Our prisons are overflowing with those we have been unable and
unwilling to attend to properly. The economically downtrodden, the
mentally ill, the drug afflicted, those born of the wrong skin color,
all are deemed somehow unresolvable, unsuitable members of our community
and cast out into a purgatory we have created with our own two hands.
The NY Times (
July 25, 2013- US Prison Population Decline Reflects New Approach to Crime) applauded the results of a study showing
a minor decrease in 2012 in the number of federal and state
prisoners.Yet the reality is that much of this was directly attributable
to budgetary constraints forcing the closure of some facilities and to
the mandate of the US Supreme Court to California to reduce its
overcrowded prisons. There in not nearly enough public conversation or
outrage over the fact that there are still more than 1.5 million members
of our nation spending this evening in some jail cell in our country.
The cost to our society, not just in dollars and cents, but in
disruption and destruction of all the lives that are connected to the
person incarcerated is incalculable.
It is a black mark on
us that we have not given sufficient focus to this issue and to ways in
which we can fundamentally change our thinking so that prison becomes a
place not of first, but of last resort, in attempting to resolve those
matters we find difficult and uncomfortable to address.
2 comments:
Our wonderful politicians in Washington , instead of taking another break [from what?] should spend a week in one of these facilities, to see how the facility rehabilitates those unfortunate many.
Does our society value people who are not rich and famous? Or, do we live in a nation that relies on government stimulus spending on the prison--courthouse--police system that is the same as the military industrial complex that Eisenhower derided.
Post a Comment