[lbo-talk] it's inevitable

[andie nachgeborenen]

The American incarceration system is awful on average
though quite variable. I've been in Cook Country Jail,
no place to hang out, but not the Lubyanka either,
Stateville Correctional, which is pretty damn
Lubyanka-esque or Kafka-esque or both; two other state
prisons, neither fun but not nightmarish; and the
Federal Correctional Center in Chicago, which ranges
from dormitory-like on the nicer floors to genuine
gulag conditions in max security -- bars, the bed a
slab of concrete without a mattress, no amenities
except a broken exercise bike -- that's here the hold
"terrorism" suspects who had the misfortune to raise
money for Islamic charities. Out west and in the South
there are sheriffs who house jailed pretrial detainees
in tents in 110 degree heat and have short timers
doing chain-gang work, I mean, chained together and
supervised by guards on horseback with shotguns. 

All that said, while I think our incarceration
conditions are generally inhumane (they have been
condemned as human rights violations by AI and HRW),
and our incarceration rate is insane, I don't think
that makes prisoners,w hether convicts or PTD, martyrs
or heroes in general -- just victims of human rights
violations, which is serious enough. There are some
martyrs and heroes behind bars, but they are very few.
Most prisoners are just poor suckers who need a
lawyer.

--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> Carrol Cox wrote:
> 
> >City and county jails are often -- very often --
> places of horror, and
> >the phrase "where people are held awaiting trial"
> sounds more innocent
> >than it is. An accurate count of men & women in
> prison should very
> >definitely count those in county & city jails.
> 
> Well, yeah, of course. Thanks for the obligatory
> leftist clarification.
> 
> Doug
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> 

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