Apparently, it takes a looming financial crisis. For there is another round of bad news, the logical extension of the first: The more money a state spends on building and running prisons, the less there is for everything else, from roads and bridges to health care and public schools. At the pace our inmate population has been expanding, America's prison system is becoming, quite simply, too expensive to sustain. That is why Kansas, Texas, and at least 11 other states have been trying out new strategies to curb the cost—reevaluating their parole policies, for instance, so that not every parolee who runs afoul of an administrative rule is shipped straight back to prison. And yet our infatuation with incarceration continues.
If awards were granted to the country with the most surreal punishments, we would certainly win more than our share. Thirty-six straight years in solitary confinement (the fate of two men convicted in connection with the murder of a guard in Louisiana's Angola prison). A 55-year sentence for a small-time pot dealer who carried a gun during his sales (handed down by a federal court in Utah in 2004). Life sentences for 13-year-olds. (In 2005, Human Rights Watch counted more than 2,000 American inmates serving life without parole for crimes committed as juveniles. The entire rest of the world has only locked up 12 kids without hope of release.) Female prisoners forced to wear shackles while giving birth. (Amnesty International found 48 states that permitted this practice as of 2006.)
More at link . . .
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- tags:
- News and Politics, News, Prisons + add
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- pjacobs51
- added this
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Land of the not so free anymore ?
Gotta keep them privately own prison system full to the brim, this is "free" market after all ;)
Penn. Judges Get Kickbacks for Placing Youths in Privately Owned Jails
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/17/penn_judges_plead_guilty_to_takingThis is tragic...the number of lives wasted just for these sick fuck's profits makes me want to puke.
The US citizens are treated like cattle & who stands up in its defense ?As I posted before, the war on drugs & this phenomenon are all intertwined...
Them pesky pot smokers are perfect fodder...
Welcome to the war against drugs scam !
In the USA, the prison system is owned by private corporations (i), meaning that companies make money from putting people in jail.
This explains why America has the largest absolute prison population in the world (ii). Not just relative to its 300m population, but relative to the world. Even communist China, with 1.3 billion people, has less people in prison than America. US police officers are fired or given demotions if they do not meet a certain quota of people put in jail (iii). It’s called the prison-industrial complex (iv), and is just one example of how capitalism is yielding negative effects in America.
So how are so many people being put in prison?Welcome to the drug war. The CIA ships in cocaine to the United States in mass (v), and then uses the corrupt police force to deal these illegal drugs to the American public (vi). Naturally, having dealt the drugs, the police then know who is in possession of cocaine, so later bust them for it. Not only is the drug-industrial complex served, but so is the prison-industrial complex. Classic corporatism all made possible through the corrupt police force of bully-mentality.
And if by now you’re saying, “well, just because people are selling drugs, doesn’t mean the kids are forced to buy them”, consider the glorification of drugs in movies and television. Young kids love listening to Amy Winehouse and others (vii) (viii), but there is no age limit on how old you have to be to watch her on the news, boxed into the classic drug nightmare of so many poor victims of the entertainment industry. The average lifespan in the United States is currently 78 (ix) and expected to be commonly as high as 100 in the coming generations (x), yet in the entertainment industry was just over 60 in 1999 and was as low as 48 in 1950 (xi). Also consider the abomination that is America’s education system (xii), and its up-to and in some cases above 50% high school dropout rates (xiii).
Footnotes
i http://www.correctionsproject.com/corrections/pris_priv.htm
ii http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/2925973.stm
iii http://www.emissourian.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19506987&BRD=1409&PAG=46...
iv http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199812/prisons
v http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1998_cr/980507-l.htm
vi http://www.serendipity.li/cia/fifty.html vii http://danasdirt.com/2007/11/27/amy-winehouse-meets-a-young-fan/
viii http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_black#Charts
ix http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
x http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1977733.stm
xi http://www.ancestry.com/facts/HOLLYWOOD-life-expectancy.ashx
xii http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx4pN-aiofw
xiii http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,344190,00.htmlPS : Back then pot prohibition was but an excuse to wipe out the hemp industry … http://piratebook.com/chapter_17.htm
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- WhiteNoise
- 8 months ago
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The irrational way the U.S. treats criminal justice in general, racial justice more particularly, isn't just wrong. It's stupid. It's suicidal. Have you seen the old movie "Reefer Madness"? It's funny in a "campy" sense. The trouble is, the irrational, totally uninformed paranoia reflected in that movie is determining legislation and law enforcement in our nation.
The comment by WhiteNoise is way too diffuse and "ranty" to be fully effective (think rifle rather than shotgun, amico), but his central point is valid. The nation's drug laws are stupid. Prohibition all over again. In important ways, same result: teaching ordinary citizens to treat the law as a joke, and nurturing the growth of dangerous criminal organizations.
