[Not-so] Love Lockdown, Prologue (1/4): Do Convicted Criminals dream the American dream?

Do convicted criminals dream the American dream?

Sure they do - Just look at freshly sentenced criminals Rajat Gupta (former Goldman board member), R. Allen Stanford (sentenced to 110 years in prison without parole), and of course Grandaddy Ponzi himself, Bernie Madoff. Hell, these guys even lived the American dream, with its fast cars, deep pockets, luxury yachts and diamonds for the ladies in life.

Now, these riches-to-rags storybook characters are scheduled to rot in a Federal penitentiary for the rest of their lives, leaving exponentially more finances and possibly life plans ruined in their wake. All this justice, of course, conducted in order to dissuade other current or would-be criminals from acting...in exactly the only way they know of how to get to the American dream - Get Rich or Die/Go to Jail Trying.

50 Cent was on to something

A rather paradoxical message, given the global rash of government-bank bailouts and the continued reliance on the instruments (i.e. financial markets) of who-dares-wins capitalism. But enough of this suddenly-fashionable bashing of fallen financial idols. It seems like just yesterday when activist judges, juries, and members of the media started defending the rights of convicted rapists, murderers, gang-bangers and the assorted denizens of American death row - new and vindicating/damning DNA evidence notwithstanding - so I'm sure public opinion will grow weary of its latest social witch-hunt sooner or later, and that District Attorneys/Federal Prosecutors will likewise find some other scapegoats upon which to build their reputations on the docket. Sooner or later, our generation's To Kill a Mockingbird of the early 21st century will be published, this time admonishing the veritable inquisition of financial criminals during a time of long-term recession and entrenched unemployment.

Yet even in a time of economic downturn, when Wall Street becomes an easy target of Main Street's wrath, no one seems to be pissing on how the wildly-popular (and mostly plastic) Kardashians, the train-wreck-of-an-excuse-for-a-man Charlie Sheens, or the well-paid, drug-snorting Lindsay Blohan-type celebrities don't pay "their fair share" of American taxes. Plus Justin Bieber- he's CANADIAN!! Where is that money going??

oh...nevermind.

What compelled me to finally write original content for the blog again - and a three-part series, at that - was a combination of many factors, the premier of which was my roommate's comment that, "no offense, but I think the American Dream is more of a Dream than a Reality."

No offense taken, since that was the nicest way I've ever heard someone call bullshit on the American Dream. This particular roommate, mind you, also has a Ph.D in international history (I kind of live in an academic boarding house - quiet hours after 10 pm) and teaches at GW. He is not an American citizen.

He's Spanish. And here is a Spanish dude firing his "home-made rocket launcher" at riot police. Creative. 

I certainly understood where he was coming from, and didn't argue much with him at the time. But what bothered/puzzled me was the way he/we got to that conclusion in the first place. We were discussing good travel options within the continental United States, when New Orleans came up, and then the subject of the most impoverished states in the U.S. (all southern and mostly in the Mississippi river delta) and then Louisiana's incarceration rates, when my roommate finally said:

"I heard on NPR today, something like Louisiana has the highest per-capita incarceration rate in the world, and that America has the largest incarcerated population in the world as well - is that really true, is that even possible??"

"Yes, I wouldn't be surprised."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate

In fact, the United States overtook Russia - or more precisely, the former USSR - in gross incarcerated population when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, and has held this dubious distinction ever since, consistently and rapidly adding to its formidable lead. Astute students of history could, with some digging (no pun intended), come up with the fun fact that the majority of Russia's "gross incarcerated population" under the Soviet Union was in fact the political and other prisoners of the infamous Gulag archipelago, the world's largest and most desolate prison and forced labor system ever, spreading from Western Russia to the harshest regions of the Siberian tundra. Although perhaps not nearly as twisted and morally sickening as Nazi or Khmer Rouge concentration/death camps, more people perished from hard labor and systematic abuse in the decades-old Gulags than...in pretty much any prison system, ever, combined, or something along those lines.

