At 3:00 this morning, as I waited for officers to walk by my cubicle for a morning census count, I listened to an NPR broadcast reporting on Pesident Obama’s mandate to cut hundreds of millions in wasteful spending from the U.S. budget. That report inspired me to write a few blogs on the need for prison reform.
It really troubles me to read of how massively our nation’s prison population has grown. I feel a sense of duty and a responsibility, a calling, to influence others to support prison reform. I know that Americans do not generally think about imprisonment until it has a direct influence on their life, or happens when someone close to them is arrested. As a long-term prisoner, however, I can think of myriad ways that our dysfunctional prison system afflicts the life of every taxpaying American.
As I continue reading this wonderful book by Professor Joan Petersilia, I’m amazed at the statistical data. In When Prisoners Come Home, I read that our country incarcerated 196,000 people in 1970. Since then the incarceration rate has grown by more than 1,000 percent. the costs for incarcerating so many people have risen to upsetting levels. American taxpayers now spend well more than a billion dollars every week to isolate and punish offenders.
Where do those tax dollars to fund prison expenditures come from? According to the recently released Pew Report, those funds have been redirected from educational funding, health care funding, and funding for other social services. This year I heard news reports that funding was not available for college programs at California State University to the extent necessary; 10,000 university students could not work toward their degree as a consequence.
Prison spending hits every American, and much of it is unnecessary. I have served 22 years in this system, despite my having been ready to make significant contributions to society a decade ago. We need prison reforms to cut this ridiculous program that causes more harm than good to society. I will keep writing about the need for prison reform.
I ran 10 miles this morning, lifting my tally to 1,049 miles over the past 130 consecutive days.
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
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