“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” — Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, from his book The House of the Dead
American prisons do two things exceedingly well: They warehouse humans like cordwood due to overcrowding, and they manage to stay out or the public eye and consciousness — as well as conscience. Society in general cares little for the incarcerated, and prisoners who have family on the outside that cares about them can count themselves lucky.
That’s why there has been little mention in the media in regards to the prison strike that began on August 21 in 17 prisons across the country and is scheduled to last until September 9. Convicts are protesting — among other things — prison conditions they say are tantamount to “modern-day slavery.”Prisoners “will engage in a series of actions, including hunger strikes and sit-ins, to demand prison reform, access to rehabilitation programs, wages for their labor, and an end to lengthy prison sentences,” according to an article in The Cut, a spinoff of New York Magazine.
The author of the article, Amanda Arnold, as well meaning as she was in penning the piece, no doubt raised the hackles of some of the convicts she was attempting to help by calling them “inmates.” While the term is in common usage throughout the prison/industrial complex, men behind bars don’t refer to themselves as such since the term also connotes residents of an asylum and a powerless resident at that. “Prisoner” or “convict” are the preferred terms simply because they tend to preserve respect for the individual, which in turns imparts to them a modicum of dignity.
And you can rest assured that the men who planned and launched this strike no doubt view themselves as anything but powerless, in spite of their loss of liberty. Most — not all, but most — lawbreakers (as long as they are of sound mind) realize they were transgressors, and therefore are deserving of punishment via incarceration. The exceptions are those serving sentences on marijuana charges; all laws and punishments regarding weed are nonsensical and are an affront to the American system of jurisprudence.
One of the primary reasons for the strike is also one of the most legitimate: Overly long sentences. While convicts might grudgingly accept a fair sentence for their transgressions, they are absolutely right in their claim that sentences in this country are far too harsh — indeed, by far the harshest in the world. One of the main reasons American prisons are overcrowded is because the system doesn’t want to allow people to go home.
Arnold writes, “The comparison of the prison-industrial complex to slavery is not unfounded. In Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia and Texas, incarcerated people are given no wages in exchange for their labor. Many prisoners are also forced to work, and often in jobs that are exceptionally dangerous or strenuous; many of those who are fighting northern California’s raging wildfires rights now are incarcerated.”
In fact, over 4,000 wildfire fighters in California are prisoners. They earn $2 per day plus $1 per hour and save the state between $90 and $100 million annually. While prisoners do get time off of their sentences for being firefighters, some politicians nonetheless still compare their low wages to slave labor.
Organizers of the strike have released a list of ten demands, including: “to immediately improve the conditions in which incarcerated people live and institute policies that “recognize the humanity of imprisoned men and women”; to end prison slavery; to ensure that incarcerated individuals are given access to rehabilitation programs; to restore voting rights to incarcerated people; and to end death by incarceration.”
All I can add is Godspeed.
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.