Friday, July 31, 2015

Incarceration: some questions

Prisons, death row, prison revolts. All of these issues were what I never wanted to read about , hear about and think about. Those indefatigable souls who defended and investigated were off in the ether to me. I have had so much on my plate here outside of jails and prisons to think about and contribute to.

Now, however, thinking about this new Obama initiative to allow prisoners to be able to have access to Pell grants and college, and thinking about the Chicago prison warden who is totally addressing the issues of mental illness in prisons, I am drawn to thinking hard about these things.

We have way too many people in prison in this country, and a high proportion of them are people of color. A high proportion of prisoners are there because of drug offenses and other low level crimes. Many others have serious mental illness, not really addressed in prison.

It seems brilliant to me that we should give prisoners a chance at college. Pragmatically, it will give these folks a shot at success in the world and they will not be tied to the safety net when they emerge from incarceration. This will save us taxpayers so  much. And it is the right thing to do.

It troubles me that most of our conservative representatives in Congress have a negative knee jerk response to anything pragmatic and humanly inclusive. Seems mean spirited to me that those folks in congress always vote against anything that could possibly help folks (especially people of color) and the future of our country. It sometimes seems to me that these conservative GOP folks have never had the opportunity to see real poor people, or Black people, or people who are desperate for health insurance and scratching for everything they can. They are short sighted and ignorant.

So, when our Congress, State and National, meet, they mostly have no idea of what matters to the real people. They don't get it that so many of our citizens are incarcerated in prisons across the land.
And they completely dis anyone who is in prison.





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