Friday, February 8, 2013

Incarceration, Fear, the Future

Lately I have been dreaming of living in a more equal world. There was something about the New Orleans reality that spoke to me, because I firmly believe that when one person is imprisoned, we all are. And in New Orleans, the dire affects of such an unequal and racist capitalist society are incredibly obvious. I know it seems trite. i know that i could sit here and say people choose their actions. and yes. that is true. But also, we don't. When you are told you are worthless, or won't amount to much, when you are incarcerated, or not taught in schools, or caught in the pipeline from schools to prison. What do you think is going to happen?  Racism and Sexism explain these things. I wanted to live somewhere where it couldn't be ignored. That it is very real and very unsustainable for ourselves, no matter how much we may benefit from our race and class privilege. In the end, none of us benefit because we live in fear and lose our loved ones. All of us.

Is it like this because we had to balance out slavery with another form of slavery? There are more black men in prison than were enslaved in 1850. We have to learn from history because we are doomed to repeat it.

But, I don't want to debate that. I want to point out that it isn't like this in other countries. I live in the state in the country that has the highest incarceration rate in the world. I have seen how it tears apart communities and lives. How it destroys any sort of reprieve from violence in our lives and our hearts. How it is tearing me apart.

In relation to the world we are above, Rwanda, Cuba, and Russia. Talk about freedom, huh!
"According to the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College London, the U.S. currently has the largest documented prison population in the world, both in absolute and proportional terms. We've got roughly 2.03 million people behind bars, or 701 per 100,000 population. China has the second-largest number of prisoners (1.51 million, for a rate of 117 per 100,000), and Russia has the second-highest rate (606 per 100,000, for a total of 865,000). Russia had the highest rate for years, but has released hundreds of thousands of prisoners since 1998; meanwhile the U.S. prison population has grown by even more. Rounding out the top ten, with rates from 554 to 437, are Belarus, Bermuda (UK), Kazakhstan, the Virgin Islands (U.S.), the Cayman Islands (UK), Turkmenistan, Belize, and Suriname, which you'll have to agree puts America in interesting company. South Africa, a longtime star performer on the list, has dropped to 15th place (402) since the dismantling of apartheid.  - http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2494/does-the-united-states-lead-the-world-in-prison-population"
I'm also going to post a link to the Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate . So you can look at the statistics yourself.

The point is, while the world changed in the 80s and 90s. Downfall of apartheid and communism, and more importantly Dictatorships, but we went the other way. While America's politicians talked about freedom, we waged war on ourselves. And people stood by and watched it happen. Our parents sold us out to china. To prison. To a future that lacks not only economic security, environmental security, but even autonomy and freedom.

This is something I've been trying to find in myself. What the fall is that we are experiencing. For the sake of security, out parents took more than was their share. We don't have it anymore. Now what do i do?

I think i might move to Maine. I'd like to move to Denmark.



 Rank
Jurisdiction Prisoners per
100,000 population
- United States 504
1 Louisiana 853
2 Mississippi 735
3 Oklahoma 661
4 Texas 639
5 Alabama 634
6 Arizona 567
7 Florida 557
8 Georgia 540
9 South Carolina 519
10 Arkansas 511
11 Missouri 509
12 Kentucky 492
13 Virginia 489
14 Michigan 488
15 Nevada 486
16 Idaho 474
17 California 467
18 Colorado 467
19 Delaware 463
20 Ohio 449
21 Indiana 442
22 Tennessee 436
23 Alaska 430
24 South Dakota 412
25 Connecticut 407
26 Maryland 403
27 Pennsylvania 393
28 Wyoming 387
29 Wisconsin 374
30 Oregon 371
31 Montana 368
32 North Carolina 368
33 Illinois 351
34 Hawaii 332
35 West Virginia 331
36 New Mexico 316
37 New York 307
38 Kansas 303
39 New Jersey 298
40 Iowa 291
41 Washington 272
42 Vermont 260
43 Nebraska 247
44 Rhode Island 240
45 Utah 232
46 North Dakota 225
47 New Hampshire 220
48 Massachusetts 218
49 Minnesota 179
50 Maine 151