| “There can be no debate, whether you are a conservative or liberal or something in between, that we have a broken criminal justice system.” -Sen. Bernie Sanders Some think the recent prison riot in South Carolina, which left a carnage of stacked and bloodied bodies in a “macabre-like woodpile,” isn’t the only disgrace regarding the U.S. Prison-Corporate Complex. To be sure, most of those killed and wounded in the maximum-security prison were young, in their early or late twenties. Shameful as this sounds, criminality is always the adolescent’s fault, something he/she has done deliberately and with choice. But it’s also the parents’ fault, something they could have prevented with decent moral education and adequate vigilance. Society consequently indicts and alienates both of them with little recourse for reintegration and full-inclusion. Speaking anonymously due to fear of retaliation from other inmates or prison officials, some said the riot at the Lee Correctional Institution lasted seven hours before authorities and a special SWAT Team finally stepped in. At the end of the ordeal, seven inmates lay dead, “literally stacked on top of each other, like some macabre woodpile,” with 17 others wounded.(1) The riot started as gangs battled over territory, money and banned items like cellphones. Armed with handmade knives and pipes, they mostly stabbed and slashed each other to death. Earlier, the 1,500 inmate facility took part in a nation-wide strike over guard brutality, unsanitary conditions, and for a pay increase from $1.25 per-hour. Arresting and Imprisoning Our Way Out of Crime Some say it’s also shameful how society criminalizes-and grooms-juveniles for such prisons, along with their parents. This popular and simplistic notion causes them to live in an isolated realm of anger and guilt, struggling to forgive each other and themselves. To produce a child with DS or Aspergers is deemed a misfortune; to produce a criminal is often deemed a failure. Meanwhile, parents with disabled children receive state funding, parents of criminals are frequently prosecuted. Morally diminished, the force of blame impedes juvenile offenders and their parents ability to help-sometimes even to love-their felonious progeny.(2) And yet, virtuous parenting is no warranty against corrupt children. Disgraceful, too, is how a nation ignores the first cardinal principal of imprisonment: deterrence. Not only have many institutions been designed to serve the school-to-prison pipeline, where a disproportionate tendency of minors and juveniles from disadvantaged backgrounds become incarcerated due to living in a violent environment, a lack of job opportunities, and harsh school and municipal policies, but scare tactics seldom work when many already feel imprisoned by insurmountable odds. Neither does it help to slash proven behavioral therapy and teaching family programs. In the end, it’s vain for a nation and society to try and arrest and imprison its way out of the crime problem. Shame of the Prisons-And Cities Some think incapacitation is also futile if those behind bars can easily commit further crimes. That’s what’s so shameful about this riot. It’s a microcosm of a much bigger crisis within the Prison-Corporate Complex. Inmates are not only paid little money, with most of it going to corporations, but they’re allowed to receive contraband and form gangs that battle each other as officials look on. Meanwhile, guards dish out retaliation through isolation or by removing privileges, serving blender meals, and beating inmates. Many are therefore arrested again because the problem to how inmates behave when they get out was never solved. They might even be merely mirroring a violent-prone society. Another disgrace is rehabilitation and reintegration once a juvenile or adult inmate gets out, which is dependent on economic growth and job opportunities, the availability of drugs, societal perceptions towards released inmates, changing methods of policing, and if courts deliver disproportionate sentences based on race. The most important factor though is family engagement. To be sure, when offenders and families are reunited and reintegrated, 80 percent of offenders won’t commit another crime. But much of society and law is still organized around the notion that young criminals are intractably malign and their families have erred. Funding for family reintegration therefore lacks. Mirroring America’s Violent Nature and Political Culture Some even warn that American society may be just as appalling as the Prison-Corporate Complex itself. Last year, one in four teenagers used, carried, or took part in an episode involving a gun or a knife. As many as one in ten had some type of a physical altercation with a parent or an adult. Each year three million juveniles are also taken into custody, with over two million arrested. The processing of cases is moreover terribly slow, and juveniles may languish in detention for as much as a year pretrial, vastly upsetting their social and academic development.(3) As a result, kids who commit crimes are likely to become adults who commit crimes-or die in prison riots and macabre woodpiles. Meanwhile, more than half of juveniles who are arrested test positive for drugs, and more than three-quarters are under the influence of alcohol or drugs-some of it prescribed-when committing their crimes. They’re also more than three times as likely to have used marijuana, more than seven times likely to have used ecstasy, more than nine times as likely to have used cocaine, and twenty times as likely to have used heroin.(4) Although drug treatment for juveniles is necessary to fighting crime, it too is scarce, just as mental health services are. Consequently, as many as three out of four incarcerated juveniles have a mental health diagnosis, as opposed to one of five for other youth. Normalizing “Macabre Woodpiles” of Dead Bodies Since juvenile crime is linked to a low IQ, impulsivity, poor self-control, deficient social skills, conduct disorders, and emotional underdevelopment-something a corporate culture knows only too well and capitalizes on; it’s no wonder those who swing into full-fledge delinquency before the age of twelve are more likely to become chronic adult offenders and to commit more violent crimes than are those whose behaviors occur later. Given society’s violent nature and its cruel political culture, it’s biologically naïve to hold children to adult standards. When those same children find themselves locked together, what can society expect but shameful carnages of stacked bodies in macabre woodpiles. For now, and with regards to this latest outbreak in prison violence, the nature-or-nurture origin of criminality will most likely continue to be debated. And yet, studies prove that what really traumatizes children are poor family dynamics, economic deprivation, and exposure to violence-whether real, virtual, or when a nation is at war(s). accumulating it’s own piles of stacked bodies in macabre woodpiles around the world. In fact, repeated suffering or witnessing violence and “sensing” violent stressors at an early age makes a child more than twice as likely to become a violent delinquent.(4) Some warn that for a nation to either ignore or deny the reality of this medieval siege mentality is a disgrace. It may, in fact, be just as disgraceful as a prison riot’s carnage of stacked bodies in a macabre woodpile. Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.WN.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com and www.WN.com/dallasdarling. (1) www.associatedpress.com. “Prison Riot Carnage Led to Bodies Stacked in ‘Macabre Woodpile.’” April 17, 2018. (2) Solomon, Andrew. Far From The Tree: Parents, Children, And The Search For Identity. New York, New York: Scribner, 2012., p. 537. (3) Ibid., p. 547. (4) Ibid., p. 570. |