Russell Simmons and Dylan Ratigan (now leaving MSNBC) agreed that we now have a "system of political bribery, where the prison industry pays off politicians to create laws that incarcerate a record-breaking number of non-violent criminals."
A point taken from Russell Simmons is that the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) is a tool of education. Education? As he points out, people are incarcerated for non-violent crime and sent to prison where they educated into criminal mindsets and behaviors, then released into their communities to ply their new "skills." This, of course, ensures future revenues for the investors and corporations in the PIC and is also a huge ($70 Billion Dollar) financial drain on our nation's economy.
Attorney and author John W. Whitehead summed it up: "...minor criminals, from drug users to petty thieves, are being handed over to corporations for lengthy prison sentences which do nothing to protect society or prevent recidivism. This is the culmination of an inverted justice system which has come to characterize the United States, a justice system based upon increasing the power and wealth of the corporate-state." Are we to believe that since 1970, our nation has become so much more criminal as to necessitate that "one in fifty Americans are working their way through the prison system, either as inmates, or while on parole or probation."
Imagine the difference in our national community if we actually invested in each person. Can't do it, or why bother?
3 comments:
Correction, they want to invest in education for the fortunate few, aka the 1%, the rest can go to prison and be slave labor or work for low wages and no benefits, aka slave wages. That's what's behind the attempt to privatize public education...so only the rich have access to the best education their tax dollars can buy, while the rest get the shaft.
Aside from the extraordinary profits to be made by all participants in the prison industry (consider all the food vendors, pharmaceutical drug testing, telecom sales, customer support centers), legislators have provided themselves a remarkably efficient way to purge the voting rolls of potential opposition.
" legislators have provided themselves a remarkably efficient way to purge the voting rolls of potential opposition."
God bless America?
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