The system is the problem

The incarceration system in America of its jails and prisons has more than quadrupled its population from 1980 of half a million prisoners to where it will soon hit the 2.5 million mark of Americans behind bars. For its growth in size this system can be termed as the Prison-Industrial Complex.

What this means is just as the US military can also be referred to as an "industrial complex" because of the defense/military industry's close relationships' with officials in the Pentagon, Congress, and the Executive branch of the US government, involving hundreds of billions of dollars in profit to be gained in wars and weapons production - the US prison system is similar to this set up, only it deals in moving towards an authoritarian state with more police, stricter laws and longer punishments, the building of more prisons and jails, and the currency of human lives.

The Department of "Corrections" or D.O.C. is a booming business indeed; in fact, it's the fastest growing industry in the US right now with the US imprisoning more of its citizens per capita than any other country in the world. Statistics of this rising of control by US states' are very alarming when you consider: the US houses 25 percent of the worlds prison population, but the US is less than 5 percent of the worlds entire population; or US nation-wide spending on prisons increased from 19 billion in 1997 to 44 billion in 2007 annually; or the US spends 6 times more on prisons than on education where in California (where I live) only one four-year college campus has been built since 1984, but it has been able to build 21 new prisons since then.

The very system that created the militaryindustrial complex is the same one that created the prison-industrial complex as well, and it's a problem.

Because it cares nothing for the rehabilitation of its prisoners, just like it keeps sending its soldiers to the front lines of an illegal war to die. This system is hateful and racist and it teaches hate and racism, and it feeds on the poor and minorities (people and countries). For a system that is supposed to "correct" the people who've broken "laws" and return them back to society "corrected" but instead actually increases the criminal behavior of the person, tells me there is some fundamentally wrong with the entire system that created this. One of the primary reasons for these increasing statistics too is the ideology of the politicians who keep this system going which is one mostly based on greed and is what America is inherently all about - materialism.

This being synonymous with capitalism-- the greed for wealth and personal gain - in turn creates poverty which breeds crime.

For wherever there is an elite-class of society that holds the majority of a nation's wealth and power, there will always be a larger group of the society that will end up poor, and powerless, and who are pushed around and used.

Is it not the poor and the minorities who fight the wars and who end up in the jails and prisons?

The American legal system particularly the Department of "Justice" is the one to blame being that this department was set up to enforce the "law" in the beginning to ensure equality and justice for everyone, but what can the common people do when it is the law makers who create laws for their own interests and for the interests of their fellow politicians?

And what does this ultimately reflect about the Department of "Justice"?

Today I can call myself an "ex-con" which I feel is due to an unjust and racist legal system. Because 10 years ago when I had just turned 18 year old I happened to be involved with a couple other people who were minors in a good old drunken game of "mail box baseball" and we got caught.

Six months later they were totally free of this "crime" while I, as an "adult", was to deal with it for six long years and have a felony on my record for life.

Dealing with racist and intolerant white judges and probation and surveillance officers trying their best to lock me up I experienced the reality of the American justice system.

I'll always remember too, that during this time that I was involved with the "law" in Arizona (known as a state that makes its money on imprisoning people) an old Navajo man was shot and killed by two young white men in the next county and they were never charged with the murder because the judge let them go.

I have to shake the anger off again and again when I look back and realize that this was the same system that felt it had to punish and "correct" a brown skinned 18 year old kid who just smashed some mailboxes in a drunken stupor. I know firsthand that it's indeed an unjust and racist system designed to continually increase its jail and prison populations because most of the people who end up in prison usually return again and again for longer and longer incarceration sentences.

And is it any wonder that nearly 3/4's of the entire prison population are illiterate and are minorities with more than 50 percent of all the crimes committed by those who end up in prison being drug or alcohol related?

Shouldn't a system that calls itself the Department of "Corrections" be concerned with the high illiteracy and minority rates?

And be aware that maybe substance abuse treatment might be more suitable for these people who ended up there because of alcohol or drugs?