wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Point of Grammar:

China has FEWER people in prisons than the US. Perhaps China has LESS crime than than the US.

Aside from that, draconian sentencing for minor crimes -- possession of small aomounts of marajuana -- plus the popularity of the "three strikes and you're out" solution to real or perceived crime waves has resulted in this explosion of our prison population. All it has accomplished is to put addicts or petty criminals in jail. At great expense. And yes, prisons are an industry in many rural parts of the US.

Prison is a place were low level criminals go to learn to be high level criminals.

I'm recalling a great quote I heard from a warden, "they're not in here for whistling loud in church"!

Prison was supposed to be an awful place and that alone was to be a deterrent for committing a crime, criminals tend to be animalistic enough to not be deterred. They need more cable tv, ok HDtv and other perks.

we should invest in people before they become "violent criminals"

that would be a culture of life.

I tuned in a bit late, but was shocked that there was no mention of prisons as an industry. A few individuals have a huge financial investment in our prisons, and a lot of planning is involved. When a prison is constructed, the number of beds are decided on based on the number of children in the surrounding low income elementary schools. It should not come as a surprise that there are so many people in jail. The more people incarcerated, the higher the profit.

It's not necessarily that I favor flogging. I'm just saying that it would be a potential solution to prison overcrowding and the enormous costs associated with housing criminals. Of course, there's ethical issues that come along with it, and we can debate that, but it shouldn't just be dismissed out of hand.

Jonathan,

This experience was in NC in the mid-90's. None of my students were illegal immigrants. I lived in agricultural areas and really didn't start seeing an influx of immigrants (legal? illegal?) until around the late 90's. My students were appreciative to be in class, so you could say they enjoyed it. They may have been trying to con me, but they said that they believed earning GED's and/or college degrees was the best practical thing they could do to avoid falling into the trap of returning to prison.

No, those inmates did not have cable. Gym privileges were their favorite outlets.

Jonathan, it doesn't seem that I've painted myself into a corner so much as you haven't been following what I've been saying.

With regards to my earlier statement about flogging... If we want a low-cost way to punish people for crimes (obviously not for crimes like assault and murder), flogging is one option. We won't have to house these people for months or years at the expense of the tax payer, and there's also a definite incentive not to commit crimes at the same time. It might seem inhumane and something we're supposed to be above at this point, but considering what prison does to people, which is more inhumane? At the very least, flogging wouldn't produce a better criminal at the end of it the way prison does.

Paulo so you favor Flogging now? Is that it?

I think that in terms of punishment vs. rehabilitation, it's dependent on the crime committed. I would say that violent criminals need to be punished. Non-violent criminals, however, should probably be rehabilitated because they will be released into society again at some point. I mean, there are just some things that people do that puts them well beyond the point of rehabilitation.

Edward, so you're a Hilary voter?

David, did you find any enjoyment level -- at all -- by those prisoners you taught -- of the fact that they were receiving free College Courses? Also, did they in fact have Cable access? How many, in your experience were illegal immigrants?

The "progressive" far left really wants all those criminal out on the streets. Let's bring back the days of ever increasing murder and crime rates. I hope you guys take up this cause and force candidate Obama to accept it. It's a sure way to secure election of Mc Cain.

Paulo, it seems that you've painted yourself into a corner where you've created in irrevocable link between jobs and prisons. I just don't see that as possible. Also, tell us all what you mean by "Flogging" as you post above. I'm really trying to understand what you're saying.

Several years ago, I taught some basic grammar and composition courses in a prison. It was one of the best teaching experiences I ever had.

One of the really sad things I learned, though, is what I've since come to call "prisoner mentality." Derived from what my students told me, "pm" places the highest premium on toughness. The tougher you are, the better you are. It degenerates to the point that if two prisoners are walking towards one another, whoever steps to the side first is deemed weak. Common courtesy and logic become weak.

A fundamental question is this: what do we really want from prisons, punishment or rehabilitation? I think until that answer is definitively answered, we won't see much progress. Sadly, I think much of America wants jail to be strictly punitive. It feeds into a false sense of empowerment, based largely on politics of fear.

Well, according to the proponents of prison vs. immigrant labor, we'd secure the border to the point that illegals wouldn't be able to get in. The prison labor would be there to fill the gap left by the lack of illegals.

While I hear what you all are saying, you need to come up with something more substantial to be able to draw a line between prison privatization and increased incarceration rates. Are these companies raising more money for election campaigns? Do they have substantially powerful lobbies in any particular state or on the federal level? Because I can certainly see how the need to increase profits could lead companies involved in this kind of business to engage in practices that are... less than reputable. But if they were really behind the huge spike in incarceration rates, there would HAVE to be soome direct evidence of it.

