Soup McGee
Professor KnowsHisShit
Soc. 321
5/10/14
Fifth, not extra
Reading
Response Five
Why
does Western think that the high rate of imprisonment stalls the economic
health of the nation?
When
Western wrote this in 2009, black American men were eight times more likely to
end up in prison than white American men. What that rate is now, I did not find
with a passing search. However, in ‘The New Jim Crow,’ written three years
later, Michelle Alexander shares that ‘nearly one-third of black men are likely to spend time in
prison at some point, only to find they [have fallen] into permanent
second-class citizenship after they get out.’ Among the numbers he does cite,
‘of black men born in the sixties with no more than a high school
diploma, 30% spent time in prison,’ and ‘60% of (black men who are) high school
dropouts have a prison record’ is particularly concerning.
Bruce Western’s essay could easily serve as an
intro to the topic for those less familiar than I—which I am sure is the point.
What it provides for me is an opportunity to look even deeper into the
reasoning behind my own social exclusion. For example, I wonder how many people
in my class who have not had an interdependent relationship with someone
involved with the criminal justice system will read the essay without
dismissing it, because, after all, ‘do the crime, do the time.’ And, ‘they made
their bed, they can lie in it.’ Or even, ‘they broke the social contract and so
are rightfully barred from entirely re-integrating.’ I should not leave out:
‘People can’t change; rehabilitation is a disproven theory.” Yeah. REALLY not a
fan of that argument. ‘The Confederate
Flag isn’t a symbol of oppression and secession, either,’ is usually not far
behind.
I took note of Western’s point that about the
assumption of rehabilitation never sailing in the South. The mere idea that
there is ‘an innate moral equality’ in all men should, in a country founded on
the idea that each person’s creator made them equal with all of humanity, not
be a thinking distortion. Yet, here we are.
The
Prosperity Gospel rings a nasty bell in my head; upon reading about the ‘rigorous
programs of work and isolation’ prisons were designed to provide, I vomited a
little. I spent many hours working my ass off to ‘prove’ that it wasn’t my work
ethic that was wrong with me. As if most everyone since I was fourteen who has
come into contact with me and knows of my status hasn’t acted in one way or
another as if I was just plain old defective. That originally prisons were to
be a ‘democratic way’ to “remedy the moral defects of criminal offenders” reads
as new to me but feels as old as the pitch on my sandals. If the initial idea
of the penal system truly was to ‘rescue the citizenship of the unfortunate,
the poor, and the deviant,” democracy in America truly is boiling away, given
where we stand today.
Personally speaking, ‘former inmates are
generally poorly prepared for the routines of steady employment’ is so true it
hurts. Literally, it hurts my pride and dignity, both. Luckily, I am not barred
from food stamps, as many former offenders are, but I am dependent on them
because of my status. Also, Western hurts me personally, to read: ‘inmates are
ultimately released with few resources to lead productive lives,’ and ‘profound
social exclusion that significantly rolls back the gains to citizenship hard
won by the civil rights movement.’—leads to ‘diminished rates of employment and
marriage—again, with the vomit.
I am indeed, though
not a minority of color, ‘hidden’ and ‘erased by conventional measures’ of
success in American society. I fall into the new ‘caste’ created by policies
reacting to the Civil Rights Movement, a caste created with the intent of
making certain that ‘class inequalities in imprisonment increased as the
economic status of less-educated men decreased.’ I think, anyways.
Less education means
less economic opportunity means more inequality means a worse economy for
everyone. As Western says, ‘the penal
system assumed new responsibilities for public health, delivering treatment to
a large scale for mental illness, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and hepatitis C.’ How
could this NOT negatively impact everyone (except the 0.01%)?
“The
incarceration rates disproportionately impact men of color: 1 in every 15 African American men and 1 in every 36
Hispanic men are incarcerated in comparison to 1 in every 106 white men.”
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