We need to think about resistance to a system that incarcerates rather than rehabilitates
“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”
-Nelson Mandela
On the day I was born, my father was in prison. He got a special pass to come out and see me for the day. As he held me for the first time, we were surrounded by police officers. Of course I don’t remember that day and, it’s probably not a surprise to you that no one thought to take a picture. As far as I know, he was incarcerated for a non-violent crime, but it is not the sort of thing families like to talk about. He’s not the only member of my family to go to prison. I rarely know the details that lead to the arrest of a family member. It’s something we just don’t talk about. In our desire to appear normal, to appear middle-class, it is not the kind of thing you talk about at the dinner table.
That may be why I’ve always been intrigued by both the US and Canadian prison systems. In many communities, my experience of being born with a father in jail is a common one. Small wonder when you look at the state of the prison industrial complex. The United States has the largest imprisoned population with 739 people per 100 000 serving time, awaiting trial or otherwise detained. That is one in 100 adults. The levels of incarceration are not divided equally among the population either, while African Americans are 12% of the population in the United States, they account for 44% of the prison population. Would it shock you to know that the United States has more incarcerated people than Russia?
It is by now pretty well known that men make up 90% of the prisoners in the United States, and approximately 27% of federal prison inmates are non-citizens. It is less well known why. On January 4 2012, Truth Dig’s Donald Kaufman published a piece about Louisiana and the thriving penal system, investigating why there are so many men and women behind bars. In Louisiana, the state is above the national average with a stunning one in 86 adults behind bars. The national trend of higher levels of black men are especially visible in New Orleans where one in 14 black men are behind bars. Once imprisoned, there’s no rehabilitation. It’s not in the plans. Kaufman reports that a third of the prison population in Louisiana reads below fifth grade level.
Education is not a priority for these small parish jails. Classes are reserved for only the violent offenders—most of whom are serving life sentences. Even when released in many small towns, the best job you could hope for is an $8/hr prison guard position. In Louisiana, a place where a bounced check could land you in prison for ten years, it is evident that the conservative stance of being “tough on crime” is a dismal failure. The Times-Picayune reports that Louisiana still has the highest rates of violent and property crimes in the country.
Wrote Angela Davis of the prison industrial complex in 1998, “Imprisonment has become the response of first resort to far too many of the social problems that burden people who are ensconced in poverty. These problems often are veiled by being conveniently grouped together under the category “crime” and by the automatic attribution of criminal behavior to people of color. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages.
This situation is only exacerbated by the school-to-prison pipeline so many youth in America are being shuffled through. Mychal Denzel Smith of The Nation wrote about closing this pipeline as a way to address several issues for newly inaugurated New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Writes Smith, that by putting an end to these policies, and “recommitting the city to educating its young people rather than policing them, he [de Blasio] could send a message that America’s youth deserves better. And he could help stem the tide of fear-based policy-making that does more harm than good to our children’s future”.
Back in Canada, a story about a local prisoner caught my attention. It was about a young man, Omar Khadr, a former prisoner of Guantanamo Bay, is passing the time in his eight-year sentence by taking classes while in prison. I have been following his case ever since I began working with Amnesty International while in High School. Curious about the effect of education and opportunities for inmates I reached out to one of his instructors, but he declined to be interviewed saying he had spoken previously only because the overwhelming majority of press against Khadr had been negative. So we only know what was reported in the Edmonton Journal: Khadr is doing well with his studies.
Despite the persisting idea of Canada as a progressive wonderland, Canadian prisons are not ideal systems focused on rehabilitation. In November 2013, the CBC announced that the prison population in Canada is at an all-time high. According to the annual report of the office of the Correctional Investigator in a 10 year period there’s been an increase of 16.5% incarceration rates with the aboriginal incarcerated population increasing 46’5 (aboriginal women saw an 80% increase). While other visible minorities incarceration rates increased 75%, Caucasian rates have declined 3% overall. Some critics like conservative pundit Lorne Gunter sneer at the suggestion that the sky-high incarceration rates of aboriginals and blacks is indicative of any form of injustice. He labels the report the writings of a hug-a-thug and speculated that the people of colour are in prison because they are, duh, guilty. In doing so he ignores the racial disparity that hands non-white prisoners higher sentences for the same types of crimes, and arrests people of color at higher rates for non-violent drug-related crimes despite the fact that Caucasians report higher levels of drug use.
