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| Just-Us We construct actual prisons as doggedly as we construct our individual places of detention. When everything else we have put our hands to fails to solve the problems of our consciences, the limestone, steel, and razor wire will remain as a monument to compassion's failure.
The walls of our maximum prison facilities were built to keep in thieves,
terrorists, rapists, and killers. However, in our haste for justice,
we have also jammed the cells with the lost, bewildered, and misfits
- who major crime is not fitting in as a cog in our social/economic
wheel. We have condemned to pris How will history judge our fear of facing those who are odd, incompetent, or poor - those who are the locked-up victims of sexual abuse, paternal abandonment, social neglect, human devaluation, and discrimination? How will we justify to our grandchildren that part of our population lives in destitution, disease, and detention so that others can indulge in conspicuous consumption? Symbolically, the barriers of prisons represent the security shields behind which much of society hides. We hire police, prosecutors, judges, prison guards, and parole boards to keep "those people" out of our sight. We're too blind to see that social control of the under-class is an attitude emanating from the prisons of our minds. This collective attitude perverts natural justice to mean "just-us". Perhaps every school and university should have a required course in prison ethics. If we intend to continue needlessly locking up the nonviolent nuisances in our society, we might as well teach young people how to do it right.
With all our boasted reforms, pretensions of social change, and far-reaching
technological advancements, we still allow human beings to be the scapegoats
for our guilt-ridden consciences. As long as a powerless and voiceless
"cannon fodder" is available, we hand out ten, fifteen,
twenty-five year sentences in o In an effort to promote the modern advancement in penology, we have replaced hard labor with warehousing, inordinate sentences, and psychological labeling. Degradation and cruelty have not ceased, they have just been disguised. We have institutionalized abuse to teach people that abuse is wrong. It's as naïve as believing that more law enforcement and prison cells will win the war on drugs. The prison system is such a failure it can't even control drug abuse within its own walls! What indignation an inmate may feel towards prison practices is usually not that of an innocent martyr, but rather that of the guilty who feels his or her punishment grossly exceeds what is reasonable and is being inflicted by those who themselves are not blameless. Modern society has given over the duty of justice to bureaucratic machinery in the mistaken belief that the state can better and more appropriately carry out the mandate of natural justice. It metes out "Just-us" based on class distinctions, wealth, and power. We rely totally on the decisions of a professional class whose vested interest in "just-us" is building a self-perpetuating industry. Perversion of justice in favor of a prison mindset is a cancer that is antithesis of a compassionate, just society. Is getting rid of prisons the answer? Reality dictates that it is not. There is a percentage of offenders from whom society must be protected. Prison is effective in its safeguard role. Beyond that limited mandate, prison is merely a school graduating embittered, dysfunctional misfits. It neither corrects nor appropriately punishes. It has little, if any, deterrent value. Less costly, more effective pro-social alternatives for dealing with criminal behavior exists, but until society becomes accountable for its own problems, we're destined to remain in the dark ages. Legally and socially, prisons of both kinds inflict more damage than punishment to the offender. They have a profoundly damaging affect on all citizens.
The Relevant Question I BELIEVE that over 90% of inmates would love to straighten their lives out if given a decent chance. Very few people are dead set on doing wrong. The vast majority of inmates don't like their lives, feel like they're worthless losers, and begin to shine when a teacher or a teacher's aide comes along and shows them they can learn and be of value. It's an amazing experience to introduce an inmate to the riches to be found in the learning experience and to watch the profound changes take place.
We can create optimum conditions for their redemption through learning
so that even if they're behind bars for the rest of their lives,
they have an opportunity to become respected write Life, at last, is a mystery, not just a struggle. Ultimately, the attackers and the victims, the judges and the juries, will all be gone. The most relevant question will not be "What happened", but rather, "What happened next? How am I taking advantage of the educational opportunities offered to me in the Santa Rita classroom? What kind of future am I helping to create by my response?" After all the words have been spoken, all the books have been read, and all the classroom thinking and discussion is over, life once again presents to us this single next moment: What will we do with it? Will our choices bind us further or begin to free us? As we bind or free ourselves, we bind or free the whole world a little bit more. If we have had enough of holocausts, "ethnic cleansings", homelessness, racial divisiveness, fear of our neighbors, pollution, and destruction of nature, then we need to get moving on our journey of awakening. We are responsible and we are powerful, even in a prison cell. © 2001-06, Tom Brown
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| ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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| The underlying philosophy of Planetlightworker.com is to provide a space for many different flavors of the truth. The views and opinions expressed by the authors of our articles and/or interview subjects are not necessarily those of the editors, management and staff of New Earth Publications. New Earth Publications does not endorse any individual product or concept, but rather, offers this information for your individual discernment. We are happy to receive your opinions and feedback and actively encourage you to send us your views for publication in future issues. Copyright: New Earth Publications, 1999-2007. This © also includes all art, photography and animations (unless otherwise stated). Please contact us if you wish to use PLW imagery. |
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THERE
ARE TWO kinds of prisons. One kind is built with concrete,
steel, and razor wire. The other is built in the dungeons of our minds.
It may be that few of us can escape the "solitary confinement" to which
we've condemned ourselves out of fear, pride, and social inertia.
ons those whose speech, behavior, and
looks have disturbed our sensitivities and those with whom we care not
to deal.
ur courts like vitamins.
Charles "Tom"
Brown
was a successful investor who did very well in real estate, oil, and
the stock market. Friends began asking him to invest for them, too.
And he did. Things went well, and more people heard about his abilities
and wanted to be included in the investment strategies he had devised.
All went well until there was a dramatic change in the market. All
that went up turned down, and Tom wanted everyone to still have a
profit - his big mistake - as he wanted to be well thought of. Tom
was accused of defrauding investors. Although it was shown that he
had never diverted any money for himself other than a modest commission,
through unbelievable mishandling by an incompetent or dishonest attorney,
what should have been a one-year sentence became a 17-year sentence. At
the time of judgment, Tom was 62 years of age.