Tag: prisons

What Was So Great About America Again?

Posted on by Kevin Lively

by Kevin Lively

The re-election of Donald Trump has prompted a spectrum of reactions among those who are . . . unenthusiastic . . . at this outcome. One common reaction I’ve observed among progressive friends and those who enthusiastically rather than grudgingly vote Democrat is confusion. Many reactions are understandable: dread about the implications for climate change, concern for the human rights of undocumented migrants in the US, or a low-grade panic over the fact that the Supreme Court has literally vested the office with immunity against legal persecution for assassinations, although apparently Obama’s assassinations of US citizens get a pass. Confusion, however, is only explicable as a consequence of a media ecosystem which rarely manages to coherently discuss many of the serious issues in American society, and crucially the role of policy choices by the government under both Democratic and Republican leadership which either failed to address or directly exacerbated these problems.

As any very stable genius glancing at a red hat in public can tell you, the appeal which won Mr. Trump his first democratic victory is ultimately rooted in nostalgia. But nostalgia for what exactly? Was American really greater in the past than it is now? And if so what changed and why?

Well this is a layered question. There is of course the obvious fact that for a non-negligible share of Trump voters this nostalgia is rooted in a time before the Civil Rights Act extended de jure if not de facto equal rights to non-white, non-christian, non-heteronormative non-men. If nothing else one can look at the day one rescinding of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility programs across the federal government and its contractors as an appeasement to that crowd. However, while this discrimination is indisputably a crucial aspect of American society and will continue to severely negatively affect human rights in the US, it is also not the only reason for Trump’s election. This in evidence from the increases Trump made among non-white voters, although the total numbers are still biased towards white men.

For the moment however, I do not want focus specifically on the very important issue of racism and discrimination, and instead look to other causes for support for Trump, although the USA being what it is, it will still permeate the discussion. Let’s start with the short term. Assuming there was a modicum of greatness in Trump’s first term we can look to an April 2024 New York Times / Sienna poll for what voters remembered about 2017-2021. Read more »

Monday, March 10, 2014

Prison Reform as Enlightened Self-Interest

Posted on by Katharine Blake McFarland

by Katharine Blake McFarland

Newgate-3I'm sitting in the empty bathtub with all my clothes on and my laptop in my lap, because it's the only place I can't hear the neighborhood jackhammer, when a headline from The Onion catches my attention: 15 Years In Environment Of Constant Fear Somehow Fails To Rehabilitate Prisoner. “About time,” I shout, to the empty bathroom. The satirical article goes on:

[O]fficials at Woodbourne Correctional Facility struggled Tuesday to make sense of how the prisoner had not been rehabilitated by 15 years of constant threats, physical abuse, and periodic isolation. “It just doesn't seem possible that an inmate could live for a decade and a half in a completely dehumanizing environment in which violent felons were constantly on the verge of attacking or even killing him and not emerge an emotionally stable, productive member of society”…

A story's inclusion in The Onion signals its self-evidence. The story—in this case, the inefficacy of incarceration—must be so obvious, so incontrovertible, that it's funny to dress it up as breaking news. It bodes well, I think, that this particular joke is getting some mainstream laughs because it hasn't always. (To be clear, by “joke” I mean “farce” and by “laughs” I mean “attention.” The distinction is important because lately prisons have become the object of increased media consideration, but sometimes the spotlight takes a precarious form. Does entertainment like Orange is the New Black help or hurt? Do we care? When it inspires fans to dress up in blackface and orange prison garb for Halloween, you might see the risk. A young friend of mine, someone who narrowly escaped the pipeline to prison himself, interpreted the name of the show as a reference to skin color, rather than fashion: “the new black,” he said, pointing to his bare arm. The intended joke was lost on him.)

And the notion that the prison system works—that it makes us safer, that it doles out appropriate punishment to deserving offenders and offers meaningful rehabilitative opportunities to those willing to change—has become a notion deserving of derision. It remains one of the greatest farces of our current justice system. I know a few who have served time and had an experience, sometimes a miracle, that changed them for the better. But mostly these experiences transpired in spite of, not because of, the environment. Incarceration, in its current form, does not rehabilitate but rather exacerbates criminality and mental illness.

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