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“AMERICA’S CULTURE OF INCARCERATION – PART 6 – STACKING THE DECK AGAINST FELONS”

On By Tony CassonIn AMERICA’S CULTURE OF INCARCERATION1 Comment

By Tony Casson

“Now, however, it is time to forgive and comfort him. Otherwise he may be overcome by discouragement.” 2 Corinthians 2:7 NLT

“It is admirable to extend a hand to someone who has fallen and offer to help him up. The gesture lacks sincerity when made while standing on that person’s chest.”   Tony Casson

I pointed out in an earlier article that over 730,000 men and women are released from prison each year. So what becomes of those who have finally crossed the fine line that separates the total dependency of the prison environment from the independence found in the freedom that has awaited them for 5, 10, 20 – or even more years?

Should society care? What about business? Should politicians care? Most importantly, should you care? The collective view of society seems to be that ex-felons should get no breaks; it is the problem of the individual; he or she got themselves into the situation they are now facing.

It should be obvious to all of us by now that it is in the best financial interest of many businesses and individuals to actually anticipate the failure of those leaving prison. Failure and a return to prison contribute to the pressure being kept on the entire system to expand, thus ensuring greater profits. At the very least, a high failure – or recidivism – rate guarantees that the prisons we do have remain full. These same businesses are all owned or run by the cronies of the politicians. Millions of dollars are lavished upon these men and women by lobbyists whose sole objective is to push this nation’s status as the number one jailer in the world even higher. This places all of them at distinct odds with the concept of aggressively working towards a solution to reducing the rate at which men and women fail at freedom and return to the life that they had been conditioned to; a life of control, security and monitoring.

On the other hand, you should care because the cost of this political cronyism and corporate greed is borne by you. You should care because individuals who have been welcomed back into society and assisted, supported and encouraged will pose far less of a danger to society as a whole. You should care because the money that is wasted on this intentionally cultivated cycle of failure is money that could be put to better, more productive use.

The uphill climb for someone recently released from prison is daunting to even the most resourceful and determined individuals. Many people leave prison with medical and dental problems that have been ignored for years. While health and dental care in prison may be “free,” any notion that anything but the most immediate critical cases are dealt with must be dispelled. Avoidance is priority number one and only those cases that cannot be ignored are addressed. And you can forget about preventative medicine. If it exists at all, it is only on paper. For many people, this means they are in immediate need of assistance when they exit prison. For many, not only are they broken spiritually and emotionally, but physically as well. This is odd when you consider that many of these problems that will now be fixed at the expense of various public programs could have been taken care of while they were in an environment that had a full medical staff that was already paid for.

Most individuals are released to some sort of supervision through a parole or probation department, many of which are stretched to their limits financially and physically. This dramatically hinders any ability to really spend time getting to know how best to help each individual successfully deal with the many obstacles presented as they try to reintegrate back into a life of productive freedom. Many who supervise those who are released merely move those they are responsible for through a prescribed regimen of drug programs and testing, group therapy and other costly and questionably productive steps. These may look good on paper but they do little to actually help with the simple of act of living – having food to eat, clothes to wear or a place to sleep that is warm and dry.

Participation in programs that are usually accompanied by some sort of out-of-pocket expense only adds to the difficulty of re-entry. Court ordered back child support, fines and restitution that have remained dormant through years – even decades – of incarceration suddenly come due. All of these things are viewed as important to an individual’s ability to demonstrate that he or she is a responsible citizen. However, educational skills which were most likely weak to begin with did not improve in prison and in many cases were diminished by the environment itself. Job skills they may have possessed also have lain dormant or even been rendered obsolete.

People leaving prison are given little in the way of clothing and are then expected to go out and secure employment, all the while lacking the ability to make a good first impression. They are provided with little in the way of direction or assistance and many of them feel lost, hopeless and defeated before they ever get a chance.

These are all things that stack the deck against many who do not want to go back to prison. But the degree of difficulty presented by even simple things like interacting professionally with a prospective employer are almost impossible for someone who has languished in prison for years doing little more than playing cards, watching TV and working out because that part of the system failed them.

So now, in many cases, individuals were failed as children, were failed in prison and are about to be failed again because of a system that is designed so that only the exceptional succeed.

Leaving prison, for many, is more about how quickly prison life has prepared them to fail and return as opposed to how it had prepared them to take control of their lives and live productively in order that they never return. For many people, the fact that bad behavior is punished with a loss of freedom is a lesson learned. But where the system fails is in making the return from prison overly difficult.

Since the system failed to make personal growth, education and improvement a priority while it had control over people’s lives 24/7, how then can we expect them to re-enter society and perform like someone who has never been to prison? The roadblocks, restrictions and court-ordered payments, fines and restitution can often combine to overwhelm and defeat many well-intentioned people.

I am not suggesting that financial obligations be forgiven completely. But people in the “free world” who make bad decisions can often find assistance in order that they may keep a roof over their heads, maintain transportation for employment and keep food on the table. So, too, assistance should be provided for someone who has made bad choices and wound up in prison. In most cases, the cost of a return to a life of criminal activity and prison is far greater to society than forgiveness or a moratorium on certain financial obligations that will not be paid at all if the person returns to prison.

Many other things stack the deck against a person leaving prison including the disdain with which felons are often viewed; finding a job and obtaining housing can be difficult; in many states a former felon’s right to vote may never be reinstated. The right to vote has been shown to help individuals become pro-social and engenders active and positive interaction in society. Most states are recognizing this fact and have taken positive steps. Others have not acted at all. And at least one – Iowa – has decided that regression is the best route to follow. Progress had been made and voting rights been restored to almost 100,000 ex-felons. When Terry Branstad regained the governor’s mansion in 2010, he revoked those rights and plunged Iowa back into the restoration and rehabilitation dark ages. Branstad’s ignorant, unforgiving approach to those who run afoul of the law clearly demonstrates that shameless disregard for humanity that I have written of. In another example of Branstad’s total lack of humanity (not to mention what appears to be an arrogant position of superiority over the U.S. Supreme Court) Branstad totally subverted the intent of a ruling that addressed those incarcerated as juveniles. The Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile offender to life in prison without possibility of parole. California Governor Jerry Brown responded, as did many others, by setting forth the rule that the offenders be eligible to be heard by the parole board after 15 years. Granted, this is a long time, but better than never. In his omniscient wisdom, Branstad set that same requirement at 68 years.

Branstad is a classic example of how this country gained its auspicious top spot as the world’s most prolific jailer and is a big part of the culture of incarceration that exists today. He, and other sanctimonious bullies just like him, have the audacity to try to convince the public that it is better to continue to beat up those who have beaten themselves down than it is to provide education, tools, skills and support.

According to the Pew Center on the States, the recidivism rate of those returning to prison after only 9 months of freedom is an astonishing and totally unacceptable 43%. In a three-year period, up to 67% will return to the very places that failed them.

Society can choose to ostracize, criticize and demoralize convicted felons. But it would behoove everyone concerned if, prior to selecting that route – the harmful, hateful and unproductive way of Governor Branstad – that society stop and ponder not only the inhumanity of that line of thinking, but the exorbitant ultimate cost.

There is no way to discuss adequately all of the obstacles that face those who have ostensibly “paid their debt to society”. The point that must not be lost is that as long as there are incentives to keeping human being locked up, there can be no incentive to teach and help them remain free. As long as that unholy alliance of political cronyism, corporate greed and a shameless disregard for humanity exists, America will continue its very un-American Culture of Incarceration.

I thank you and invite you back tomorrow for the final installment in this series, “The Worst Nightmare of All.”

More tomorrow…

“AMERICA’S CULTURE OF INCARCERATION – PART 5 – THE LAND OF LOST OPPORTUNITIES”

On By Tony CassonIn AMERICA’S CULTURE OF INCARCERATION2 Comments

By Tony Casson 

“You will be change into a different person.”
1 Samuel 10:6b NLT

“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.” Harold Wilson

There will always be a need for places in which to lock up those who present a danger to society or feel that their freedoms and their individual rights supersede another’s, thereby entitling them to live any way they please and take whatever they may want whenever they may want it.

