Spending on imprisonment wasted: a rehabilitation proposal

As I sit isolated in an IMU control unit cell, separated from the inside prison population and the outside world, I am trying to analyze the social and political madness of Washington state judicial and correctional agencies. The disenfranchising of whole communities and races of people.

In Washington King county African Americans make up only 5.4% of the general population but are 35% of the country’s prison population, they account for 37% of the 173 felons sentenced under the 3 strikes law. For every 100,000 people in the state of Washington, 161 European Americans are incarcerated, compared to 1,392 African Americans.(1) This policy is depriving the urban minority community of one of its most precious assets, Black and Latin men, women and youth, becoming one of Washington's prize commodities. And now Washington leads the nation with the highest unemployment rate, and suffering from massive budget cuts.

Over the last 10 years Washington state has tripled spending on prison industries. All the time neglecting needed education and transportation expansion, i.e. road repairs and new freeways. Teachers are striking because of low pay, big corporations are relocating because of taxes and traffic commuting problems that have been an issue for years, plus down sizing and hiring for lower wages. But the DOC budget spending has increased three fold. Since the passing of senate bill 2010, the DOC has made massive upgrades in high tech construction to all its prison facilities, increased hiring of staff, acquisition of new equipment, and construction materials, all in the name of security.

Inmates are deducted 35% of any money earned or received, 20% is for cost of corrections, 10% goes into mandatory savings fund controlled by the DOC and 5% to a crime victims compensation fund that is actually used to fund DOC victims notification and awareness programs. And another 20% in LFO legal financial obligation such as to pay off any victims restitution, child support, trial costs, any fines acquired during incarceration or any court ordered financial obligations.

What is not being spoken of is the interest the DOC receives on that money in its treasury account. The vast amount of that money is being used by the DOC to upgrade its facilities and pay employees. Since 1998 all DOC facilities have seen budget increases to upgrade with high tech computers, cameras, security reinforcement, construction, weapons and new vehicles.

New institutions have been built such as Stafford Creek Corr. For every year which an inmate spends in prison it costs tax payers $22,000. This rises as the prisoner ages. The cost of a life term averages $1.5 million.(2) So at the cost of $22,000 a year, what is an inmate to do. Since 1996 the DOC has cut most of its education and vocational programs, with reductions of other positive effective training programs. Lifers, long and short term prisoners are learning no meaningful job skills in the technology or labor field to be marketed. Yes there is a DOC industries program employing just 300 prisoners at minimum wage by class industries.

The state is spending millions on its prison industries bureaucracy, squandering tax payer money, money that could be used for educational programs, literacy, and vocational training. It only serves the purpose of cheap labor for big corporations and private enterprises.

Here's a logical idea, one that will have a lot of logistics but is possible. Cuban president Fidel Castro has offered anyone with a high school diploma up to 500 students per year free medical training who can not afford it, with the agreement that they will return to the u.s. to practice in underserved urban centers, rural communities, and or Native American reservations, also third world nations. By 1983 between 7 and 13 percent of all Cuban doctors had completed internationalist missions. In April 2000 Cuban health minister Carlos Dotres said that more than 42,000 Cuban health professionals have worked in 93 countries since the Cuban revolution triumphed.(3)

Why can't this country, the superpower of the globe, take its confined men and women locked away in its corrections for profit system, inmates serving between 10 years to life sentences, train them in medical, engineering, construction and agriculture fields. This plan could be in effect in five years to help to rebuild impoverished nations. Yes service is needed in our own urban communities. But what better way to rehabilitate men and women by letting them help people who are dying in other countries plus receiving useful training and skills, also working with victims of governmental, corporate and environmental crimes in third world countries.

Healthy capable well bodied men and women are wasting away in Americas prisons sitting idle and unproductive. Yes there are inmate work programs in this country. Slave labor. But these people could be of service doing more meaningful work around the world to pay back their debts to society and its victims. Why let the tax payers pay $22,000 a year or a life term averages around $1.5 million per inmate when that money could be used in the needed communities.

True, some victims can never be given their life back or be compensated, but people in this program can help to save and build other lives that need help now who are dying of hunger, thirst and poverty in other countries. The opinion of third world countries about America's foreign policies would really change to be more positive with the implementation of such a program. This would be a good plan for law makers to work on.

Notes:

  1. Justice Passage, uncovering racism in the Criminal justice system 2002
  2. Center for juvenile and criminal justice
  3. OFF summer 2002, ed.

--a prisoner in WA, September 2002

MIM responds: This prisoner has proposed a plan for rehabilitating prisoners that would both serve the prisoners with education and training and provide services to people in need. But unfortunately the Amerikan government would never consider implementing this program precisely because it would do these things. Prisons in Amerika are a tool for social control. Not a tool for rehabilitation. And, as the prisoner points out, people are dying in other countries at the hands of Amerikan imperialism. Amerika has no desire to change the conditions in Third World countries: they serve a pools of cheap labor and free resources, dumping grounds for environmental waste, and launching pads for military invasions. Amerika's foreign policy is designed to maintain a system of global hegemony.

This is why MIM is a communist party. We fight for a world without oppression of groups of people over other groups of people. As an example we look to China under Mao (1949-1976) where they implemented a system of criminal justice which truly worked to rehabilitate, educate and train prisoners to be productive members of society. MIM recommends the book Prisoners of Liberation, by two Amerikans who were imprisoned in China, for a detailed description of the changes possible under communist justice.


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