“Who Wins? Oh yeah, them too.”

Yes­ter­day I was lis­ten­ing to Per­for­mance Today on NPR. They played a selec­tion per­formed by a group of female musi­cians who were all cur­rent­ly incar­cer­at­ed in a Texas prison. Along with the per­for­mance was a bit of time talk­ing about the pro­gram that teach­es inmates how to play musi­cal instruments.

Some­one from the Texas prison sys­tem was being inter­viewed and he talked about the 60% recidi­vism rate in Texas and how when an inmate expe­ri­ences suc­cess play­ing the music this leads to more pos­i­tive behav­ior and low­ers the recidi­vism rate. He called it a win-win.

Now, dear read­er, you might be nod­ding your head and think­ing indeed it is a win-win. The state of Texas expe­ri­ences less recidi­vism which real­ly means less crime and less mon­ey spent incar­cer­at­ing peo­ple and the inmates win by find­ing a path to a life inside the law.

Ahh, but that is not what the man meant. He imme­di­ate­ly fol­lowed up with a clar­i­fi­ca­tion. The win-win he was talk­ing about was, yes, the state of Texas and the Texas prison sys­tem! Yeah!!!