My daughters boyfriend spent a week in jail. He was suppose to be in there for three days because he couldn’t pay a fine. He almost had to spend a month in jail. FOR A FINE! What kind of messed up country do we have that we put people in jail for being unable to pay a fine, and not only that but we keep them there for longer then we were suppose to, because we can.
It’s all about the money. Each person in a jail is money. Tax money that goes to the jail to house, cloth and feed them. Do you know what they are eating? Can’s of food marked “NOT FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION.” I was incredulous about that so looked it up. Apparently it is common practice for jails to get food that is suppose to be used for animals, or is expired, sometimes with worms in it, to save the jail money. Because money.
And this is not the first person I’ve known to have this happen to them. A friend of mine served three months on a one month sentence. After serving a month he was told “this month doesn’t count toward your service because it’s at the wrong jail.” The wrong jail? WTF! It’s a jail? How is it the WRONG JAIL!? Lets not even get into the fact that my friend was serving for a domestic abuse when in fact his ex is the one that is stalking, beating, and screaming at him. (I’ve seen her do it.) He’s homeless now and she calls up anyone willing to help him and tries to spread more lies about him being on meth (he’s on probation and being tested, so no meth) and basically making life miserable for everyone. But he goes to jail.
We call this a justice system? Where is the justice? And now that pot is no longer a jailable offence they are finding other excuses, because we need to keep the jails full, right? WHY? Why are we paying our tax dollars to jail 2.2 million people, and put another 4.8 million on probation. That’s SEVEN MILLION PEOPLE in the USA that are under “correctional supervision”. Why? For money. More then TRIPLE per capita of any other country.
Prison labor is the only form of slavery still allowed in the USA. Prisoners who do not perform the work they are “asked” to do can be sanctioned with less food, longer sentence, or worse treatment. Prisoners can work in call centers, making books for the blind, park benches and Victoria Secret lingerie. They often do this work for cents on the dollar, because they are prisoners not people.
We say we are “the nation of the free”. I don’t really see it anymore.
Author Crissy Moss 
I read somewhere that a CEO of a prison company was boasting that his prisoners had the highest recidivism rate in the US. Because if prisoners come back, that’s more money for shareholders.
Some services can’t be for profit, because they’re for the public good: police; fire; ambulance; prisons; schools; etc.
I agree. And it’s crap that even if a prison isn’t “for profit” you still have police, wardens, etc etc trying to keep the jail in business so they still have a job. Unemployment rate is still kind of sucky in this country, and if they just let all the prisoners out then they won’t be needed, and what will they do then?
We built more prisons. And now this is the price we are paying.
Well, the focus of American prisons is punishment. The focus of prisons here in Norway is to fix broken people. Which can seem unfair.
For example, a lot of people globally are outraged that Breivik (the mass murderer of children), has access to a TV, games console and outdoor area for exercise. However, there are only really two choices:
– Treat everyone decently, even if they’re a monster;
– Treat everyone as a monster, even if they’re decent.
The US torturing innocent people to death, executing people without trial and imprisoning innocent people for decades is a big part of the reason why a lot of people I know think it’s an insane country.
No, the focus of the prison system is money. they just justify it to the people, and get the average citizens approval by saying “we are punishing the transgressor.” A lot of the people in prison at the moment are mentally handicapped. They are there because they don’t have hospitals to put them in. Then there are all the non violent drug offenders. Because “war on drugs” which equals money. The actual people who should be “punished” as society thinks they should make up a small portion of the prison population.
I wish we would treat everyone as a person to be helped instead of a person to keep down so we can get ahead. It’s a systematic problem in the USA that has created a few rich people leading a lot of poor people around by the nose. It’s disgusting.