Jena, O. J. and the Jailing of Black America

I am embarrassed to be a human being when such a blatantly racist and horrific diatribe gets posted in the New York Times. Give me a break! the following paragraph starts out good, as Patterson briefly acknowledges the role that the drug war has played in incarcerating black Americans.

America has more than two million citizens behind bars, the highest absolute and per capita rate of incarceration in the world. Black Americans, a mere 13 percent of the population, constitute half of this country’s prisoners. A tenth of all black men between ages 20 and 35 are in jail or prison; blacks are incarcerated at over eight times the white rate.

The effect on black communities is catastrophic: one in three male African-Americans in their 30s now has a prison record, as do nearly two-thirds of all black male high school dropouts. These numbers and rates are incomparably greater than anything achieved at the height of the Jim Crow era. What’s odd is how long it has taken the African-American community to address in a forceful and thoughtful way this racially biased and utterly counterproductive situation.

Those of us that are in the drug policy reform committee have been complaining about the impact of the uneven application of the drug laws for years. America's incarceration rate is shockingly high and this issue is not being addressed. Black, poor communities are often targeted for drug raids while what people do behind closed doors in their white, upper, middle-class suburban homes gets ignored. It's ridiculous to think that anybody in any community should be persecuted for smoking the wrong plant. But from this point on, the article descends into race-baiting.

But there is another equally important cause: the simple fact that young black men commit a disproportionate number of crimes, especially violent crimes, which cannot be attributed to judicial bias, racism or economic hardships. The rate at which blacks commit homicides is seven times that of whites.

The rest of the article can be summed up like this:

Rappers
OJ
Divorce
Domestic violence
Bitches and hoes

But it's not because of racism and poverty.

Rappers sell racist and sexist crap because white people buy it. Domestic violence against women is a global epidemic. Black men live in a patriarchy and have internalized the hate as much as anybody else.

Anyway, I haven't got the perfect rebuttal to this except %$&#*^)#%#. Also, Patterson can suck it.

Prison Rape and the Drug War

Stop the Drug War has an excellent feature about prison rape - a human rights' issue that is still socially acceptable to make bad jokes about. The feature tells the horrible stories of men and women who had to deal with the aftermath of prison rape.

The most interesting and gross part of this story is the way the trolls came along to infest the comment section with typical slut-blaming:

The first man, Chance Martin, claims to have been ganged raped while in a COUNTY lockup while awaiting trial. He claims he was put into a cell holding 40 other men, and that this cell was not supervised. While I can believe there were times every cell was not under the supervision of a guard, I find it this story not believable. A county jail has many small cells, and these people would have been seperated into smaller cells, not left in in one big area unsupervised.

**This article is asking me to believe that within 24 hours without freedom in a COUNTY lockup, the majority of men will turn into raping animals. Are men really like this? If so, they all need to be locked up anyway, just to keep them away from everybody else.

Is it possible there is a motive for this claim other than the stated one? Perhaps to decriminalize drugs? While I have no doubt that rape in PRISON happens, a county lockup defies belief.

The commenter thinks that a person would lie about rape in order to win sympathy towards ending the drug war. How do people this stupid remember to breathe?

Racism and the Drug War

First came the poor man, barely 17 years old – too young to buy beer or vote, but an adult under the Texas penal code. He took part in a $2 stickup in which no one got hurt. He pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and was put on 10 years of probation.

He broke the rules once, by smoking marijuana. A Dallas judge responded in the harshest possible way: He replaced the original sentence with a life term in prison.

This is the United States, the land of the Supermax gulag and 25% of the world's prison population, so this shouldn't really surprise anybody. The next case was handled by the same judge.

Now the flip side of the coin, also from Judge Keith Dean's court: A well-connected man pleaded guilty to murder – for shooting an unarmed prostitute in the back – and also got 10 years of probation.

The killer proceeded to break the rules by, among other things, smoking crack cocaine. He repeatedly failed drug tests. He was arrested for cocaine possession in Waco while driving a congressman's car, but prosecutors there didn't press charges.

Judge Dean has let this man stay free and, last year, exempted him from most of the usual conditions of probation. John Alexander "Alex" Wood no longer must submit to drug tests or refrain from owning a gun or even meet with a probation officer. He's simply supposed to obey the law and mail the court a postcard once a year that gives his current address.

What is Judge Dean's justification for the difference in treatment of these two suspects?

