Archive for December 17th, 2007

      The government works diligently to develop and grow a class of second class citizens. A recent 60 Minutes article discussed the profusion of jails and prisons throughout the country. As the moderator stated, at the rate of this current expansion, within a few decades every one of our country’s citizens will either be working for the prison system or be a guest in one of it’s facilities. The cost of supporting the penal system, together with related agencies like the probation department, has surpassed the cost of our health and welfare departments in most states. In California it has been the largest state budgetary item for decades.
     A look at the make up of our prison population discloses a very high percentage of drug offenders across the land. A large percentage of these offenders’ crimes are not violent in nature, nor are these inmates distributors of drugs. They are the users of these products, and a high percentage of these users are in jail for pot related offences. Another class of “criminals” are those found guilty of alcohol related offences. Of course anyone convicted of driving a lethal weapon (read auto) while under the influence of drugs or alcohol deserves a stiff penalty. However, incarceration doesn’t seem to be much of a deterrent.
     I don’t think the citizens of this country are inherently any worse or of  a diminished moral character when compared to the citizens in other countries around the globe. If a look at prison statistics were a true reflection of the moral fiber of our people we definitely stand out as the bad boys and girls of the planet. Perhaps we need to redefine what it means to be a criminal in this country. As a result of taking a look at the makeup of our inmate population maybe we could put those resources necessary to support this outmoded model of criminality to much better use. We could put the 50K to 75K per year for jailers into productive endeavors like alternative energy solutions or solving global warming. After all, as the world’s largest contributor to green house gases, we owe it to the world’s future generations to solve real problems with our planet’s  resources, not waste them on fruitless pursuits like jailing non violent citizens.
  Bob Parmelee,  Parmsplace.com