One particular topic I take great interest in is our nation’s correctional facilities. I have had the opportunity to see what lies just beneath all the “tough-on-crime†rhetoric and law and order mumbo jumbo. Let me tell you, what I found when I turned over the bright, shiny polished rock of justice, was a colony of privatized leeches, bilking the tax payers and inmates out of as much money as possible. So when I read a BBC article last week that called America’s prison system a “costly failure,†I was not surprised. What did surprise me, however, is how little coverage it got here in the states. In fact, most of the links here are from outside of the U.S. Media. I knew that Corporate America had its greedy, money grubbing hands all over the prison system, but I had no idea that the story would be squashed so handily in favor of other stories that have already come and gone, with little resistance from the people or press. The fact of the matter is, America’s “tough on crime†bs, has cost them dearly, pretending it doesn’t exist cannot change the fact that we’re paying out massive amounts of dough with nothing to show for it but a massive bill and a prison population growing rapidly beyond our means.
Law and Order
So called “law and order†Republicans like Rudy “One-Trick-Pony” Guiliani love to illustrate the dramatic shift in our prison system from the “Liberal†type that favored sympathizing with criminals (so they claim) to the tough on crime nonsense that is supposedly keeping us safe at nights, (albeit locked away in fear at home, with a 9mm and a 12 gauge in each hand, waiting for the next home invasion). In fact, Rudy said it the other day (not the 9mm part, but you get the idea)! Check out what he said verses the facts.
These “law and order” types use lingo pulled right out of the television show of the same name, and sensationalize the cop and robber fantasy that really only exists on TV. Treating those in our justice system like a statistic, guilty until proven innocent, has made great political profit for these guys. Taking cues from the news media’s skewed coverage of homicide (more on that later), they’ve sold the public a bill of spoiled goods. Specifically, spoils, directed at building prisons and transferring services once provided by the state and inmate labor to private sector companies. They got there wish with policies like “3 Strikes and You’re Out†that have dramatically increased prison populations, especially among women.
Many say so what! Who cares if the U.S. is jailing an increasing amount of its citizens, often for petty crimes. Don’t the reduced crime rates make it worth it? Well it would if that were a true statement, but unfortunately for “law and order†Republicans, their system’s crime rates are no better than crime rates in 1973, only now, the taxpayers are saddled with a massive debt that grows from year to year. California for instance will spend more building new prisons than on its entire university system alone for the first time in state history. This doesn’t take into account the cost of managing the state and county detention centers. Not only does that mean that California spends dramatically more on building new prisons than on building new schools, it means we’re getting very little in return.
Reverse Revolving Door
So what about if we lock up a few bad apples. Why should I care about them right? How bad could it be? A recent study showed a Florida woman dealt a 2-year prison sentence for throwing a coffee mug in a traffic altercation. First, that is an enormous waste of the states time and effort, not to mention that the taxpayers paid a ridiculous amount to keep the street safe from coffee mug throwing, pissed off women. You’d better watch out or you might get hit by a coffee mug too! All kidding aside, this taxpaying woman inevitably financed the state’s systematic destruction of her own life. Sure she will likely live, but that’s easy for someone who has never even looked at the inside of a jail cell to say. This lady will be forced to live with some of the most violent criminals in her state, she will be kept from her family (a major financial burden), she will see things that will scar her for life and in the end, she will have a hard time getting a job. Since she spent a year plus mingling with the worst criminals around, she will likely have an easier time turning to a life of crime, fighting the system that jailed her for a damn coffee cup. Now that women may be scarred straight and never throw another coffee cup in a traffic altercation again, but if that is the end that justifies the means, we’re in big trouble.
Republicans seem to believe in the reverse-revolving door prison. Just lock them up and throw away the key, even if they committed crimes that are little or no danger to our society. Unfortunately for them, they have to let them go at some point, life sentences and capital punishment for petty crimes is not Constitutional. Meanwhile, inmates spend their days talking to other inmates to pass the time. Crime, inevitably and often comes up, especially in environments where people are trying to look tough, and before you know it, you have the toughest guy in the room delivering a lecture like some professor of criminology. Come to think of it, the system is like a giant criminal university, unleashing better, smarter, more-violent criminals on the people. Perhaps this is their grand strategy since it’s such a vicious self-fulfilling prophecy. The same criminals are turned loose on the streets to commit heinous crimes, which are then reported by the media to scare more people into supporting tougher criminal laws and more prisons. It isn’t till the little guy gets swept up in the system that they realize just how awful it is on the inside. By then it’s too late.
