>LES MIZ IN BELLY OF BEAST: LIFE IN PRISON FOR TAKING FOOD
>By Vanessa Lewis
>On April 26, an appeals court upheld a 25-years-to-life sentence for
>Gregory Taylor, a homeless person convicted of burglarizing a church
>pantry in Los Angeles. His "crime" was stealing food.
>The sentence was a result of California's "three strikes" law. This law
>requires a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life for a felony committed
>by a defendant with two previous "serious or violent" felony convictions.
>The defense argued against using the three strikes law because Taylor's
>two previous convictions were for nonviolent burglaries. But, according to
>an April 26 Associated Press report, the prosecutor "disagreed that
>Taylor's previous convictions were nonviolent, noting that robbery is the
>forcible taking of property."
>Taylor had often received food from the church pantry after hours before.
>This time no one was there to open the pantry and he was hungry.
>The judge failed to instruct the jury that it could have convicted him of
>a lesser crime--trespassing--and thus avoided the three strikes law.
>Anyone would agree that a life sentence for taking food is outrageous--so
>outrageous that it should be relegated to fiction. Ironically enough, it
>is fiction. Such an incident in 19th-century France was the basis for
>Victor Hugo's popular novel--and the long-running Broadway musical--"Les
>Miserables," in which a man is sentenced to life in prison for stealing a
>loaf of bread.
>Now it has happened here, at the end of the 20th century, when food is
>super-abundant and tons are thrown away every day. But to oppressed
>people, it's not that surprising.
>The justice system has proved to be no friend to poor and working people.
>Someone who steals--or is accused of stealing--$10 is labeled a criminal
>and goes to prison. Someone who steals $10,000 or more is hailed as an
>entrepreneur.
>Since 1991, the number of people in U.S. prisons has risen by 50 percent,
>while the rate of violent acts has decreased by 20 percent.
>"Three strikes" laws are eliminating parole after a certain number of
>offenses. Other laws require prisoners to serve 85 percent of their
>sentences. Mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders are putting more
>people behind bars for nonviolent acts.
>In California three strikes went into effect in 1996, the year of
>President Bill Clinton's welfare "reform" law. That same year prison
>construction in the state skyrocketed, receiving a billion dollars more
>than university construction.
>Private corporations spend approximate ly $35 billion a year on the prison
>industry in the United States, supporting prison bond issues and the
>privatization of prisons.
>People in prison now work for multi-billion-dollar companies taking
>airplane reservations, building furniture and much more. Most are poor,
>mainly people of color, and their slave labor is highly profitable.
>Prisoners have become an important population of exploited labor for the
>ruling class.
>TERRORIST TACTICS
>Since Clinton's welfare "reform" law, millions of people have been cut
>from public assistance. Millions more have been forced into "work
>experience" programs, where they get decreased benefits.
>The welfare law gave states the power to screen recipients of food stamps
>at will. In 1997, the first wave of cuts in food stamps took hold when, in
>states like Michigan and California, tens of thousands were cut off.
>Many of those who were cut off work full-time, yet are paid so little they
>cannot afford food without assistance.
>Beginning in April 1997, Los Angeles recipients were subject to racist
>screening that denied food stamps to all non-citizens, with or without
>legal documents.
>In February of this year New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced he
>would eliminate food stamps for able-bodied single adults between 18 and
>50.
>On May 14 the New York Times reported that "a new study estimates that
>675,000 people lost Medicaid coverage and were without health insurance in
>1997 because of sweeping changes in Federal and state welfare programs."
>The study was made by Families USA, a consumer group that has worked
>closely with the White House for the last six years.
>Of the 675,000 people who lost coverage, 420,000 were children. Federal
>law requires that people who lose cash assistance be guaranteed Medicaid.
>But the states have not complied and the federal government has not
>enforced this law.
>Recently a federal district judge in New York ruled that thousands of
>people had been improperly denied Medicaid. This has undoubtedly happened
>all over the country.
>The executive director of Families USA, Ronald Pollack, "predicted that
>the problem would get worse because more and more are leaving the welfare
>rolls for low-wage jobs that do not provide health benefits," reported the
>Times.
>Nationwide, the government has been reporting a surplus in its budget for
>food stamps since 1996. Social Security funds have generated a surplus for
>the last 20 years. But does this mean that everyone has plenty of food,
>and the elderly are getting what they need?
>No, these budget surpluses are a political and accounting trick. The funds
>have accumulated because these programs turn people away, or underpay
>them.
>The social services won through mass struggle in the United States are
>being ferociously stripped away by the ruling class. These social gains
>forced from the government were intended to insure minimum living
>standards for everyone, since the capitalist economic system leaves
>millions without jobs or a living wage.
>Now capitalist politicians and the military-industrial complex see these
>programs as another money tree. The May 14 New York Times reported that a
>House-Senate committee had approved an emergency spending bill allocating
>over $11 billion for the current war on the people of Yugoslavia and other
>military programs. Most of it will be taken directly from the Social
>Security "surplus."
>Another $350 million will be taken out of money for low- income housing
>programs and $1.25 billion will come from "surplus" food stamp money.
>How many Gregory Taylors will either go hungry or end up in jail for life
>because of this robbery of food money? Ironically, the bill also contains
>$570 million in assistance to U.S. farmers who may go under because of low
>commodity prices. In other words, food is cheaper than ever but hungry
>people can't get it.
>Vondora Jordan, co-founder of Workfairness, an organization of people on
>public assistance or in "work experience" programs and their supporters,
>commented: "It's a crime a man would be put in jail for being hungry. Here
>in New York City a lot of us are losing our benefits and homelessness is
>growing. A lot of families are suffering due to these cuts.
>"We have a lot in common with the people of Yugoslavia. The U.S.
>government has made us refugees, too.
>"As the people living in this country, it's up to us to go up against this
>corrupt government. All workers and their families need to stand up and
>demand that this money go to education, housing, food and jobs--not
>jailing and bombing people."
> - END -
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