Why do we use prisons for the wrong reasons ? by rue

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Why do we use prisons for the wrong reasons ?

POSTED BY: RUE
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 6, 2009 18:52
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Monday, January 5, 2009 10:20 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=74845

I went to prison every Wednesday night for seven years

It was hard. Some weeks I dreaded it from Tuesday afternoon until I got there on Wednesday night. Some Wednesdays I called in sick when I wasn't. Mostly though, I went. I was a volunteer at the state women's prison and quickly learned that my role as volunteer in a prison for two hours once a week would often be harder than my fulltime career.

The women in the group were all mothers, mostly mothers who rarely or never saw their kids. I facilitated a mother's support group for them, with them, around them, and sometimes in spite of them. Over the years I probably met a few hundred women and heard about hundred and hundreds of children. The kids' stories were often similar.... living in foster care, with grandparents, sometimes with the parents of the spouse the mom had killed, sometimes with the spouse who had tried to kill the mom, sometimes they were with friends, aunts.... someone.

... as I got to know them over the years I discovered the very real differences that separated us, differences that helped decide our life outcomes. Most all of the women in prison had grown up in extreme poverty. Almost all of them had survived physical and sexual abuse. Mental illness was common among the prisoners, and almost always was untreated.

I learned one thing quickly: never ask a woman why she was in prison. ... See, no matter how much I thought I was prepared for any answer, I really wasn't.

... as I said to all the women, "I'm not here to consider your guilt or innocence, but how can we help you parent your kids and help them while you are here. The fact is, you're in prison and that affects your kids. Let's work on that part together."

Of course, I'm not that virtuous. I may not have talked with them about their guilt or innocence, but I sure wondered about it. It was hard not to. Many of them were close in age to me, our kids were the same age, sometimes I knew their kids were at the same school as mine... how could I not wonder? Would I have killed the abusive spouse if I was being attacked? Would I have turned to drugs to numb out years of sexual abuse? Would I have robbed a bank for a man who was my dealer/boyfriend? Every time I thought I was sure of one of those answers, I realized later I really wasn't. Some days I could see myself making the same choices if I were in the same context they had been in. Some days, I couldn't imagine it at all.

One beautiful spring night, no one came to group except for Carol. All the other members were walking the yard or playing volleyball, enjoying the warmth. Carol was a quiet woman, a thinker, and a lifer. I liked her wit and loved how she talked about her son who was exactly the same age as mine. Because she had life she was in for murder and I suspected she had killed her husband, but I wasn't sure. That night, all alone, she told me. He had tortured her for years starting as soon as she married him at age 17. Her parents, who were happy to be rid of their eldest daughter, were no help to her. She lived a lonely, painful, horrible life with her husband, but her son gave her joy and hope. When her son was eight, her husband told him to kill his mother - to shoot her- there in the dining room. Carol knew her son wouldn't/couldn't, but she said, the look on his face, to be asked to do something that awful was more than she could bear. When her husband grabbed the gun back and said he'd do it, she attacked him. In the end, she shot her husband, he died, she was tried and convicted of first degree murder and at age 26, entered prison.

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This is not to say that prisons aren't approproate places for the habitual predator. But why do we use them for the mentally ill and drug offenders ?

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Monday, January 5, 2009 12:05 PM

DREAMTROVE

There is no place for a prison. I favor penal colonies. Let them sort it out. If they want, they can appeal to be let back in to society, retried, but otherwise, they should collectively just be expelled from society. The main issue is that they are a danger to others.

The woman in the story should have fled with the child years earlier. One of the great sins we can commit is being too optimistic to the point where we are unable to see dangers. Eventually, the situation comes to kill or be killed.

Perhaps her story is on the level, but then, as they say, everyone inside is innocent. But a court found her otherwise. But there's probably little doubt that a) she had reason, and b) there was a better way to have handled the situation at an earlier time.

Everyone knows the rules, and every society sets them. If someone fails to abide by them, then there should be a society of fewer rules for them to go to, or a series of them, down to the lowest level. I see a hierarchy of moving up and down. But state support for up to $100k/year to maintain someone in a cage is pointless.

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Monday, January 5, 2009 12:19 PM

KIRKULES

I think Hero has pointed out before how hard you have to try to get serious time for drug offences. Most get a slap on the wrist if there's no large quantities or guns involved. I think it incorrect to say prisons are filled with harmless drug addicts, more likely the drug addicts in prison committed other violent crimes that got them there.

Reading stories like this makes me wonder if anyone in prison is guilty. They all seem to be victims who only killed in self defense.

