Criminals watching Criminals
In our country, where less than one percent of people are affected by random violent crime each year, 100% of us are being punished, with the loss of huge percentages of our income, via tax money to finance the use of outdated methods of crime prevention. prisons don’t stop crime, they create it by waisting money that could otherwise be used to help people get work, food, and shelter. Imprisoning a needlessly high amount of people at a disgraceful cost per inmate, as exemplified in California, is dumb. As seen with past legislation in CA, funding prison through the cutting of things like education in fact produces “returns” to their communities that are probably helping to produce more crime. One way prison over productivity is promoted is by the unions’ (also by regular companies which own and manage prisons) broad manipulation of governmental support through "lobbying" (which often plays out as being a euphemism for the bribery of public officials). Also through the tax money they have taken and launched commercials with to influence public opinion, or influence who is elected.
The sole goal of those players in the business of prison is to increase their power and subsequent wealth by helping to secure the systems continuing growth and/or maintenance. They have had no incentive to promote, public safety, the rehabilitation of offenders or communities, not to mention our children's education or our own spending of money--or rather the lack thereof. Education funding to them is a deadly rival.
There are better methods for control than prisons. Because of California’s correctional institutions they have had nearly $10,000,000,000.00 less, each year, than what they could have had while prisons used only 4% of that 10 billion on poorly managed rehabilitation and education programs--combined.
Many aspects of the California prison guards manipulation of the system are lacking in subtlety, their overtimes have been tracked surpassing $100,000a year (just in the 6 months from January to June of 2009, their over-time pay outs cost us $154,618,998.30)⑤ with this trend showing an increase in frequency in those soon to retire, thereby inflating their pensions drastically which thus far has allowed their manipulations to benefit them far into retirement, taking extra money from your wallet every single month, year after year, until they die as the well fed public service heroes they were.
Continuing into the recession by July 2007 in the past three years they were tracked getting 6 raises, one every 5 months of an average 4 percent. Maximum salary went up $15,100 to $73,700. Not including overtime. Overtime went up $11.00 (from $41.00to $52.00 per hour). All around they pushed their salary up 26% and more than doubled the cost to us of their overtime from fiscal 2003-04 to 2007-08.
If this cash cow being milked by the CCPOA isn't Lady Justice’s biggest nightmare then companies, you yourself could own, building prisons is. There is nothing wrong with making money where there is honest opportunity. But, throughout the country, these companies have been witnessed attempting to influence law and men, presumably to make sure that their company grows. We may not agree as to exactly when that promoting the growth of a prison company, to increase profit, will be at the detriment of justice and public benefit. , But all should agree that, at some point such an undertaking will become malevolent and harmful. Even once honest money can become entrenched, like a parasite, if allowed to not evolve. Doing things like lobbying for longer sentences, as well as producing public relations campaigns and commercials solely designed for you to believe prisons are progress, and that more are better, are done to take your money by selling you fear. A much better solution for these entities is to find new ways to handle those labeled liabilities to society. The solutions are here, will these prison entities continue fighting them or start working promote answers?
Striving to avoid vacancies while promoting business growth, they generally --like the CCPOA-- treat humans as a commodity for depositing in banks--known as penitentiaries--in order to milk the capital interest that is provided for by a busy and misdirected public. While taking our money with one hand, the other hand directs us to focus apathetically on real criminals and petty bed-fillers alike. The money for nothing, laundered through taxes, rewards a failure to rehabilitate and innovate. This is again breaking what is the first law of economics: Incentive. In fact, without innovation, their only incentives are to not stop crime or help society, in any way. Thank God we have progressed.
Such backward business is dependent upon ignorance. Its growth is dependent upon us believing that what prisons are doing, having done, and fighting for, are all for us. But this fact was kept very quiet as fear campaigns spread and prison populations grew, even as violent crime dropped--even amongst our children.
Among other things, we must ignore what isn’t or is taking place in schools and to schools, as they’re sucked dry of capital. We must ignore what is taking place amongst family members and acquaintances regarding violent crime so that we can feel Okay with what is taking place. And we must continue ignoring reality as whole neighborhoods are sucked dry of social-capital by having their residents inordinately subjected to a predatory police force, etc. It is a travesty to argue, as some do, that we owe our safe lives to them, the prison profiteers. It is not because they were honorable, but because they have been effective scam artists, in an easy con, that the CCPOA grew and gave themselves pay raises, with budget increases, while cities and counties had to brown out fire stations, slash fire and police forces, cut education.
