Tuesday, September 27: Too Many People In Jail
This country is simply obsessed with incarcerating people
America has a problem, and despite Beyonce’s insistence I’m not talking about her, I’m talking about overcrowding prisons. The logical end result of pouring billions of dollars every year into overpolicing and criminalizing communities of color, the US imprisons more people than any other country. The conditions in these facilities are as miserable as the officer’s treatment of those incarcerated.
Incarcerated workers in Alabama’s ‘correctional’ facilities went on strike yesterday, protesting a number of state policies and prison conditions. These workers provide the majority of necessary services for the facility; from cooking and serving in the kitchens to maintaining the facility itself and even the production of furniture, clothing, and license plates that the prison system then sells. Their general strike has led to a humanitarian crisis within the state’s punishment system as essential services are being withheld.
The demands of their strike include a repeal of Alabama’s habitual offender act, which mandates life imprisonment without parole for anyone convicted of a Class A felony after having been previously convicted of any three felonies. Other demands include an end to life without parole, a reduction of the 30-year minimum for juvenile offenders down to 15 years before parole eligibility, and a more streamlined review process for their medical furloughs and elderly incarcerated individuals. These changes make sense not just from an ethical or humane standpoint, but also from the Scrooge McDuck standpoint of trying to save dollars and space.
Stay tuned for more updates on the strike negotiations and whether another humanitarian crisis unfolds in America’s southeastern states.
Side Items
New fiscal year, same government shutdowns: With everything going on around the world, I almost forgot that the US government is facing yet another shutdown on Saturday unless more funding can be approved. As the fiscal year comes to an end, government officials met yesterday to try and avoid a shutdown and their proposals somehow wound up securing another $12 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine
Speaking of Ukraine & Russia: Russian mobilization efforts, much like America’s military recruitment, have been about as well received as expected. Imagine someone telling you that your services are required in a war no one asked for. The sheer audacity. Reports indicate that many Russian men are looking to avoid conscription, fleeing to neighboring countries or, if money’s no concern, paying tens of thousands of dollars to hop on a flight out of Russia
All cops are idiots: In today’s edition of why police are overfunded, a man in Chicago climbed five stories of a fire escape to infiltrate a Chicago police facility and attack officers there. The man wound up shot in the face and hospitalized, but the facility in question is none other than Homan Square a sprawling complex, formerly a Sears Roebuck warehouse on the city’s west side, that journalists compared to a CIA black site for its frequent detention and disappearance of civilians