The mental and emotion trauma that one experiences cannot really be explained. It's second only to the physical abuse one is forced to overcome. I feel that the way the authority's treat you is just as bad as the fellow inmates. It's tough not to believe that you really are the piece of shit that they all believe you are. I was lucky. I had a wife that loved me, and stood by me. Allowing that anchor I need to hold me in reality, and to remind me that the world I was in, wasn't the real world. It gave me the pride to know that I was not like the rest of them. That I could hold my head up. That was, until she left.
When my wife left me, I had to re-evaluate my situation. Maybe I am a bad person. Maybe I deserve this. You can't help thinking these thoughts. Especially with the manner of viciousness and spite that my wife left. I still struggle with it today. I have a hard time being in large groups. I am quick to irritation. It's hard for me to enjoy myself outside of the house. I am always paranoid. I am always waiting for someone to come and take everything away again. I believe that I deserve it. I can't find a decent job. And after the one person who was supposed to love, and stand beside me for the rest of my life so ruthlessly destroyed what was left of it, I believe that I am a bad person.
I am not telling you this to get sympathy, or for you to pity me. I would like to educate people on some of the aspects of society that we have created. You see, I believe that we take good people in this country, and when they make a mistake, we put them in a place where they have to become bad people in order to survive. When you get locked up, you had better learn to do what you gotta do, and you had better learn it quick. By the time it is all over, you have now become a man that you can no longer be proud of, and you learn that the only people that understand you are people you never wanted to be associated with in the first place. This is reinforced by the way your family and friends treat you. By the way perspective employers treat you. By the way your P.O. treats ya. Some of it, in fact I'd bet that most of it, is unintentional. People don't realize that what happened to me, can happen to any one of you. So they look at me, and treat me differently, and I notice it. I don't like it.
I was driving 37 miles an hour around a corner when my truck tipped over and slid into someones yard. I knocked over some trash cans and caused an elderly woman to fall over, which in turn caused her to fracture a rib, and a laceration to her head. No one was permanently injured. (Thank God) Two private investigators, and the investigators of the Multnomah County Sheriff's office all testified that they had no idea how this accident happened, and that it was due to vehicle malfunction. Before this accident, I had a perfect driving record. Yes I had been drinking the night before, and I should not have gotten in that truck. That was stupid, stupid mistake. A terrible error in judgement. However, this accident would have happened had I been drinking or not. I hadn't realized the truck was in that bad of shape. I had just gotten it out of the shop, and both me and the mechanic had missed the suspension issues.
For this, I was forced to give up everything good that I had in my life. Everything I owned or loved was stripped from me. I was humiliated repeatedly, on a daily basis. I was physically, mentally, and emotionally abused, and now walk with a limp that I will probably have for the rest of my life. I am scorned, and scrutinized, even by some of the people who are supposed to be on my side. I am monitored, and know that there are people just waiting for me to screw up so they can lock me right back up. Worst of all, I actually believe now that I am a bad person. That this is what I probably deserve at some level. When you feel like that, it is very difficult to rise above it, although I continue to try.
What I challenge from you all, is to think about where we as a people are heading in our society. Are we going to continue to lock up good people for making bad choices, which in the end only produce bad people. We are locking up our fathers, and sons for a drunken bar fight. Not just for a few hours to cool off, but for 70 months. When these men get out, they really are something to be concerned with. Where, if we had just dumped a bucket of ice water on them, the whole situation could have been de-fused. We are no longer a nation of justice, of right or wrong, but a nation of winning and losing. Where the almighty dollar is in whom we trust. If you've got money, you can probably stay out of jail, but if you don't, then walk gently and in fear, because if you get caught making a mistake, it will cost you everything.
We keep locking up these people, expecting to solve the problem. However when most of these men are released, they have nothing on the outside for them. So inevitably they end up turning to drugs, and alcohol, which in turn leads to something stupid happening again. So what do we do? We lock them up again. Well if that didn't work the first time, then rinse and repeat till it does. What was it they say about the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Isn't that what we as a country are doing right now? Now with just the prison system, but with the War on Drugs, our Education Platform, the War on Terror, Social Security, Welfare, Public Medical, and Dental, Big Corporate Business, Kick backs, and Bailouts, ect. ect. ect. The list just goes on and on.
~Here's a few facts and quotes I found for you to think about.~
- 7.2 million Americans were either on parole, probation or incarcerated at the end of 2006. That's roughly 1 out of every 31 adults.
- The U.S. has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world. We have more people locked up then some countries have people.
- Approximately one in every eighteen men in the U.S. are either behind bars or are being monitored in some form.
- A 2002 study survey showed that among the 275,000 prisoners that were released in 1994, 67.5% were rearrested, and 51.8% were back in prison before they were out three years.
- The U.S. spends 6 times more on Corrections then it does on Education.
- In 2008 the U.S. spent 49 Billion dollars on Corrections.
- It is estimated that 1 in 9 state government employees works in corrections.
~Another Quote~
"High rates of incarceration may be due to sentence length for crimes such as theft and drug possession. Repeat offenders may not be properly handled due to a lack of focus on rehabilitation. Shorter sentences may even diminish the criminal culture by possibly reducing re-arrest rates for first-time convicts. The U.S. Congress has ordered that federal judges make imprisonment decisions "recognizing that imprisonment is not an appropriate means of promoting correction and rehabilitation."
Critics have lambasted the United States for incarcerating a large number of non-violent and victimless offenders; half of all persons incarcerated under state jurisdiction are for non-violent offenses, and 20% are incarcerated for drug offenses (in State prisons, Federal prison percentages are higher). "Human Rights Watch believes the extraordinary rate of incarceration in the United States wreaks havoc on individuals, families and communities, and saps the strength of the nation as a whole." The population of inmates housed in prisons and jails in the United States exceeds 2 million, with the per capita incarceration population higher than that officially reported by any other country. Because of its size and influence, the U.S. prison industry may be referred to as the prison-industrial complex. Criminal justice policy in the United States has also been criticized for a number of other reasons." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
Just a few thoughts for you to stick in you pipe and smoke. I am not saying that I have the answers to correct the problem, just that I know first hand that there is a problem. I would like for people to start listening to the ones who do have answers. Instead of the right wing extremest, with the biggest soap box to stand on
Just Saying,
~SB~
: References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
http://rinf.com/alt-news/contributions/general/us-spends-6-times-more-on-prisons-than-education/2600/
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/05/incarceration_r.html
http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35455
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