May 5, 2015
(Left, “They’re stacking them up like chordwood,” Angelo says.)
Comments for “US Prison System is a Boondoggle”
Stephen Coleman said (May 7, 2015):
I don’t believe “punishment” does any good for prisoners. They need emotional help and therapy. Unfortunately few get it and even fewer therapists are effective.
Having volunteered in a county jail as a therapist, I found that many of the prisoners suffer from dissociation, sub-clinical maladies and personality disorders. They don’t want to behave they way they do and many come out worse than how they came in. The majority were abused as children and to further abuse them in the prison system, I consider barbaric.
In the USA apx. 80% re-offend sooner or later. In Norway where psychotherapy is mandatory, re-offence is about 30%.
Also, once a prisoner is released, the blot on their record will prevent them from getting any meaningful employment for the rest of their lives. So they return to crime out of rage towards the system.
One inmate received 10 days solitary for J-walking as a teenager. He has a near genius IQ but made the choice to become a professional criminal from that experience.
Another inmate was sentenced to life for stealing a $65 coat under the 3 strikes law. It will cost the government taxpayers over a half a million dollars to pay for this Walmart coat.
It is my hope someday that the barbaric US prison system will be shelved in history along with Soviet gulags and Jim Crow chain gangs. Honestly, some of the personnel in the prison system are worse than the people the lock away.
But the root of the problem is the general population still ignorantly believes that punishment will somehow cure mental disorders and crime in general.
Cheers,
Stephen Coleman
http://new-holistic-medicine.com
Robert C said (May 6, 2015):
Henry , thank you for this very well stated presentation …. Your dispatches are consistently excellent ….They should be read and taken seriously by everyone…but unfortunately they won’t be…..The masses of the public generally prefer feel good fantasy to factual – but uncomfortable reality….This feature of public mentality was detected and exploited to enormous personal advantage by a deranged lunatic ….one of the most destructive men in history ….Adolph Hitler ! A similar level of bureaucratic contempt for the public seems to exist in the minds of many current politicians .
Elaine said (May 6, 2015):
I live in Florida and have a neighbor whose daughter is in prison for being with the wrong person at the wrong time when she was on probation for drugs. This young woman should be
doing some community service and/or schooling to help her further her ability to do something constructive with her life. Unfortunately, the prison system has been set up as a “catch twenty-two” so that you’re dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t. There are no jobs for these young people,because the elite have made sure there aren’t any, as you well know.
It’s an abomination what is happening to our country and culture because of a bunch of pathological liars and perverts who care nothing about human beings but enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of Americans who
pay the bill and those who fall into their clutches.
AW said (May 5, 2015):
I was surprised to see your latest post about U.S. prisons.
Just the last two weeks, I was doing a lot of research on the private prison system in America and was stunned and deeply angry at the level of corruption that takes place in these prisons.
In fact the whole idea of prisons for profit makes me sick and I lost faith in the American “justice” system because of this.
Now I understand why America has the highest prison population in the entire world AND why the recidivism rate among former inmates is so high.
I’ve always been a no-excuses “tough on crime” kind of person and I still am.
However, I also believe in redemption and the power of God (the one Creator of all mankind) to transform the hearts of even the most hardened criminals.
Unfortunately, the people who stand to profit from the U.S. prison boondoggle would lose money if more prisoners turn to God for forgiveness and help.
Adam said (May 4, 2015):
This brings up hard feelings from me so my response sounds like a rant.
Growing up in the States I was fully indoctrinated into the myth of how we were the “land of the free” and had a duty to play the bully big brother to any country that we see as needing out interventions — why so many ‘mericans love foreign military interventions.
As much as I despise the left I equally despise the right for these things and their patronage to ‘Saint’ Reagan — the originator of the war on drugs. I remember what it was like before the war on drugs (us) and that was last the remnants of a free society. The shift towards an authoritarian police state began with that war on drugs and I get so p*ssed that many of the sanctimonious Americans who continue to support this fascist police state themselves used recreational drugs when they were teens — I can surmise that because most of the teens I knew in the 70s and 80s used recreational MJ at the least and most of them are now “prudent” middle class Americans who have nothing but contempt for anyone who does what they did (and many of them still do in secret but in our society if you don’t get caught it’s as if it didn’t happen).
About 20 yrs ago I took a weekend job driving taxi cab in Sioux Falls, SD (drive taxi and you’ll see what people are really like) and one night I picked-up a woman who had just been out “partying.” In conversation she said she worked at the state prison and went on with sickening details explaining how she loved the authority she had over men. She even bragged about how she would abuse the prisoners just for her amusement — remember that many of those victims of her abuse were in there as mere drug offenders.
More recently (starting 10 years ago in ultra conservative South Dakota) my wife’s nephew was busted for pot possession at 18 or 19 years of age. Well, after serving two years for that first offense he’s been on the revolving door routine ever since — going back to the big house for minor parole violations. But they probably like that because they’ve taken everything he had and they’re taking his future too but I’m sure he’s been a great asset for the prison labor industry they’ve been running. Honestly, the reason for the parole violations is he’s got legitimate PTSD from his first tour in the state prison system and whenever he self-medicates with anything –alcohol — he violates his parole and back he goes.
Henry Makow received his Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Toronto in 1982. He welcomes your comments at
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US Prison System is a Boondoggle
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