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May 29, 2004
Going Up the River
Joseph T. Hallinan wrote Going Up the River in the late 1990s. In his book, Hallinan tells a series of non-fiction stories about prisons around the United States, based on history, statistics, interviews, and trends that make you wonder whether Kilgore Trout (Kurt Vonnegut) was writing fiction or futurism in Venus on the Half-Shell. (Recall the planet where everyone ends up in prison?)
Hallinan brings to light many interesting aspects of the US prison system of which I was not totally ignorant, but of which I never connected the reality with the implications. I knew, for example, that prisoners in the US may work for private companies. I'd caught part of a reportage showing prisoners working as telemarketers. I did not realize how widespread the practice has become, nor did I understand that in states with very low unemployment in the late 1990s, some businesses were essentially relying on inmate labor to keep wages down. Organizations such as the National Center for Policy Analysis actively lobby for more access to inmate labor.
We don't have too many people with good resumes in prison, yet, but that situation should not be too difficult for insightful politicians to correct.
Another example of things you half knew that this book examines: manadatory prison terms for many offenses. In the mid-1980s Congress eliminated much of the judges' discretionary power to sentence convicts to shorter prison terms than allowed by law. Today, judges read term lengths for many crimes off a chart, which identifies ranges from mandatory minimums to maximums. Furthermore, folks sentenced to such terms do not get out on parole. As a result, the courts filled the prisons to overflowing, with all of the wonderful consequences that produces.
Anyway, read the book before you vote for somebody who says they want to get tough on crime. Just think about it.
Posted by Mark at May 29, 2004 07:05 AM