In general, he said, he tries to evaluate "the potential danger to the community" when someone violates probation "and what, in the long run, is going to be in the best interest of the community and the person themselves."

A black pot-smoker is much more dangerous than a white murderer.

via Pam's House Blend

Rape is only funny if it happens to an incarcerated man

The other day Ezra Klein posted about prison rape. As a result, the blogosphere has erupted in almost unanimous support of putting a stop to rape in prison. It is incredibly rare to see an issue that gets support from liberal bloggers as well as blogs that link Stop the ACLU. Amp has a great blog round-up of the various reasons to support ending violence in prison.

I felt this was significant in light of the recent report on Alternet entitled "Pot Prisoners Cost Americans $1 billion per year".

According to the new BJS report, "Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004," 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses. Combining these percentages with separate U.S. Department of Justice statistics on the total number of state and federal drug prisoners suggests that there are now about 33,655 state inmates and 10,785 federal inmates behind bars for marijuana offenses. The report failed to include estimates on the percentage of inmates incarcerated in county and/or local jails for pot-related offenses.

This amounts to more than 40 000 non-violent offenders being locked up for the "crime" of using, possessing or selling a plant that kills less people than baby aspirin. I wonder how many of them suffer the indignity of rape as well as incarceration? Instead of recognizing that rape is a horrible crime, we respond with apathy and bad jokes about dropping the soap. Cultural references that make light of references to prison rape are rampant. It's interesting that we can make light of prison rape and yet it is not OK to make light of rape against women.

My favorite quote from Amp's round-up comes from Brendan Nyhan reads as follows:

If you asked me what issue Americans will see in retrospect as the greatest unacknowledged barbarity of our time, I would nominate prison rape, which is not only tolerated but frequently encouraged within our prisons and is still the subject of jokes in popular culture and politics.

UPDATE: Make sure to watch this video of Rodney Hulin's story. It is very sad. Make sure to check out the report put out by Human Rights Worldwide. The abuse of prisoners is one more good reason to object to the war on drugs, which is filling jail cells with non-violent offenders.

Walker Appeals Murder Conviction

Even though I believe that Kim Walker committed a crime when he murdered James Hayward, I do agree that the judge made an error when she instructed the jury that they had to find Walker guilty. I just hope that when all is said and done, Walker will still be found guilty.

According to his notice of appeal filed Friday in the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, Walker is appealing on the grounds that the trial judge erred in law in not placing the defence of self-defence before the jury for consideration.

Walker is also appealing on the grounds that Pritchard erred in instructing the jury to return a conviction only on one of three charges, that she failed to instruct the jury that it could return a verdict of not guilty and that she erred in not granting the defence motion for a mistrial after failing to instruct the jury that it could return a verdict of not guilty.

This case has resulted in a flood of LTE's in Saskatchewan newspapers and is very controversial. Links to the LTE's are here, here, here, here, here, here, here and one by yours truly.

How the War on Drugs Affects Pregnant Women

A really interesting article from feministing about how pregnant women lose their rights.

In case you’re wondering, being addicted to drugs is not a crime, only the stuff you do is a crime, not who or what you are at a given point in time. So-

Being an addict: not a crime
Possessing drugs with the intent to take them, give them away or sell them: all crimes.

Being an alcoholic: not a crime
Driving while intoxicated: a crime

Despite this fact, all over the country, women are being prosecuted for “crimes” based only on their (1) being pregnant and (2) testing positive for drugs. No one else can be tested and prosecuted just for having drugs in his or her system. To get around what they obviously see as a shortcoming in the law, prosecutors charge pregnant women with “delivery of drugs to a minor” and “child endangerment” even though the laws clearly were not meant to be used in these cases.

This violates pregnant women’s constitutional rights, since (1) the laws are applied differently to them than anyone else, (2) they have no reason to know that these laws apply to what they are doing, (3) women have pled guilty to crimes that aren’t really crimes, and (4) the Supreme Court has held that punishing someone for being addicted to drugs or alcohol is both cruel and unusual punishment, since addiction is an illness. Not only is it unconstitutional, it doesn’t do a thing to help babies or their mothers. Threats of prosecution just scare women away from drug treatment and prenatal care.

Prisons are full of drugs, so the idea that jailing women will help their fetuses is a moot point. Pregnancy can be a rather dehumanizing experience, especially when everybody obsesses about the contents of your belly and seem to forget about the flesh surrounding the uterus, known as "woman".

