[lbo-talk] Prisons and the Left

Dennis Claxton ddclaxton at earthlink.net
Fri Apr 10 11:29:41 PDT 2009


At 05:11 PM 4/9/2009, Joseph Catron wrote:


>The report names two people who didn't even exhibit antisocial tendencies
>off the job,

There's plenty of evidence that when a prison comes to town there is widespread negative fallout that includes spikes in domestic violence.

PBS ran a film a couple years ago called Prison Town USA about Susanville, California where a new prison opened in 1995. The film was made over a period of four years. Here's something from the synopsis on the PBS website:

"Besides the obvious dangers of the job, the constant tension spills into the guards' home lives, changing how they relate to their families and friends. In a sense they, too, are imprisoned ­ a reality that is hard to shake once they leave work. High rates of substance and domestic abuse are well-known hazards of the profession.

The correctional facilities also introduce new divisions in this once tight-knit community. Tensions arise between those who work for the prisons and those who don't, between locals and prisoners' family members and between prison employees and paroled former inmates."

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2007/prisontown/about.html

The Real Cost of Prisons Project has a similar offering summing up how struggling small towns are affected when they become prison towns. They do it in comic book form and it's available online:

http://realcostofprisons.org/comics.html



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