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The Battle Lines are Drawn:  J.A.I.L. versus The Foreign Power 

A Power Foreign to Our Constitution

Mission Statement      JNJ Library        ederal J.A.I.L.

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www.sd-jail4judges.org

Prisons, and More Prisons

It is no secret that America has become a popular "Prison" country. One of its greatest GNPs is prisons, rating right up there with General Motors. The American Prison Complex Industry touches the production of everything from the steel industry, the concrete industry, the food industry, as well as the uniform and arms industry, lawyers, judges, clerks, and office equipment, just to name a few. An extensive, but non-exhaustive, list would fill this entire page. Profit dictates the lives of millions of employees that are motivated with the idea that we must never permit the American Prison Complex Industry to be curtailed or diminished. The prison capital of the world per capita goes to South Dakota.

Any non-biased person can easily arrive at the conclusion that in America prisons are the answer to all things, i.e. "Throw'em behind bars and throw away the key." But like everything in life, are we beginning to feel the cost of our decisions? This is the subject of forensic psychologist Dr. Karen Franklin in the article below:

In The News: Forensic Psychology, Criminology, and Psychology-Law

http://forensicpsychologist.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-prison-pendulum-reaching-its-extreme.html

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Is the prison pendulum reaching its extreme?

And how does a new lactation station fit in?

Those of you who grew up here in the San Francisco Bay Area may remember the corny old radio ad for the Winchester Mystery House. "Keeeeeep buillllllding," a spooky female voice moaned. According to the lore, the owner of the 19th-century mansion kept adding room after bizarre room until, after 38 years, she finally died.

The current prison construction frenzy reminds me of that wacky homeowner. The other day, I was evaluating a prisoner in a building designed as a gymnasium, now crammed wall-to-wall with metal bunk beds and sardine-like prisoners. The place reeked of stale sweat, but it wasn't from the rehabilitative exercise for which it was designed. In such situations, I frequently find myself conducting my interviews in the broom closet, or even in the guards' bathroom.

California's prisons now hold 172,000, twice their designed capacity. And we don't even rank among the top three states per capita. You probably know the stats - with 2.2 million people (1 out of every 136 adults) behind bars or on probation, the United States ranks tops in the world for imprisoning its citizens.

Yet, like the owner of the Winchester Mystery House, California's governor wants to build more.

The state is already spending more than half a billion dollars a year on overtime pay for correctional staff, with some staff earning as much as $212,179. That, of course, doesn't include construction workers.

And, lest the supply side dry up, more and more behaviors are being criminalized.

You've probably heard about the two 13-year-olds up in Oregon who are all over the blogosphere this week because they faced 10 years in prison and lifetime registration as sexual predators for running down the school hallway, slapping other kids on the butts.

If that case seems bizarre, it's one of many. I've posted previously about similar cases:

But in the face of this madness, I'm the eternal optimist.

I'm feeling encouraged by the growing public awareness - books, newspaper exposes, editorials, and blog posts galore about the economic and social costs of incarceration.

I'm encouraged that the federal judiciary is standing up to California's governor. A recently appointed judicial panel, concerned about inadequate physical and mental health care for prisoners due to the overcrowding, is poised to cap the prisoner population here.

A sane society would take steps to help paroling prisoners, so that they don't immediately return to prison for "technical" violations as they do here in California. And it would reinvest the enormous savings into our public schools, once the envy of America and now a national disgrace.

Pondering these issues the other day as I strolled into the infamous San Quentin State Prison, I realized that one of the guard stations had been replaced by something quite incongruous - a lactation station.

I want to see that incongruity as an omen. A sign that the prison pendulum - and the underlying incarceration mania in America - may be reaching its maximum swing.

But maybe it's not. Maybe it's just another adaptation to living in a prison-centric culture.

J.A.I.L. (Judicial Accountability Initiative Law) www.jail4judges.org

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He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to

our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to

their acts of pretended legislation.    - Declaration of Independence
 
"..it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless

minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.."  - Samuel Adams
 
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is

striking at the root."   -- Henry David Thoreau                     ><)))'>