Walker Family Site

I understand their plight a little better and I certainly do feel sympathetic. Our system is pretty messed up and they are victims of it. However, my feeling that it was a crime has not changed. It feels like bad taste to comment further on their situation. So I am done with this for now.

Link

More thoughts on the Yorkton Case

*Warning: The following blog post is long and full of potty no-no words and introspection. This may be more relevant as a diary entry to be forgotten in the hard drive files on my computer, in the same section that houses my recipes that I have never used and the fuzzy photographs of my naked children that may one day get me in trouble for harboring child pr0n. Reading this post will cure your insomnia, trust me.

Saskboy posted about this case over at his blog and the discussion that got going in the comments was excellent. This case brings up a lot of issues like drug law reform, legalization of marijuana, mandatory minimum sentencing, prison reform, vigilante justice, the lengths that a parent will go to protect their offspring, and even some deeply disturbing issues related to the infamous Robert Latimer case. I even grocked the nature of my somewhat confrontational style of internet arguing that was finely honed on internet forums plagued with nerds with skin problems. I have to admit that I had difficulty sleeping last night because of all the disturbing ideas that have been running around in my brain. One day they will have to pry my glowing laptop from my fingers before hauling me off to the loony bin. No wonder I don’t have any friends. ;)

I object to vigilante justice for some very obvious reasons. Letting armed thugs unload their weapons on unsuspecting people is wrong under any circumstances. I objected to Saddam's execution for the same reasons. His hanging was surreal, like an episode of South Park. We had school yard bullies taunting the doomed Saddam and shaky footage from a cell-phone that ends up plastered all over the internet despite promises that Saddam's execution would be a private affair. I kept expecting a horned Satan creature to show up and praise the fact that he will be reunited with his lover in hell. And performing it during Eid! If their intention was to turn the Butcher of Baghdad into a martyr, then mission accomplished. Let's get all the Iraqi people to rally around their dead hero who died very bravely, holding up signs and chanting HAIL IRAQ DEATH TO AMERICA! While burning George Bush in effigy. No wonder the world hates America. I had to take a cultural awareness class before I was allowed to work with children and yet you can run a country while having absolutely no respect for a foreign culture. Words can not express my disgust with the entire affair.

I felt this way about a murderous, dirty rotten bastard. So that I would be horrified at the vilification of young James Hayward in the media should surprise nobody who reads my blog or has the privilege of knowing the real me. I was especially disgusted by the way that John Gormley became completely unhinged on the air and referred to Hayward as scum, among many other things. I was so offended I had to shut the radio off. The fact that so many people refuse to see this from the victims' point of view makes me fear for the future of humanity.

But I am certainly not innocent. I had some less than charitable thoughts about Kim Walker. "If I ever get the chance to see that asshole I would beat the fucking crap out of him and spit on him." "I hope Big Bubba stretches out his asshole in jail." "That fucking bastard John Gormley sucks ass. Die in a fire, you fucktarded halfwit!" When it comes to having evil thoughts about my fellow human beings, I am very talented. The internet taught me all about flaming. But here I am bitching about vigilante justice and the insults thrown around about James Hayward, and who am I to judge? What business do I have being judgmental about John Gormley when I am guilty of harboring these thoughts? If I was a Christian I might say that Jesus said "Let the one without sin cast the first stone." But even though I am a dyed in the wool atheist, I can see that the concept of forgiveness is extremely important. Unless humanity can get over this concept that revenge is an appropriate reaction to being hurt or wronged, we are doomed. Doomed I say!

My capacity for violence frightens me sometimes. I am a nice person! I look after children all day long. But yet there was a time when I fantasized about stabbing my ex in the neck while he slept. I was in a stereotypically bad relationship that was worse than jail and with no end in sight. The desire to retaliate against all the pain and hurt was a normal reaction and perfectly understandable. But that certainly didn’t make it acceptable.

I understand exactly how Kim Walker must have felt. He was angry at the system, angry at the Gods that allowed his daughter to become addicted to morphine, angry at James Hayward and angry at the world. Who hasn’t felt that anger?

Yesterday I posted in various places about the message it would send if we gave Kim Walker a light sentence. What I should have realized is this: What message does it send when I use the obnoxious phrase “What message does it send?” Prohibitionists are always talking about the message we would give to children if we legalized drugs. Oh please think of the children, the messages they get are much more important than their health, happiness and safety. Despite the fact that many things far more dangerous than drugs are exposed to children, we must think of the message we send! Then it dawns on me.

