The Criminal InJustice System

The      Criminal Justice System a.k.a The Prison Industrial System

While my comrade who maintains this blog will highlight local issues, I happen to be more focused on the growing issues that we as citizens are faced with on a national perspective. One of these issues is the evolution of our criminal justice system, which in it’s present state is essentially broken and in desperate need of reform. I’ll begin with a simple statistic, that of our current incarcerated population.

The number is simply staggering, 2.2 million individuals are at present incarcerated in the United States as of the writing of this article, and even more remarkable, the population of the entire incarcerated population of the entire world amounts to be 10.2 million individuals. So when you do the math, 1/5 of the entire world’s prison population, yes the ENTIRE WORLD’S prison population exists right here in the United States. The United States has a larger prison population than that of either Russia or China, the big bad wolves of the mainstream media.

There are several reasons for this tragedy, primarily that of extremely harsh sentencing policies for non-violent drug offenses. This merely highlights the failings of our “elected leaders” to successfully establish economic equality (or at the very least a small bit closer) between the upper echelon of society and the remainder of the masses, especially that of the lower classes (i.e. the working poor). However, startlingly over the last few decades, the economic inequality gap has actually been allowed to become all the more expansive. Big business has firmly entrenched itself in the politics of America by way of super PAC’s. Yes there are individual contribution limits to how much an individual can donate to a campaign, but an individual or business can donate massive sums of money to a super PAC. All those television ads you see, the robocalls, the campaign advertising, that’s what super PAC’s do. So let’s say John Smith, CEO of Anything Enterprises wishes to donate a hefty sum to his favorite politicians campaign, with current election laws he’s restricted from donating a certain amount individually. However, he can make his massive donation to that politicians super PAC, basically indirectly funding the campaign. It’s a clever little loophole politicians created to circumvent contribution limits

My apologies, I digressed a bit, on to another reason, the virtual non-existence of trial by jury. In only the most heinous of crimes is a jury trial actually emphasized, the overwhelming majority of the criminal cases that come before the court are settled via plea deals. There are two main reasons for this phenomenon, first it frees up the court so they can process more cases more quickly, and second, it provides a steady stream of income for the prosecuting jurisdiction by way of fines and surcharges. The average American is completely uneducated when it comes to criminal justice proceedings, as they can in fact be quite complex. This leads to a certain degree of fear when the average person is charged with any criminal offense. Yes, the court will appoint an attorney to any individual who cannot afford their own private representation, however most publicly appointed attorneys are paid dependent on the amount of cases they get settled in court. Simply put, the more cases settled means the better they’re paid. This translates into public defense that is more interested in obtaining a plea than actually arguing the facts of the case. So when you have someone who’s already in a fearful state of mind due to unfamiliar surroundings, proceedings, and penalties coupled with an attorney who’s only interested in getting the case settled, the end result is simply a plea to a lesser charge. This results in greater case turnover and more revenue generated by way of fines and surcharges in regard to lesser charges.

On to yet another reason, and perhaps the most disturbing, privatized prisons. Privatized prisons are a growing trend and are a multi-billion dollar a year industry. In 2015, the industry was approximately a $5 billion a year industry (yes, BILLION), which housed almost 20% of all federal inmates, and roughly 7% of all state inmates. These privatized prisons receive inmates that are classified as lower risk, and can utilize lesser trained personnel to monitor them. Lower risk inmates are inmates who are non-violent offenders, this correlates with the first point I mentioned. The companies operating these facilities have actually assisted in writing pieces of legislation regarding sentencing policies (to their own best interests of course). These companies include, among others, the Corrections Corporation of America, the GEO Group, Inc. (formerly known as Wackenhut Securities), and Community Education Centers. Tragically some of the biggest investors for these private prison companies are Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, General Electric and The Vanguard Group. Yet another shining example of the connection between big business and our “elected officials”. In my opinion, it’s long past time that our representation actually represented you and I, and not the interests of corporate America. Make your voice heard, protest, petition, organize. Things will not change unless we change them. Will we, the 99% of 300 million people continue to let the 1% control us?