Tuesday, May 31, 2011
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
15
TEDDY PAPES|VEWPN
Prison pandemic
There is an epidemic of incar-
ceration in the United States.
Roughly one in 100 adults is hehind
bars. That is five times more people
than the United Kingdom, nine
times more than Germany and 12
times more than Japan, per capita.
I hear about the military-industri-
al complex from time to time and
have dismissed it mostly as liberal
hysteria, but one theory that I have
heard more recently- and one that
seems to hold more water - is the
prison-industrial complex.
In the past, the correctional sys-
tem in the United States remained
largely stagnant, maintaining a
relatively low incarceration rate.
About 250,000 people were in
prison in 1940 and the population
stayed around 300,000 from 1960
to 1970. But under the watch of
everyone's favorite president, Ron-
ald Reagan, the prisoner popula-
tion doubled from under 500,000
to about 1,000,000 inmates. Now
we have close to 2,300,000 pris-
oners in the United States and the
numbers keep rising. Prior to 1980,
California had two maximum
security prisons, and between 1984
and 1994 they constructed eight
more to house their massive influx
of convicts. Last week the Supreme
Court ordered the release of
30,000 prisoners because of over-
crowding. Clearly, the situation is
reaching disastrous proportions.
As prisons overflow, the private
sector is stepping in to fill the gap.
Every year there are more and more
private facilities housing inmates.
We have somehow allowed pri-
vate companies to participate in
an industry where the less money
they spend on inmates, the more
profit they will get to keep - not
to mention that repeat offenders
will only bolster this expanding
industry. Why would these orga-
nizations make any effort to reha-
bilitate their clientele? That's like a
store owner selling a pop to a cus-
tomer and then asking that patron
to never show his face in the store
again. Without some kind of elabo-
rate oversight, the use of private
industries for prisons is one that
favors high inmate populations.
Prison reform is looming some-
where in many people's minds, but
what is everyone waiting for? Pris-
oners are not a very relevant inter-
est group, nor are many of them
allowed to vote, but for both con-
victs and those individuals lucky
enough to be spared the gavel, the
prison system in this country must
change. Violent offenders probably
should be in prison away from the
rest of us, but in 2009 only half of
state prisoners were violent crimi-
nals, and only 7.9 percent of federal
inmates were violent offenders.
According to December 1998 arti-
cle in The Atlantic Monthly, 70% of
women in prison were non-violent
offenders.
So who are the rest of the peo-
ple in lockup? Politicians use the
War on Drugs to make themselves
look strong and tough, but these
shameful political ruses are afflict-
ing the poor and minorities. This
is no way to solve the problems of
drugs and crime. These inmates
filling the expanding prison sys-
tem are largely undereducated
and often mentally ill or have a
history of substance abuse. Drug
crimes account for two-thirds of
prisoners in federal prisons. Is it
in the best interest of the country
to put these people in jail? Should
their crimes even be illegal in the
first place? The racial demograph-
ics further reveal the travesty of
the corrections system as blacks
represent nearly 40 percent of the
prison population while they only
represent about 13 percent of the
national population. Conversely,
whites represent one-third of the
prison population and are 72% of
the population in the United States.
Michigan is facing its own ver-
sion of this national problem. Its
prison population is the sixth
largest in the nation despite being
eighth in overall population. It
spends nearly $2 billion on correc-
tions, exceeding the amount spent
on education. Gov. Rick Snyder
trashed the Michigan Business
Tax and levied taxes on pensions
and retirement funds, without
making significant changes to the
billions being funneled to correc-
tions. Cutting a significant amount
of that could alleviate the states
budgetary problems, and more
programs to cut recidivism will
help further on down the road,
much more so than his supply-side
economic policy. The problem is
that a politician will seem weak
if they are soft on criminals, so as
much as the state needs to change,
the public understanding of this
broken, self-perpetuating system
needs to change as well.
Teddy Papes is the
editorial page editor.
"I had sold my things but it was
just for the money. -.We had four
Big Ten rings. There was enough
to go around."
