By Paul Harris
(YellowTimes.org) It's the"Land of the Free," usually writ large, usually with capital letters.It's the pot of gold that so many around the world have sought, aplace they can live their dreams and where freedom is guaranteed. Itbegs the question: whyare so many people in the "Land of the Free" not free?Why are so many of themsampling their bed and breakfast comforts courtesy of the government?
There are a mind-boggling number of peoplespending their days and nights in American jails and it is difficultnot to see parallels with the reviled Gulag system of the formerSoviet Union. Admittedly, the Gulags were often home to political andsocial dissidents as well as hardened criminals; but there was alarge subclass of individuals confined to state-mandated housing,much as within the United States. And it is certainly debatablewhether the bulk of American prisoners deserve to be injail.
In this election year, like clockwork, eachcandidate at virtually every level will promise to be "tough oncrime" while accusing his/her opponent of being soft. The result isthat over the years all these promises of toughness in all thoseelection campaigns have made the United States the most heavilyincarcerated nation on the planet. The rates of incarceration in theU.S. have doubled since the late 1980's and now sit at astronomicallevels. The U.S. has five times more prisoners per capita than Canadaand seven times more than the whole of Western Europe. Withapproximately 5% of the world's population, it has about 25% of theworld's prisoners.
Statistics show that almost 90% of those Americanprisoners have been jailed for non-violent offenses, often formisdemeanors arising out of the so-called "War on Drugs." But it is abizarre administration of justice that incarcerates large numbers ofperpetrators of victimless crimes while leaving free murderers; thatjails petty crooks while leaving corporate criminals free to strikeagain; the punishes blue-collar criminals harshly while treatingwhite-collar criminals with kid-gloves.
As an examples: Martha Stewart faces up to 20years in prison because she told a fib while Enron's Ken Lay faces alife of luxury because his buddy lives on Pennsylvania Avenue; O.J.Simpson went free while a retarded man in Texas who had no concept ofhis actions was executed; four executives of Hoffman-LaRoche werejailed in 2000 for up to four months for what the Justice Departmentcalled the largest criminal anti-trust conspiracy in history while aTexas man was jailed for sixteen years for stealing a Snickers bar.
And the United States remains one of the fewnations to continue the barbaric practice of state sanctioned murder.
What makes all this even worse is the researchthat reveals a significant number of people behind bars in the U.S.may be innocent. In Illinois, to name but one example, during thelast two decades of the twentieth century more convicted prisoners ondeath row were found innocent than were executed. And a group in theUnited States known as the Innocence Project has achieved markedsuccess in overturning scores of convictions with the use of DNAtesting. Naturally, all these apparent errors in trial law call intoquestion the efficacy of the court system.
Still, in the United States, it is important to betough on crime; any candidate who is not will be summarily dismissedas weak by opponents and will usually lose.
As a separate but related issue, it isn't enoughthat the United States locks up its citizens in record numbers, itputs them in deplorable conditions. The prisons are overcrowded, rundown, and prisoners are often kept in conditions that violate anydecent standards of humanity. In the case of hardened mass murderers,at least the bad excuse could be made that they deserve no better.But even the poor kid who got caught with a joint finds himself inthese same conditions and if he wasn't on the road to perdition whenhe walked into prison, with his feet shackled, he surely will be whenhe walks out.
Being convicted of a crime in the United Statesoften means you are stripped of your civil rights forever. Indeed,one of the accusations that arose out of the 2000 Florida votingdebacle was the story of large numbers of convicted felons who arenot eligible to vote. It seems the voting lists may not have beenaccurate, but the real point is that paying one's debt to societyapparently never ends in some parts of the U.S. Even though thesepeople had served their time, they are forever forbidden fromenjoying that most basic right in a democratic country, voting.
Various scholars in the U.S., attorneys,prisoners, and freelance reporters have spoken or written of thehorrendous condition of American jails and the vast numbers of peopleincarcerated for minor offenses for excessive periods of time. But itis not an issue that has excited the American people except insofaras they like to hear their political candidates preach about hiringmore police, locking up more bad guys, and building more prisons.Since many American prisons are now run by private industry, you knowsomeone is making a buck and is actively encouraging a need for evenmore prisoners.
The story of this nation of prisons and prisoners(i.e., the Land of the Free) gets almost no ink or airtime. And for avery simple reason: the overwhelming number of prisoners come fromthe bottom quarter or so of the population in economic terms. Itisn't merely that the poor commit more crimes, but the justice systemis stacked against them because the so-called "blue collar" crimesusually generate harsher sentences than "white collar" crimes. Thepart of the population that ends up at some time in jail, is lesslikely to vote in the future (even assuming they live in a state thatdoesn't strip away that right), is a less affluent demographic thanthe majority, and is disproportionately non-white. In fact, some 50%of prisoners in U.S. jails are black; between them and the poor,their plight isn't even on the national radar.
Imagine if the situation was reversed: what if thebulk of prisoners were affluent, well-educated, and white. It's asafe bet there would be a lot less of them in prison and for thosewho did end up there, the conditions would certainly be much better.
Unfortunately, though, it's election time again sothe old shibboleths about locking up the bastards and throwing awaythe keys are about to fill the nation's consciousness once again. Anddutifully, they will listen to that siren song again and squeeze afew more souls into those prisons, hire a few more cops, and onceagain line the pockets of Houses of Detention Inc.
[Paul Harris is self-employed as a consultantproviding businesses with the tools and expertise to reintegratetheir sick or injured employees into the workplace. He has traveledextensively in what is usually known as "the Third World" and has anabiding interest in history, social justice, morality and, well, justabout everything. He lives in Canada.]
Paul Harris encourages your comments:pharris@YellowTimes.org
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