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Nineteen: Imprisonment
We all know the US uses prisons to remove criminals from society. We have over 2.3 million people in prison right now, with over twice that number on probation or parole. We lock up the highest percentage of our population of any country in the world. Does that statistic make you wonder how that has happened? What made the politicians feel that this was a good strategy? Do you feel safer having all those criminals off the streets?
Since the 13th Amendment to the Constitution outlawed slavery, the prisons remain as the only place where people can be required to work for little or no pay. You may remember chain gangs from the popular song or images from old movies. This is a more obvious example. But today, many large corporations take advantage of this slavery exception and run all kinds of production and service work using prisoners. Combine that with the privatization of many prisons, and there is a lot of profit being generated by locking people up.
It might surprise you to know that more black men are locked up in the US right now than were enslaved by owners in 1850. This is a direct impact of changes in sentencing laws, like the 'three strikes' rule and the 'war on drugs'. Even though the population of the US is 13% black, the prison population is 40% black.
How do you feel about the size of our prison population? How much of it do you feel is related to Racism? Are there more blacks in prison proportionally because they are raised in high-crime areas, suffer more from poverty, or face racist judges? What happens to these convicted felons when they serve their time? Do they return to a society that welcomes them and gives them opportunities to catch up?
Your practice today is to think about how you think about prison and prisoners. Who have you known who has served time? How did that experience impact them? Were they reformed, trained, and ready to live out a productive life when they were released? Or did they find life even harder and return to drugs or crime when they returned? If you don't know anyone who has been incarcerated personally, why do you think that is? Have you known people who were arrested but never served time? Have you known people who were committing crimes (like drug use) who were never arrested?
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By Edie Milligan DriskillWe all know the US uses prisons to remove criminals from society. We have over 2.3 million people in prison right now, with over twice that number on probation or parole. We lock up the highest percentage of our population of any country in the world. Does that statistic make you wonder how that has happened? What made the politicians feel that this was a good strategy? Do you feel safer having all those criminals off the streets?
Since the 13th Amendment to the Constitution outlawed slavery, the prisons remain as the only place where people can be required to work for little or no pay. You may remember chain gangs from the popular song or images from old movies. This is a more obvious example. But today, many large corporations take advantage of this slavery exception and run all kinds of production and service work using prisoners. Combine that with the privatization of many prisons, and there is a lot of profit being generated by locking people up.
It might surprise you to know that more black men are locked up in the US right now than were enslaved by owners in 1850. This is a direct impact of changes in sentencing laws, like the 'three strikes' rule and the 'war on drugs'. Even though the population of the US is 13% black, the prison population is 40% black.
How do you feel about the size of our prison population? How much of it do you feel is related to Racism? Are there more blacks in prison proportionally because they are raised in high-crime areas, suffer more from poverty, or face racist judges? What happens to these convicted felons when they serve their time? Do they return to a society that welcomes them and gives them opportunities to catch up?
Your practice today is to think about how you think about prison and prisoners. Who have you known who has served time? How did that experience impact them? Were they reformed, trained, and ready to live out a productive life when they were released? Or did they find life even harder and return to drugs or crime when they returned? If you don't know anyone who has been incarcerated personally, why do you think that is? Have you known people who were arrested but never served time? Have you known people who were committing crimes (like drug use) who were never arrested?