
ily legislation to reduce wages
has all the delicate nuances of a
decaying rat wrapped in $100
bills.
Robert Heiden
Wilkinson
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Daily Reporter
MODERATELY CONFUSED
JIM MAYFIELD
MAX RUSSELL
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