December 9
GUEST: Brian Robinson, criminal justice reform activist, CEO of Equitable Future Inc, and member of the End the New Jim Crow Action Network (ENJAN), discusses decarceration on the local and state levels.
Coalition takes on mass incarceration
There are all the logical reasons why a society like ours should put fewer people in jail. Our incarceration rate is off the charts when it come to the rest of the world. Over half of those in prison do not present a danger to our society. They may need help ending an addiction or remediating the effects of a mental illness. Prison is just a very expensive waste of taxpayer dollars.
Looked at through another lens, however, our prison system is much worse. A disproportionate number of our prisoners are poor and people of color. Imprisonment is therefore a product of racism and class devision. In a way, our prison system reflects what we as a nation do with our soldiers abroad. Incarceration is the necessary ally of empire.
But once enough people start to realize the changes that must be made, eager politicians pull out the race card. Suddenly crime is again a problem of the poor rather than a problem of the rich. And Blacks, being the bottom caste of our social system, must pay the worst price. Will young, Black men ever stop ending up in jail?
There is no justice in empire. Nor was there very much justice during slavery or during Jim Crow. There was no justice to the native peoples who were driven from their land and slaughtered. These United States created a nation on a different model. And our legacy continues as the millions killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the innocent victims who were tortured for 20 years in Guantanamo.
"If you love your Uncle Sam, bring them home." - Pete Seeger