Paulo, if the demand then was created for prison labor, which was easily fillabe through illegal immigrants, wouldn't it follow that that would create a magnet effect across the border to bring those workers in? Wouldn't it be irresistable at that point?

Jonathan, what are you talking about? I'm talking about people who argue that the solution to illegal immigration is to use prison labor for those jobs that "Americans don't want to do." And my point was that if you create a demand for cheap prison labor, you create a demand for prisoners to fill those positions. Thus, there is more pressure on the legal system to supply those prisons with prisoners. There's plenty of instances of it happening in other countries and instances of periods in certain locations in America where this went on.

If we shut down the prisons, prisoners then would have no form of entertainment, and would be forced to subscribe to their own cable tv, Internet, phone, etc. Then who would shoulder that burden? I'll tell you who. Society.

You did not address in detail the issue of PRIVATIZATION of prisons since, I believe, the Reagan era. What are the statistics? It has become a huge US industry with a vested interest, I suspect, in having a large inmate population. It is is indeed a disgrace.

Yes states that have no economic incentive, Mona, have no prisoners, because states that don't support the priso-industro complex don't create a need for crime, therefore, people won't commit crime, and that's why the population of those states' prisons is at zero. No prisoners, because no economic incentive to HAVE prisoners.

Lily, are you saying that once the vote was given to blacks the only way to stop the vote was to throw them en masse into prison? Who did this? "The Man?"

What about those states which house large prison facilities and have communities which have really benefited economically from the surge in incarceration? Don't those states have an interest in keeping incarceration rates high?

Red line banking of poor neighborhoods creates full prisons? Excuse me?

Has any correlation been studied between the ratings of the schools or school districts and where the incarcerated individuals called home.

The US of A has never demonstrated true dedication to its children, just its better off citizens!

That's a valid point, John, but it's not the point Bob was making. Bob was making it sound as if prison is some cushy resort, and it's far from it.

It's no accident that this trend is a product of the post-Civil Rights era. If racists could no longer keep blacks out of society because of new laws, they had to find another way of segregating the populations. And they did, by throwing them all in jail. I am an African American 35-year-old and was raised to put education and hard work above all else because my parents had some foresight about this.

It's odd that no one has mentioned the federalizing of drug prohibition; it only happened in 1973, when the DEA was created (arguably as the law-enforcement arm of Nixon's "silent majority" rhetoric). As of now, the DEA is a bureaucratic monster, and a giant impediment to sensible reform.

See also: their museum [http://www.deamuseum.org/]

Darkly funny, or just depressing?

So, orion, you're saying what, that Corporate Prisons actually manufacture the crime and take away free choice? C'mon!

Lead poisoning in kids leading to behavioral and learning problems?

Prison-Industrial Complex as job creation for less educated whites in counties with high unemployment?

Racism?

Do you think that having "For profit," publicly listed company (i.e., Corrections Corp of America) contributes to the problem?

why is this that western polical idealogy, as well as banking red-lining of communities are not targeted? why is the policies of western societal media are not looking at themselves? are you people saying that blacks are volient, or are the policies of whites corupt!

If you're creating a demand for Mexican labor just by filling up prisons, it doesn't follow that Mexicans are dying to get across the border to get those jobs! What you write makes no sense.

Paulo, just because there's Cable tv and ping pong doesn't mean that they're lucky to be their, that's a logical red herring in your debating style. Really the point is, that once they're there, are we to fund cable TV and high speed internet access? Maybe you'd like to Paulo, maybe that's how NJ does it.....

There is a connection between the privatization of our prison systems and the incarceration rates we are seeing these days. If corporations didn't own the prisons and make money off of these prisoners then our youth would not be fodder for this system. This isn't a public safety strategy it is another way to make money, in my opinion

And this is why it's alarming when people start talking about prison labor as a solution to immigrant labor (and thus illegal immigration). The simple fact is that if you create a demand for prison labor, you create a demand for prisoners.

Sara, I agree. TV watching has caused more prisoners.

Tina, are you making a nexus between black freedom and incarceration?

Unfortunately I was not able to pursue my question on air ( i realize time constraints) but I guess what I really wanted to ask, if we're looking back, as the guest said 40 years or so, how this correlates to the expansion of media (tv, advertising) and how this causes a greater sense of impovrichment among the poor...

Yes! Lucky guys have cable tv, ping pong and all the stabbings and anal rape they want! We should all be so lucky to be in prison...