The fact that prisons and jails are needed is beyond debate. However, there are several issues that are debatable: whom should we lock up? What do we attempt to achieve with them – and for them – while we presumably can demand their undivided attention and exercise a high degree of control over their daily lives?

This segment of the series is going to address those who are incarcerated. For the moment, we will not debate the hows and whys that got them all there. The questions that I will try to address are these: What opportunities are we missing to help those who are behind bars? Why do we not improve them, empower them in a pro-social manner, educate them and prepare them for a return to society as productive members? There is much talk about various programs but why does it seem like the success rate is so incredibly low?

As with raising children, there is no guaranteed method of rehabilitating individuals who have found their way into the nation’s jails and prisons. But just as there is a guaranteed way to fail a child, there is certainly a guaranteed way to fail an inmate and that is to do nothing to change those who have demonstrated a distinct need to change. While it is very true that the major impetus for that change needs to come from within the individuals themselves, the philosophy, the structure and the rewards are the direct responsibility of those who are in control of the programs and the environment in which they are administered. Unfortunately, these things are lacking, leading to rehabilitative efforts that are half-hearted at best and non-existent at worst. The attitude of the inmates themselves plays a big part in all of this but the blame lands more squarely on those who formulate, execute and monitor the programs and control the inmates’ lives and environment.

In many of the more than 4,000 prisons in this country, wardens feel that the purpose of a correctional institution is not rehabilitation but custody and public safety. However, those who feel that way are dangerously shortchanging the very society that will have to deal with these graduates of “schools of bad behavior” when they are released. Unless there is a genuine effort made to provide those in custody with rehabilitation, restoration and rejuvenation – a new “3 R’s”, if you will – society’s risk will be even greater upon their release than it was when they entered the system.

I have what I think are the positive, practical and manageable ideas on how to provide those “3 R’s” in a manner that could have a very positive effect on not only those who are incarcerated but upon the society that will eventually have to deal with them. My approach could have the added benefit of helping to lessen the negative impact on the families of those incarcerated. These things will be outlined in detail in an entirely separate article. For now, I only hope to raise the public’s consciousness that current policies and attitudes are accomplishing little and are actually contributing to lost opportunities that do nothing more than foster our culture of incarceration.

Reports vary but many indicate that the number of offenders who are re-arrested within three years of release from prison is as high as 67%. One source for this statistic if Byron R. Johnson’s 2011 book “More God, Less Crime.” Johnson’s book also states that an average of 2,000 individuals per day are released from prisons across the country. That is a staggering 730,000 men and women each year being returned to society, many of whom have done little, if anything, to prepare themselves for freedom. But for many of them, it was simply not a choice. Many individuals would respond if the proper environment was available, but the philosophy of those who actually supervise those behind bars is often in direct conflict with the official philosophy of the state or federal department setting policy.

For example, the official public policy of the Federal Bureau of Prisons leans strongly toward rehabilitation. Harvey Lapin, the BOP’s recently retired head, comes from this public culture of rehabilitation. But was that really where his efforts lay when he was the Director of BOP? Mr. Lapin’s history with the private prison industry speaks otherwise. The following realities of private prisons cannot be denied or ignored: They exist for profit; their product is human beings; they don’t make money if no one is in prison; regardless of public positions, privately, however, rehabilitation is the last thing they want if they are to encourage repeat business.

Immediately upon leaving his position with the BOP, Mr. Lapin went to work as an Executive Vice President for Correctional Corporation of America (CCA). In a bold public move, shortly after commencing work for CCA, Lapin sent a letter to every state offering to pay up to $250 million dollars for the right to operate their entire state prison systems. The state would then pay to manage their “property.” One critical caveat: the state must guarantee 90% occupancy.

This presents a serious quandary. If rehabilitation is important, effective and designed to succeed, prison populations should shrink. In fact, it should be a concrete goal to reduce prison populations by 50-75% nationally for myriad reasons, including humanitarian ones as well as for taxpayer relief.

How can a suggestion of a guaranteed level of incarceration of human beings be viewed as anything less than a shameless disregard for humanity; and any state that does business with companies that promote such disregard for humanity should have those responsible for approving the contracts investigated for political cronyism of the sort that contributes to corporate greed in a shameless business that should be unconstitutional in the first place.

Owing to the effectiveness of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the whole private prison industry and their lobbyists as well as unscrupulous, insensitive and politically driven office-holders, this nation’s prison system is bursting at the seams and is such a strain on state and federal resources that rehabilitation has slipped considerably in importance, even in those rare instances where genuine efforts can be acknowledged. For the most part, what was already an ineffective system of unenthusiastically administered programs is now in more danger than ever before.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a report titled “Growing Inmate Crowding Negatively Affects Inmates, Staff and Infrastructure.” Following the report, experts warned that “the ballooning incarcerated population puts inmates and guards at risk and holds back efforts to rehabilitate convicts.” Inimai Chettiar, a director at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law said, “People will get out of prison, but they’re not being helped to re-enter society.”

I have demonstrated in past articles how the private prison industry arrives at its profit in part through the reduction in rehabilitation programs to lower recidivism. This has the added benefit to their bottom line of increased individuals returning to prison. There is no logical incentive for private companies to do anything that could potentially reduce prison populations. This should not be a difficult perspective for our politicians and our courts to understand and accept. We have already seen a case where the rehabilitation program consisted of daily crossword puzzles being slipped under the cell doors of inmates. We have also seen 52% of Louisiana’s state prison inmates languishing in parish jails for years with no rehabilitative programs available.

The concept of rehabilitation in this country is broken. Prison rehabilitation is more about lost opportunities than it is about working to transform individuals and give them an education, skills, self-respect, hope and a fresh start.

This is truly a tragedy since so much of a prison inmate’s daily existence is monitored, dictated, scheduled or controlled. With that much power being exerted over people, the taxpaying public has a right to demand better use of that opportunity to implement changes in the way inmates think and act. Can all of them be transformed into people who contribute positively to society? Of course not. But it often seems as if there has been a total collapse of effort to maximize the results.

Society has failed many of these men and women in their childhood. This calls into question our ability to call ourselves a civilized country should we fail them again.

We can do a much, much better job. But not until we eliminate this culture of incarcerating the highest number of people possible for the longest time we can, with the least amount of reason.

            More tomorrow…

 

“AMERICA’S CULTURE OF INCARCERATION – PART 4 – SHERIFFS AREN’T THE ONLY ONES WHO SMILE”

On By Tony CassonIn AMERICA’S CULTURE OF INCARCERATION4 Comments

By Tony Casson 

“…they were greedy for money. They accepted bribes and perverted justice.”
1 Samuel 8:3 NLT

“A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”
Senator Everett Dirksen

“He will get out with $10, a bus ticket and not much else. The chances are that he will resume his life of crime. And somewhere in Louisiana, a sheriff will smile.” Thus ended an article in the June 16, 2012, issue of the “The Economist” Magazine. It was titled “Sheriff’s Delight.” That declaration was followed by this subheading: “While local officials cash in, convicts lose out.”

Like millions of other Americans, I lived most of my life not giving this nation’s prison system much thought. I assumed that only bad people went to prison and if they were sent there for long periods of time, there must have been a reason for it. I never wasted a moment in consideration of the rationale for the lengths of sentences; how prisoners were treated while they were locked up; what caused them to wind up in prison in the first place; what steps were taken to educate and rehabilitate them; or what became of them after their release.

Times change. People change. Perspectives change. When I foolishly became a part of what I never had given much thought to, everything changed. Sometimes it takes unfortunate circumstances to bring important issues into focus.

So now, from the very bowels of that system I never gave much thought to, I find myself reading this article which is centered on the unique nature of the number of people who have been sentenced to state prisons but are being housed in parish jails run by local sheriffs. (In Louisiana, a county is called a “parish”.)

In the 1970s, faced with federal orders to relieve overcrowding and unwillingness on the part of the citizens of Louisiana to fund more prisons, parish sheriffs were convinced to expand their facilities to accommodate the overflow. They did this willingly, able to demonstrate to those who controlled the parish purse strings that this could prove to be a profitable venture for them. While the public could refuse to fund more prisons, the state government was free to contract with each parish to pay a daily fee to house the prisoners it didn’t have room for. The more prisoners from the state that a parish could house, the more money they could save on their own budgets because while the state paid $24.39 per day per inmate, the parish didn’t spend anywhere near that. The excess was used to ease the parish’s own cash crunch and to expand the sheriff’s departments.

