Post Based on Reading - #6

12/14/14                          Reading Post #6

In post #5 I mentioned the awful public defense lawyers Elaine was paired with, and how not being able to afford bail hurt her. Now, I want to bring up the other key downfall to Elaine’s trial. Judge Clyne was a forceful judge. He enjoyed sending people to prison. Judges need to be impartial to the case if a trial is to go properly. Clyne is described as “cleaning scum off the street like a sponge”. The idea that he sees people who are going to trial as “scum” is disgusting. People who commit a misdemeanor are just people who lost their way. There is context behind the prevalence of drug trade in Elaine’s neighborhood. Clyne is obviously ignorant to that. To quote the Race Reels video from the other night, throwing so many people in jail is like alleviating a cough of someone suffering from pneumonia. Stopping the cough momentarily doesn’t heal the infected lung. All these arrests aren’t getting to the root of the problem. If someone had improved the circumstances that Elaine was living in, she wouldn’t ever consider carrying cocaine. Later on, Judge Clyne was mocking Elaine in court, it was just ridiculously unprofessional

Between my public speaking theme of racial injustice/incarceration and my social justice class, I’ve learned how the criminal justice system really works. You would think that they are after criminals, but they’re not. They are after money just like any other business. That means the incentive of the war on drugs is, the more prisoners that the police and judges get into jail, the more money they make for “doing their job”. Drug convictions alone accounted for about 2/3 of the increase of the federal prison population and over half of the state prison population between 1985 and 2000. Drug convictions have increased more than 1000% since the drug war began. People of color are targeted in this drug war, while the use of drugs is nearly equal across the races. After serving time, the system wrecks an ex-convicts outside life. People convicted of committing a felony cannot get food stamps, are discriminated against in housing, are denied other public benefits, are denied the right to vote. Our country cripples ex-convicts economically and socially to the point where they can barely survive outside of prison. Consequently, about 70% of those released form prison return because the challenges of survival on the outside are so large. So this is the cycle.