Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 14:17:35 -0700
To: [r--c] at [xmission.com], [liberty and justice] at [pobox.com], [ignition point] at [pobox.com]
From: Liberty or Death <[ghostp w r] at [dmi.net]>
Subject: (fwd) Prisons in America
forwarded from elsewhere...
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Bars
More Prisons and the Thriving Justice Industry
In 1980, one out of every 687 Americans claimed a mailing address from a
state or federal penitentiary. In 1996, many states across the nation are
contemplating yet another batch of warehouses for violators of "The Law," to
keep one out of every 250 Americans behind bars in a state or federal
institution--an increase of 219 percent in 15 years.
The United States of America, land of the free and home of the brave, has
more people imprisoned per capita than any country in the world, including
China and Russia.
In an effort to secure bed space for the epidemic of American criminals, a
large percentage of which have been convicted and sentenced for victimless
crimes, a national trend has made itself apparent. The trend is for
government to bait small, rural and typically agricultural communities of
under 10,000 people with the carrot of state and/or federal dollars to build
and operate new prisons.
Small American farming and ranching communities have been hit hard, over and
over for the last 20 years with state and federal overregulation. Farmers and
ranchers across the nation have found it more and more difficult to make a
decent living off their land and are being regulated out of business.
For the last decade government bureaucrats bearing impressive feasibility
studies with colorful charts and graphs and multi-million dollar budgets have
found it easy to convince desperate farmers and ranchers to trade their barns
for guard towers and be a part of America's fastest growing industry--the
justice industry.
"Say a little prayer for the good years and the good days you used to have in
your little town," said Claude Cramer of Coalinga , CA, in reference to
anybody who is seriously considering the construction of a prison in their
community. "More money than you've ever seen will flow into your community,
but believe me, its just boom and bust," Cramer added.
When the bureaucrats descend upon a community to sell them on the idea of a
prison, they promise an influx of dollars through additional commerce and
often promise that local contractors will be allowed to bid on prison
construction. They also promise that the government will sign contracts with
local businesses to provide services to the prison after it is up and
running. The promises sound good coming out of the mouths of polished
professionals and even better coming into the ears of naive country folk who
simply want to feed their families.
However, ten years--or less--down the road, simple country folk find their
economy ruined because the prison salespersons not only fail to keep their
promises but fail to tell the community about the inevitable repercussions of
inviting the justice industry into town.
Cramer, who has been actively opposed to the construction of several prisons
in his area, including the state prison which houses hard-core inmates like
Charles Manson in the small town of Corcoran, CA, (population of about 4,500),
cited the "iron-clad" contract the state government signed with the local
hospital for over $1million to provide medical services for the institution.
"They thought they were set for life but the prison broke the contract and
built their own hospital. That left the little town of Corcoran four and a
half million dollars in debt. That's a lot of money for a little town," Cramer
said. With a note of sarcasm touched with humor, Cramer added, "I don't think
the entire town is worth that much."
What the tax-paid-state-or-federally-employed prison sales teams do not tell
trusting community leaders is what will inevitably happen to their community
after the massive influx of money to build the prison has been spent and the
short lived booming economy busts:
1. Correctional officers and staff with salaries and benefits that are easily
double the local average move into the area at a ratio of one officer/staff
member for every three inmates. Seventy percent to 80 percent of the prison
employees will commute up to 60 miles to and from work and not even live in
the town of their employ.
2. Business owners will raise the price of their goods because over 1,000
highly paid people working for the prison can afford to pay whatever
businesses demand for goods and services.
3. Property value and rent will increase dramatically.
4. Crime will increase drastically as inmate families move into the area.
5. Welfare disbursements will increase noticeably.
6. All of the town's existing services will become stressed to the limit
including libraries, streets, police and fire protection, schools and, of
course, the welfare office and health department.
7. Taxes and assessments will be hitting residents from all sides to pay for
the expansion of all the services which are not able to keep up with the
demands placed upon them.
8. All persons on fixed incomes will suffer due to the increased cost of
everything it takes to survive.
9. Many people who had once been hard-working and responsible members of the
community will move somewhere else, leaving a larger and larger population of
criminal and dependent people behind. These people will be administered to by
tax-paid government workers with a diminishing tax base from which to pay
their salaries and benefits.
10. The culture of the town will be changed forever and the traditional
economy of ranching and farming will all but disappear and the new economy
will become almost totally dependent upon government jobs.
Why are so many Americans winding up in prison? Is it because so many
Americans are bad or because we Americans keep electing legislators, many of
whom are lawyers, to entangle every aspect of our country and culture in a web
of rules and regulations that are choking us to death?
Why won't prison salespersons warn a community of the inevitable repercussions
should the community leaders be short-sighted enough to invite the justice
industry into town?
When are people going to start protecting themselves from politicians who have
proven over and over again that they will say anything, do anything,
compromise anything in order to feather their own nests or further their own
personal political agendas?
There is a quote by Thomas Jefferson that is historically appropriate in
describing almost everything that is happening to our beloved country and to
what were once free Americans:
"If we run into such debts that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink,
in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, in our
callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them,
must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, and give the earnings of
fifteen of these to the government for their debts and expenses;
And the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they
now do, on oatmeal and potatoes;
Have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account;
But be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains
around the necks of our fellow sufferers;
And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle
in one instance becomes a precedent for a second, that second for a third, and
so on till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to
have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering...And the forehorse
of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train
wretchedness and oppression."
This quote is particularly appropriate when discussing matters related to the
justice industry in America. Thomas Jefferson describes a historically
inevitable cycle that he and our other Founding Fathers tried, apparently
unsuccessfully, to avoid for us.
If Jefferson was right, the exponential growth of the justice industry in our
once great country is an indication that we are near the end of the
cycle--wretchedness and oppression. If Jefferson was right we can avoid
wretchedness and oppression by calling the mismanagers to account instead of
hiring ourselves to rivet their chains around the necks of our fellow
sufferers.
All communities in America must seriously consider the long-term advantages
and disadvantages of inviting the justice industry into their lives. Community
leaders must not trust the promises of government bureaucrats whose intentions
are not to benefit the community but to sell it a prison so more Americans can
be put behind bars.
Community leaders across America must do their own research by contacting
other communities which have allowed prisons to be built in their small towns.
They must get information regarding all sides of the issue before they condemn
the culture and traditions of their town and the lives of their townspeople to
be changed forever.
- Monte
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>>> Don't Tread On Me! <<<
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* Psalm 33 *
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"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude
greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace.
We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand
that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity
forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams
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