Meant to put this up Saturday morning as a weekend read. It’s a bit long, though a good one even for those of us who already know too much about the prison-state: “The Caging of America.”
Meant to put this up Saturday morning as a weekend read. It’s a bit long, though a good one even for those of us who already know too much about the prison-state: “The Caging of America.”
That is a very sad reality. But, if it wasn’t for many of those incarcerated, our municipal areas would not look as nice and clean as they do. In my local community our parks, medians, city grounds etc are kept tidy by labor rented from the local correctional system. I’d say slave labor, but for now, theyworkers can opt out and stay in their cells, not quite slavery. Maybe it is “neo-slavery”. Not much of a choice, but still a choice. I reserve slave labor status to people being sentenced to “community” service. Not only are they forced to work for an organization (normally a charity), but often are treated as a sub-human while serving.
The quickest answer (other than storming the bastille) might be to push legislation that only provides prison sentences to violent crimes and then only if it is a criminal that could be a threat to the community at large.
I’m going to go way out on a limb and suggest that clean parks are not a good reason to lock up so many people.
I agree with the author that history will show how incredibly brutal our punishment system really is.
We lock up non-violent people who commit no crimes against another and turn them into violent people to survive in the system.