Culture Shock

Dear Senator,

Jim Webbs bill, The Second Chance Act, S. 306, for a commission to study criminal justice reform is taking too long to move forward. This is supported by several hundred organizations, and millions of people. What is the problem; why the stall tactic?

Corrections Corporation of America is now buying an Ohio State Prison. We need to reduce our prison population, not continue 'as is' for profit. Who are their lobbyists? Who is being subtly paid off? How many of our decision makers own stock in this publicly traded company? These are some of the questions that need answering in order to discover where and why the passing of this bill is stalled.

OK, the deficit is not the problem here; could it be the fear of unemployment? Those who want Obama out want to keep those numbers where they are. At the same time they don’t want to increase unemployment, by decreasing the number of prison guards. Everyone in the U.S. Congress appears to be sitting on their hands, regarding S.306.

Prison Guards unions and others involved in our “Incarceration Nation” are being coddled; the barbed wire companies, the telephone companies, the canteen companies, the clothing manufacturers, shoe companies, even paper companies making a huge profit on toilet paper.

The list goes on to the tune of; cost per inmate per year of $40,000 and up to $70,000 per year for older inmates with health issues. Average $55,000 times 2.5 million inmates on any particular day and that is a burden the tax payer doesn’t need. This cost does not include those other 4 million people that are in county jails, on parole or probation.

To use looming unemployment of prison employees and reduced profits of the prison industrial complex as an excuse to put forward this sick cultural phenomenon is just that. SICK!

In the mean time we are firing teachers and not refilling positions all over the country when education is precisely what our future citizen’s need.

We are a country biting of our nose in spite of our face; eating our own entrails.

grassrootsleadership.org says / “Privatization erodes public control and oversight. Nowhere is privatization more insidious than in the corporate takeover of our criminal justice system. For-profit corporations own and run hundreds of prisons, jails, and detention centers in this country. For these companies, every prisoner is a profit center, every crime a business opportunity, and rehabilitation is bad for business.” This flows over into the public sector as far as I am concerned because any way you look at it the tax payer is footing the bill.

Thirty years ago we doubled felony sentencing and added mandatory minimums taking away a judges responsibility to make determinations according to circumstance. We then added the AEDPA and rubber stamped every conviction by the denial of habeas corpus. This subliminally gives the lower courts free reign to do whatever they would like in overcharging and over-sentencing with no fear of the consequence for unethical behavior. Our prosecutors have more power than any other entity and we have virtually criminalized the District Attorney’s by making these bad decisions. This quadruple whammy is costing the tax payer billion’s annually and costing inmates and families, as victims of our criminal justice system, more in suffering.
I urge you to do everything you can to put this bill S.306 forward.

Respectfully,
Mary-Ellen Pecci