“Louisiana is the world’s prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly five times Iran’s, 13 times China’s and 20 times Germany’s.”
This staggering excerpt taking from The Times-Picayune presented a very interesting PR problem to our agency: How can we, as public relations professionals, take such an alarming and negative statistic and use it to foster an understanding of social issues in our community and promote civic engagement? After much thought, our agency came up with five effective steps to help conquer this task:
Step 1: Know the Facts
Exactly how many prisoners does it take to be No.1? According to a recent article published by the political newspaper Counter Punch, the state currently hosts more than 44,000 inmates, which equates to one in every 86 adults in Louisiana behind bars.
Step 2: Know who is affected
So Louisiana has a high incarceration rate, what’s the big deal? According to the Vera Institute of Justice, the total cost of state prisons for taxpayers in Louisiana is $698.4 million, which equates to approximately $17,486 per inmate every year ($50 a day). While Louisiana taxpayers are paying for prisoners in state penitentiaries, local sheriffs are being paid $24.39 per inmate per state to run their own parish jail.
Step 3: Identify the problem source
So why exactly are state prisons so much more expensive? Prisoners in local for-profit prisons who are serving shorter sentences get fewer rehabilitation services than the prisoners in the state taxpayer-funded prisons. Inmates serving life sentences at state prisons can learn to be welders, plumbers, heater technicians and auto mechanics. However, those in local prisons who will most certainly be released are offered no trade skills or rehabilitation services and leave jail with nothing more than pocket change and a bus ticket. “Ironically, in Louisiana, rehabilitation is for people who will never get out,” said Dana Kaplan, director of the office Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana.
Step 4: Understand the client’s position and solution
Where does the client fit into the picture? Connections for Life steps in where the local prisons leave off and offers a full, 12-month re-entry program garnered to empower previously incarcerated women to achieve economic self-sufficiency, physical well-being and teach them how to be proactive in improving their lives to help ensure they do not go back to old habits and return to prison.
Step 5: Determine the publics motivation to get involved
The success of Connections for Life could not only help subdue the increasing incarceration rates, but it could also save taxpayers’ money. Each program participant that is able to be acclimated to society and avoid future lockups is one more taxpaying citizen to split the cost of prisons and one less prisoner taxpayers will have to afford.
With the help of these five steps, the importance and overwhelming need for Connections for Life and programs of its kind in Louisiana became obvious to Belle Public Relations. Our plan moving forward is to develop an awareness campaign with educational pieces to promote a better understanding of the social issues surrounding our client’s mission and purpose. In addition, we plan to develop creative ways to use the motivations of our audiences to encourage civic engagement and involvement with Connections for Life.
For more information about how you can apply these five steps to your project or campaign or to share your own strategies to promote civic engagement, please comment below. Please also consider following our blog and our client’s Facebook page.
Margaret Price is a senior studying public relations at the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication. Check out her Facebook and Twitter.