Cue "Oppressive Soviet Soundtrack" - and the tinkling of Dr. Zhivago weeing his pants

Either way, we beat them in the Cold War, so we, the self-proclaimed Leader of the Free World, also became Leader/Champion of Gross Global Incarceration, winning the title from the Ruskies after the Gulags were disbanded. Righteous.

And it's getting worse (or better, depending on your perspective on incarceration). The statistics we have, or can get from the government or private sources, only realistically cover up to around 2008-2009, and still indicate a rapid, almost rampant rise in prison populations and incarcerations. I seem to recall a few monumental changes in America having transpired since then - Not sure if anyone else happens to remember any pivotal events in the United States and global economy during 2008-2009, some of which might end up putting more people in jail for more reasons and under more governmental regulation...do you see where I'm going with this?

So no, I did not include a long hook about financial criminals at the beginning of this post just as a nod to the Matt-Steve OWS debates. More and more people of all backgrounds - but mostly minority, and black, as has almost always been the case - are going to jail, and we as taxpayers are paying for their cells and services. Yes, we do not pay as much as we probably would, had the private sector and "Corrections and Detention" industry not taken up the massive and growing market need for jailing people by the boatload - Which is, as any economically-trained mind knows, much like sweatshop manufacturing and other abusive labor practices in that such practices are very helpful for achieving economies of scale.

Coming back to my original roommate discussion, my roommate continued and asked, as only scholars can, the question that starts it all:

"Why are there so many people in America's prison system?"

And that, readers, is the question I seek to answer over this series on Incarceration and the American Dream. Because if you believe in the American Dream, which is assumedly substantiated by American Democracy, then you must concede that our network of privately-owned and operated detention systems and facilities must, indeed will, remain, and grow, and always show "Freedom in America" to be quite possibly the largest hypocritical farce this great, free nation has ever generated. Why this is so - and what we can do about it - will be the focus of this 3-part series, beginning today and continuing weekly on Mondays and/or Wednesdays.

Let me repeat this morally inconvenient claim: If you believe that our American democracy will survive the political and economic challenges of the 21st century and beyond, then you must also concede that it is and will continue to be impossible to disband our American prison system, which incarcerates more people than the populations of many countries, which accounts for a quarter (25%) of world incarceration although Americans make up but 5% of the world's population. We lock more people up, for longer and harsher sentences, and for more legal reason and offenses - many of them drug-related - than any other country in the world. Not really what you'd expect from a self-described "Land of the Free."

But be not dismayed, readers: This series will also attempt to provide possibly naive, but defiantly radical solutions to mitigate the impact of incarceration on the American Dream, from the perspective of global labor competition, private vs. public management of incarceration and education systems, and "Freakonomics-"style analysis of the crime-incarceration incentive structure. If only we could leave race out of it; alas, we cannot without misrepresenting the real relationships between race, culture, and class, so all three will make a cameo at some point.

Feel free to chime in on the discussion at any point, for any reason. Some people like to talk about elephants in the room. I prefer talking about the Supermassive Black Hole of America's criminal justice system, sitting in the midst of our society and especially Washington D.C. Think about that for a minute, stop to listen and learn, and you will no doubt discover that incarceration and its lingering harmful effects have sucked the American dream clear out of material existence for many, many members of our country and segments of our society, the vast majority of whom are minorities and the urban poor.

To quote Malcolm X: When I see what the prison system has done to the American dream, "I don't see an American Dream, I see an American Nightmare."

On a lighter note, "artist's impressions" of space stuff is always incredibly badass

 

And like a black hole...Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not there. 

Right Steve?

"Let God sort 'em out. And by God, I mean the space-time continuum + gravity."

Additional Reading: Alexander, Michelle (2010). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press. p. 7 [and the book that this article advertises]