Hug A Thug?

As the dust is settling on the 2008 election, one may now examine the effectiveness the future of Barack Obama's crime control policy. Many of President Obama's policies revolve around offender rehabilitation rather than extended incarceration. He also proposed for further ex-offender programs to help their reintegration into society.

Obama will work to ensure that ex-offenders have access to job training, substance abuse and mental health counseling, and employment opportunities. Obama will also create a prison-to-work incentive program and reduce barriers to employment.

This proposal encompasses the same proposal of President Bush who enacted the Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative which intended to allocate $300 million in '04 over four years to help ex-inmates find stable jobs and housing. And yet as Devah Pager wrote in the April 11th 2004 Chicago Tribune

The president is on the right track. Developing a more-successful re-entry program would benefit prisoners and their families as well as increasing public safety. Expanding job training and placement assistance, providing help with transitional housing, and support for counseling services would all help make reintegration much easier and reduce the impetus to return to crime. But the president's proposal does not go nearly far enough.

Devah explains that there are laws that prevent inmates from successfully integrating into society and points out that they must change so that ex-offenders do not return to the life of crime.

Will President Obama's proposal be met with the same scrutiny?
That is impossible to tell.
Are President Obama's proposals taking a soft approach on combating crime?
From a sociological and criminological standpoint, no, rather he appears to be addressing recidivism problem with a realistic approach.

Society Punishes Ex-Convicts For Life
Barack Obama: Urban Policy
Barack Obama On Crime