“US Prisons too punitive, fail to rehabilitate.”
I'm basically the Sasha Grey of the blogosphere (pretentious, Oscar Wilde fan, skinny) but this venture does not pay well. I do it for the love. In my spare time, then, I earn a living as a social scientist with a concentration in prison-industrial-complex superhaterism because I'm a patriot. I live in a wonderful yet infuriating country called America, where almost half of the prison population is made up of black males; however, I am now about to complete the only prison-related blog post you'll see in '09 that does not include a picture of Prodigy, Gucci Mane, or Chi-Ali. Please save your applause 'til the end.
Joel Dvorskin, a university professor and criminal justice expert, wanted to find out what social science reveals about preventing and reducing violent crime, and the specifics on how the prison system is a massive failure. He then did some research, and that was a sad time-waster for him since he could've just listened to some PRT or Dead Prez. Feeling all pleased about hisself, he would now like to announce that U.S. prisons provide instruction for inmates on how to commit crimes more successfully, and how to behave in an aggressive manner in order to get their needs met and dominate within the social hierarchy. Prisons, he says, are too punitive and fail to rehabilitate. Harsh punishment backfires. And you should probably provide some job skills training if you want prisoners to be less violent upon release and stop returning to the place with all the cages.
"No fucking way," I said, sitting in the back of my 8th-grade US Gov't class after having written 19 essays on this topic. Then I gave him a Mumia petition to sign and went back to being miserable and annoying as a middle-class Caucasoid girl from a loving, 2-parent household.
Dvorskin has a book coming out called Applying Social Science to Reduce Violent Offending, which I genuinely would like to read despite the hater-ish tone of this post, since my copy of No More Prisons has been in some box in my parents' garage since '99 and going to look for it would really cut into my lounging-around time. Dvorskin's book examines why prisons are failing and what needs to change, from a psychologically informed perspective. Its main point is that we need to stop locking up every other black man and spend resources on violent lawbreakers rather than worrying so much about 20 sacks.
My hollerback book, Incarcerating Poor and/or Brown People Keeps America's Financial Wheels Turning So Stop Being Naive, Joel Dvorskin, has no release date as of yet.
And because of this fucking downer of a story, things have gotten far too serious on HeightFiveSeven today. I need 2 of the most cheerful songs ever written about being on lockdown in order to feel better:
Give it to me/One time. Hit it, Toots!
"54-46 (That's My Number)"
mp3.
Boom-boom...BAP, boom, bam. Hit it, D-Nice!
.
.
.
.
Posts
2 comments:
Mos Def clowning to prison incarceration, this is why I have become a HFS lurker, I mean reader.
Wow.
One of my buddies shot a guy in the arm at a party and served 5 years. It was a first offense but it was Arizona and they don't play when it comes to gnus and meth.
While he was inside, he was shanked behind the ear. he survived and learned a trade. Became an Electrician. Now he makes like 40 bux an hour.
Post a Comment