- Former Ohio State wide receiver Ray Small, on breaking NCAA regulations
Embracing autonomy
In Puno, Peru, a small town on
Lake Titicaca, global power struc-
tures are being challenged. And
its pretty impor-
tant, but you can
be sure that you
won't hear much
about it. For all of
the apparent ide-
ological differ-
ences between --
Democrats and JONATHAN
Republicans, AYLWARD
there's no sub-
stantial debate
that challenges the global para-
digm. If there was, the world might
actually start changing.
This invisible subject is eco-
nomic imperialism. Legitimized
by all the powerful nations of
the world and the global finan-
cial institutions that they run,
the process occurs without resis-
tance - almost. That's where
Puno comes in.
Puno has been designated a
Special Economic Zone by presi-
dent Alan Garcia. This is a strat-
egy to attract foreign investments
in which nationwide labor and
tax laws are suspended within
the area. These regions exist glob-
ally, and are hotbeds of incredibly
cheap labor. While this maybenefit
those who work for these compa-
nies in the short-term, it ultimately
serves to maintain the global hier-
archy of nations that provide and
nations that consume.
The Canadian company Bear
Creek Mining Corporation was
given a contract by the Peruvian
government to harvest silver.
Lake Titicaca, an indispensable
cultural and livelihood resource
for the people of the region, will
likely be damaged by such opera-
tions. In an incredibly powerful
display of indigenous resistance,
the citizens of Puno have block-
aded the streets into the city and
have united to protest a process
that they had no say in and con-
sider detrimental to their lives.
Let's take a few steps back.
The earth has been divided into
official nations that encompass
the people within their borders.
These lands each have a set of
unique resources that are the most
essential wealth that a nation pos-
sesses. They can be used by the
people of the region or exported
for financial gain.
Since Europeans have come to
the Americas, with vast wealth
and the ever-increasing need for
resources, indigenous popula-
tions have been trampled and their
resources have been exploited. The
native populations of North Amer-
ica have been basically obliterated;
in Peru, only 14 million Native
Americans remain and they still
are strugglingwith Western states.
But does it need to be a strug-
gle? Perhaps a simple global law
would free developing nations
from the developed worlds' grip
and strengthen their autonomy
by forbidding foreign entities
from owning or controlling the
resources of another country.
To present such an idea is seen
as radical, but why? The status
quo is radically imperialistic,
and actively preserves the role
of nations as either exploited or
exploiting. A simple exercise in
empathy can help us see this: as
a native of a country, would you
want full autonomy to choose
what to do with your land, or
would you want someone in Van-
couver (as is the case with the Bear
Creek Corporation) deciding what
to do with it?
The West blindly clings to its
supposed cultural superiority, as
if it somehow excuses the erasure
of other cultures and depletion of
our planet by companies like Bear.
Creek. We have developed stable
lives with longer lifespans (unless
you live in a neglected urban or
rural area) and who wouldn't
want to have that? We are doing
the world a favor by spreading
our economic system and culture,
regardless of what a few misguid-
ed Indians think. Just give them
some time - they'll come to real-
ize a Filet-O-Fish is tastier than
anything that comes out of Lake
Titicaca. Right?
Maybe this is the case - maybe
everyone wants to live like an
American. But who are we to
assume that they do? By being
allowed to dangle our incredible
wealth around the world, some-
one will surely bite. Regardless of
who it is, the decision is unlikely
to be accepted by those who it
negatively affects. The compa-
nies and governments that sign
the contracts will benefit, while
the locals have to deal with the
consequences. Maybe a few jobs
will be gained for a while, but the
long-term consequence is the con-
tinued subservience of an entire
nation towards another.
Not everyone
wants to be an
American.
In a world driven by compas-
sion rather than greed, the U.S.
would be the first ones to step
up and support the people of
the developing world in their
struggle for true independence.
Unfortunately this is not the
world in which we live. Instead,
the burden falls on the people of
the developing world to organize
and assert their autonomy. This
is what the people of Puno are
doing, and they deserve our full
support and attention.
Jonathan Aylward can be
reached at jaylward@umich.edu.