According to “The Economist,” an astonishing 52% of Louisiana’s state prison inmates are being held in facilities designed to hold human beings for no more than one year. Many are held for 10 years and there is limited mobility, almost no outdoor activity and rehabilitation and re-entry programs are almost non-existent.

A similar situation is developing in California where federal judges have ordered state prison census levels to be reduced to eliminate overcrowding. The only available solution is to send the overflow to county jails. Cash-strapped local sheriffs will be only too eager to take them in and receive a daily amount to house each one. This will make the chaining of a human being less about justice, rehabilitation and positive re-integration into society and more about the big dollars local sheriffs will see contributed to their coffers. For example, since the practice began in Louisiana, a small parish in the north of the state, Richland Parish, has had the cash to expand its sheriff’s department from 60 deputies to over 160, with new cars, shotguns, radios and bullet proof gear, according to “The Economist.”

Louisiana is no stranger to making money from the chaining of human beings as its use of slave labor is well-documented. Perhaps less well-known is the fact that Angola State Prison was first known as Angola Plantation, named after the area from which the slaves who worked it came. When forced to accept the fact that slavery was soon to become nothing more than an unpleasant part of this nation’s history, Angola Plantation was converted to Angola State Prison. But always with an eye to profits at the expense of someone else’s misery, a thriving business in “rental convicts” began that resulted in profits for those both being paid for the rentals and those doing the renting. Unfortunately, the abusive treatment, poor quality of food and lack of health care resulted in the deaths of thousands who were easily replaced by an abundant supply of those who had the bad luck to be close at hand.

As our nation entered a period of prison reform, this practice was ended, but prison industries sprang up that were ordered by courts to pay prevailing wages but then were allowed to subtract most of it as reimbursement for the cost of incarceration, leaving the inmate pretty much where he was when he started.

In the mid-1970s, though, an awakening was occurring. The birth of America’s prison/industrial complex began in earnest as individuals and companies looked for ways to profit from the incarceration of more and more of America’s citizens. With the formation of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the declaration of wars on crime and drugs and the birth of the private prison industry, this nation was off and running on its way to incarcerating more individuals over the next 30 years than it had in the previous 200.

But many people have tapped a mother lode that has produced the American Dream for them while others live trapped within the American Nightmare. One example of the fortunes made since conscious efforts to lock up more and more people began lies with a company out of St. Louis, Missouri. Keefe Co. was begun in 1975 selling only two products to local jails: single use packages of Nescafe Instant Coffee and Tang drink mix. Today, Keefe is a multi-billion dollar company carrying over 5,000 national and private label products to supply local, state and federal institution commissaries. They have a huge website touting the services they offer which include computer software and inmate fund handling. Keefe Co. has numerous divisions, all privately owned, that produce and package a host of food items.

Keefe Co. is not alone, but they are definitely one of the larger success stories. Predictably, a huge array of companies and individuals jumped on the backs of those given up for lost in order to cash in and get their share of this huge pie. Bob Barker, of The Price Is Right fame, formed Bob Barker Company (BCC) and obtained contracts to provide institutions with an assortment of cheap clothing, footwear, and toiletry items. Poor quality is what you get when you see Bob’s name on something, but I guess that’s why the price is right.

Pro football Hall of Famer Dan Dierdorf lent his name and likeness to a line of shaving products for institutional use. And school and office supply manufacturer Skilcraft obtained handicapped-hiring contract preference by printing an association with various “Lighthouse for the Blind” groups on their highlighters, markers and bags of pencils sold to institutions such as the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Much has been written about companies that profit from other people’s pain; companies that lobby for longer prison sentences and then make profits off of those receiving those sentences. Joel Dyer wrote “The Perpetual Prisoner Machine: How America Profits From Crime” in 2000. Mr. Dyer paints a very vivid picture of greed, manipulation of the public and exploitation of prison labor.

The companies that profit are numerous and diverse, from Tyson Foods, Kraft and Frito-Lay to Ben E. Keith and Sysco. Banks, toiletry manufacturers, various independent meat packers and food brokers, companies selling air conditioning systems and food preparation equipment – everyone has their fingers in the pie.

Politicians convince a trusting public that this is what it takes to be safe as increasing amounts of taxpayer money is used to fuel the voracious appetite of a hungry monster created and sustained not for the safety of the public but for the greed of unscrupulous businessmen who exhibit the same lack of concern for humanity as those willing to displace 160,000 refuges in order to get cheap land in Africa. (See “The Iowa State Affair.”)

Let there be no mistake – fortunes ride on the backs of this nation’s prison inmates. If you think there is not big money at stake here, consider this: in 1982, the total local, state and federal expenditures for the entire criminal justice system (all police, courts, judges, jails and prisons in the country) was a little under $36 billion dollars. In comparison, those same expenditures in 2006 were over $214 billion dollars. In a different example, let’s look at the total in 2012 of just state and federal prison operations: those costs were over $77 billion dollars. In order to incarcerate American citizens, the United States spent more than France ($61 billion), the United Kingdom ($57 billion), Russia ($53 billion), and Saudi Arabia ($43 billion) spent on their entire national defense budgets in 2010.

Sadly, we have come to expect nothing less from a country that incarcerates more of its citizens than anywhere on the planet.

When it comes to the sound of a cell door slamming behind another incarcerated person in this country, sheriffs are not the only ones smiling.

We’ll look at the opportunities to salvage lives that are lost while people are serving their sentences in the next installment of “America’s Culture of Incarceration.”

            More tomorrow…

“AMERICA’S CULTURE OF INCARCERATION – PART 3 – PREPARING AMERICA’S CHILDREN FOR PRISON”

On By Tony CassonIn AMERICA’S CULTURE OF INCARCERATION2 Comments

By Tony Casson 

“My future is in your hands.”  Psalm 31:14 NLT

“The hardest job kids have today is learning good manners without seeing any.”  Fred Astaire

Our children are the future of this country and that future has two faces: the bright, sunny faces of hope and the dark, cloudy faces of despair.

The faces of hope will yield our doctors, teachers, scientists, nurses, technicians, mechanics, farmers, spiritual leaders, inventors, factory workers, butchers, bakers and perhaps even a candle-maker or two. The faces of hope will also yield our lawyers, businessmen, civic leaders, legislators, police officers, judges, military personnel and those few who will rise to the presidency of the United States.

But America’s future will also yield those who will wear the faces of despair. Wearing that face will be the children who grow up to be drug addicts, alcoholics, rapists, murderers, liars, cheats, thieves and those who abuse and prey on the young, the weak and the elderly in all sorts of despicable ways.

Debates rage over the proper way to raise children to protect them from themselves, from bad influences and to help them grow up to be one of those who wear the face of hope. Regardless of the opinions offered, it is generally agreed upon that a two-parent home in which a child is shown love, receives a good education and proper nutrition and is given positive feedback, correction where necessary and opportunities to succeed would be considered a good place to start. In my opinion, adding a love of God and a basic understanding of the teachings of Jesus Christ and instilling a desire to serve humanity would also add to the potential to wear the face of hope.

No matter the nature of the “correct” environment, there are no guarantees. Sometimes human beings are simply wired wrong or are more susceptible to addictions or bad influences than others. We can never have all the answers, but we can be sure of this: children who are neglected, beaten, abused or live in poverty – those who receive inadequate nutrition and experience very little in the way of positive examples to follow have a decidedly poor chance of wearing anything but the face of despair. And these are the children of America who are being prepared – with no small measure of forethought by some who lead our country – to spend some portions of their lives in a prison or jail. Those born already wearing the face of despair stand a good chance of becoming fodder for the monster with the insatiable appetite created by “America’s Culture of Incarceration”.