Into the Abyss
Prisons and county jails are often referred to by inmates as hell on Earth. First off, your rights as a human are checked at the door. Descent into the dungeons is made no brighter by the OSHA standard walkways and guards in clean cut uniforms. In fact, it makes it even more disturbing, like some kind of corporate, big-brother police regime. A mediocre health inspection and 30 second psychological interview will determine your future “housing†location. Suicidal victims end up one place, drug addicts and those in need of medication in another. Routine clothing is replaced with color coded uniforms that indicate your mental status, your health or other characteristic to help guards sort you out. Your name is replaced with a serial number (better memorize it), you’re tagged and bar-coded and sent off to live in pod, cell or module. From now on, phone calls, toilet use, shower and food time are managed half-ass by the state and the other half assed (unfortunately the large more threatening half) by your fellow inmate brethren. This new chain of command is made no less enjoyable by cynical guards who’d rather have the inmates beat each other up, as opposed to them.
Most of the food comes from a food services company, pre-packaged in plastic, which probably costs more than the lowest of the low grade food it contains. You can get outside food in places like the L.A. County Jail. The mark up, however, is fairly high, a package of ramen (normally valued at 10 cents) sells for well over a dollar. Prisoners will pool their food and “throw a spread†a strange exercise in cuisine where everything is mixed together in a big pile on the table. It’s something no one would ever think of doing on the outside, but inside, it’s a special treat. Little do they know that their rare taste of freedom is fueling the very machine that locks them away.
Tobacco is often not allowed, depending on the facility and alcohol is obviously prohibited, but they both still exist. Trustees, or inmates assigned labor positions, will find ways to sneak in whatever they can get their hands on, sometimes resorting to collecting the spat out chewing tobacco and rolling them in paper. Pruno too is another interesting jail life invention. Created from fomented fruit, bread and whatever else they can get their hands on, the “vomit flavored wine cooler” is a desperate treat for those looking to escape the insanity of their day to day world.
The County Jails make money transporting inmates too and fro. So in order to help the Sheriff’s Dept. rake in the dough, inmates will “catch the line” and be transported from detention house to detention house. Some inmates, comfortably housed in one location, will be suddenly whisked away to another, often, to be packed again on a bus and transported back. A constant reshuffling of an inmate’s location is so common, that many an inmate will get the grand tour of the facility. Unfortunately, this often includes a trip to the hospital wing. Fights, stabbings and all out race wars are a fairly common experience, as is the deputies breaking out the bean bag guns and other “stun” equipment. All part of the Sheriff’s grand tour package.
Now you’d better pick your side. Races are sharply divided into different camps. Whites, Latinos and Blacks all have varying sides to choose from, based on where you serve your sentence. It gets very complicated, very fast, and woe is the minority from a less populated race. Survival is the name of the game, and you’d better learn the internal politics fast or else. Or else what? You don’t want to know. You don’t want to get caught up on the wrong side of a race war, that’s for sure.
They’re all convicted criminals right? Wrong! County Jails house large numbers of people awaiting trial. People who can’t afford to make bail spend their time awaiting trial mixed in with people who are not allowed to be out on bail, or are awaiting transfer to a super-maximum security (Super-Max) facility, even upstate to a State Prison.
Justice doesn’t Come Cheap
Once again, justice is easy to find for those who can afford a good lawyer, hard for those who can’t. The system is driven by the myth that lawyers get people off. Sure, the rich like Paris Hilton! The poor are left to fend for themselves with the Public Defender, or Public Pretender as most commonly referred to since they tend to be low quality or fresh attorneys, while District Attorney’s try to make a name for themselves by locking away as many “criminals†as they can. A high conviction rate is the mark of a good D.A., the amount of innocent men sent into the abyss of the prison system is a less popular statistic.
Sentence disparity is high but the man with the lawyer often does better. There are instances where a poor Mexican man (not illegal, just to make that clear) was sentenced to a year for stealing a package of ham and a beer (stealing alcohol is a felony). Contrast this to an Israeli citizen (not here legally by the way) who was caught with a kilo of cocaine and two illegal banana clips for an AK-47 served only 6 months, and was transfered to a minimum security facility within a month. Is this really fair? Is it anything less than absurd?
