I just read this today, about how a prison sentence for deaf and hard-of-hearing prisoners can easily become a sentence of solitary confinement, partly due to a lack of resources and partly due to fear that sign language can be used for secret plans:
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/09/19/why-many-deaf-prisoners-can-t-call-home?utm_content=bufferf88c8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Remember that calls are already grossly overpriced for prisoners without disabilities affecting speech or hearing.
I imagine that there is a feeling that it is fine to make a profit off of the inmates, because as inmates they have committed crimes and troubled society and it's just payback. That's why jokes about prison rape are so common, with some people assuming that this happens to rapists and child molesters and that this is justice.
Given how many rapists never do any jail time, that form of punishment would be far too random to be justice anyway. However, a lot of prison rapes do happen. Let's take a closer look at that.
For staff-on-inmate sexual victimization, 67% of the victims were women, even though they represented only 13% of the prison population.
https://www.salon.com/2017/11/11/86-percent-of-women-in-jail-are-sexual-violence-survivors/
(Also worth thinking about that 86% of the women in prison are sexual violence survivors.)
From a California study, 67% of LGBTQ inmates report being assaulted while in prison.
Now, if we are looking at guards on inmates, greater victimization of women, and greater victimization of LGBTQ, that looks like abuse continues to be more likely to be afflicted on the marginalized, making it much like the outside world -- I can assert my dominance by hurting you.
It is not really surprising that those pathologies are perpetuated on the inside, but this seems like a good time to also remember how people end up in prison, like drug laws that were racially biased in both how sentences were decided (sentences on "crack" versus other types of cocaine) and where drug raids happened and who was searched.
This leads us to another fun fact: on any given day, 62% of inmates have not been convicted of any crime:
https://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2015/02/26/report-60-percent-of-jail-inmates-unconvicted/
Crowded dockets where the right to a speedy trial becomes a joke is a part of that problem, but an even bigger problem is the lack of bail funds. You can't get out if you can't pay.
Of course you can argue about the need for bail with non-violent crimes, but is there a bigger issue with why so many people can't afford bail? There might be, if police specifically target poor communities for minor infractions that can be hard to fight if you are overworked and underpaid.
Information on for-profit policing often focuses on asset forfeiture, which is a problem, but a police force supporting itself on fines, and focusing on the part of the population that does not have the resources to fight unfair charges has been an issue for many communities, largely written about after Michael Brown's death in Ferguson.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/06/us/ferguson-missouri-racism-tickets-fines/index.html
If society doesn't care about you, it is much easier to end up in prison. You can be cared about even less there, which makes you a financial opportunity. That in turn can affect how people value you, like when the prisons are more dangerous due to overcrowding, but no one wants to lower the inmate population because it can affect firefighter availability:
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/08/19/prisoners-who-fight-wildfires-in-california-an-insider-s-look
But wait! Maybe a lot of people are in prison now because of drugs, and maybe they shouldn't be there, but now that the opioid crisis is affecting white people and we are being more compassionate, shouldn't that get better?
https://www.revealnews.org/article/they-thought-they-were-going-to-rehab-they-ended-up-in-chicken-plants/
https://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/work-therapy-how-the-salvation-armys-chain-of-rehab-centers-exploit-unpaid-labor/
Maybe not. Once you start realizing that you can profit off of the people you dehumanize, you keep needing a wider base, because you always need more profits. Of course, the opioid crisis has made some big bucks for people too:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain
I know, it's a lot of links, but there is a lot to say on this. There is a lot, and it flies against existing beliefs that are very comfortable, and I don't feel like I can manage to be coherent on this. Not only is it very emotional for me, but also it is this vicious cycle going around and around that is very demoralizing.
I will try to treat the demoralizing part over the next post or two, but for now, can anyone who truly believes in the New Testament, who truly wishes to follow Christ and end up on his right-hand side instead of his left when that separation happens -- not dividing sheep and goats, but dividing those who know Him and those who don't -- can you truly support this current structure?
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