Welcome announcement yesterday that President Obama's administration will start to phase out the use of for-profit prisons for federal charges (a little under 10% of all prisoners in the U.S. are in for-profit institutions - some federal, some state). I wrote this song about one that housed children & young adults in Walnut Grove, MS. Allegations in a successful 2010 lawsuit by the Southern Poverty Law Center and others included guards smuggling drugs to and having sex with youth, and denying basic educational services and medical treatment. One young person died from no access to diabetes medication, another committed suicide. This summer, its closing was announced. The headline that the closing "could cripple the town" is a "perfect" example of the so-called "prison industrial complex," when the shortcut of prisons = jobs, and we forget to create healthier economic engines than locking each other and our children in cages (some of us on no charges at all, some of us because we can't afford bail, many of us on minor and non-violent charges). The U.S. still massively over-incarcerates ourselves - we represent about 22% of the global prison population (if locking each other up were an Olympic sport we'd by far get the gold), though we're only 5% of the world's population. We have a long way to go - but I'll take some, slow, overdue change over none at all. #blacklivesmatter
Comments