A Glutton for Punishment
by Joey Higgins
Crime and punishment are big business. The incarcerated have become commodities traded between various government and private entities. It costs around $45,000 a year to house one federal inmate. The facility I am in holds around 1200. That’s $54,000,000. So lets multiply that by a 10 year sentence (which is low by fed standards) and it’s easy to see just how absurd these numbers can get. $540,000,000. Over half a billion dollars. This is just an approximate cost to warehouse people in one facility for 10 years. What about all the other federal and state prisons, ICE and costs associated with the entire justice system?
Before I was incarcerated, I was among the majority of Americans who subconsciously followed the “out of sight, out of mind” philosophy. This kind of reasoning is how we robbed Peter to pay Paul to the tune of trillions of dollars in national debt. Social programs get cut so we can funnel more bucks into the military/prison industrial complexes. Whole new industries have been developed around institutional products and services and products to aid in surveillance, capture and incarceration. Capitalism in its finest. Don’t worry, other countries do the same thing.
The United States now has over 250 years of experience propagandizing the cycle of declaring war on something and then throwing money at it, hoping the reaction can somehow be spun into a success story, regardless of the costs. A good old fashioned lie.
Our representative democracy in no extra fault of its own has detached and disengaged us, allowing the elite few to govern over the many. We have created disposable classes of people with greed fueled production and consumption of obsolescence.
Even though I’m locked up, I still see the TV screens. Never before have I seen so much programming related to law enforcement, literally programming and conditioning us that cops are cool and to expect and accept that the ends will always justify the means in the pursuit of so-called justice. desensitized when it is directed toward anyone other than ourselves. Humans are gluttons for punishment. Those who have yet to experience incarceration or have no experience working within the punishment bureaucracy have no idea what its like or how ass-backwards it all really is.
Serve and Protect, Correctional Excellence, Respect, Courage, Integrity. These are just words used to confuse us of the real intentions of authority, to bamboozle us into believing that it holds itself to a higher standard when perpetuation of itself is its highest standard. Protect concentrated power at all costs. So, who exactly is serving and protecting who when it’s mostly the low hanging fruit that falls victim to the wrath of the punishment bureaucracy? Authoritarians would say “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time”. The time can be the difference of decades on similar offenses between state and federal courts, even for first time offenders without any actual victim, except for butthurt cops.
If I had known at the time then, I sure as shit wouldn’t have done the crime or at least made preventative measure to lessen the consequences. Most people don’t study this stuff until its already too late. After all, we elect “leaders” to do the heavy lifting for us. We are taught that the United States is the most best, most just, most fair, and most badass nation on Earth. We shouldn’t rule out room for improvement. Most federal cases never go to trial because the defendant is told that if it were then the punishment would be more severe. Imagine that. Sounds like retaliation to me for making the system do what it’s supposed to do. Maybe every case should go to trial and argued with logic and reason, rather than emotion, which is the stuff that laws are made of. Every time a tragedy takes place or a talking-head gets on a high horse with “tough on crime” rhetoric, emotions run hot and hellbent for revenge, mostly from blow-hard politicians, cops and various “experts” who are nothing more than propagandists. Use of reasoning gets pushed down and no one wants to be public, but from other politicians, “experts” and news media. Occasionally authority will throw one of its own to the wolves to look like its holding accountability, but the vast majority of soft-on-crime cases are within the government itself. Why is it that the average person can get prison time for throwing a pack of smokes over a prison fence, but a correctional officer hauls in a carton of cigarettes and maybe sometimes get fired? Sounds fair. Doesn’t it? What about a governor or president who pardons his buddies, while the rest of us rot in prison? Sounds totally fair. Absolutely!!! If it wasn’t for the uniform, it sometimes would be impossible to tell the difference between officer and inmate.
Throughout our macho man toxic male dominated society, caring is “bitch” or “pussy” or “fag”. Compassion is considered feminine and weak. Prison is full of this garbage. Concentrating white supremacists, brown, black, whatever who have been ingrained with violent culture for generations just gives them power. Something that the punishment bureaucracy is afraid of and sometimes in cahoots with.
The question of what to do about all this is not an easy answer, but chances are we are headed into a dystopian future. By definition, authority and liberty are contradictory. Balancing social and infrastructure obligations with individual liberties is complicated. Balancing a budget is hella impossible for an entity that demands that everyone else balance theirs. Sounds fair? Better believe it!
It might start to sound like I have a problem with authority and you would guessed correctly. I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t and thankfully I’m not alone.
Something has to give. Jails and prisons are over capacity and in serious disrepair. Sentencing, at least on the federal level, is ridiculous and programs for reduction are worthless when a great number of people are ineligible because of carve-outs.
There has to be a more humane and effective method(s) of rehabilitation and alternatives to incarceration.
Because the truth is that there will always be adults who are attracted to young people. There will always be someone who wants to get high and someone to supply them. People will continue to rip people off and rape and kill and walk across the street when they’re not supposed to. Until we can figure out how to convince people not to do these things and figure out how we can repair them, we will never repair our so-called justice system. Crime isn’t going away, but what we call “crime” and what we can do about it can change.
Joey Higgins 96230509
FCI Texarkana
PO Box 7000
Texarkana, TX 75505
Mongoose Distro 