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Additional reporting: Jonathan Tilove,
John Sismerman and Jan Moller
News editing: Shawn McClellan
Design: George Berke
Photo editing: Doug Parker
Copy editing: Katherine Hart
Video editing: G. Andrew Boyd
Online design: Emmett Mayer III and Paula Devlin
Some Comment on opening video:
It
seems the arguments in this thread will never find resolution, and
perhaps it is because we are missing the main point here: the argument
is NOT about whether or not prisons actually reform criminals, the issue
here is PREVENTION. State-issued (read: tax-payer provided) incentives
should involve EDUCATION and TRAINING and ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM *BEFORE*
people get to prison. And I do NOT mean "entitlement" programs such as
free housing and unaccountable welfare. I mean free, QUALITY education.
Programs that keep young, inner city boys busy being creative and
constructive so they do not fall prey to adult drug lords while their
single mothers who cannot afford to put them in extra-curricular
programs are busy working a double-shift to pay the bills. THAT is where
the cycle perpetuates. PREVENTION programs are clearly cheaper than
REFORM programs. --- There are SERIOUS policy and corrupt private
incentive issues going on in Louisiana, that is undeniable. So although
well-run prisons DO reform, it does NOT mean that Louisiana is a "beacon
of freedom". Get ALL the way outta here with THAT one. C'mon man,
Louisiana has long been known as a slave state and one of the most
racist places in nation. Too many people loved them some David Duke.
Let's be real.
Having
visited clients in federal prison, and assisted clients who were held
in overnight lockups for minor offenses and some who were utterly
wrongly accused, I cannot say I am surprised at this report. From our
schools to our military and food supply, Corporate interests have
pervaded every facet of what modest institutions were formerly provided
by the state to provide basic order and justice in an otherwise
capitalist society. No wonder prisoners are sick, they are probably
eating corporate garbage called food, and then we as a state pay
pharmaceutical companies to "treat" the patients, who in turn make a
profit. For every medication prescribed seems another to allay a side
effect. It makes good corporate sense, then, to have sick prisoners
kept confined and indefinitely on corporate life support, all at the
expense of tax payers. Not to mention the expense of human dignity.
...and
by the way, my expertise is not in investigative reporting; however I
find it highly unlikely that "brnzartist" is authentically a former
prisoner. Why give your number and not your full name? There is
nothing to hide here, and you are quite obviously passionate about this
issue! Please, change my mind about you, I would certainly like to hear
more and what your colleagues in Angola also thought. Also it would be
interesting to know what you were retained for, and if and how you have
reformed. Best, Rani
Basically
we have given the prison industry a huge financial (tax payer funded)
incentive to lock up our citizens over the most trivial charges. While
this may enrich a few powerful people and friends of the governor it
drains our coffers of funding that could best be used actually helping
our citizens. This side-effect of flooding our judicial system with
these minor offenses allows the hardened criminal element to often slip
through the cracks in the system to continually commit violent crimes in
their communities. This is one very dysfunctional justice system we
have here in Louisiana but as long as a few powerful, well-connected
business folks make money nothing will change. Also, too many parishes
keep people locked up for the daily stipend of holding prisoners to fund
their budgets. We have gone from having a justice system to having a
"just us" system where we are too often on our own when dealing with the
courts.
Thank you TP for this series - as I have posted before:
This
is just sick - I truly believe there is divine judgement; the pitiful
persons who perpetuate this system have to answer for what I truly feel
are sins to humanity. They turn people's freedom into money - *Our*
money, mind you, and it sickens me to the Nth degree. If I didn't
believe in it, I'd go ape snot.
Consider this: Petty
thieves, people who accidentally missed a court date or forgot about a
traffic summons or parking ticket, harmless drug users who keep to
themselves and manage to live amongst us, prostitutes or other persons
participating in various victimless crimes, people with barking dogs,
or... citizens the cops just don't plain like and want to make an
example of... DON"T BELONG IN PRISONS!!!!
Make thieves
pay it back double... or then go up the river. Otherwise, I can't see
any reason petty, harmless victims of this sick system belong in what is
obviously a big revenue generator on the backs of the populace it is
allegedly sworn to protect.
And the 'legislators' that
sit on their hands and/or profit from this sad unjust machine, I have
the faith they will one day have to answer for these crimes against
humanity, too. They take our money to take our people... how could they?
Such audacity!!! Such Greed!!!
Louisiana!!! The highest
incarceration rate in the world!!! We arrest and imprison people who
otherwise have no effect on anyone's life, liberty, property, or
safety!!! Who does this??? Greedy, immoral, pitiful subhumans who should
be on the other side of the fence if justice were a real concept
instead of revenue.
We need to make room for the violent
criminals. I keep getting notices from released sex offenders who now
live in my neighborhood where plenty of children play - and why? To make
room for harmless people! Murderers, sex offenders, violent thugs,
belong in prison; this "Justice" system needs to stop tearing apart
families who in all reality, do no harm to others - and especially, not
to release the *real* problems back onto our streets.
I
pray for the unfortunate souls who generate revenue for law enforcement
whose incentive is to generate more revenue by finding more unfortunate
souls.
Good
for you Prison saved your life. I would say that is anecdotal evidence
at best that our prison planet is OK. This is no way to run a state and
no way to run the land of the free. Anyone with more than two wits about
him can see our constitutional freedoms eroding every day. We could
never build enough prisons to put all of the people in that are going to
wind up there if we don't change our entire system. We can't afford
this incarceration rate and it is foolish to think so. You know we need
tax payers and it is a little hard to do that if you have gone to jail
for life for selling weed like that guy did over in St. Tammany. I don't
know if it is the entitlement programs or what but this isn't
sustainable economically at all.
Let's
see, you've never been to prison... but what I say about prison and
doing time is anecdotal? You sound like one of those prison planet
kooks. If you commit crime, you get caught... you get punished. We
happen to have more of that going on than other states. The ONLY reason
why the rate of imprisonment is high in the United States is because in
other countries they still summarily KILL you!!! No trial; no rights,
no media, nothing... you are DEAD. This country has been and still is
to a lesser degree today, the greatest beacon for freedom IN THE HISTORY
OF THIS PLANET! (including Louisiana!)
Perhaps
you need to understand the definition of anecdotal, and why an
anecdotal account isn't a good way to support an argument. Good for you
for making positive changes in your life, but that doesn't make you an
expert on prisons or social welfare policy.
So,
is America, and Louisiana in particular, less just than either Iran or
China? Is that your premise? Are you trying to say that authorities in
Louisiana are acting in concert in some manner to house the highest
number of prisoners in order to make money? Or, is it that we have the
toughest mandatory penalties for habitual offenders? I've only seen the
preview, but if it is what the program is about, I believe you and your
producers to be quite naive.
Some place is going to
have the highest rate of incarceration; why should it NOT be the state
that consistently ranks at the bottom of all of the quality-of-life-type
polls? And, if you throw in the fact that this has historically been
the place to come to "party" and act like a fool, it should surprise no
one that the dubious award goes to us.
I started my
prison term at the age of twenty. At 21 I entered Angola. For the next
thirteen years I lived in a type of slow hell that few in the "world"
can understand, but understand this: I am convinced that, had I not
gone to prison, I would have died long ago. God used prison as a means
to save my life (and, ultimately, my soul but I'll not preach to you
today). I am also grateful to have both of my hands because, had this
happened in Iran, I wouldn't.
You want to complain about
something the US or Louisiana governments are doing, try starting with
the fifty years of re-enslaving the African American population through
entitlement programs. Why don't you do a piece on what the rates of
illiteracy, teen pregnancy, infant mortality, marriage, unemployment,
murder, etc., etc., ETC!! in the African American population are today
compared to what they were prior to 1965!! Wake up to reality; it's out
there beckoning.
LSP# 87820, Angola: 1981, 1982, 1983.
If you're ANY sort of investigative reporter, that is enough for you to
verify that I'm not lying when I say I've been there, done that...
"So, is America, and Louisiana in particular, less just than either Iran or China?" How about "Yes" as an answer?
Well, what about the kinds of feedback loops and incentives like in the LA system?
It's strange: "Incentives matter," say the free-market fundamentalists (except, apparently, when they don't).
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