Fate is a funny thing. I had a totally different beginning for this piece but I ended up changing it based on conversations I have had over the last few days with my UI compadres. The direction I’m taking with this post is to answer that age old question. You are a black man in this country. You have been convicted of a crime and imprisoned. What do you do to prepare yourself for release? Now you have just been released from prison. What do you do now? How do you reclaim your life and if nothing else at least feed yourself? Those are pretty straightforward questions and one would think they have straightforward answers. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Not by a long shot. Society, especially black society has been acculturated into thinking that there is no hope for this lost generation and a half that have lost a large portion of their lives to the concrete slave ships. We believe that these individuals are doomed to a continued life of crime and predation simply because these individuals are unemployable. We also believe what years and years of programming has attempted to tell us, starting way back in the eighties with shows like “Cops” and “America’s Most Wanted.” Ex-cons are lifelong criminals and we should not shed a tear when they eventually recidivate, as we are told they assuredly will. We are told that these men, and increasingly women, cannot be rehabilitated due to their long stints behind bars where they “learned” to be better criminals.

Before, I get into explaining why those pronouncements are not true, I must first deal with the concept of crime in AmeriKKKa. See my friends, what you think you know about criminal justice in this country is almost wholly derived from what you see on television or what you read in print or online media. Unless you’ve had a close loved one locked up or you have been there yourself, what you think you know is a carefully laid out tapestry of interconnected lies, half-truths and self-serving statistics to make you not care that SLAVERY IS BACK IN THIS COUNTRY AND IT IS UNLIKE ANYTHING THAT HAS COME BEFORE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. I use caps because I want you, the reader, to understand that slavery is even more insidious now due to the fact that ITS NOW LEGAL. Many people gloss over the clause in the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution that outlawed slavery. What it actually says is that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. (emphasis added)

To the well read and conscious in my readership, this is not new information. We’ve known that for years. A lot of casual readers know the broad outlines as well but never stop to consider the implications of the concept. Sadly, crime in this country one could argue is this country’s largest industry, crime costs this country more than 1.7 TRILLION dollars. Yes, that’s “illion” with a “t.” By comparison, the United States entire military budget (at least the parts they tell us about) tops out at just shy of 700 Billion. Don’t misunderstand however, that doesn’t mean that criminals are stealing 1.7 trillion, it means that when you add in all of the related cost issues that surround crime it’s chugging along quite nicely. Think of it like this, Bobby breaks into your home and steals your LCD. That costs you in replacement costs for the television as well as damage to your home. If you happen to have property insurance, then you may see a rise in your premium due to your home now being in a “crime prone” area. Either you or your spouse or significant other has to miss work while your door is replaced, cost. Insurance is not paying for the clean up of the mess Bobby made, cost. Now lets get to Bobby. Bobby is an idiot, he tried to sell your television to your next door neighbor and gets arrested. Now Bobby is in the city lockup for a few days eating and sleeping off you, the taxpayer through your city taxes. Then Bobby is transferred to the county jail where you’re paying for his living in luxury through your county taxes. Bobby has to have a lawyer, being the rocket scientist he is he’s broke and no one is going to bail him out. (An added cost is Bobby’s mother loves him with all her heart so she puts up her home, he skips bail and she loses her home, but we’ll deal with that possibility in another article) Bobby ends up with the best representation the county has to offer a brother with no money, a fresh out of law school, bad suit wearing, shoes need shining Public Defender. This AINO, attorney in name only, (get it, ayno, ain’t no lawyer) is paid about $30 to $35K a year (paid by your taxes again), and he does one correct thing, he gets Bobby to plead guilty to Theft (lesser included charge within the burglary statute) and accept a 4 year sentence. Now Old Bob is off to the hoosegow, the pokey, the joint, the pen, up the river, prison or what do they call it now, “correctional center.” At each stage of this journey, people get paid. Insurance Adjusters get paid, Carpenters that fix your back door get paid, Policemen get paid, Judges get paid, Attorneys get paid, Probation Officers preparing pre-sentencing reports get paid, Correctional Officers in the jails get paid, Correctional Officers in prison get paid. Civilians overseeing the kitchens in jail and prison get paid. Most importantly, local politicians get paid. All over a television that had a crack in the screen in the first place. (old Bobby didn’t have time to test to see if it worked)

Drops mic and walks from stage drippin’ blackness.

Read Part 2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act

http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/building.html

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=465

http://www2.davidson.edu/news/news_archives/archives99/9910_anderson.html

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/private-prisons-occupancy-quota-cca-crime