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Monday, January 5, 2009 2:14 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Prison is useless as a rehabilitative device, this is well known.

The only folks who *should* be in there are those who society is endangered by should they be released, and yet those are the very bastards most likely to get house arrest and probation.. Grrr.

Only folks who're a continuing danger to the society should be locked in the cages, and while they're in there they should be studied to find out WTF is wrong with em and how it got that way in hopes of preventing it - only one guy to my knowledge ever seriously made that kind of effort to find out, and that was Andrew Vachss.

Instead of concentrating on locking up messed up folks when they finally step over the line, we should be addressing the other end, which is how they got messed up in the first place, and prevent THAT, if and when possible.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Monday, January 5, 2009 2:29 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

"CHOMSKY: The enormous rate of growth of the prison population has been mostly drug related. The last figures I saw showed that over half the federal prison population, and maybe a quarter in state prisons, are drug offenders. In New York State, for example, a twenty-dollar street sale or possession of an ounce of cocaine will get you the same sentence as arson with intent to murder. The three-strikes legislation is going to blow it right through the sky. The third arrest can be for some minor drug offense, and you'll go to jail forever."

My impresison is that white people get light sentences for minor drug offenses, while black people do not. Do this google search: percent in prison "drug offense" .

Here is one result: "Aug 8, 2007 ... Sixty-four percent of prison inmates belonged to racial or ethnic ... and 21% of State inmates were serving a sentence for a drug offense ..." OTOH, in a report I can't locate, greatest drug use was not among inner city minorities, but among rural whites.

By all accounts, whites should be proportionally represented for illegal drug use, and they are not.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Monday, January 5, 2009 2:32 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Overall, though, my point was very general ---

Here we have evidence that people with untreated mental illness are in prison. We further know that people busted for drug possession also go to prison.

My question is why.

What does prison get us as a society ?

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Monday, January 5, 2009 2:34 PM

DREAMTROVE

Kirkules

Not so. I was slapped with "dealing a controlled substance to a child" which was dismissed, in part because I had a good lawyer.

Here's the story:

I took a close friend of mine to a bar on his 21st birthday. I bought him a drink. He handed it to a friend of his, who was 19, to take a sip. Instantly, undercover cops appeared, three of them. We were all ridiculously handcuffed, imprisoned, etc.

Now the real motivation? The owner of the bar was a serial rapist, and the police were out to get him. We didn't know this. I'm not responsible for the bar owner's activities. I never even saw the guy. 19 as a child is absurd, giving someone a sip of an alcoholic drink as "dealing a controlled substance" is absurd. The fact that I took no part in the action itself got it dismissed. But it was the wrong charge. This can happen because the cops are really angry. Not at me or my friend, but at the bar owner. The worse the crimes that took place looked, the worse he looked in court. That was all they cared about. We were expendable.

Campus cops frequently plant drugs on students, so they can seize property, and on people in inner city busts so they can justify abuses of authority which they have already committed.

I think most drug offenders are harmless, and many not even guilty. Some are serious. By over sentencing and overcharging, like in my case, it not only potentially damages or ruins lives, but it also belittles the crime.

Here's a sordid story on the other end. A local junkie was allowing dealers to rape his 10yo daughter in exchange for drugs. He himself was never found with anything other than minor possession, and was never dealing, with cash. He didn't rape his daughter. He just did nothing while other people did, and accepted drugs as a gift. The police were able to catch him on nothing that would stick. Eventually he did lose custody of the girl, and as a result, his drugs, and responded by blowing his brains out in the basement. No one mourned the outcome.

But you see how blanket condemnation of all substance use can bring all of these onto the same level. Or worse. Notice that drug kingpins are almost untouchable by the law.

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Monday, January 5, 2009 2:40 PM

DREAMTROVE

Quote:
What does prison get us as a society ?

Slave labor. This is from a speech I saw by Ron Paul, and sorry I don't have a link, and might get it wrong, but the gist went like this:

The war on drugs is a war on blacks. Prior to the DEA, drug arrests happened randomly everywhere. Now 98% happen in black neighborhoods. This creates a large black prison population. Prisoners can be put on labor duty as nominal wage, with no option to escape. This is used now widely in this country for construction, repairs, and menial industrial work. Corporations can now contract to hire prison labor for any task. Institutional slavery has been re-invented.

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Monday, January 5, 2009 4:58 PM

KIRKULES

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Overall, though, my point was very general ---

Here we have evidence that people with untreated mental illness are in prison. We further know that people busted for drug possession also go to prison.

My question is why.