Why all this talk of messages? The message that really concerns me is this: James Hayward is a human being. But should punishing Kim Walker really be our highest priority?

I highly disapprove of sending any human being to jail. Jail is full of drugs, disease, slave labor, anal rape, abuse and lessons on how to be a better criminal. Criminals feel angry, resentful and full of revenge during their incarceration. Surely if we want a safe and healthy society, we should start by reforming our unjust and immoral prison system. The only useful function that jails serve is to protect the public, at least until the prisoner is released. The attempts to reform prisoners are laughably inept. When I feel this way about our criminal justice system, why am I so worried about the message being sent by a light sentence for Kim Walker? Am I so blinded by my anger at the denial of James Hayward’s humanity that I have temporarily forgotten what my own values are?

I am very guilty of a contradiction. Here I am advocating for Kim Walker to be locked up in jail for a very long time and I highly disapprove of our corrupt prison gulags. Our natural human desire to punish the wicked keeps people from seeing that the way we treat prisoners impacts our entire society and way of life. Condoning violence in any situation is completely unacceptable. Until we can all overcome our desire to punish people that have wronged us, and who among us hasn’t been wronged, humanity is doomed to war, violence and perpetual strife.

16-year-old mother charged after murder after tests reveal drug overdose killed baby

A 16-year-old gives birth to a dead baby because of her drug use. She is threatened with life in prison. There are a few questions that I wish I knew the answer to:

What kind of prenatal care did this woman have access to? Was she treated for drug addiction? Where is the father of her baby and what role does he play? Did she know that an unborn child may die from her drug use? And most important of all:

If a "woman" of 16 years old can be charged for the accidental death of her unborn child, what does this have to say about a woman's right to choose?

Pothead to spend a minimum of 16 years in prison

Brown, who pleaded guilty to his first and only offense at age 17, was given probation after a $2 armed robbery in which the victim wasn't harmed and had his wallet returned. But months later, Brown violated his probation by testing positive for marijuana. In most cases of marijuana violations, Texas judges — and Dean — often recommend counseling and allow the defendant to remain on probation with a stiff warning.

In this case, however, without explanation, Brown was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

But this story has a "happier" ending.

The response from the story led to a Web site and protests — pressure that seems to have worked. Brown may soon be on the road to freedom, 16 years after his probation violation.

Nobody can give him sixteen years back. But it's nice to know that activism pays off.

I wonder what race Mr. Brown is? I have a feeling that he isn't white. The war on drugs has been absolutely devestating to minorities. Remember kids, "Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men."*

Hat tip to PZ and TalkLeft.

*Quoth Harry Anslinger, America's first Drug Czar

Beauty pageant for cocaine mules in Peru prison

Beauty pageant for cocaine mules in Peru prison. When I first saw the title of this story I thought they were talking about a horse-donkey hybrid. I never would have guessed they are talking about human beings from the headline.

The gist of the story is just as stupid as the title suggests. Fallen women get to show the world that they are still human by participating in a “beauty” pageant. I personally do not see what is so beautiful about glorifying fake femininity.

This story sickens me on so many levels that I don't know where to begin. Here are more examples of people that are caught by the War on Some Drugs. First the government invents a crime. Banning opium and marijuana was implemented by the government in an attempt to control the activities of Latinos and Asians. What better way to find an excuse to lock people up than to persecute them for the use of drugs not condoned by the dominant culture? Do you really believe it is a coincidence that tobacco and alcohol are legal for consumption and those are the two drugs traditionally favoured by white Europeans? People of color are overrepresented in the prison system and the War on Some Drugs is the reason why.

For another thing, I wonder how long these women are going to have to wait until they have a chance to defend themselves in a court of law. Three-quarters of them are still waiting for a trial. The police love to persecute small-time drug offenders like these women because they are too inept to find the men that actually run these drug-peddling organizations. The police get to pat themselves on the ass and feel like they have accomplished something. They know that these women are easily replaceable by their boyfriends and husbands. Nobody really cares that they will waste a lot of time in prison and it will have no impact the flow of drugs. Is the public really made safer by jailing these women?

Then to add insult to injury they doll them all up and parade them around for the benefit of pathetic wankers. Glorifying consumer-augmented, Cover Girl femininity is never a good thing. In this case, it should be criminal.

via Feministing