The Great Recession and California’s concomitant deficit hit all except the guards. Basically. we lost $10,000,000,000.00 annually so they could store 168,000 (non-taxpaying) convicts in their bank accounts.
Due to a lack of funds we have lost police, patrol cars, and the ability to test and implement new technologies that can help to prevent and investigate crime. Inevitably, the deficit created by the prison bill equated to not catching all levels of criminals and it still does. This included those whom as of yet aren't in the system, but would have shaped up after a slap on the wrist. As for the rest, at least they would have had a long-lasting red flag affixed to their identities to alert law-enforcement thus allowing them to watch and inspect the convicted more closely.
Now instead, thousands may fly under the radar, many for decades continuing to commit crime. In this case the chance of rehabilitation diminishes to the utmost, as fewer get caught and our society goes bankrupt over punishing others in the most uncreative way since the dark ages. Producing, not reducing, injustice, as some get little or no punishment while others lose their lives. All this so we can keep the already tagged, targeted, and tracked behind bars serving their, one of a kind, historically long prison sentences. It is a product of the prison industry tenaciously holding onto their sure shot meal-ticket regardless of society. The system feeding off of us monetarily while it feeds off of the inmates psychologically. And since money is in fact time spent and therefore lost, stealing both of our lives at once.
A cynic might say that it's the criminals whom should be punished and those involved should milk the naive tax payers in their name. After all, with your tax money you buy psychological peace like a drug, only costing you $1000.00 every 3 years. Pretty cheap as far as addictions are concerned, but they don't sell us peace. They sell fear. And addictive substances are not always the problem, this Corporate-ruled society is the problem and mind altering substances are an escape from it. They can be an escape from the unnatural reality that has been built around us.
As for promoting unjustified fear, some inmates and all tax payers are the actual forgotten victims, This is seen when any (media and/or legislative) reform attempt which threatens the unions cash flow is met by a rushing flood of frightening commercials staring some frustrated and/or often very scared prisoners, engaged in a riot or in beating a troublemaker up who had likely been on the verge of starting a riot. Both instances are events that the prisoners cannot simply run from. These presentations either sound like they are narrated by the deep voice guy used to market horror films, or some notable figure who has either been corrupted, is a closet racist, or is a simple minded and self-righteous vacuum of ignorance. Someone ready not simply to vengefully destroy nearly all--good though wrong at one time--inmates and any loving family members they may have, but also the continuation of robbing from our beautiful state.
Us and our children are being robbed. We were directed toward some scary criminal as parks and schools were closed and they continued reducing first responder hiring, new equipment purchases and manned stations. How much property needlessly burned? How many lives destroyed by what's been lost? Police and, more importantly, first-responders were taken from the streets. How many ambulances were too far from one of the many (now fatal) DUI accidents, heart attack victims or home fires? How many misguided human beings about to commit a crime have been allowed to escape apprehension, prosecution, and there by identification due to the reduced funds caused by a 10 billion dollar bill? Most of that $50,000 X 168,000 a year could have been spent more effectively.
I can imagine there are some misinformed--mildly frustrated--people right now thinking, “there's no corruption, you are corrupt! Not only are nearly all people in prison guilty, but they also are very violent, and not just under certain threatening circumstances, but a scary sort of highly unpredictable violence and criminality. Something that escapes our normal people sort of rational thought. Something inhumanly different. Not humans like us, but animals. They're bad guys just like the ones on the shows I'm entertained by, so screw them!" As anyone will find out that reads on,they are wrong.
It is true that many people stick to the self-righteous cliché “don't do the crime if you can't do the time.” I only will qualify the cliché by saying: we as humans are horrible predictors of the future and how we'll feel about our reactions in the present once we go there. We cannot predict what of the random unpredictable future events we can or can't handle in a positive way. The desperation of the moment often dictates our actions. And if we can't control the present, nor predict the reality of the future, what makes us feel like the 20 year old (homo trium litterarum) convict not just predicted his future but was able to predict his reaction to it? As crazy as it sounds, many and most, at the nations peak incarceration levels, have been regular Americans who have just gone through some irregular life experiences. Though far from all, many simply have had some unlucky circumstances that led them to prison. A majority of them come from underprivileged back grounds, and do not have the skills to adapt to this changing environment.
