The shame of the US prison system

Linked to the militarization of the police, referred to yesterday, is the incarceration of about 2.2 million people nationwide. Counting the people who are on parole, on probation, awaiting trial in jail, or otherwise under the supervision of the vast prison system, the overall number rises to 7 million, about the population of Hong Kong. The US spends more than $60 billion per year locking people up, monitoring their every step, ushering them through criminal court proceedings, and forcing them to be marked as “ex-cons,” ex-offenders,” or, in the worst-case scenarios, prisoners for life. (facts quoted by Matt Stroud in TheVerge.com, August, 6th 2014).

Whereas most advanced countries try to rehabilitate prisoners, such rehabilitation is spotty, to say the least, in the US. Mostly, it is left to charities, one of which my wife is involved in. People come out of jail, often without families, homes, money or jobs – it is easier to re-offend and go back into jail, where at least you are fed and housed. They are also deprived of a vote in many States. The motivation for this draconian treatment is left to the imagination, although you don’t have to be very imaginative to guess it.

What is necessary to change this dire picture is the elimination of mandatory minimum sentences and harsh punishments for non-violent crimes and drug-related offenses, the incarceration of fewer people, and by extension the end of the “war on drugs”, which is a profit center and employment and Congressional lobbying opportunity for some and a disaster for the rest of us.

Americans are supposed to be pursuing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness! This phrase was introduced into the Constitution by Thomas Jefferson, a self-proclaimed follower of Epicurus. What we are faced with is a cruel, harsh system that has to be seen in the context of the militarized police and the expensive and ineffective drug policy. Epicurus wouldn’t, were he alive today, believe the country could have come to this pass.

2 Comments

  1. You haven’t mentioned the death penalty – apart from a few enlightened states the US is in the proud company of China, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Saudi Arabia etc.still executing people. Apart from eventually depriving convicts of their life they are deprived of their liberty and kept in solitary confinement for an average of 17 years. Now that European countries have stopped supplying the necessary lethal drugs people are being executed using home made drugs, sometimes taking up to two hours to die.
    It is now 50 years since the last hanging in the UK. Depressingly, a BBC poll said that 45% of the people polled (it didn’t say how or how many) would support the re-introduction of capital punishment, as opposed to 39% against. The US and UK will be way down the list of Epicurean countries.

  2. The US comprises less than 5 % of the world’s poulation and 25% of its prison population ( New York Times). But at least the death penalty is gradually fading as a “weapon” against crime, as more and more eamples of wrongful death come to light, and people accept that it is no deterrant.

    My personal opinion is that those States, like Texas, that still have the death penalty, cling to it from fear and distaste for the under-class that they dearly wish would go away. It is also a by- product of religion, based on the Old Testament and revenge. At one point I hoped that racism was disappearing. No, on the contrary – the War between the States is still being fought out, at the moment with words and disagreeable State legislation. Unfortunately, the modern capitalist system makes someform of revolution inevitable in the next 25 years, and it will be greatly complicated by the various agendas of Southern politicians and their ssupporters.

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