I'm going to use this post to gather up a bunch of things i've come across that I feel would be best in one place. I'll post pictures, charts, and snippets of comments that others have made on the internet that I feel are relevant. so here we go.
Now this chart speaks volumes to me. If you take a look at a couple of comparable countries and see how much lower their incarceration rates are, ours are inexcusable. Germany and Australia aren't too much different than us yet look at how low their prison population is. I'm not talking absolute numbers I just mean Rates! If you don't think that America has a police state mentality after looking at this graph I don't feel you are being genuine with yourself. Now if you decide to take the bold and racist move of blaming blacks and Mexicans for our insane incarceration rates go ahead I'd love to read it and have you simultaneously expose yourself as a racist member of our beloved law enforcement.
next I will post some quotes with some charts
The prison population has exploded in recent decades- a phenomenon known as "hyperincarceration," even though violent crime, "serious crime," and property crime has been declining:
Now this doesn't even touch upon one of my major gripes which is outfitting law enforcement like a Para-military squad. I just read that departments across the country are getting unmanned drones to patrol the skies and are shooting for 24 hour aerial surveillance. They are also hard at work developing sonic cannons that inflict horrifying pain without leaving any marks which is perfect for abuse (even better than tasers). I even saw a presentation where they showed how easily the sonic weapons could be rigged together into a wall of sonic pain delivery for crowds (crowd being more than 1 person). Not to mention the only reason we even have a micron of privacy against police is because the courts struck down thermal imaging equipment for routine surveillance. Hopefully that restriction lasts long enough for me do die with 4th amendment rights.
Here's a quote from a guy who was a former prisoner and now does work for prisoners rights and other advocacy of that sort. I'd like to give him credit for a lot of the information I presented. I don't know his real name but his online name is HidingFromGoro.
"The scope of this problem is difficult to overstate- especially because it necessarily includes things like prison gerrymandering, police militarization, mandatory minimum sentences, "tough on crime" politicians, for-profit incarceration, and all sorts of other things including guys with mansions talking about "2 Americas." This is generally known as the Prison-Industrial Complex, or as I (and others) call it- the Machine."
this next part is an excerpt from a heated debate so some of the context is lost but his passion is still there.
"What don't you understand? Why don't you believe?
What more do I have to show you to make you believe?
Tanks crushing cars. Houses burned to the ground while children look on. Puppies thrown into fires while children look on. Newborn babies brain-damaged or snuffed out while their mother is shackled to a bed with a sheet up so she can't see her baby she just gave birth to.
Black guys picking cotton at gunpoint in LA. Swarms of rats chewing off fingers & eyes in IL. Indefinite sensory deprivation. Bags of feces thrown on people in VA. Arms held out of feeding-slots to shatter elbows in VA. Pregnant women beaten so hard the braces get knocked off their teeth in TX. Men forced to fight to the death in gladiator matches in CA. Men shot for sport in CA. Men overcrowded at 300% capacity nationwide. Children given life sentences without the possibility of parole- nationwide. HIV+ inmates beaten and sent to sensory-deprivation isolation with biohazard stencils and no medical treatment. Men put in sensory-deprivation isolation for up to 36 years with no contact with the outside world (including lawyers). Secret medical experiments performed on thousands of inmates in PA. Cops running brutal abuse schemes and creating their own gangs in NY. Penises amputated in WA. Feces mixed into food in CO. These are just the things which I've provided links to on major news outlets in this subforum in the past few weeks.
Stomping on an inmate's head until he involuntarily soils his pants. 41 shots on the street to kill an unarmed man. Executing a cuffed man in front of 100 witnesses and cameras. The countless videos of abuse inside prison walls and the countless more off-camera.
The tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of rapes inside each and every year. The brutal, life-altering rape every four minutes.
Love one another. For God's sake, or whatever you believe in- just love one another. No matter how angry or outraged or just joking about it- whatever you do whoever and wherever you are just do this one thing. We are dying. You are dying. We are being tortured, we are in indescribable pain and hopeless despair. We are you. You lose your humanity when we get gangraped. You are us. We're all in this together.
Cry with us, bleed with us, scream with us.
It's us. All of us- you are us. We are us. We're all human, we're all Life.
All of us." -HidingFromGoro
"Chris J. got gang-raped in prison today. He needs surgery to fix his rectum, and probably other medical attention for the rest of his injuries but he's probably not going to get it. He knows this and is thinking about the pain his rectal scarring is going to cause him for the rest of his life. He laid in his bed for a little while covered in semen and his own blood thinking about AIDS. Since shower time has come and gone, he cleaned himself up with the water in the toilet, he also sat on it for a long time trying as hard as he could to evacuate all the semen out of him. His phone card was stolen as punishment for fighting back and he doesn't have any money in his account to call anyone on the outside, so he's just trying to deal with it on his own. Many inmates and guards are already making fun of him and discussing prices for having a go at him within his earshot. After TV time he's going to have to try and sleep in his cell with 2 other guys who ain't trying to hear his sob story and may even have been involved in his attack.
The pictures of his wife and kids were taken as punishment with promises to defecate or ejaculate on them while a different man was inside him as further punishment for fighting back. He's been clean for 9 months but that heroin would make all this pain go away for just a little while. Chris is more likely than not to go back to the heroin.
Chris will never be able to fully express the pain and rage caused by his rape even to a professional; and he's definitely not getting insurance which covers the help he needs when he gets out. This psychological trauma will have a severe impact on his ability to have healthy relationships on the Outside- out in the World- and will likely lead to bad arguments with his wife resulting in domestic violence. The effects his mental state has on his kids will be profound and probably irreversible. They might grow up in the sort of state in which prison is a very real possibility. When they find out what happened to dad how will they react?
His pain and anger will manifest itself in all sorts of ways and he might go off on some taxpayer in a convenience store or seriously injure someone who cuts him off in traffic. When that happens Chris will go back to prison and there will be similar ripple effects on his victims. Even if that doesn't happen remember Chris uses heroin to suppress his pain and will likely be re-arrested on a drug charge or a property crime he did to get heroin money.
Since there are no secrets in prison when Chris returns it will already be known he is a bitch who likes it in the ass, and he will have to become someone's sex slave. Staff will encourage this. Or he can stab somebody to try get a new rep. If he wins the knife fight & isn't killed outright, the person he kills has loved ones & family members who will become enraged at this, and the violence will continue.
What happened to Chris happened to 200 people today if you go by Alberto Gonzales' DOJ. If you go by HRW it happened to more than 400 people. This does not include juveniles in programs like Nihilanthic posts.
This is every day, every state. There are no exceptions. Going by HRW's numbers it's one Chris every four minutes.
You could be the next Chris, no matter how white you are- no matter how rich your family is. The Machine cares not. It must feed and It will feed.
And the Machine will never be satisfied. "
There's more where this came from. the system is fucked and the systems functionairies are complicit. You are not helping anyone, you are not rehabilitating anyone, you are ruining people's lives. Mostly people who pretty much never had a chance in this fucked up thing we're calling society.
Once you introduce a profit motive in incarceration there is no reason to reduce crime.
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What can i say? The 'Vette gets 'em wet! HAHA