Well I shouldn’t have to tell you which side is winning. The overcrowded freshly built prisons say that loud and clear. With prison’s out of control, they have to release prisoners out early, and use this as justification for building more prisons. To top it off, D.A.s go for the toughest sentence possible, expecting inmates to be released early, so the problem is imaginary to begin with. Meanwhile, phone companies, construction companies, food service companies (often the same ones that feed our schools), guns and detention equipment (handcuffs, beanbag guns etc.) and a myriad of other interests all have lobbies, even the prison workers union has one, all of which stand to benefit enormously from America’s systematic detention of its citizens.
The private sector is the only real winner here. Even the well paid judges and District Attorney’s don’t make out as well as the private sector companies do. The problem with de-regulation is that moves just as efficiently as the government only it costs 3 times as much. Big, clumsy corporations use their small sub-contractors to do the dirty work, then sell them off when it hits the fan.
The Angry Mob
Then there’s the victims who are always clamoring for justice. This is something I know pretty well too. The police are generally unhelpful, and when they do catch the bastard, they have a hard time building a case. While we all want justice, seriously folks, blame the damn Constitution if you’re so upset about that, because that’s the damn thing that ties the courts hands from stomping down someone’s door and arresting people because the mob says so. It certainly isn’t perfect, but it protects both sides. The other end of the spectrum is the Southern lynch mob, and we all know how good they were at dispensing justice.
The ironic thing is that the people most concerned about crime live in the safest neighborhoods around. I’ve had lengthy discussions about crime with many people. It’s amazing how different the view on crime is in the inner city, where crime actually effects them, has even robbed them of friends and loved ones. They hate crime, but accept it as an evil that works in their day to day lives. Many know so-called criminals and see the government with greater suspicion, especially since the police don’t ever seem to do any good.
Juxtapose this to the scaredy cat suburban white folk from outer suburbia who fear the criminals and crime they never, ever have or will see. They get all worked up about it like it’s out of control. I remind these people that crime rates across the U.S. are the lowest since the 70’s, after reaching record highs in the Reagan-Bush years. They don’t believe that because they’re too busy watching Dateline and other assorted useless nonsensical programing that sensationalizes homicide to draw in headlines (more on that in Part II).
The REAL Problem
This is such a typical right-wing ideological problem. The end justifies the mean and when it backfires, they cry “stay the course,†even though to do so would cause more trouble than the problem they set out to cure did in the first place. Remember, these are the same nuts who said that if we kept logging the forests we’d have less forest fires, yeah, no forests, no fires. Same with crime, lock everyone up and eventually there will be no crime. It will be a martial law state with a piss-pour economy, but what the hell right, as far as they’re concerned, as long as they keep saying we’re a democracy that’s all that matters. Reality is always secondary to these lunatics, being “right” comes first (even though they could never be more wrong). I don’t care what ideology you claim, this government spends the bulk of its money on killing Iraqis and jailing Americans, both of which are making a very few people very very rich. It all makes sense now doesn’t it?
Righties love to point to Liberals and say they spent too much money trying to help criminals. Their system, in comparison, is a costly failure, with $27Billion going to the construction of new prisons alone and no end in site of our prison population 8 times the size that it was in 1970 and to top it off, states with the lowest crime rates have the lowest incarceration rate. Enough is enough! This system is breaking down fast.
There are other things we can do. For starters we can stop jailing drug offenders, stop jailing minor crimes and bring back our alternative jails that kept crime rates just as low back in 1973 but for far less money. Many, such as the Governor of Alabama see the Prison system for what it has become, an alarming power and wealth grab from the private sector. Let’s stop voting for these damn crime bills. Every time they talk tough on crime, they really just want to build another prison. It allows our politicians to avoid having to do their jobs.
Another thing we can do, and this is the most obvious of all, spend as much money teaching our youngsters right and wrong as we do trying to prosecute them and throw away the key. An even better idea, let’s spend even more on education than we do on prisons. Education is the key to all this. Invest in your people, not in locking them away in a 4×6 slab of painted concrete. You’ll get far greater return on your investment.
Be sure to read Part II, coming soon on the media’s coverage of homicide.