Love Prisons Monday, Jun 16 2008
Radicals and Others 4:54 pm
The American criminal justice system is not appropriately named
because it meets justice to criminals. It is appropriately named
because the justice system itself is criminal. Those who operate
these ever expanding bureaucracies don’t care at all about
justice and have no clue what justice is. When President Bush
speaks of American justice as though it was judicial caviar, I
want to vomit. You should too. The problem is foundational. The
U.S. Constitution, which is the pattern for many State
Constitutions as well, prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
Wiser people would have forbidden cruel punishments, usual or
not. An unusual punishment would be victim restitution or
compensation. It would be unusual but it would not be cruel, so
it is not forbidden. Family support is not even a punishment, so
it is not forbidden by this law.
The problem is, the wording allows cruel punishment as long as
it is usual. We can be usually cruel. If we can be unusually
cruel and get away with it for a year or two, it becomes usual
cruelty and legal. This is how the U.S. prison bureaucracy has
constantly increased in legal cruelty. Like the phony wars on
poverty, drugs and terror that will never end, so is the war on
crime. All were created as social cancers that consume the
national economy by people who want government to be the sole
employers of people. If bigger is better, biggest is bestest.
Cruelly deprive a child of love, affection, self esteem and
build a cage for the adult you created. When you have this adult
locked in a cage, deprive him or her of dignity, love, affection
and self esteem. Make him totally dependent for everything he
needs for life. Don’t allow him any productive work and don’t
pay him any meaningful pay for menial chores. Isolate him from
all he knew except the violence and see that he gets regular
doses of violence in continuous survival conditions. Further
isolate those who get caught up in the violence.
Make the whole environment so unattractive, as to discourage
visitation. Restrict, for half and non legitimate security
reasons, his access to decent food and health care. Repress,
oppress, suppress and depress this person who did not properly
respect some law or other.
When he has become completely dependent on the system, turn him
loose with nothing and tell him he better get a job. I say, send
him to Washington or the State Capitol to make new and never
ending laws. He will do better than the professionals we hire.
He at least knows what justice is not. Turning people into
beasts is never justice. It is insanity. Once the damage is done
it needs to be undone, not compounded.
For years, the prison industry has been the fastest growing
segment of the American economy. Those who don’t get government
jobs will fill these prisons and drive up the demand for more,
bigger and uglier high security housing. It is such a delightful
prospect. If what recently happened in Iraq is unattractive,
what would it be like here if the prisoners were all liberated?
Let the good times roll, eh? Millions of people who can no
longer take care of themselves, settling scores. Let’s try that
on global TV.
I have noticed the recent progress in animal husbandry and I am
sincerely pleased by the trend. Could we learn enough about
humane treatment for animals to teach us humane treatment for
people? Can we warehouse people who are restricted but healthy,
happy and productive? Do lawbreakers need to permanently forfeit
their humanity as punishment? How can incarceration be a just
punishment for anything but kidnapping, murder and rape, where
one deprives another of liberty?
In the Old Testament, we had an eye for an eye and tooth for
tooth. It was justice without mercy. The New Testament teaches
merciful justice but the New Testament is lost on America. Have
you noticed? We have become the stronghold of devils our enemies
claim and this criminal justice is the ugly proof. This system
is a gauge of national spiritual immaturity. It portrays the
value we place on soul or spirit. It is an Old World relic of
barbarity that needs serious reform.
Government schools don’t identify and support neglected and
abused children and wasted lives become the object of corrupted
government. Government sweeps its social mistakes into Graybar
hotels, out of public sight, out of public mind. It’s a non
issue. The public neither knows nor cares. Let’s outlaw criminal
justice. Let’s outlaw public ignorance.
Unlike citizens, criminals are created, not born. Negligent and
abusive parenting, which is often multi - generational, and
unspiritual education create perhaps half of the U.S. criminal
population. The rest is created by incessant lawmaking. An
entire professional class writes new law, year in and year out
and people pay them to do it. We ask what schools our children
should attend. We need to ask what prisons their children will
attend. It is time for everyone to take an interest in modern
prison life. It affects all of us, even if we choose to ignore
it. It is a storm cloud over the national spirit. Our prisons
are spiritual mirrors and there is none fair in the land.