In this, the richest, smartest, strongest and most advanced nation on earth, the only faces of despair should be the exceptional, unforeseeable ones and not those created by poverty, lack of education, neglect and abuse. Every child born in America should wear the face of hope. To allow conditions to exist which deny that face to any child is to say, “We are preparing this child for prison”. The notion that children are knowingly being prepared for prison may sound ludicrous to some, but there is an undeniable link between children born into conditions such as the ones I have stated and a life of criminal behavior that leads to incarceration. I propose that, for many, the American Dream is so far out of their reach at birth that they immediately begin experiencing the American Nightmare.

In a country where the richest 400 individuals have more wealth than the bottom 150 million combined, 25,000 school-aged children should not be homeless… in one state. And yet that is the number of homeless children for whom radio station KAJN in Alexandria, Louisiana was trying to help obtain back-to-school backpacks recently. According to the U.S. Education Department, for the first time, the number of homeless students in America topped one million by the end of the 2010-2011 school year. To top it off this count doesn’t include homeless infants, children not enrolled in school and homeless students that schools simply failed to identify. Basically 1 in every 45 children are homeless! I don’t know how you feel, but I know that this is a horrific statistic for this great country and somehow we need to make these numbers go down to zero!

Children with no proper home, without adequate nutrition and without guidance are forced into a system that is designed to help them fail. If anyone disputes this, I will point out what should be obvious: any system that is not designed for complete success may as well be designed specifically for failure. Hundreds of thousands of kids in this country wake up each day convinced that the only things that loom in their future are prison or death. Does it make more sense to incarcerate them later because we failed them now? Does it make more sense to pay for their care behind bars when they are adults than it does to feed, clothe, house and educate them when they are young? Of course not. But the sad truth appears to be that, while it may not make more sense, it definitely makes more dollars later on for this monster that has been created, nurtured and groomed specifically to turn those we have failed as children into profit centers as adults.

According to data from www.kidscount.org the following is true in America today:

  • 22% of all children live in poverty.
  • 33% have parents who lack secure employment.
  • 68% of all 4th graders are not proficient in reading.
  • 34% live in single parent families.
  • 11% live in high poverty areas.
  • 24% of high school students fail to graduate on time.
  • And just so you know how many children we are talking about, in the 2008-2009 school year there were almost 49 million children enrolled in public schools.

It should be apparent that child welfare and education in this country take a backseat to many other issues. The United States is far from first in providing its children with a quality education and for this, there is no excuse. Claims of inadequate funds are laughable in light of the fact that we always have enough money to inject ourselves into the affairs of other nations; we always have enough money to fight other people’s battles; and we always have enough money to go in and rebuild what we have destroyed doing those two things. And we always have enough money to incarcerate the adults we didn’t have enough money for as children. We cannot find the funds to give every child the face of hope, but we can find the money to deal with them after they put on the face of despair that was avoidably thrust upon many of them. While we cannot find the money to feed, clothe and house at-risk children – and while we are constantly reading about cutbacks in education budgets – lawmakers continue to advocate harsher and more draconian prison sentences in the nation that has the longest prison sentences in the world along with the most people serving them.

In every instance where more money has been spent on education, the results have been positive: higher graduation levels; higher percentage go on to college. In Washington, D.C., KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) Charter Schools differentiate themselves from public schools in many ways:

In Washington, only 43% of students graduate high school and only 9% go on to get a college degree. KIPP claims a graduation rate of 93% and also claim that 80% go on to college.

What are the differences? Here are a few:

  • KIPP claims expenditures of $1,000 over public funding, raised through donations.
  • More time in the classroom: school until 5PM; school starts in July; Saturday classes 2-3 times per month.

This is just a rough idea of what can be done, but education must be a priority, along with addressing poverty and living conditions. These are real issues that our politicians avoid by focusing on things that sound good but do absolutely nothing but make a bad policy worse (such as Lamar Smith’s Child Protection Act That Doesn’t of 2012).

I earlier gave some disturbing numbers regarding children. Here are some equally alarming statistics regarding adults in one of the nation’s most infamous state prisons, The Louisiana State Prison at Angola:

  • There are 5,309 inmates.
  • 75%, or 3,982, are serving life sentences without parole.
  • The remaining 25% are serving an average of 93 years.
  • The average age at conviction is 35.
  • The average age now is 42.
  • 91% are in for committing violent crimes.
  • 55%, or 2,920, are in for homicide.
  • The most recent budget is $115 million.
  • The cost per inmate per year is $21,661.32.
  • There are almost 40,000 inmates in state prisons throughout Louisiana – the highest per capita prison population in the country, which makes it the highest in the world.

America’s lawmakers need to address this disturbing problem. It is easy to write bills that talk about protection from this group or from that threat. But when the only solution is to lock more people up for longer periods of time, then those lawmakers are actually the first part of the problem that must be solved.

The American people need leaders who are going to take a socio-economic approach to our problems on the front end and figure out what must be done to eliminate preventable faces of despair. We must stop preparing the children of this country for lives wasted as part of a shameful prison culture that is robbing the nation of human resources as well as financial ones.

We must also examine ways of reducing this nation’s prison population by 75% and using billions of dollars saved (about $58 billion) for educational programs, housing, clothing and other needs of the poor, including the use of child protective services. We have to identify parents who are not equipped to be positive influences on their children. Those parents should be required to participate in educational and training programs to help them become contributors to eliminating the despair from the faces of their children.

We reward our legislators – both state and federal – with handsome compensation and benefit packages. It is time they rolled up their sleeves and worked to solve problems and not just sponsor bills to help themselves get re-elected.

All it takes is a presidential election cycle to see where America’s problems lie. America’s problems do not lie with the individuals who break the laws. They lie with those who make the laws. American’s problems do not lie with those locked away behind bars. They lie with those whose political livelihoods rely upon the expansion of this nation’s prison system. America’s problems lie with allegedly mature, educated men and women who view themselves as Republican or Democrat as opposed to American. America’s problems are not solved by pointing fingers or dodging responsibility.

While America’s politicians wave banners like Texas Congressman Lamar Smith’s “Child Protection Act of 2012”, (see previous post titled “The Child Protection Act That Doesn’t”), more and more of America’s children wake up and see only a face of despair when they look in the mirror.

According to the World Almanac, in 2008 there were roughly 70 million Americans under the age of 18. How many of them wear the face of despair? How many of them are being prepared for a life in prison?

More tomorrow…

 

“AMERICA’S CULTURE OF INCARCERATION – PART 2 – THE IOWA STATE AFFAIR”

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By Tony Casson

“The Lord’s light penetrates the human spirit, exposing every hidden motive.”   Proverbs 20:27 NLT

“The greatest danger facing the United States is not a military lag but a slump in personal and public integrity.”  Robert J. McKracken

Summertime is state fair time across America. Hosted in Des Moines, the Iowa State Fair is known the world over as a model of what a state fair should be. The musical “State Fair” was based on the Iowa State Fair which is visited by over one million people each year. Resplendent with the usual sights, sounds and smells of corn dogs, Ferris wheels, livestock shows, live music and the laughter and delighted squeals of children of all ages, the fair evokes memories in the older crowd of simpler, slower times when life seemed a little gentler and the focus was more on the family.

In addition to its highly rated state fair, Iowa is known for being the nation’s number one producer of hogs. No fair in Iowa would be complete without the tantalizing aroma of grilling pork chops filling the air. Additionally, the state of Iowa is closely watched politically throughout the nation so the fair is always a gathering spot for those politicians wanting to demonstrate that they are just regular old folks like everybody else. The Des Moines Register almost always carries a photograph of a political heavyweight or two taking a turn behind the grill pretending to cook fat, juicy pieces of pork. Pork and politicians always manage to come together, don’t they?

No gathering of pork and politicians at the Iowa State Fair would be complete without an appearance by Terry Branstad, Iowa’s governor. Branstad has long been a familiar face in Iowa political circles, having served as a state legislator before becoming governor in 1982. He served an impressive four terms before bowing out in 1998, but was talked into running again in the 2010 election by Bruce Rastetter, who has close ties to Branstad and is viewed as a “political kingmaker” in Iowa.

Terry Branstad was very involved in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) during its formative years, so Branstad has exhibited his willingness to have a very close relationship with business leaders, corporations and wealthy individuals. But how close is too close? And what honors, rights and riches are bestowed upon one who makes kings?