We've gotten exactly what we deserve so far as recidivism is concerned - we've gotten exactly what the Right Wing Backward Republicans gave us with their BENIGHTED IDEA that we should NEVER have good educational programs in prisons because this was - for some crazy reason - REWARDING the prisoners!!! THIS WAS SO CRAZY AND NOW WE ARE LIVING WITH THIS "GIFT" FROM OUR DEAR, IGNORAMOUS REPUBLICANS - SPECIFICALLY GEORGE PATAKI - AS I remember very clearly seeing a WONDERFUL documentary on Channel 13 showing prisoners taking COLLEGE COURSES IN PRISON. You never saw such happy, lit-up, inspired faces. These guys were NOT GOING TO GO ON COMMITTING CRIMES - THEY WERE TOO TURNED ON BY LEARNING!!!! So what did those stupid FOOLS the Republicans do? - they KILLED THE PROGRAMS TOTALLY - KILLED THEM!!!! PRISONERS SHOULD NOT BE REWARDED BY LEARNING AND STUDYING SUBJECTS THAT ARE A TURN ON - GOD FORBID.
So - thanks a lot Republicans - you've handed us just what we who know a thing or two about how to BETTER SOCIETY KNEW would happen - MORE CRIME - MORE COST IN PRISONS - MORE RECIDIVISM. THANK YOU SO MUCH, YOU BACKWARD JERKS.
Joan Rosenfelt
New York

Excellent segment... fyi, Chomsky pointed out long ago that the US is the only Western country that has politicized crime, ie 'Dems are weak on crime'; other countrys view it as a social problem.
As if Dems like crime...

I'm surprised that there has not been more discussion of the Prision Industrial Complex. Encarceration is, after all, like war, a tremendously lucrative enterprise. Much

Doesn't it seem curious that the prison population swell occured in the 60's -- just when the Jim Crow voting laws were repealed?? Just a thought.

Yes, yes EDUCATION. Certainly if these poor chaps read more Cat in the Hat books or read more glossy pamphlets from government agencies lying around doctors' waiting rooms, they wouldn't have broken into homes or murdered.

Maybe it is part of our fear culture:

We have in my life time a war on crime, A war on drugs and now a war on terror. There are now more was to go to jail than there are to stay out of jails match that with the high cost of staying out of jail and you have a no win situation.

Where are these so called prisons where prisoners can watch Cable TV and play ping pong? That doesn't sound torturous at all!

Does your guest think there is there any relationship between the lack of a national health care system and the lack of options for persons with addiction (other than prison).

What percent of inmates are drug related violent crime? Gun crime.. Prostitution....etc.

A notion is that if we treated drug addiction as an illness much earlier in life.... there might be less drug related crime of all sorts...

thank you

dr ores

well the guest just glossed over the solution. EDUCATION

anyway it was reagan who started taking money away from education.

the news stories around the world is always disaffected youth as fodder for jihad.where is the analysis and comment on both the terror of high crime and its root in the variety of domestic dispair ?

Surely there are serious studies out there showing how the economy would be impacted by the decriminalization of low-grade drugs so that 1) law enforcement and the tax-payer money spent on it could be used elsewhere 2) taxpayer money that subsidizes prisons can be spent elsewhere, and 3) non-violent "offenders" (offenders no more as a result of decriminalization--criminalization creates criminals, not the other way around) could keep their jobs and contribute to society instead of leaching off of it et exorbitant costs in prison. Social conservatism and fiscal conservatism should get on the same page here.

How many are put in prison for smoking marijuana?

Maybe, there should be an alternative for folks caught smoking marijuana instead of a prison sentence.

What do you suggest, if you agree?

From the NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/nyregion/27prison.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&pagewanted=print&oref=slo

Gov. George E. Pataki tried to close prisons in New York each fiscal year from 2002 to 2006, but he faced intense pressure from upstate legislators and union leaders, who are already objecting to Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s proposal.

So true Mr. Winslow. This is a very sick and disfunctional society. We have gone astray as they say. We have a constitution that a usurping administration has ignored now for over 7 years and run things like criminals and gangsters (Cheney?) and we claim to be the "best" country in the world where our health services are not much better than some developing countries for a majority of out population and we throw folks into jails for the most minor "offenses" and the big gangsters (Cheney?) and criminally-oriented, constitution breaking, (Bush? inter alia) folks are running things. And we have a media that tows the line in the name of free press. LOL, sadly.

One word: Flogging.

No George Bush killed people.

He killed children and the mentally disabled.

so actually George Bush reduced the prison population.

Well, it's all clearly George Bush's fault.

While some of this is driven by the injustice of crime and the need to punish criminals, these record setting numbers are driven by right wing politics - the prison industrial complex. They want the state money going to security, police, prison guards - people who vote Republican, not teachers, artists, professors and others that tend Democrat. And the Dems get rolled on this issue, too.

What kind of country is this?

So communist China has LESS people in jail then the US.

This is scary and a disgrace.

If 1 in every 100 adults is in jail this means it's that much easier to wind up in jail.

Our society is in such a crisis and no one talks about it.

The Societs probably had less in jail.

So if you lived in a country with a dictator you have a better chance of not being in jail.

The land of the free?