incarceration | The Left Call

September 19, 2013

Prison-Industrial Complex Watch: End Mandatory Minimum Sentences For Non-Violent Drug Offenses

It’s time for Americans to pay attention to what we are doing to so many non-violent drug offenders. We put them in jail, take away their right to vote when they get out, in many cases for minor offenses, that probably shouldn’t be illegal in the first place. Americans need to see the forest for the trees when it comes to U.S. drug laws. Why is it so hard to change failed policy?

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August 28, 2013

Prison-Industrial Complex: The Magic Thinking Of America’s ‘Tough On Crime’ Reactionary Types

I recently participated in a debate on Facebook about criminals and American incarceration. The debate sprang from an article about a repeat offender, committing yet another robbery only weeks after release from a nine-year sentence. My takeaway from this conversation is that America’s prison-industrial complex will not change as long as most Americans are passive on this issue. And that’s because there are a fair number of people in this country who have a philosophy that one should die for the crimes he or she commits, particularly if a repeat offender. In their minds, the only requirement that need be met for a death sentence is their sole judgement that this human being no longer deserves to live, and will never be a useful member of society.

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August 12, 2013

Attorney General Eric Holder Announces Major Curtailment Of ‘Mandatory Minimum’ Sentences For Non-Violent Drug Offenses

In episode 4 of Left Call Radio, I spoke about America’s “prison-industrial complex” and how mandatory minimum sentences take discretion away form judges and juries. Mandatory minimum sentences do not make us safer. What these unnecessary and harsh sentences do is ruin the lives of people who commit low-level, non-violent drug offenses, while the rest of us can revel in our own righteous indignation. — Hey, I wouldn’t have committed that crime. So what do I care?

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August 1, 2013

The Tasty Pick of American Exceptionalism: Minimum Wage Or Incarceration?

America is exceptional all right, its exceptionally jaded, exceptionally cynical, exceptionally resentful, and exceptionally callous. We are so judgmental of others, so righteous of our own strengths, so high on our own self-worth, we believe we need to be exceptionally tough when it comes to anyone who does not measure up. And nowhere is this more true than America’s “tough on crime” stance. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have laws. I’m not saying criminals shouldn’t go to jail. What I’m saying is we need to take it down a notch or two or a thousand. And we need to stop taking discretion away from judges and juries with “mandatory minimums” and other similar legislative “solutions” to crime.

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