Is America Really Building More Prisons/Jails Than Schools? This Issue Is Very Personal To Me!!!!

[Corey_Baker08]

Throughout the course of the past several weeks, as a 20 year old college student majoring in Criminal Justice More Specifically Law Enforcement-in my Intro to Criminal Justice class my instructor who is a very intelligent young African American man with a record in public service like I cannot believe. He has been a lead Detective at the San Fransisco Police Department heading the forensics and investigations unit. He has several degrees holding among others a bachelors in Forensics. I go to school in Dayton,Ohio a very poor crime riddled city devastated by the collapse of the economy losing several thousand high paying jobs in the automotive industry. For this instructor to give up his high paying salary with the S.F PD to come to the 7th most violent city in the entire country to teach young prospective law enforcement students like myself.

The reason I write though is because over the past several weeks he has stressed a point to our class that none of us will soon forget, and one frankly that I believe is a great shame of this country. My Instructor, Mr King, has told our class that the United States of America is building more prisons and jails than schools. As someone who spent 6 days in a county jail for a simple minor consumption I feel this if proven to be factual, extremely appalling on a very personal level.

What kind of country will lock up individuals for generally long periods of time, taking away all their freedoms, and as my experienced proved to be just absolutely appalling at the way the Correctional Staff treated the inmates like myself who were in there for very minor crimes, in fact most in our county jail's population I believe roughly over 65% of the inmates are there due to unpaid fines for misdemeanor convictions.

Is this true? Is America building More Prisons/jails than Schools?

If so, something needs to be done about this, My personal experience in the County Jail at the age of 18 Years Old has since inspired me to become a leader in prison/jail reform to ensure that all inmates whether felons or misdemeanor offenders, they should all have the basic rights to be treated humanely and to be incarcerated in a facility that is interested in the health and well being and the rehabilitation and recovery of the inmate- these programs should be in every prison or jail to ensure that rehabilitation is still a very powerful tool ecspecially to individuals in my case, a young scared 18 year old honestly good politically active young man spending 6 days in the less than substandard conditions of a local county jail, instead of being locked in a cell 20 hours a day to stare at a ceiling, why not take those 6 days or however many and have you meet with a counselor or some sort of personal counselor to plan out a way to get my life on track and learn from my mistake?

[Kalun D]

1. Wouldn't Surprise Me One Bit

We incarcerate more citizens by total number and more citizens by a percentage of the total than any other country on earth. We have 4% of the worlds total population and 25% of the worlds total prison population.

The only country that comes close is China, they might have more if their official numbers are false as many activists claim.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration#Incarceration_rates_by_country

[Corey_Baker08]

2. Thanks 4 The Link & The Info!!! n/t

:hi: :hi: :hi:

[Incitatus]

3. "building more prisons than schools" - Where is that from?

I know that from somewhere.

<edit>


got it

The Impossible Victory: Vietnam
excerpted from a
People's History of the United States
by Howard Zinn

In the fall of 1945 Japan, defeated, was forced to leave Indochina, the former French colony it had occupied at the start of the war. In the meantime, a revolutionary movement had grown there, determined to end colonial control and to achieve a new life for the peasants of Indochina. Led by a Communist named Ho Chi Minh, the revolutionists fought against the Japanese, and when they were gone held a spectacular celebration in Hanoi in late 1945, with a million people in the streets, and issued a Declaration of Independence. It borrowed from the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, in the French Revolution, and from the American Declaration of Independence, and began: "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." Just as the Americans in 1776 had listed their grievances against the English King, the Vietnamese listed their complaints against French rule:
They have enforced inhuman laws.... They have built more prisons than schools. They have mercilessly slain our patriots, they have drowned uprisings in rivers of blood. They have fettered public opinion.... They have robbed us of our rice fields, our mines, our forests, and our raw materials

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/Vietnam_PeoplesHx.html

I'm also reminded of a quote from Burmese Days - Orwell.

"They build a prison and call it progress."

[Corey_Baker08]

8. No Where Specific I Don't Believe n/t

[TheDebbieDee]

4. America is a prison nation...........

The US has 5% of the world's population and 25% if the world's prisoners.

Yes, we are building prisons to house the children that can't be/won't be educated.

[rabs]

5. The Prison Industrial Complex - A Reality

Can't answer your question on jails vs. schools construction. But thought you would be interested in this so you can pose some questions to Mr. King.


The prison industrial complex is a self perpetuating industry based on the subjugation of an increasing segment of our communities by racial and economic scapegoating. The economic angle of this is immediate, bottom line, material gain for the corporations supporting and profiting from the prison industrial complex.


More:

http://www.engaged-zen.org/articles/Kobutsu-Investing_in_Slavery.html

[Fumesucker]

6. This might interest you...

http://www.prisonsucks.com/

Or you can make some international comparisons:
South Africa under Apartheid was internationally condemned as a racist society.
South Africa under apartheid (1993), Black males: 851 per 100,000
U.S. under George Bush (2006), Black males: 4,789 per 100,000

What does it mean that the leader of the "free world" locks up its Black males at a rate 5.8 times higher than the most openly racist country in the world?

[Corey_Baker08]

7. Very Informing Thank You So Much!!!

:hi: