Prison Strike 2018

You might not know that prisoners in 17 states (that we know of) are on strike. While prisoners are hoping to create greater public awareness of conditions in our correctional facilities, prison officials have likely created a news blackout in response – limiting calls in or out, limiting family visitations. Reporters might not be allowed inside the walls to see what’s going on.

We would certainly hear about it if the prisoners were violent and rioting. Instead, they are using peaceful means at their disposal – hunger strikes, work stoppages, sit ins, social media communication – to impress upon us the dehumanizing prison conditions we have been allowing, ignoring and sanctioning.

The list of 10 demands the prisoners are making (Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, Prison Strike 2018) is yet another dismal example of our failure to live up to our American values and ideals. It reads like grievances written in the medieval past.

1. Immediate improvements to the conditions of prisons and prison policies that recognize the humanity of imprisoned men and women. (In other words, stop treating people like animals when they are in prison.)
2. An immediate end to prison slavery. All persons imprisoned in any place of detention under United States jurisdiction must be paid the prevailing wage in their state or territory for their labor. (Current policies of paying prisoners nothing or pennies for their labor is justified by an old law saying people convicted of crimes do not have the right to fair wages.)
3. The Prison Litigation Reform Act must be rescinded, allowing imprisoned humans a proper channel to address grievances and violations of their rights. (President Clinton signed a law limiting the number of grievances that prisoners could bring against individual prisons. As a result, some employees of correctional facilities sometimes behave as if they are immune from legal consequences.)
4. The Truth in Sentencing Act and the Sentencing Reform Act must be rescinded so that imprisoned humans have a possibility of rehabilitation and parole. No human shall be sentenced to Death by Incarceration or serve any sentence without the possibility of parole. (Presently, the United States is the only country among the so-called “advanced economies” of the world to continue to use the death penalty. Many prisoners on death row have been wrongfully convicted, and lacked proper representation [Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson; Spiegal and Grau, New York,2015]).
5. An immediate end to the racial overcharging, over-sentencing, and parole denials of Black and brown humans. Black humans shall no longer be denied parole because the victim of the crime was white, which is a particular problem in southern states. (I address the larger issue in my remarks below.)
6. An immediate end to racist gang enhancement laws targeting Black and brown humans. (Prosecutors can now tag defendants as gang members or probable gang members, with no evidence, as a ploy to get judges to stiffen their sentences.)
7. No imprisoned human shall be denied access to rehabilitation programs at their place of detention because of their label as a violent offender.
8. State prisons must be funded specifically to offer more rehabilitation services.
9. Pell grants must be reinstated in all US states and territories. (Numbers 7, 8, and 9 all have to do with giving people a sense of hope, opportunities for a better future and a chance to learn.)
10. The voting rights of all confined citizens serving prison sentences, pretrial detainees, and so-called “ex-felons” must be counted. Representation is demanded. All voices count (see “Equality Behind Bars,” https://www.livingasequals.com/2018/07/21/equality-behind-bars/ ).

Two questions arise from a study of prisoners’ demands. The first question is this. Why do we allow our prisons to be run as if they are supposed to be the epitome of the worst in us, full of barbarous behaviors abhorrent to modern societies the world over? How have we allowed conditions to deteriorate so far that they mimic slavery and concentration camps?

We do this in the name of retributive justice. That’s the eye for an eye kind, the kind that wants to see the severity of the punishment equal the severity of the crime. On the one hand, we as a nation are striving to treat others, all others, with respect and kindness, as equals. On the other hand, we have created a prison system based on dehumanizing and debasing criminals. This is schizophrenic.

In addition, we’ve messed up the idea of retributive justice by putting mentally ill people in jail, and drug addicts, and marijuana users, and poor people who can’t pay a simple parking fine. We have put black people and brown people behind bars in record numbers to show how little respect we have for their lives, using jail as a means to create a white nation. We now have over 23 million people in jail, which adds up to 22% of the world’s prisoners.

Which leads me to another question. Is there a relationship between maintaining such an abysmal criminal justice system and the nearly instantaneous proliferation of immigrant detention centers over the past year? I think there is.

A country that treats criminals like animals produced a President who felt justified in labeling people “animals,” if they crossed the border without proper documentation. A President who felt justified in throwing people unceremoniously into detention facilities, no matter the desperate circumstances that had them begging for kindness and mercy. We no longer seem to be able to distinguish between occasions that call for legal justice and situations that call for mercy.

Little wonder that we ended up incarcerating women and babies, fathers and sons, tias and abuelas, who came here seeking sanctuary from danger and death. White nationalists abound in the present administration and are having a field day creating laws and policies to ensure a whites-only nation. Little wonder that leaders the world over have had to rebuke the democracy-proud United States for blatant human rights violations.

Too far. Too far. That’s where this retributive justice idea has led us. We are acting like extremists. We are acting like modern-day followers of the Inquisition.

The news media did all it could to get images of the conditions immigrants were dealing with, and to write about what they saw and the first-hand accounts they heard. Many people turned out these past months to protest the heavy-handed tactics of the ICE machine, the inhumanity of separating children from parents and the appalling conditions in immigrant detention centers. Many people flocked to the border to give voice to the horror of treating refugees as criminals.

Many people also believe it is wrong to warehouse brown and black skinned people in sub-standard correctional facilities through a culturally embedded process that is less lawful that that applied to white skinned people. But there are seldom protests of the magnitude we saw in response to immigration policies.

Many people are urgently needed to bring attention to the horrors of the American criminal justice system and the unequal sentencing and imprisonment of black and brown skinned people. Perhaps there is a way you can help. Perhaps you can get involved with an organization fighting for criminal justice reform. There are many (see sidebar).

This is an election year. Listen to hear if candidates have prison reform and judicial reform showing brightly on their radar, with a detailed plan to get to work on these issues. Perhaps you can help elect someone who has a clear vison for fixing the system.

The 2018 Prison Strike is scheduled to end September 9, 2018. But the conditions won’t end unless many, many of us participate in working towards a solution. The strike is a call to action.