After convincing Branstad to run for a fifth term following a twelve-year absence, Bruce Rastetter went on to donate $160,000 to Branstad’s campaign, making him the largest single donor. An associate of Rastetter’s, Nick Ryan, chipped in another $67,000 and Rastetter’s brother, Brent, added another $31,000. After the election was won, Branstad rewarded Brent Rastetter with an appointment to the Iowa Environmental Protection Association which monitors and regulates issues regarding pollution and contaminants. One of the major polluters in the state are its many hog producers. Bruce Rastetter, in 2004, merged his Heartland Pork Enterprises – ranked 13th in the state – with Christensen Farms, making the new company the 4th largest hog producer in Iowa. In a state with 20 million hogs, that means one of the state’s prominent producers of pig poop is monitored, in part, by his brother.

The direct reward bestowed upon by Bruce Rastetter for his generous assistance in getting Governor Branstad elected was an appointment to the Iowa Board of Regents. In that capacity, Rastetter has generated a flurry of newspaper reports for working with Iowa State University on a land development deal in Africa that could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in profits for him and his investors. Welcome to “The Iowa State Affair”. And you thought this was about corn dogs and pork chops, didn’t you?

Actually, this is all about the anatomy of America’s nightmare: Political Cronyism, corporate greed and a shameful disregard for humanity.

On August, 1, 2012, The Des Moines Register contained a column written by Ms. Rekha Basu about Bruce Rastetter, a company called AgriSol Energy and the African nation of Tanzania. Mr. Rastetter owns 30% of AgriSol and has recently spent considerable time trying to develop land in Tanzania. Iowa Citizens for Civic Involvement filed an ethics complaint calling for Rastetter’s removal from the Board of Regents for misusing his relationship with Iowa State in furtherance of that plan.

It is a complex issue, but the following are some of the high (or low) points of the story as illustrated in Ms. Basu’s column:

  • Mr. Rastetter and his investors stand to make $300 million dollars on the deal.
  • Tanzanian government officials would give AgriSol 99 year land rights for 320,000 hectares (145,800 acres) at 25 cents an acre.
  • AgriSol claims that it is the government that is setting the price for the land and that they have no control over that.
  • Approximately 160,000 Burundi refugees would be forced off the land in question.
  • AgriSol is paying Tanzanian officials, including one who was in charge of the refugee camps, to be “advisors” on the project.
  • Mr. Kimenyi of the Brookings Institute’s African Growth Initiative has said that such payments “can amount to outright corruption”.
  • Agreements are being made whereby what will eventually be produced will not ever have to be used domestically.
  • Jobs may not be created because AgriSol brings in its own labor and advanced technologies.
  • AgriSol has demanded “strategic investor status” from Tanzania, which would provide it with tax exemptions and a waiver of duties.

Recent reports indicate that public pressure is causing this exploitation of humanity for nothing more than personal profit, to be abandoned for something on a much smaller scale.

Regardless of the outcome of all this, the willingness of America’s politicians and their greedy businessmen cronies to consciously pursue plans to use a disregard for humanity for its economic potential has already been demonstrated quite clearly.

Although AgriSol, Bruce Rastetter and Tanzania have no direct effect on America’s Culture of Incarceration, I use the story to illustrate the mindset necessary to pursue a plan that trades people for profit, such as the one in Tanzania, which created the culture in the first place and continues to feed it voraciously.

While it was Bruce Rastetter who pursued the plan, it was Governor Branstad who – as a reward for Rastetter’s generous campaign support – appointed Rastetter to the position he is accused of abusing in order to pursue it. And if you recall, it was a young Terry Branstad, as a state legislator, who played an important role in the formation of ALEC, which has been more responsible for the American Nightmare that has resulted from America’s Culture of Incarceration than any entity in this country.

Countless business alliances have been forged and billions of dollars in what amounts to blood money has been divided among thousands of American companies and individuals willing to feed at the trough of human misery. Meanwhile, our nation has risen to occupy that inauspicious top spot as the world’s number one keeper of human beings behind bars.

Hundreds of pages could be written on the myriad companies that make money employing the same mindset as that demonstrated in “The Iowa State Affair”. Our public coffers are needlessly drained to commit more and more individuals to absolutely draconian periods of time in prisons and jails throughout this country. No amount of “spin” by our many ethically-compromised politicians should convince decent, hard-working citizens of this country that it is otherwise.

America has too many laws on the books and the penalties for violating them keep getting harsher and harsher with no justification. The senseless, unproductive, lengthy amounts of time spent behind bars does little more than take much needed money from education and other positive programs and put it in the pockets of individuals who are investing in criminal activity in a legal way and profiting from it at the expense of the American public.

For now, we shall say goodbye to Africa, Bruce Rastetter and Governor Branstad, but the governor will appear in a later part in this series that will discuss re-entry and re-integration back into society after being released from prison. But for now, I think Governor Branstad has done quite enough.

I invite you to return when I try to explain how we are “Preparing America’s Children for Prison” in order to keep our prisons filled in the future and keep the American Nightmare alive as we continue to explore “America’s Culture of Incarceration.”

            More tomorrow…

 

“AMERICA’S CULTURE OF INCARCERATION – PART 1 – THE ANATOMY OF THE AMERICAN NIGHTMARE”

On By Tony CassonIn AMERICA’S CULTURE OF INCARCERATIONLeave a comment

By Tony Casson 

“They are corrupt and their actions are evil; not one of them does good.”
Psalm 14:1b NLT

“We find greedy men, blind with the lust for money, trafficking in human misery.”
Thomas C. Clark

The pursuit of the American dream has halted for millions of people who have had a family member become the sustenance required to feed the appetite of an insatiable prison/industrial monster. For all of them, the American dream has become the American nightmare. Unlike the nightmares that produced imaginary monsters in the closets of our youth, this nightmare is a living breathing thing with distinct body parts that can be identified as corporate greed, political cronyism and a shameless disregard for humanity.

The interests of corporate America and America’s politicians have become so inexorably intertwined as to appear almost inseparable. It is becoming increasingly apparent that powerful corporations and businessmen are selecting our leaders and then pulling their strings or calling in favors that come due as a result of the indebtedness created by their friendship or financial support.

If this diminishing of the lines that should clearly separate the two was not evident before, last year’s irresponsible and indefensible decision by this nation’s Supreme Court that “corporations are people” should serve notice that the final nail has been driven into the coffin that holds the right of the American people to decide the country’s fate, fortune and future.

With the way paved wide, clear and smooth for unlimited individual and corporate contributions to so-called “Super-Pacs” formed to support political candidates, it should be very evident that any notion that American’s leaders are chosen by and indebted to America’s citizens is purely superficial.

Political cronyism and outright corruption has existed since the earliest days of this country’s relatively short history. There has always been an abundance of unsurprisingly inadequate laws prohibiting undue influence on our political leaders. Influence that was purchased through exorbitant donations, expensive gifts and outright bribes was deemed illegal. This nation’s affairs were intended to be handled honestly, out in the open and with the rights and concerns of all American citizens taken into consideration.

The line separating corporate America and the influence of wealthy individuals from our political leaders has always been crossed quietly and secretly as a result of friendships, alma maters and the proverbial “good old boy” network. But the blatant public erasing of the lines, which the Supreme Court just completed, was begun in earnest with the formation of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in 1973.

I wrote about ALEC in “Removing the Chains of Fear,” published here on October, 28, 2011, but the main thrust of this unholy alliance is this: Powerful businessmen and corporations sit together with legislators from every state in the union in private sessions three times a year to discuss, plan and write so-called “model legislation” affecting all facets of American life. Much of the “legislation” that is written directly benefits the very companies and individuals helping to write the laws.

As a result of a piece of ALEC’s “model legislation” dubbed “Stand Your Ground,” several corporate members recently ended their affiliation with ALEC. “Stand Your Ground” was blamed for creating the environment in which an unarmed 17-year-old named Trayvon Martin was murdered by a “Neighborhood Watch” member in Florida. Following the public uproar and the revelation of ALEC’s involvement in the drafting of the legislation, several large corporations such as McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart withdrew from the organization.

