The US prison system has been gaining a lot more attention lately, as the rather staggering implications of having more prisoners than any other nation in the world settles on everyone.
People are beginning to recognize that they have allowed a monster to grow in our midst.
Then again, in an age where everything from the general population to most people's waste lines seems to be growing beyond all previously known boundaries, why would the prison system be any different?
But it kind of makes you wonder just how things got to this point, doesn't it? Why did the United States, supposedly the "land of the free", become home to a bigger prison population than any other nation in the world? For that matter, what does it say about Americans, and the way that we do things?
Well, let us take a look at the Louisiana prison system.
Why Louisiana specifically? Because Louisiana, of all places, has the highest incarceration rate in the world! That's right, the land of the bayou and the Big Easy is also, on average, the capital of imprisonment in the world today! It has three times the incarceration rate of Iran, and seven times the incarceration rate of China!
How did it get this bad? And what are the ramifications of this system on the country?
First, let's examine how it got that way. This might sound complex, but there is one fact that, more than any other single thing, should serve to illustrate why the prison system grew so ridiculously bloated: it is a for profit prison system, which is to say, it has been privatized for corporate interests. A for profit prison system is obviously going to just keep growing and growing, just like every other aspect of our culture, because it is a business, and when business is good, it seeks to expand.
That, in a nutshell, is why the United States (and in the example cited above, Louisiana specifically) has grown so ridiculously high in recent years.
Remember when President Bush warned us that terrorists were going to stop at nothing to keep attacking us, because they hate our freedoms? He also mentioned that Americans enjoyed too many freedoms.
Well, it seems that we are losing our freedoms at an increasingly fast clip. The problem has grown so much, and gotten so systemic, that people are beginning to see it (it has grown so big that it would be very hard to ignore), and now, they are starting to ask questions.
The fact of the matter is that prisoners are costly to every one of us. Prisoners need lodging, they need food every day. The prisons have to be equipped with things, such as cafeterias, laundries, they need other resources. The prisons need to be staffed, as well. So, there are obviously guards, and there are administrators, and there are medical personnel. Also, there are regular deliveries to the prison. And many private security firms have gotten involved with the guard system, with lofty contracts.
In other words, for profit prisons are good for the economy. They add jobs, which is always attractive. Also, for politicians and judges, sending people to prison makes it at least appear that they are doing a good job, keeping the streets safe, and getting tough on crime.
In short, it at least seems like a win-win, which itself seems to assure that the prison system, as it exists right now, will at least continue, and perhaps continue to grow.
Or it did, until the prison system just kept growing and growing, as did the costs. And suddenly, people began to wake up and recognize that maybe this was not such a good thing, after all. Having the dubious distinction of being the country that has more prisoners than anyone else in the world can actually be quite problematic, in fact.
Think about that for a moment. We have a higher rate of incarceration than China, than Iran, than North Korea, or than any of the tyrannical nations in the Middle East. This is not an area that you generally boast about being number one in. Yet, the United States really does rank first in this category, and more and more Americans are questioning this.
Why?
Because indeed, even though some tremendous profits have been seen, so have tremendous costs. We spend significantly more per head for prisoners than we do for our children on education, and that in itself is a staggering statistic.
Also, many are imprisoned on highly trumped up charges, and one of the main points of contention is why non-violent offenders should be sent to prisons, which usually are dominated with violent offenders. What does this do to those sent, who may get out of prison at some point, only to find that their lives have been irrevocably changed, that they cannot land a job, that they have their rights extremely limited, that they often lose their right even to vote?
In an age when our rights, which we previously always took for granted, seem to be lost or well on the way in the process of being lost, the growth of the prison system symbolizes this crackdown on our overall freedom. It seems to be the most glaring and visible symbol of this overall deterioration and erosion of the American Dream, and of traditional American freedoms and values, overall.
Even more important than the symbolism behind it would be that this system affects people in real life. Again, many who are sent to prison find their lives virtually ruined, because the stigma of having been in prison follows them around pretty much for the rest of their lives. Families are broken up. And those who have grown used to prison culture often do not seem able to rejoin mainstream society. In many cases, in fact, people become harden criminals during their time in jail.
When you add the problem of youth detention centers which, far too often, are also for profit, the scope of the problem not only grows, but people who usually might not have any sympathy for any adult who goes to prison, because they can easily be dismissed as "criminals", suddenly become more sympathetic when the discussion turns to kids. Already, some judges have been themselves found guilty of sending kids into for profit youth detention centers on highly trumped up charges. Anything for the almighty buck, huh?
All of this has allowed the questions surrounding our enormous, and enormously costly, prison system to begin to be scrutinized and criticized like never before.
And with good reason, don't you think?
This is an issue that is growing in the public consciousness. The problems are manifold, and increasingly more light is being shed on them. It is an incredibly complex system of justice and punishment that we have, and people would do well to become more familiar with the problem. To that end, I thought it would be beneficial to add some important links to articles expanding on this topic:
Overcrowded Prisons Are Forcing the Government to Think About Victimless Crime, published by The Free Thought Project, April 24, 2014:
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/overcrowded-prisons-forcing-government-victimless-crime/
The Overpolicing of America: How Your Daily Actions Are Being Incrementally Criminalized, by Chase Madar of TomDispatch.com, published by The Free Thought Project:
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/policing-america-daily-actions-incrementally-criminalized/#LqBkCXfjKKqDtq8T.99
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