What does prison get us as a society ?

I think there are probably a lot more mentally ill in prison today because they come into contact with the legal system and there's no place to put them but in prison. I know the Military mental health system is overloaded, I assume the civilian system is too. I would have no problem with separating the mentally ill from the general population if they're not to dangerous to others. You would think that mental health care wouldn't be a huge additional cost considering were already paying for their incarceration.

On the issue of rehabilitation, I do have major concerns. It just doesnt seem fair to me to spend taxpayers dollars to attempt to rehabilitate criminals, when that same money could go the College scholarships for underprivileged folks that played by the rules and stayed in high-school. I know from a benefit to society measure, rehabilitation would probably have a better payoff, but I can't get beyond the fairness issue.

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Monday, January 5, 2009 10:08 PM

AGENTROUKA

Quote:
Originally posted by Kirkules:
I know from a benefit to society measure, rehabilitation would probably have a better payoff, but I can't get beyond the fairness issue.

Well, natural disasters aren't fair, but taxpayers have got to be spending some of that money on reconstruction work when streets are destroyed, right?

Criminals and the mentally ill are a fact that society has to deal with, is perhaps one of the more prominent reasons why people band together AS a society in the first place. Trying to do the best to remove that danger according to our ethical values shouldn't be seen as unfair but as a duty against which we measure our worth, really.

We COULD just kill anyone who scares us. But we don't, which, you know, yay! Rehabilitation seems like one of the most rational (and humane) responses to the fact of crime and mental illness that humans have come up with so far.

It seems to me that society has a greater right to this than to sponsored higher education, and I'm generally in favor of such things.

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Monday, January 5, 2009 10:59 PM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

The Prison Industrial Slave Complex is a wholely owned subsidiary of Haliburton, which is owned by narco-kingpins like Sir George Bush Knight of the British Empire.

Dick "Tater" Cheney owns $100-million in stock in Wackyhut prisons, and was indicted for murders in prison by a state grand jury in Texas.

Most folks are in prison for simply not knowing their Constitutional rights, and how to enforce their rights in court via Rules of Procedure, ie, "civilization". This is why skools censor that literature, to manufacture more slaves and criminals. "Christian" churches are Govt-owned IRS 501c3 "Jewish" private "Federal" Reserve Bank subsidiaries, required to censor the Bible and Jewish Torah. The 10 Commandments authorize killing in self defense. Moses was a cop-killer on the Jewish supreme court.

TV and Hollywood brainwash sheeple how to lose in court, and brainwash cops and soldiers that it's ok to torture and kill disarmed suspects.

Most cops and politicians appear to be from families descended from career criminals. Cops are just career criminals who got some legal training in how to break the law with virtual immunity. Politicians are one paygrade above crooked cops.

Prohibitions are designed by crooked politicians to create underground criminal "justice" systems, with gangbangers as local militia "police", and to recruit 100-million slaves every year in USA. "Routine" traffic tickets are CRIMES with a max 30-days jail, up to 6-months jail. Folks who never get arrested are extorted by death squads at gunpoint to pay $50,000/year per person in jail.

Not knowing how and when to make a citizens arrest - and when its lawful to kill in self defense - sends lots of folks to prison, like OJ Simpson. At least half of career criminals are employed by cops as "informants", with immunity from prosecution. Govt employees are also usually immune to arrest.

I chased our county health dept director out of our house with a baseball bat, after he broke my mother's arm by pushing her down the stairs. Cops refused to arrest him for domestic violence. My mom didn't know how to make a citizens arrest, since cops are never allowed to make arrests for misdemeanors they did not eyewitness. That law has been changed recently, however it's still unconstitutional, which is far more dangerous.

Now I carry a gun to defend myself from drug-dealing serial-killing mass-murdering govt hitmen employed by the fed govt as "confidential informants".
www.piratenews.org/how-to-catch-a-govt-hitman.html

Here's a quote from our local drug-dealing sheriff, spoken to his own secretary in the "Justice Center", threatening to murder her and her entire family, with immunity from arrest:

Quote:
“I’ll burn your house down, set your dog on fire and there won’t be a member of your family left, do you understand me? I won’t hire it done, I will do it myself! Do you understand me?”
-Blount County TN sheriff James Berrong, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, Nuchols v. Berrong, No. 04-5645, July 11, 2005
http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/05a0586n-06.pdf

Tennessee leads the nation in sheriffs convicted of drug dealing (3 dozen in 10 years), and ranks 3rd for politicians convicted of corruption.

