AMERICA the Jailor

The United States is incarcerating people at a rate never seen before in our history. The U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population but now has 25 percent of its prisoners.

Here are three events and/or stories that each address different aspects of our…incarceration addiction.

SINCE CALIFORNIA IS THE LEADER in America’s incarceration derby, let’s start here:

The latest and most urgent media coverage of the California prison crisis is not being done by the Los Angeles Times, or the San Francisco Chronicle or the LA Daily news. It will appear on Sunday night in the form of a two-hour documentary special called “Breaking Point,” produced by Ted Koppel and broadcast on the Discovery Channel.
Here’s a little from the show’s website:

What does the California prison system have in common with Harvard University? It costs precisely as much to house, feed and guard one prisoner for one year in a California state prison as tuition, meals and housing cost for a student enrolled for one academic year at Harvard. As far as California taxpayers are concerned, it gets even worse. Their prison system is so overcrowded that it’s reached a breaking point. Either the state finds a long-term solution or the federal courts have warned they’ll begin ordering the release of inmates, just to ease the crush.

Koppel includes a hard look at the causes underlying California’s prison nightmare. For instance, he examines determinate sentencing laws like Three Strikes that, in an effort to lock up the truly bad guys, cast far too wide a net.

He also delves into the state’s stunningly broken parole policy that all but promotes failure.

*******************************************************************************************
THEN, ON TO THE NATIONAL SCENE
The Senate held a hearing Wednesday on the topic of Mass Incarceration in America—the size of the problem, what causes it, and what should be done about it.
Those who testified painted a very bleak picture: For instance, there was this by Pat Nolan of Prison Ministries:

The figures on incarceration are staggering. One in every 32 adult Americans is in prison or on supervised release. Prisons have become one of the fastest growing items in state budgets, siphoning off dollars that that might otherwise be available for schools, roads or hospitals.

…..More than 700,000 inmates will be released from America’s prisons next year. To put this in perspective, that is more than three times the size of the United States Marine Corps. Even more will be released the following year, and even more every year thereafter. Each day, over 1,900 offenders leave prison and return to neighborhoods across the country.
What has been done to prepare these returning inmates to live healthy, productive, law-abiding lives? What kind of neighbors will they be? Each of us has a stake in seeing that these men and women make a safe and successful return to their communities. Yet, very little is being done to help them make that transition successfully.

It was encouraging that the Senate bothered to have the hearing. But do I think it will result in any meaningful changes? Nope.
*******************************************************************************************


WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT OF OVER-INCARCERATION, LET’S MOVE ON TO GUANTANAMO:

This morning’s LA Times has an Op Ed titled “Gitmo: America’s black hole”. It’s written by a British lawyer named Clive Stafford Smith, who wrote the column while he was visiting prisoners inside the prison. Here are some excerpts:

I had a morning meeting scheduled with Sami Haj, the Al Jazeera journalist, no more a terrorist than my grandmother. Sami’s original arrest in Pakistan in late 2001 was perhaps understandable because the U.S. military thought he had filmed an interview with Osama bin Laden. To track down the criminal behind 9/11, many people would accept a little trampled due process. Unfortunately, as has often been the case, the intelligence turned out to be wrong. Yet Sami remained in custody. On the fifth anniversary of his detention without trial, his patience wore thin and he went on a hunger strike, the age-old peaceful protest against injustice.

[SNIP]

Sami looked very thin. His memory is disintegrating, and I worry that he won’t survive if he keeps this up. He already wrote a message for his 7-year-old son, Mohammed, in case he dies here.

As I left his cell at Camp Iguana, I pondered why American reporters have remained so silent about his imprisonment. Here is a fellow journalist locked up for almost six years, with no proof offered of any crime.

Why, indeed?

(Overcrowding photo by Al Matinez, LA Times; Gitmo photo by Shane T. Mccoy / DOD via Reuters file)