Crime doesn’t pay. This refrain has been a part of the western lexicon for generations; the first mention of it was in the UK Law Magazine published in 1860. The view was that a life of crime won’t pay off in the end. And that has largely been the case. In Nevada, as in many states, however, incarceration can pay. Not enough to get rich and ride off into the sunset of retirement, but enough to get provisions from the prison commissary to bring some taste of the outside in a little corner of an otherwise dreary temporary residence.

That is not the only thing to spend money on though! Some temporary residents of the Nevada Department of Corrections (NDOC) are allowed to work for what some would consider considerable wages. Residents of facilities such as Casa Grande Transitional Housing move from the state prisons to these transitional facilities to work in the community for actual wages. They are still serving a sentence so they’re still in the custody of the Nevada Department of Corrections, but they are able to hopefully save up some money to make transitioning after their release much easier.

Sean Golonka and Jannelle Calderon of The Nevada Independent have covered the saga of resident accounts being garnished by the Nevada Department of Corrections. The Nevada Department of Corrections was arbitrarily taking 80 percent of not only resident wages but also 80 percent of funds sent to residents from family members until the Board of Prison Commissioners intervened.

Now, when I say “wages” you may wonder what I mean. Residents at the various prisons work in capacities from kitchen workers, firefighters for the Nevada Division of Forestry, and Silver State Industries, to name a few. As I mentioned, some are able to work at regular jobs inside the community. Hope for Prisoners works with NDOC’s Casa Grande facility to support those efforts.

The garnishment issue became such that the Legislature had to intervene. After the Board of Prison Commissioners lowered the rate that NDOC can garnish from 80 percent to 50 percent for all funds deposited into a resident’s account, the Legislature further lowered the rate to 25 percent from family contributions and maintained the 50 percent for wages. All of this is being done in the name of complying with Marsy’s Law, which says that any resident funds must prioritize victim restitution. Before the Legislature intervened, the money garnished from residents was prioritized into an account maintained by the state treasurer and paid out by the Division of Parole and Probation, but it didn’t affect a resident’s individual restitution obligation as it does now.

Senate Bill 22 also required the NDOC to make these garnishment changes on July 1, which it didn’t, and when questions arose, the Board of Prison Commissioners announced it was going to implement it at the end of July. It is unsurprising and disappointing that the implementation of a bill that could help residents contact family and purchase food items is not a priority, but I have to imagine if it were a bill increasing the garnishments to 100 percent, NDOC would have implemented it so quickly it would make our collective heads spin. This reinforces the estimation that the primary policy of NDOC is punishment rather than rehabilitation, education or re-entry.

NDOC has job developers on staff and partners with organizations such as Hope for Prisoners to help residents get jobs. And many of these program managers are passionate about the work they do supporting re-entry. But as is always the case in large bureaucracies, the passions of the frontline do not often reflect the priorities of the director’s suite.

It is unfortunate that many people in Nevada refuse to see people in the custody of NDOC as anything other than “criminals” who deserve to be punished until the end of time. It is worse that some of the people who feel that way are within the NDOC. I am not casting aspersions on the entirety of the Department of Corrections administration or staff. But no one can convince me that the entire department wants to see people released and ride off into the sunset with the tools they need to be successful and never come back, despite what the mission statement says. I have been a victim of a crime and was owed some restitution, so I get the hurt, vulnerability and trauma that comes with being victimized in the commission of a crime and the potential of never really feeling whole again. But state sanctioned revenge is not a sustainable public policy position.

The NDOC is not in the business of planned obsolescence, but it should be. It should be the objective of every citizen, legislator, administrator, staff member, and corrections officer in Nevada to see residents of the NDOC become self-sufficient and prepared to re-enter society. I have seen first-hand the difference between someone who is released and has some money saved up and someone who is released and has nothing, and that can make all the difference between successful re-entry and that revolving door making another spin.

Nathaniel Waugh is a member of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District Board of Trustees and a program supervisor at Hope for Prisoners where he focuses on workforce development for dislocated workers and recently released offenders. He received his Master of Arts in Urban Leadership from UNLV.