Things had already been heating up for ALEC in recent months with attacks by National Public Radio, Bloomberg News and numerous other sources, such as the website www.alecexposed.org, questioning the ethics, if not the outright legality, of the relationship between businesses and lawmakers as those relationships existed within ALEC.

It was in these private gatherings between ALEC’s legislative and business members in the early 1980’s that America’s Culture of Incarceration was born. Once the notion took hold that there were fortunes to be made from the chaining of human beings, two significant things began in earnest: There was a major push begun to lock up more people for longer periods of time; and the concept of private prisons for profit was born.

For millions of American citizens, the American nightmare was about to begin.

More tomorrow… 

“AMERICA’S CULTURE OF INCARCERATION – A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE SERIES”

On By Tony CassonIn AMERICA’S CULTURE OF INCARCERATION3 Comments

By Tony Casson

“Now then, I will reveal the truth to you.” Daniel 11:2a NLT

“There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.”
-Anais Nin
“The Diary Of Anais Nin, III”

Some time ago, I announced that I was working on a multi-part series on the unfortunate Culture Of Incarceration that has become so much a part of America’s identity in the past 40 years. Here at home, and throughout the world, much has been made of the fact that the land of the free has become the land of the imprisoned.

State and federal legislators enact new laws defining new crimes at an alarming rate each year. The federal government alone has created at least 452 crimes just since 2000, bringing the total of federal crimes to over 4,450. I dare not even inquire as to the number of laws there are on a state level. No one can possibly be expected to know every law and yet the Supreme Court has held that ignorance of the law is no excuse. There is only one exception to that rule and that concerns illegal campaign contributions. How ironic that the only exception to the “ignorance defense” is reserved for those who write the laws.

The more important point is that this country’s state and federal legislators take their roles as ‘lawmakers’ entirely too literally. At the behest of national, multi-national, private, and public corporations and companies, lawmakers have created so many crimes that it has been said that NO person can get through one day without breaking at least one of them.

The series you are about to read covers different aspects of America’s Culture Of Incarceration:

–“The Anatomy Of America’s Nightmare” discusses the advent of the culture partly through the formation of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

–“The Iowa State Affair” demonstrates how the unholy triangle of corporate greed, political cronyism, and a shameless disregard for humanity combine to create, and foster, the mindset that allows the Culture Of Incarceration to prosper and grow.

-Part 3 is titled “Preparing America’s Children For Prison” and discusses how many children seem to be destined from birth to become food for the prison machine.

-In parts 4, 5, and 6, I talk about the political and financial incentives to not only maintain a large prison population, but also increase it through failures in rehabilitation and education while individuals are incarcerated and with the obstacles and roadblocks confronting those who are released after serving their time.

-The final installment is called “The Worst Nightmare Of All” and outlines the additional obstacles, restrictions, and prejudices that face those convicted of ‘sex offenses’ – regardless of the nature of their crime – upon their release.

I will take this opportunity to apologize in advance for any shortcomings or inadequacies in the completeness of these reports. Time, and my own limitations, precludes anything more thorough in such a format. If the points that I DO make fall short in demonstrating that there is a frighteningly large and shameful problem facing America today, then the fault lies with me and the fact that I am not a writer or a journalist. I am just a man in prison trying to make those who care to take the time to read aware of the broad scope, and depth, of this national tragedy perpetrated in the name of justice, but executed mainly for profit.

In the near future, I will be adding supplemental articles regarding constructive rehabilitation, how to remove the obstacles facing felons as they try to reenter society and how this is to society’s advantage, and I will also try to demonstrate more adequately the horrors of this nation’s sex offender registry as it exists today, why it is an embarrassment to this country, and how it can better achieve it’s intended purposes.

All of that said, I invite you to share my thoughts, to share your own, and – if you feel there is any merit to any of this – share it with others. To quote an old friend in the restaurant business, “If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, please don’t tell ANYONE!”

“The Tragedy is in the Truth”

On By Tony CassonIn Somaly Mam2 Comments

By Tony Casson

“Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them.”
1 Timothy 2:1b NLT

“We believe no evil till the evil’s done.”
Jean de La Fontaine

Tonight in tens of thousands of homes across this country, children will go to bed afraid of the visit that will come when all is quiet. They will go to bed dreading the unholy violation of their innocence that will take place when they should be able to sleep peacefully, dreaming the dreams of children. But instead of dreaming, these children will be trembling quietly under the covers.

Do they lie there fearful that a stranger will enter this place that should be safe and do them harm? The heart-breaking truth is that the monster that most children fear is a person who is very well known to them.

The harsh reality should be very apparent to all of us by now as the numbers have been published often: 93-97% of all sexual abuse inflicted upon children in America is the direct result of a violation of trust by a family member, a relative or someone known to the family.

Instead of feeling safe knowing that a family member is nearby, many children lie in the dark, suffering unimaginable mental anguish wondering when the next assault will come.

I recently wrote about the book, “The Road of Lost Innocence” by Somaly Mam. Even in the extreme cases such as those in Cambodia that Somaly Mam describes with such brutally vivid honesty, the abuse that is inflicted upon children exists; is promoted; and occurs in the first place because of a violation of trust by parents, other relatives or people in positions of power and authority who should be able to be relied upon for protection. Instead, they are all either complicit or complacent.

Sadly, in the United States of America, our record is not much better:

• This is not a nation that has declared war against the sexual abuse of children; rather this is a nation that has declared war on misguided individuals who view the recorded images of that abuse, rather than using the incredible array of technology available to prevent those images from reaching our homes in the first place.

• This is not a nation that has set itself apart as a world leader in the protection of those least able to protect themselves; rather this is a nation that has allowed its politicians to regard misguided middle aged men and socially inept younger introverts in the same light as sexually violent predators that do, sadly, exist in our world. But they exist in far fewer numbers than America’s parents are led to believe. This creates an enormous workload for those charged with keeping watch over the most dangerous and encourages complacency and invites tragedy.

• This is not a nation that can be proud of the importance it places upon its future – the future being its children; instead, this is a nation which has allowed – indeed rewarded – our politicians who have actually pushed the safety and protection of children aside in favor of promoting sanctimoniously named legislation that does little more than create an American tragedy of a different kind.

     In a recent article, “The Child Protection Act That Doesn’t,” I referred to a bill sponsored by Congressman Lamar Smith of Texas as a “misguided, misinformed and useless piece of pompous political puffery” and went on to classify it as “…political grandstanding at its lowest, which actually exploits the very children it claims to protect for purely political gain.”

Congressman Smith is only the most recent in a long line of politicians attaching their names to legislation promising to solve a problem when it is glaringly apparent by the very nature of their proposed solutions that they do not even know what the real problem is.

It is a regrettable fact of political life that our elected officials will seize upon any incident that can be used to cast themselves in a favorable light with the voting public, and issues concerning children are particular favorites of theirs.

Nothing grabs the public’s attention and inflames emotions to as intense a degree as a tragedy that has befallen a child at the hands of a stranger. Even though these extreme incidents are, in actuality, quite rare, the media attention they garner causes any decent person to become upset and angry and to look to elected officials for a solution.

Unfortunately, for that child and the child’s family, there is no solution. The tragedy is in this truth: No law ever passed has protected those children who have died horrific deaths at the hands of predatory strangers. Yet each new heartbreaking incident – even as rare as they may be – brings about a new round of laws and sex offender restrictions that do little more than provide a righteous platform upon which a politician can stand and say, “I am protecting America’s children.” Tell that to the parents and family of the child they just buried.

There will never be a law passed that can prevent pure evil from seeking victims to prey upon. Vigilance and common sense on the part of the parents is the best defense there is. Sadly, vigilant people will look away and another tragedy will occur, but these incidents, and the monsters who are responsible for them, should not be viewed as the primary danger to our children.

Child pornography is often singled out as the biggest crime against children. With the startling number of prosecutions for its possession and the flooding of our prisons with those found guilty of it, there is little wonder that it is perceived as such. However, the images – as sad and senseless as they are – are simply the record of the actual crime against whatever child may be pictured. This brings us back to the problem, which is – the sexual abuse of children, most of which takes place in the home.