Unintended result? Huge numbers of mostly men but also women who have been rendered incapable of functioning as productive citizens. They go right back to prison. Why? As one guy said, "I know how to deal with rapists and murderers. But I don't know how to relate to ordinary citizens." That guy was much happier in prison than out, and in just a short time he was back where he was most comfortable.
Multiply that a gazillion times. And then read about Portugal.
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My son is currently being held in Escambia County Jail, in Brewton Alabama. He was stopped for speeding,last October, on I-65, coming from Baton Rouge Headed back to Atlanta.The cop detained him,after smelling weed in my son's car. He later found a 4 oz.bottle of prescription (codeine based)cough syrup in the trunk of his car. He kept the bottle and released my son.The bottle was sent to the Alabama Drug Task Force Crime Lab. for testing.
In February of 09', Escambia County Grand Jury handed down an indictment for Opium trafficking against Akeen Brown.He is facing a 10 year mandatory sentence, with a maximum of 25 years for a bottle of cough syrup that did not belong to him. My son has since admitted to using syrup and smoking marijuana, however the Judge and the District Attorney refuse to allow him to plea down. They insist on trying him for trafficking.
His bond is set at $1.5 million. This for a bottle of cough syrup. I've gone to see him a few times and he's frighten to death, as is his Mother.
I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO.The County's Drug Court attempted to have the Judge defer the case over, and set up treatment program, since he has no priors and this is his 1st offense, but the Judge will not hear it. This is south Alabama.People wonder why there's a need for the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton ?
I'm open to all idea's at this point. I'm devastated.Akeen is only 25 years old.He's 6'4",dark complected, with long dreads. I've warned him for wearing his pants of off his ass, because of racial profiling,(something that some people still refuse to believe does exist).He works for UPS. They love and are holding his job for him, if he makes it out of this HELL.
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- keithponder
- 8 months ago
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Nice response Whitenoise and so true. This crime is a crime. Maybe America will wake up, I sure hope so, this prison system and the drug policies need to be dealt with and revisited as well as revised.
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It's all about the Benjamins
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I picture a world where everyone will be fed and clothed...
they will all be in jail...prison has become big business...right there with counting the moles on your ass and ripping your loved ones off.....undertakers....Golden Ruler...Johnnie Hargrave-
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- Relevations
- 7 months ago
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and we criticize pakistan and iran.
hahaha, oh hill billy america, how I detest you.
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Its all going to fall. HAHAHAHAHAH
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- PatrioticAstronaut
- 7 months ago
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Greatest Generation's Longest War
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The classic american response to solve big problems is to declare war on it, war on drugs, war on crime, war between gangs, and so on ... add all these wars and its like a SECOND CIVIL WAR in america...
American society is more and more controlled and not free. Controlled by the richest, the militarists, the repressive autorities and their industries (armament, security, prisons, credit, food and drugs)...
Criminalized people are easier to control, lots of guns available make it easier to commit crimes, any crime commit with a gun means long time in prison.
More americans are endebted now than ever, the majority of americans are obese (FAT), more and more are sick and need medical assistance and drugs. Those who can't afford medical treatment get sicker, those who can get poorer even if they have coverage.
All this is not about freedom, it is a SYSTEM OF CONTROL which benefits an elite class. Since the 1980's, the middle class is gradually eroded by new measures put in place by the puppets of this elite, in parallel more prisons have been constructed and the cost of medical and drugs went astronomical.
What will it be in 20,30, or 50 years, much worst situation or will some turnaround occur, maybe some politicians will take advice from other countries like Canada where these american problems sound like mad science-fiction. -
It doesn't help the matter that the former vice president of the US, Dick Cheney, is involved with one of the largest prison developers in the nation...
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Crime requires a victim, when you punish someone for a victimless crime, you are victimizing them, you are the *criminal.
People leave jail with a new-found hatred of their government.
People leave jail with Stockholm Syndrome, aka "treatment"
People leave jail having had much time to think.People who have been in jail value their freedom more than they value a *criminal's life.
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Jail sucks.
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- Mikeysfake1
- 7 months ago
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In the search for equality and fairness we lost the sense if equal justice and the confidence in the system. I am tired of “who is the bigger victim”, and “who can be blamed” games.
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- MotherForTruth
- 7 months ago
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I should hav known someone like Cheeneey would be involved in this maybe now we can him and Dumbya and the rest of thier crew in one of Cheenies own prisons for life. Since he is building them let him stay in one.
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Our Justice system is unjust.
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- MotherForTruth
- 7 months ago
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