Prison
Prison is supposed to be a place to send violent people and make the rest of us feel safe. It should also work as a deterrent for committing crimes. What they have become is big money doing very little good. $80 billion a year big.
So, with an industry that big, no wonder private companies wanted a piece of the pie to a tune of over $3 billion a year. With roughly 2.4 million people behind bars, inmates alone could make up the 37th most populist state in the country.
That does not include guards, administration, and whoever else works in these places. Before we get too far into this let me make this clear, we need prisons. We need to remove violent people from our cities and neighborhoods. People who have no regard for life should be locked up for a long time.
But, out of the 2.4 million inmates, less than a million are violent or threaten the safety of us. This is a short blog with only 3 points; private prisons, who inmates should be, and what to do with the rest of the lawbreakers.
How did we get into this mess to begin with? For starters, America loves to declare war, and in the 70s we declared a War on Drugs. It is a forgone conclusion that anytyme our government declares a war on anything, all they are saying is that they are going to spend OUR hard-earned money on a so-called war they have zero plans on actually winning.
As the great Chris Rock said, "ain't no money in the cure, just the medicine”. It’s true.
The American government could stop drug trafficking if they wanted to. But why would they with so much money and control at hand? The government needs a bad guy. They need something that makes their citizens feel threatened. And when we are threatened, we beg big brother to protect us. Big brother says he can protect us, but it won't be cheap.
We don't care how much it cost because it's not just our safety at risk, it's our children's safety, and our parent's safety. Take our money and build prisons, so we can have some sense of security. After the attack on 9/11 as we the people felt unsafe for the first tyme in a long tyme, politicians and big brother saw an opportunity. Big brother again says I can protect you but it's going to cost you.
We all say, "I don't care how much it costs." Big brother continues, it's also going to cost you some personal privacy because terrorists are sneaky. We beg big brother to save us at all costs, privacy, and liberties be damned. I don't need to tell you about today's bad guy, and what we are willing to give up in order to feel safe. We will see how this turns later. I know I am getting off-topic, but you can see how it only takes a little bit of fear that allows the government to overreach.
Ok, so back to prisons. First let’s look at the costs again, because if you have read a few of these Blogs, you know I am all about taking my money back from the government. So, if we spend $80 billion on 2.4 million prisoners that works out to be around $33,000 per prisoner a year. And that my friends is how we spend $46 billion a year on non-violent criminals.
Now I am not saying they shouldn't be punished; I am saying why are we being victimized twice. We are the victim of the crime and we are the ones paying for the punishment. What the ….. Why are we locking up so many non-violent prisoners?
First, we have no vision, I say we, but mean our government. The government is extremely short-sighted.
The second reason is private prisons. While private prisons only make up $3 billion of our prison budget, they invest millions into politicians and lobbyists.
This year private prisons spent over $2 million in campaign donations, and 10 years ago spent over $9 million on lobbyists. There have been cases where judges have received kickbacks from private prisons to ensure high incarceration rates.
Private prisons push for mandatory sentences and are one of the largest groups against the legalization of marijuana. Why? Because they get paid by the bed. If you are getting paid by the bed, you always want them full. It doesn't end there either. Many of the prison for-profit facilities have a minimum occupancy clause.
That means if the state doesn't fill the private prison with prisoners (90-100% depending on the state and their contract), they can fine the state. Now you know why so many first tyme offenders get railroaded. It’s not a systemic racism thing (that episode is coming by the way) it’s a money grab kind of thing. Our government is selling our brothers and sisters to private industry, and we let them so we can feel safe.
Who should we be putting in prisons? People who hurt other people. Murderers, rapists, child molesters, gang bangers, and so forth. If you commit a crime with a deadly weapon, bye, bye, bye.
As Richard Pryor said, "Thank God We Got Penitentiary!” As far as I am concerned, rapists and child molesters can just stay there and rot. They can all just turn big rocks into little rocks for all I care.
This might surprise you, but I am against the death penalty. It’s not because of some moral high ground either. It is simply because it’s too expensive. Appeal after appeal, we spend $1.26 million to execute someone.
Although it is rare, we have executed innocent men and women. In my opinion, rare is way too much, and I understand the whole breaking eggs to make an omelet, but when it comes to human life, I am not for it. But that's just me.
We can just lock 'em up and be done with it. We should be able to do that for less than $30 billion a year. If we didn’t lock up non-violent criminals, we would not need as many prisons and no private prisons for sure.
Using simple math, we could save over $50 billion a year. But we do not live in a simple world.
What do we do with the non-violents you ask? This part will take a lot of work and competence so my solution will seem more lyke a fairy tale than anything else.
First, we start with a legitimate house arrest. Our current house arrest program is a joke. Worse than that really, it’s criminal. I have personally hung out with people in bars with individuals who are on house arrest. The people in charge of these programs are as incompetent as the folks running social security.
There have been murders committed by people on house arrest for murder. (I need to apologize now for the language I am about to use. I have done a good job keeping my colorful language in check for the duration of this blog series, but I am incapable of expressing this next point without the use of expletives due impart of my limited intelligence and laziness.)
WHAT THE FUCK! REALLY, WHAT THE FUCK! How the fuck are we putting convicted murderers on house arrest? And don’t get me started on child molesters and rapists getting early release either. FUCK YOU!
A court system plays catch and release with the worse our society has to offer, yet if you can't come up with the money to pay speeding ticket fines you end up in jail. I say if some candy-ass judge lets a child molester out early, and that molester abuses another child, the judge loses his gavel and is forced into hard labor for the rest of his miserable fucking existence. Fuck you! Again, I am very sorry for that little outburst, but somethings just get to me.
Alrighty then, back to what should be done to the non-violent criminals.
For starters, a very strict, and very real house arrest. This does two things: first, it takes the burden of housing and feeding out of our hands, second, it can keep some families whole.
Why is keeping families whole important? Studies have proven that nuclear families produce more productive children than broken families. They have a better education which in turn leads to better jobs. You can see where this is going.
The more productive our children can be, the less strain they are to our pocketbooks. Punishing people without breaking up families should be a goal.
After house arrest, we should determine an appropriate fine. A stiff but fair fine. From there add community service, a butt load of it. This could be anything from filling sandbags to cutting grass on public property to supplementing the city workforce.
Finally, they would be responsible for paying for the monitoring service. I am sure some prisoners would much rather doing 2 years in prison versus 4 years on house arrest and a shit ton of fines and community service, but I don't care and neither should you.
That's a wrap, boys, and girls. It may not look lyke it, but we have lots to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. I am thankful that my website made the top 250,000 list of websites that does not have a traditional domain name, run by someone with a less than 80 IQ.
It's a very specific list. And I have no one to thank but you. Cheers to you.
Jimmy V, it is the way.