If this sounds redundant, I apologize. Or maybe I don’t because people don’t seem to see that it is easier to point fingers at individuals making horribly immature and irresponsible decisions to look at pictures that should not be allowed to enter our homes in the first place than it is to try to tackle the real problem which lies in the very acts themselves that are recorded in the pictures.

This child pornography pandemic is destroying thousands of families in this country needlessly. Child pornography should not be allowed to proliferate to the degree that it does. The responsibility for this falls squarely on the shoulders of the providers of Internet service and the lawmakers who would rather pass laws to incarcerate tens of thousands – potentially millions – of Americans for having the moral indecency to look at the pictures rather than pass laws requiring those providers to lock the door on child pornography.

When we stop hauling our fathers, sons, friends and neighbors off to prison for looking at pictures that should be blocked; when we stop wasting resources to seek, arrest, prosecute, imprison and monitor criminals that are created because of misplaced priorities; when the American public stops listening to the misdirection, the excuses and the outright lies and tells those who are paid to serve the public to actually sit down, roll up their sleeves and work toward productive solutions, then perhaps the country can begin to heal from this disease that festers and threatens to destroy us from within.

The course of action currently being taken by those in charge is as irresponsible as the behavior of those caught up in its web.

Somaly Mam is making a difference in the face of tremendous odds. She is saving lives while we, in this country, content ourselves with destroying more of them. She faces the tragedy that is in the truth every day while lawmakers in this country cannot even say they know what the truth is.

Politicians, prosecutors and judges all run scared, flailing at whatever presents the easiest target. Unfortunately, the easiest targets are those least responsible for the fear those thousands of children I spoke of take to bed with them each night.

Is there no one out there with the courage of Somaly Mam? Is there no one out there courageous enough to do the right thing, rather than that which is easiest?

Based on the actions of our lawmakers, I would guess not. And there certainly is tragedy in that truth.

“Worth Dying For”

On By Tony CassonIn Somaly Mam7 Comments

By Tony Casson

“…deliver us from evil.”     Matthew 6:13 KJV

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Attributed to Edmund Burke

Here’s something you have yet to see in The Oakdale Chronicles – a book review. This isn’t just any book. It’s a life changer. As you might guess, this is going to be a rave review.

In my time at Oakdale FCI, I have read many books. I average around one a week – sometimes a little more. The books I have read run the gamut from the utterly frivolous and simply time-consuming to those that were insightful, inspiring and thought-provoking. The Bible, of course, has had a profoundly positive impact on how I view myself and how I am structuring my view of the world around me.

I have explored social conditions, humanity, politics, religion and civilization and I have read about many different beautiful places, people and creatures to be found throughout God’s creation. Many things I have read have altered my perspective a little or lent clarity to it. I have experienced a wide range of emotions covering a broad spectrum of topics. But I have tried to narrow my focus to works that will help me understand the human condition; to help me solidify my moral core; and to help me explore the depths of my own willingness to commit to something bigger than myself.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “If a man hasn’t discovered something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” I read those words and wondered if I could become a person who has discovered something worth dying for. Of course, there are my children – I would die for them and many people would say that. But I am talking about something else, something bigger, and something more important. Do I have the character to make a significant contribution to humanity? Sure, I write about social issues such as incarceration, the criminal justice system, morality and child sexual abuse in these Chronicles. But I do so from a protected place. I am not in any danger. My life is not on the line. I am safe.

Not so in the case of Somaly Mam, a remarkable woman I “met” recently through her book, “The Road of Lost Innocence.” She is a Cambodian woman of extraordinary courage and commitment and I strongly urge every living adult to become familiar with her by reading her story of human misery in the form of sex slavery and human trafficking in and around Cambodia.

As I read the book, her words tore through me, ripping at my heart, leaving it in shreds, making me hurt with a tangible reality. The mission she has undertaken as a result of the unimaginable depravity, violence and sexual abuse she has both experienced and witnessed makes this tiny woman a giant in the world of humanitarian action. Martin Luther King, Jr. would say that she is definitely fit to live.

Her writing style is not fancy, nor is it poetic. It is coarse, blunt, brutal, factual and real. The scenes of horror she describes are recounted simply and reluctantly, for each story brings back to her the intense pain and suffering that accompanied the original actions of depravity and total disregard for human life as she experienced and/or witnessed them. As exhibited in the following passage from the book, you can’t use pretty words to paint an ugly picture. Found on pages 59 and 60 of “The Road of Lost Innocence”, published in 2008 by Spiegel & Gram, is this incredibly painful description of the horror called life for many Cambodian girls:

     “Nowadays, the girls are much younger, too. This is because men in Cambodia will pay a thousand dollars to rape a virgin for a week… To make it clear they offer true bona fide virgins, the brothels today sell children. Often they are young girls, just five or six years old. After the week is over, they sew the girl inside – without an anesthetic – and quickly sell her again. A virgin is supposed to scream and bleed and this way, the girl will scream and bleed, again and again. They do it maybe three or four times.”

No flowing words; no need to pull out the dictionary; no metaphors; no abundance of adjectives to make a point. Just simple words of violence and abuse. And those words hurt as I read them. They cut deeply and as surely as with the sharpest knife. As you read the book, you will almost think you can hear Somaly’s voice. Even as she builds her foundation and begins to rescue other young girls from lives of captivity, abuse and forced prostitution, there is no victory in her “voice”. The sadness never leaves it, so profound and complete is the damage to her soul.

Later in the book, she writes, “I wondered if it is ever really possible to clear the past completely or whether you will always be haunted by what has been done to you and what you have done.”

As for Somaly’s work, you can look up – and hopefully support – her two organizations. The original group was founded in France: AFESIP (in English, it stands for “Assisting Women in Distressing Situations”), and in the United States, she founded www.somaly.org The latter raises money to combat human trafficking and sex slavery throughout the world. AFESIP is its largest recipient (or it was in 2008 when the book was published). The work of AFESIP is outlined in great detail in the book. It is a challenge and it is dangerous. As to why this amazing woman does it, Somaly herself says it best:

     “I don’t feel like I can change the world. I don’t even try. I only want to change the small life that I see in front of me which is suffering. I want to change this small, real thing that is the destiny of one little girl, and then another, and another. Because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself or sleep at night.”

If that’s not worth dying for, I don’t know what is. Read the book. If it doesn’t affect you – if it doesn’t alter you – if it doesn’t change you – look in the mirror and ask yourself why.

 

“A Child Protection Act That Doesn’t”

On By Tony CassonIn Letter to "Our Leaders", Volume 35 Comments

“I am writing these things to warn you about those who want to lead you astray.”           – 1 John 2:26 NLT

“Mr. Kremlin himself was distinguished for ignorance, for he had only one idea – and that was wrong.”   – Benjamin Disraeli

      On June 29, 2012, Texas Congressman Lamar Smith introduced H.R. 6063, a bill which, on its surface, is as noble and well-intentioned as a piece of legislation can possibly be.  Titled “The Child Protection Act of 2012,” it would be difficult for anyone to find fault with its lofty purported goal – to protect children.

      While I cannot find fault with the goal, the bill itself is a misguided, misinformed,  and useless piece of pompous political puffery and does little if anything at all to protect any child from anything. In fact, it diverts still more funds and attention away from any sincere effort to provide protection for those identified in its inappropriately named title.  H.R. 6063 is shameless political grandstanding at its lowest which actually exploits the very children it claims to protect for purely political gain.

      Too harsh? Probably not harsh enough since Mr. Smith and his staff demonstrate surprising insensitivity  and a true lack of understanding of the very problem for which H.R. 6063 claims to offer a solution – how to protect the children of America. This lack of understanding borders on incompetence at its best and blatant exploitation at its worst. In either scenario, a case could be made against Mr. Smith’s fitness to  serve the public.

      Let’s review some of the statements he made while introducing this bill. First, he states that the bill “increases penalties for the possession of child pornography.” According to nationally published data, 76% of the nation’s federal judges feel the guidelines and enhancements for possession of child pornography are too high already, resulting in many thousands of individuals spending much more time in federal prison for looking at pictures than many of the individuals who perform the acts depicted in the pictures themselves.

