America loves prisons. Not just in the sense of just thinking they’re a good idea, or that we need to build more of them. No, prisons appear to American voters much the way strippers appear to drunk businessmen at 12:07 a.m.; irresistible, shiny, and worth throwing money at.
We also treat strippers and prisoners alike as deserving recipients of rape when it happens to them, but perhaps I’m stretching the analogy too far.
Prison reform is not a sexy topic to most people. If you suggest that maybe, just maybe, building more prisons is dealing with the wrong end of the supply/demand problem, it sounds to people as if you just suggested that they should let someone slit their throats and go sell their TV for crack.
If you suggest that maybe we should try to make prisons a less volatile, criminalizing environment, you may as well have personally signed the order for Willie Horton’s furlough. I try to avoid this conversation, because I’ve been treated to one too many Bronson-esque tirades about how “they’re animals and belong in cages,” or “no, if anything, prison is too good for them,” etc. But America can’t afford to continue avoiding this conversation.
It shouldn’t be a hard one to have, after all; how many of us have had a relative or a friend do time, or done it ourselves? Statistics say quite a few of us. From a cold, practical standpoint, how many of us are looking at an ex-con moving into our neighborhood at some point? Statistics say much the same thing. How many of our tax dollars go into building and maintaining more of these things? You probably don’t know an exact figure, but you know it ain’t cheap.
Ignoring the statistics on how many prisoners are inside for non-violent drug offenses, or how many are serving time for a questionable conviction, or even how many are guilty but serving ridiculously long sentences because of bad legal representation or a legal panacea like three strikes laws (all three situations seeming to correlate somewhat with race and class, but I digress), we still need to look at the function of prison in American society:
This function is not to keep us safe from these people, the function is to create fiercer and more committed criminals.
Once someone enters the American penal system, they are immersed in a culture of criminality, and often find it difficult to get away from it. Then, after being in a situation where they are required to constantly act hard and cultivate an amoral or even actively vicious manner to survive in many situations, they often find, upon returning to the regular world, that they are distrusted, given few opportunities, and essentially treated as criminals from there on out. Surprise surprise, recidivism rates are pretty high.
I’m not naïve enough to think that all prisoners are innocent victims of society. This, I feel, has been part of the reason for widespread public distrust of Prison Reform movements (though abject fear and ignorance haven’t helped). While groups like Anarchist Black Cross represent the fringe, there are quite a few people who subscribe to the idea that all prisoners are political prisoners and have no problem equating a carjacker or murderer with Nelson Mandela.
This is based mostly in a childish view of the universe, where the fascist pig cops just arrested Corner Pocket for no good reason, and in a natural state Corner Pocket wouldn’t have been breaking into the dealership, which was the fourth felony conviction after Assault and Battery, Possession of Amphetamine, and GTA. The young activist has to maintain with a straight face that Corner Pocket wouldn’t also, if said young activist was sharing his cell, trade him to Omar down the hall for cigarettes and a tattoo.
Some people are sociopaths, and while this shouldn’t negate an obligation to treat them ethically, we’re also not going to change that any time soon. You also can’t keep someone locked up forever just because they have no ethical center, tempting as that may sound, or line people up and shoot them for dealing coke, as much as Thailand’s government and Bill Clinton may disagree.
What can we do?
I’m not entirely sure, but if we’re going to figure that out, we should be doing one thing first; actually talking about it. Expecting more from candidates than a promise that they’ll be “tough on crime”, and wanting some answers. Maybe trying to get to where the average American knows more about what’s going on with our prisons than what they saw on the last half of that episode of Oz they caught while they were waiting for Arliss to start.
Not laughing at “don’t drop the soap” jokes would also be a step in the right direction.
Rape is NEVER funny. The fact that prison rape has become this huge joke probably started due to coping mechanisms… Oh, and a healthy dose of prejudice, of course. I mean, if it’s happening to “those people” – we just don’t care, do we?
And when “those people” come out of prison as hardened criminals and proceed merrily down the path of further self-destruction, often taking others with them, we refuse to make the connection.
And that needs to stop.
Also, I get really frustrated when some (notice, I don’t say ALL) fellow feminists relegate male-on-male rape, prison rape in particular as something we don’t need to worry or talk about.
Because, you see, if you worry about it or talk about it, you’re just going “what about the menz.”
Urgh.
The Justice Department (and I’m talking Australia here – I don’t know much about the US but it’s probably fairly similar) doesn’t want people talking about it from my experience. It and affiliated NGOs operate in a “hush hush” and “too hard” culture.
I live next door to a flat owned by a charity that provides temporary accomodation for people recently released from prison. Which isn’t a problem in and of itself, most of the people just want to be left alone.
What is a problem is when something goes wrong (along the lines of tenant kicks out boyfriend, boyfriend gets high, comes back and starts smashing windows)the charity acts slowly, denies there’s a problem, claims right to privacy and generally hopes the situation will go away. When we ask what they intend to do they blame us for not calling the police sooner.
I have said time and time again that the charity can’t instruct everyone to call the police at the drop of a hat – that’s victimising the tenant before they’ve even done anything wrong. But they don’t listen, they say they’ll take my feelings “on board”. Of course any request to discuss these matters, no matter how constructive, is met with a look or curt email that says I’m just a NIMBY.
The people who do run afoul of residents in densely populated areas are just going to end up back in the system as a result of attitudes like this. Which in the long run doesn’t do any of us any good.
Natalia
I’m amazed at how often rape serves a comedic catalyst in pop culture in general, but it’s about ten times worse when it comes to prison. Some people (including a lot of feminists, who should really know better) take an attitude like “well, they’ll get some of their own medicine there”, which ignores that the people who were predators outside the system usually will be within the system as well.
observer
Exactly, there are no easy answers. It’s not a black and white issue and both sides act like it is, sounds like a universal thing rather than strictly American.