The political will as concerns prison, swings with liberal and
conservative influence. Conservatives want every aspect of
prison life to be punishment. Liberals want humane treatment and
rehabilitation. Because liberals never remain in power,
prisoners eventually lose any gains they make and conditions
usually get worse than before the liberal swing improved them.
That is, prison life becomes increasingly accommodating to the
desires of prison administration.
Much of what is done in the name of prison security, is like
that we see done in the name of national security. Shortcut
solutions to save time, expense and staff, that infringe the
rights and humane treatment of others. If some prisoners use
telephone communications to run con games on the public, with or
without outside help, all prisoners are restricted in telephone
communication. It is restricted by the telephone time allotted
each prisoner every month. It is monitored, recorded and
restricted to the length of call. It is restricted because only
collect calls are allowed at rates up to ten times higher than a
direct dial or phone card call. This is a blatant infringement
on the privacy and economic rights of the person called and
discourages people from accepting the charges. In many cases,
the state gets rebate kickbacks from the phone company as part
of this monopoly contract.
To restrict the profits of smuggling drugs and other contraband
to prison staff, (Just Us) visitors often must submit to
searches and strip searches which effectively discourages
visitation as commanded in the Bible. When is the last time you
visited a prisoner? Wasn’t it a special experience?
The same is done with mail. If you send a letter, a money order
and a simple gift that is not on an authorized list or appears
homemade, the entire package is returned with a notice of what
is unacceptable. The U.S. Postal Service only takes
responsibility for prison mail delivery to the prison itself. If
mail gets lost or sits on the mailroom floor for weeks, there is
nothing the inmate can do but complain and the same for the
sender. Prison mail rooms should be operated by specially
trained employees of the U.S.P.S. as they would a small town or
village.
Prison food is poor and to save costs, only meets minimal
dietary requirements. There are prisons with farms that inmates
operate. The fresh farm crops are then sold for profit and the
inmates are fed canned and spoiled food. When you are living in
a din of noise, under constant threat of attack and abuse by
staff and other inmates, the ever present stress, from which
there is no escape save solitary punishment, boosts nutritional
requirements. Over time, anyone will become ill, probably
everyone.
When an inmate becomes ill, no matter what the problem, it is
of little concern to administration. They will provide medical
attention when it is convenient to them. The prison physician is
poorly paid, overworked and may be so incompetent, he could find
no other paid employment. Prison malpractice is the rule and not
the exception. If an outsider wants to send an inmate dietary
supplements or herbs for a health problem, it is not allowed in
most prisons. In some, probably few, it is allowed if it is sent
in by a commercial distributor, reducing the likelihood of
contraband.
Often inmate victims of medical neglect, abuse and malpractice,
have to sue the system to get help. When they do so, they come
in for punishment by administration and staff. More often than
not, their case is dismissed on legal technicalities, which only
the most experienced paralegals can avoid, after many years of
filing what the courts call frivolous lawsuits. They have to
file, just to learn all the snares and pitfalls. The courts are
in no hurry to adjudicate inmate cases, so they languish in
courthouse IN baskets for months and years, forcing inmates to
file motions to move their cases. If they win their lawsuits,
their condition is usually many times worse than it was when
they filed suit and they will get the minimal medical attention
the prison can get away with under court order, or worse, more
malpractice.
No matter what your crime may be, imprisonment is always a de
facto death sentence. Prison life robs one of health and the
life force, one day at a time. Most of America does not know
this. Most of America does not care, unless a friend or relative
gets caught up in the great Just Us system. But now you know,
dear reader, and with a little imagination you could do much to
improve the lives of many who were somebody’s victims, long
before they ever committed any crime. Have mercy on the more
than two million souls whose lives are long stories of abuse and
neglect that never ends.
Ed Howes sought and found, knocked and entered. Now he sees things differently. To see more of what he sees, please visit http://www.justanotherview.com or do an author search here at Ezine Articles.
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