      Second, Rep. Smith claims that H.R. 6063 “helps prevent more victims by raising the penalties for those who hurt our children.”  Again, he is attacking the problem on the back end, after the damage has been done. The root cause of harm to children in this country is never addressed.

      Third, he further states, “Internet child pornography may be the fastest growing crime in America, increasing on average of 150% each year.” The reality is, if the personnel and prison space were available, prosecutions could increase by ten times 150% per year because the number of computers that contain some form or d fragment of child pornography on them is estimated at 75% or higher by some sources. The answer to the child pornography issue lies in preventing it from being produced.

      Fourth, Mr. Smith states, “Every day these online criminals prey on our children with virtual anonymity.” Our movements, actions and interests are all known by our Internet Service  Providers (ISPs). There is no real anonymity. If there is an increase in the availability of child pornography online, then the ISPs as well as the Justice Department should be held liable for civil and criminal damages since it is within their ability to detect, filter and eliminate it at the source or, at the very least, severely limit its  dissemination.

      The bald truth is that H.R. 6063 offers little more than an attention-getting banner to be waved by Mr. Smith as he campaigns for reelection. It offers precious little in the way of honest attempts to address the very real horrors of sexual abuse that hundreds of thousands of American children face every day. For Mr. Smith to attempt to capitalize on their pain and loss of innocence for political gain is shameful in the extreme.

      For the most part, all Mr. Smith does address is child pornography and this he discusses with a  statement that demonstrates how off-target he and his staff (like so many lawmakers) are. It is difficult to get the real problem addressed because they are too fixed on riding the vote-garnering wave of the easy problem.  The real problem, the root of this evil mess, is the child sexual abuse that enables child pornography to exist in the first place.

       Mr. Smith flaunted his ignorance regarding the root cause of the problem when he said, “Trafficking of child pornography images was almost completely eradicated in America by the mid-1980s. Purchasing or trading these images was risky and almost impossible to do anonymously. But the advent of the Internet reversed this accomplishment”. Mr. Smith spoke as though child pornography was the problem. Child pornography was a separate problem created as a result of the root problem of the sexual abuse of children. At no time does Mr.-Smith give any indication that he understands this.

      The approach of Mr. Smith and many other legislators is tantamount to implying that the drug addict is the problem rather than the result of the real problem – the production and distribution of drugs. The more accurate statement is, if there wel:e no drugs, we would have no drug addicts. Similarly, if child sexual abuse did not exist~, there would be no child pornography, since every single instance of child pornography is a visual record of child sexual abuse.

      This nation’s lawmakers have proven to be woefully inadequate and ineffective in the war on drugs. Do we really want to repeat the litany of mistakes made in that ill-conceived effort? Why not focus on the real problem and work toward a meaningful solution rather than being subjected to a tiresome parade of cheap political smokescreens such as that advanced by Rep. Smith. As for his specious claim that the goal of protecting our children was almost attained in the 1980s, nothing could be further from the  truth.

      Just ask anyone of the hundreds of thousands of individuals who were sexually abused as children during that time. Just because there may not have been an availability of the images recording these children’s pain does not mean there was no pain to record. Because there was a scarcity of video does not mean there was a lack of inexcusable, horrific acts to film.

      A tree falling in the forest when there is no one around to hear it fall still makes a sound and children still cried out as a result of the violation of their innocence and dignity, even if people like Mr. Smith truly believe that the problem was almost solved simply because there appeared to be an absence of photographic evidence.

      The sad and. simple truth is that children have always been at risk. But they have never been at greater risk than they are when in the “safety” of their own homes. It is a very well documented and unfortunate fact of life that fathers, stepfathers, brothers, uncles and family friends – even mothers – account for the overwhelming majority of all sexual abuse of children and some professionals estimate that as many as one in three females has suffered sexual abuse as a child.

      Consider the following information from the book “Perverted Justice” by Charles Patrick Ewing (Oxford University Press, 2011):

According to a report written in 2000 by Howard N. Snyder from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics entitled “Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement: Victim, Incident and Offender Characteristics,” “Children were very unlikely to be sexually victimized by people they did not know.” In fact, the report gave the following statistics for different age groups of girls who were sexually abused:

– Girls ages 0-5;          51.1% family; 45.9% acquaintances; 3% strangers

– Ages 6-11;                43.8% family;  51.4% acquaintances;  4.8% strangers

– Ages 12-17;              24.3% family; 65.7% acquaintances; 10% strangers

      Since the primary objective is to effectively protect the children, we must first define the things we must endeavor to protect them from:

1) Children have a right to be protected from child sexual abuse and the furt erance of that abuse through the production of photographic images which record it.

2) Children have a right to be protected from the intentional and unintentional viewing of that recorded abuse by individuals unknown to the victims. These individuals help to perpetuate the emotional victimization of the children when they are aware that their abuse is being viewed by strangers.

      So I ask you, Mr. Smith: How does “The Child Protection Act of 2012” protect the children of this country from sexual abuse?   The clear answer is that it does not.

      There are far too many empty promises on the law books already, Mr. Smith. Another one, regardless of how nobly it is titled, is not needed. There is no room, nor is there any time to waste, on any more “professional poisoning of the public mind,” to borrow a phrase from Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.

      In a previous article, I said we must “lock the door on child pornography,” and this we must do, but we must also throw open the door of truth and examine the ugliness that lies beyond 1t and has created millions of broken-hearted and broken-spirited people in this country. It is time to do something that will create positive change in fragile lives and not just enhance political careers.

      I tear nothing down without offering a possible solution or, at least, constructive positive suggestions with which to replace that which I criticize. With that said, I now submit the following steps for addressing the aforementioned concerns and ensuring the rights of America’s children to grow up as safely as possible:

      The language of any constructive bill should clearly and emphatically require all Internet Service Providers to utilize all available technology to stem the flow of child pornography and prevent the images of horror that their filters have captured from further damaging the lives of those victimized in them. A more detailed essay on this point is contained in “A Necessary Intrusion: Perhaps the Wrong People Are Behind Bars,” an earlier posting on this blog.

      To address the root problem, that of the sexual abuse itself, I will first point out that every state has a child protective services agency that is underutilized, understaffed, underfunded and overworked. To combat child sexual abuse in America, I propose the following five items:

1) Priority funding for child protective services should be provided to allow reorganization, rededication of purpose, staff increases and restructuring to include higher standards of performance and increased levels of training specifically to recognize and deal with sexual abuse. Increased staffing levels, lower caseloads and greater  accountability will prove invaluable in any sincere effort to protect children and enhance their safety. These agencies should be a priority in every state and federal guidelines for performance goals and funding to help meet those goals should be provided.

2) Priority funding for top-level psychological assistance for discovered victims, including faith-based counseling if it is desired.

3) Make educational awareness a priority at all levels up to and including high school. Make trained counselors available and set up local and national hotlines for those too timid to come forward, ensuring that they are manned with trained, compassionate and sincere personnel – perhaps even survivors of sexual abuse.  Make certain all available education and information reaches low income, ethnic and foreign language areas in the community.

4) Interact with national child sexual abuse organizations such as “Stop the Silence” to help devise ways to reach out to victims of all ages using rallies in auditoriums and gymnasiums featuring survivors of sexual abuse as speakers to encourage victims to come forward and get help to stop the abuse.

5) Priority funding for a national ad campaign in multiple languages with radio, television, print and  billboard coverage to eliminate the silence on this subject and get victims to seek counseling assistance. These efforts should include print ads and television public service announcements detailing the existing penalties concerning illegal images; the very sentences Rep. Smith proposes to increase. A broad spectrum of the public should be made aware that the viewing, downloading, possession and trading of child pornography will result in a sentence of from five to twenty years in a federal prison and the creation and production of those images will net the offender a sentence ranging from twenty years to life.

      This list, Mr. Smith, is in no way as complete as it can be but it should serve as a solid base from which to put together a plan that will begin to affect change.

      I challenge you, and your fellow lawmakers, to get to work doing the right thing for America’s children. You just might get reelected in the process for doing something worthwhile.

      At the very least, you will be able to say you really did act to protect the children of America.