THE CRIMINALS ARE IN CHARGE, AND THEY MUST MASS-PRODUCE MILLIONS OF MORE CRIMINALS EVERY DAY.

Drugs and alcohol are used by royal kingpins for mind-control of the masses, and by criminal families to rape their kids. If kids and adults were allowed to know the US Govt is the biggest cocain and heroin dealer in USA, it wouldn't be cool to buy drugs.

If kids were allowed to know that tobacco addiction costs each smoker $100,000 to $350,000 per person for buying cigarettes, not counting medical bills and lost income, VERY few kids would think that slavery is cool. Tobacco is the ultimate gateway drug, and is freebased by the tobacco manufacturers to make it more addictive. No alcohol/drug "rehab" loonybins cure tobacco addictions - what do you expect for $50,000 per person? This is also part of Big Brother's genocide program.

Smoke hemp - go directly to jail.

Deal dope and coke - get elected president.

Kill one lone nut in self defense - go directly to jail.

Kill millions of sheeple - get worshipped as a GOD.

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Tuesday, January 6, 2009 3:49 AM

DREAMTROVE

Kirkules has a point.

If you take a run of the mill criminal and actually try to rehabilitate him into a functional member of society, you're dollars are not well spent.

Perpetual criminals are dumb. And violent. Rehabilitation has a low success rate. It's like training crocodiles.

It's also really expensive even when successful. I know a guy who was "rehabilitated" in a maximum security facility for 20 years. The system spent one and a half million dollars to make him stop killing people. And now he has, and makes pizzas. But resourcewise, it's a waste. At the time, it would have been college education 100 people or healthcare for 1000.

I say put them all on savage island and let them deal.

As for the mentally ill, that's not a problem being fixed by society, but created by it. I'll bet you the incidence among the native american population was real low before white man came, and I know it was a lot lower before dextromethorphan etc.

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Tuesday, January 6, 2009 9:44 AM

AGENTROUKA

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

Perpetual criminals are dumb. And violent. Rehabilitation has a low success rate. It's like training crocodiles.

Is it, really? How is success measured?

Quote:

The system spent one and a half million dollars to make him stop killing people. And now he has, and makes pizzas. But resourcewise, it's a waste. At the time, it would have been college education 100 people or healthcare for 1000.

I think making him stop killing is not a waste of money, if the danger that he would do so again really existed.

Quote:

I say put them all on savage island and let them deal.

I disagree. Who do you put on the island, unless it's people in for life, anyway? Or are you going to put people into an uncontrolled hell-hole mixed with every shade of criminal from minor drug offences to violent murder, as if every offence was equal? Do you wash your hands of the terrible violence that might result on the island, saying they deserve it because they broke certain rules? Do you plan on releasing people from this place at some point and unleash them on regular society?

What kind of plan is that? What kind of society would you enjoy, where any mistake would deprive you of all the human rights that the law is supposed to enforce?

Quote:

As for the mentally ill, that's not a problem being fixed by society, but created by it. I'll bet you the incidence among the native american population was real low before white man came, and I know it was a lot lower before dextromethorphan etc.

ALL mental illness is created by society? And even so, even IF we create it, does the mean the victims are no longer our business?

I'm really not sure what you are trying to say, or what picture of a solution you are trying to paint, but it SEEMS like a very disturbing thing.

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Tuesday, January 6, 2009 1:55 PM

DREAMTROVE

My sister works in rehabilitation, she says the 20% success rate is bogus, that she thinks .002% is probably closer.

I was on a forum earlier where we came up with the island chain earlier. People could earn their way back into society, obviously, a different island for manson than for petty thief.

The existing system, imho, is a diaster. It creates criminals.

It doesn't create all criminals, we don't create all mental illness. But we do create it.

My personal concern is the right to opt out of titanic society, and for other to do the same. If someone came to me and offered me Finn's job, I wouldn't take it. I want no part of it. I want it not to effect me. That's what I think this country is meant to be, a place where you can determine your own destiny. If that destiny robs other people of their rights, then you should be removed, but I would only remove you to a place where you can not longer take the rights of others in this society.

People who commit crimes do sacrifice rights, it how our system has always worked. They should be able to win those back. But a set amount of time will not guarantee it, a financial expenditure is simply robbing others of a right to education or whatever.

Feel free to disagree.

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Tuesday, January 6, 2009 6:52 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:

It seems to me that society has a greater right to this than to sponsored higher education, and I'm generally in favor of such things.

It seems to me that the two aren't dissimilar; that rehabilitation IS a form of higher learning.

Mike

"It is complete now; the hands of time are neatly tied."

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