Misconception Vs Reality

For well over two years now I have dedicated the majority of my life and my time to fighting for prison reform in the USA. I’ve written numerous articles highlighting the various ways our system is broken and I’ve tried to raise public awareness on privatized prisons, unjust laws and even more unjust convictions and executions. I spend a part of nearly every day helping prisoners directly by answering requests for information and indirectly by advocating for better conditions for our prisoners.

I understand full well that this cause is not a popular one. Who wants to save a prisoner when they can save a puppy or kitten? I get it, I do. Prisoners don’t exactly evoke the warm fuzzies in people’s hearts. What I don’t get is the people who make quick assumptions not only about prisoners but about the work I do.

I get accused quite often of asking people to “cry crocodile tears” for prisoners. I also get accused of thinking we can give the prisoners a teddy bear and a hug and fix everything. I’ve received hateful emails wishing that all of the prisoners I’d like to release from death row pay me and my family a visit and do us harm. It’s been assumed I want all prisons abolished. I’ve been called a bleeding heart liberal, which would be funny if it weren’t so wrong and insulting. In short, I take all kinds of flak for doing what I do and to some degree, I expect it. I do get tired of it though. I am treated with more respect from these “horrible monster” prisoners than I do from many people in the free world who find out that I work with and help prisoners.

I’d like to set the record straight about why it is that I do the work I do, once and for all. I’d like to clear up all of the wrongful assumptions people might have.
I am not a liberal, bleeding heart or otherwise. I’ve never been a registered democrat and hell would likely freeze before I ever would be. Ditto the Republican Party. I’m an independent thinker and voter.

I do not want prisons abolished. I do not think we can give prisoners teddy bears and hugs and make everything hunky-dory. Prisons are a sad necessity and I don’t see that ever changing.
I would not expect anyone to cry crocodile tears for prisoners. I believe people should be held accountable for their actions. We are all responsible for our choices and the consequences of the choices we make.

I do not want all of the prisoners on death row to be released. I do want the death penalty abolished but one thing does not mean the other. I want to end the death penalty and replace it with LWOP. There is a big difference between ending state condoned executions and letting everyone walk free, understand?
Now that all of the wrongful assumptions have been dealt with, I’d like to explain why I think it is vitally important for our justice system and prison system both to undergo some serious reform. Both are in need of overhauls in many areas and until some major changes are made we are not ever going to see a decrease in our crime and/or incarceration rates.

Prisons have become a very profitable business. Corporations have their greedy fingers all over our prisons and prison contracts. Money that could be spent on actual rehabilitation, education, drug treatment is getting siphoned away from those who need help and into the pockets of the already rich. Corporate executives who have a stake in incarcerating people for profit also have their sticky-greedy fingers all over our lawmakers. Courtesy of groups like ALEC, we have the very people who will profit from the caging of our citizens working to help draft model legislation and write the laws that are becoming more and more draconian. The end result is more profits for the corporate executives and lawmakers. Laws are no longer written to keep “we the people” safe and yet we are the ones footing the bill and getting shortchanged in return. We waste millions (or billions?) of dollars locking people up for what should be personal choices by enacting laws that amount to nothing more than state mandated “morality”.
To make matters worse, we do not differentiate between violent offenders and those convicted of breaking morality laws. In other words, we lock up people who are guilty of possessing a plant right along with those who commit violent acts against others. This could not possibly result in even more hardened criminals, now could it? Surely not…

We have a system in which judges lock up children and receive kickbacks from the private facilities they get sent to. Maybe that is okay with some of you, but it will never be okay with me. People in power ruin young lives and destroy futures…for profit. We are also starting a scary new trend of locking up kids as young as 13 and writing them off as irredeemable under life sentences. Yes, my “bleeding heart” is bothered by this. Yes, I want to change a system that allows such corruption and that is blind to the difference between a child’s brain and an adult brain.

We are also simultaneously draining state funding away from education which in turn creates a whole new generation of potential prisoners. Consider that private prison corporations use the statistics of the number of children who cannot read by the 3rd grade to estimate the number of cages they will need to build in the future.* If the corporations understand the correlation between education and incarceration then the government officials in their pockets certainly understand it. Why then do we keep voting in those who claim to be tough on crime and advocate for more prisons and more funding for prisons - and all the while are cutting school budgets across the nation? We vote them in over and over and then complain about our piss poor schools and bemoan the lousy education our children receive. We are spinning ourselves in circles while remaining blind to the cause(s) of our problems or recognizing our own culpability for the current system and all of its failings and shortcomings.

Prisoners should not suffer abuse at the hands of those charged with keeping them – and us – safe. Beatings, mistreatment, degradation are not called for and should not be tolerated. How much common sense does it take to see that allowing the continued abuse of those who are in cages might not the best way to rehabilitate them? Loss of freedom is the punishment. Turning our backs on the sadistic abuses that go on in our prisons every day is irresponsible and dangerous. Most prisoners are not serving life sentences. The people being beaten, abused and treated as less than human are going to be free someday. Which would you prefer be released back into society: Someone who was treated with help, compassion and being allowed to keep their dignity or someone who has been insulted, poked at, raped and hit with a stick every day for 20 years? I want very much to make people understand that our current method of warehousing people is not keeping us safe at all. It is putting us all in danger. Without serious and genuine rehabilitative programs in place we are doing nothing more than breeding more and more criminals.

Then there is the effect that incarceration has on families. Thousands of families are torn apart by our habit of over-incarcerating people. Children suffer; marriages disintegrate. Prisons move prisoners around at will and without any consideration for keeping prisoners close to outside support networks. Studies show that children of incarcerated parents are more likely to land in prison and that keeping prisoners close to outside support greatly reduces recidivism rates. So where is the logic of incarcerating people for excessive amounts of time for non-violent offenses or for separating families the way we do? There is no logic in it all that I can see. Unless of course, you are a corporate executive looking to make a buck in which case I suppose this all makes perfect sense.

As for the death penalty? In this day and age and with all of the mistakes that have been made it would be extremely naïve to assume innocent people have not been murdered by the state. Here again, the issue of wasted money also comes into play for me. Death penalty cases cost more to prosecute. Statistics prove states with the death penalty have higher crime rates than those without. The death penalty is revenge, nothing more, nothing less. I don’t care how many bible quotes people can sling around in support of it; statistics show it is ineffective and not at all cost efficient. Abolish it and quit wasting our taxes and mistakenly killing people.

None of what I’ve said above makes me a bleeding heart, a liberal, a giver of hugs or teddy bears - nor does it make me a naïve dreamer. It has less to do with emotion, sympathy or empathy and much more to do with the logic of not wanting to pay more and more taxes that end up in the pockets of corporate executives. Executives who are all too happy to infringe upon our personal freedoms and could care less about keeping people safe, rehabilitating people or reducing our overall crime and incarceration rates.

©NightRaven 2010

*It has since come to my attention that this statement is possibly a campaign quote without merit but seeing as how there is a proven direct correlation between education and incarceration, I chose to leave it stand. Lawmakers intentionally cut education budgets in spite of evidence that proves higher education = lower incarceration; they know full well they are setting up future failures and higher incarceration rates than necessary. What other reason is there, if not profit motive?