The Prison System, Black Families and The Recession
The Recession is Good For One Thing: Fixing Some of Our Prisons
One of the most disgusting things about the horrible three strikes law in the state of California is that its biggest sponsor is the California Prison Guards Union. If there were ever a sicker manifestation of America’s tendency toward mass incarceration, that might be it. Human Rights advocates from the United Nations have cited the United States for the manner by which it leaves black and brown people incarcerated, unemployed and uneducated.
The data says that Black Americans are more dramatically affected by mass incarceration than whites. Black men have a seven times greater likelihood of going to prison than whites, and the U.S. actually incarcerates 5.8 times more black men now than South Africa did during the height of Apartheid.
Fortunately, there is at least one reason for black families to feel good about the recent recession. California, a state with a $26 billion budget gap to fill, has decided to release 27,000 of its non-violent offenders early. Normally, I wouldn’t be fighting to see prison inmates released, but when a set of a laws have been so devastating to a community, it’s hard not to cheer.
“It’s unfair to describe it that way,” Matthew Cate, Prison Secretary for the State of California said, referring to early release. “It’s misleading. It makes it sound like we are opening the gates, and that’s just not the case.”
Instead, Cate is doing what should have been done all along: Helping potential inmates find alternatives to prison, like drug rehabilitation and other ways to keep them from being a part of the government payroll for crimes that are not that serious. Mass incarceration destroys families and societies because fathers are taken away from their children, leaving these kids vulnerable to the possibility that they will follow in their fathers’ footsteps.
Also, diseases like HIV/AIDs and other STDs are transmitted throughout the black community because the government has allowed the concept of prison rape to remain a funny joke instead of the serious problem that it is. The first thing a man does when he’s released from prison is find a woman to share his body with, no matter what infections he’s picked up along the way.
One threat to this progress is the idea of prison privatization. If corporations are able to find ways to reliably profit from mass incarceration, then we could be in serious trouble. Many corporations have already found that prison slaves make great cheap labor, and that there are benefits to living in a society that has decided that those who’ve been labeled as social deviants are not worthy of human or civil rights. One very telling aspect of all this is the fact that the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolishes slavery, actually says that slavery is NOT abolished for those who’ve been convicted of a crime. That, my friends, is the real crime in all of this.
I pray that one day our prison policies will be focused on making society better, rather than making it worse. It must start with each of us gaining the compassion to realize that it’s possible to be tough on crime, while still providing opportunity for families that are affected by incarceration.
If we focus on rehabilitating those who make mistakes, reuniting them with their families and giving them incentives to become productive members of society, we will have safer streets and a better version of America.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and the initiator of the National Conversation on Race. He is also the author of the book, “Black American Money.” For more information, please visit BoyceWatkins.com.