The solution may be to look to countries like Sweden that take a progressive approach to imprisonment. According to Erin James of The Guardian the head of Sweden’s prison and probation service, Nils Oberg, announced the intended closure of four Swedish prisons back in November. The crime rate hasn’t fallen, but judges are moving forward with alternative sentences such as electronic bracelets and probation. Anyone sentenced to less than six months has the right, since 2005, to request an electronic bracelet rather than a prison sentence. Sweden also has a progressive drug policy which is seen as a part of the welfare and social policy.
The emergence of a prison industrial complex in both the US and Canada has a direct tie to the politics of conservatism. Unlike Sweden they move away from the ideas that drug and violent crimes are a symptom of a sick society. They shift policy from social welfare to tough-on-crime control and in doing so buttress the systemic oppression of race and class that founded these settler nations. To safeguard our communities we must resist the notion of state control through ineffective policing and demand rights, human rights, even for those who are incarcerated.
For more information about the US Prison Culture visit: http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/
Photo: Metropolis, Public Domain
In a Huf Post article in 2012 “If you’re a convicted criminal, the best thing you can have going for you might be your gender.A new study by Sonja Starr, an assistant law professor at the University of Michigan, found that men are given much higher sentences than women convicted of the same crimes in federal court.The study found that men receive sentences that are 63 percent higher, on average, than their female counterparts. Starr also found that females arrested for a crime are also significantly more likely to avoid charges and convictions entirely, and twice as likely to avoid… Read more »
Exactly right. In fact, most studies show that the anti-male sentencing disparity is at least equal to the anti-black sentencing disparity.
I imagine this won’t be one aspect of “equality” feminists will be fighting to resolve.
Additionally, excellent catch bout the drastic affects of child support incarceration in your next comment.
I know lots of feminists who are prison abolitionists. And lots of women working towards empowerment without the term feminism too. Let’s stop making everything about straw feminists because there’s a diverse group out here and we’re not all just doing the same thing.
When it comes to topic of prison its not too often that the fact that men are sentenced more harshly than women rarely comes up.
I’m glad there are those that would recognize this but fact of the matter is a lot of them simply won’t.
The funny part of that is when people try to explain that away because “men commit more crimes”. Can you imagine a judge saying, “Well since ___ are more likely to commit this crime and you are ___ you should be sentenced more harshly.”
Anyone I’ve ever known who’s been incarcerated for any length of time did something to land there. We’re not going to fix our incarceration problem by providing free education and training to these folks. They’ve landed where they are because they had to hustle to get by – there’s no rehabbing that – unless you’re gonna hand someone a wad of cash anyway… Take the programs you would give to the incarcerated and give them to everyone – public colleges should exist – public trades programs too. I’m not saying get rid of private schools – but folks should have… Read more »
Elephant in the room time ago
While the rates for White vs Non Whites are shocking.
Have a look at the rates of MALES vs Females , there is actually a bigger disparity for that one.
Yes and I mention that “It is by now pretty well known that men make up 90% of the prisoners in the United States”. The disparity is very large.
And when it comes to the public safety issue, one of the best things that communities can do is not let go of the rope onto which inmates cling while “inside.” It’s an investment that directly addresses parolee reentry challenges. Too many inmates are unable to see their own potential, but we can counter that by assuring them it’s there – waiting to be applied. And you certainly don’t have to have connections or be a community leader to make a difference. Not at all. Down here on the ground level, where we all have priorities and bills to pay,… Read more »
Well argued Danielle, and oh so true.