When it comes to issues of incarceration, modern American society seems to mirror some kind of science fiction story. There is some large yet invisible exodus of people occurring every day, and a concrete smattering of walls loosely resembling a room becomes these people's unfortunate abode. What is the difference between being jailed and being erased from existence? With the latter scenario, a person does not have to deal with the difficulties of mental and physical abuse, and the hardships of re-acclimating one's self into "normal" society. Indeed, the concept of the prison is misguided at best: throw the wayward, trouble-making citizens of society into a huge, dangerous, violent, and probably wildly unkempt facility. It is a poorly devised attempt at structured repercussion. A man who is found guilty of rape will likely, and ironically, endure the same assault while imprisoned. The question is, does this twisted form of punishment reduce the chances of this man committing the same crimes once released? The answer to that is murky at best, clouded by pervasive, outdated American ideals of legal discipline. Consider the death penalty; it is an act of outlandish hypocrisy, a "tit for tat" approach that embodies mankind's cruelest intentions and obvious apathy towards the human life. The lethal injection is no more or less humane than the electric chair, or the atrocity that landed said person in such a position. Why perpetuate murder as a meaningful element of American culture, to the point that we fight fire with fire, only stopping to mourn once everything has crumbled to ash?
According to influential Black feminist Angela Davis, the prison system is a catastrophe that must be abolished. The "success" of the prison system has largely been propagated through law enforcement rooted in racism, and the perpetuation of impractical and often irrational social rules. Even aside from the crack/cocaine jail sentence dichotomy, the prison system is fueled by racist motives. What else could explain the disproportionate amount of minorities imprisoned? Additionally, the prison economy is a thriving one: there are certainly people who profit from the morbid fact that millions of Americans are incarcerated.
Of course, the issue is not so simple that it can be addressed in one blog, one book, one day, or even one lifetime. Society must undergo a series of climacteric transformations before something so radical could even be considered. The idea of prisoner rehabilitation is largely ignored; it's arguable that prisons destroy more than they assuage, and are far more detrimental than helpful when it comes to handling criminals and crime. As a culture consumed by eroticized and normalized violence, it's only right that our country boasts the highest number of prisoners in the world. What this means for our society, and generations forthcoming, is an outlook more grim and dull than a prisoner's bar-eclipsed view.
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