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Incarceration divisions
With prison recidivism rates hitting all time highs. Confronting Confinement, a June 2006 U.S. prison study by the bipartisan Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons, reports than on any given day, up to 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and that over the course of a year, 13.5 million spend time in prison or jail.
African Americans are imprisoned at a rate roughly seven times higher than whites, and Hispanics at a rate three times higher than whites. Within three years of their release, 67% of former prisoners are rearrested and 52% are re-incarcerated, a recidivism rate that calls into question the effectiveness of America's corrections system, which costs taxpayers $60 billion a year. Violence, overcrowding, poor medical and mental health care, and numerous other failings plague America's 5,000 prisons and jails.
The study indicates that even small improvements in medical care could significantly reduce recidivism. “What happens inside jails and prisons does not stay inside jails and prisons,” the commission concludes, since 95% of inmates are eventually released back into society, ill-equipped to lead productive lives. But up to 90% of all those prison inmates released back into society, eventually end up back in prison.
Given the dramatic rise in incarceration over the past decade, with one American out of every one hundred people in prison, public safety is threatened unless the corrections system does in fact “correct” rather than simply punish.
(1 in 100 U.S. Adults Behind Bars, New Study Says - New York Times
www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html
28 Feb 2008 ... With more than 1.6 million people in prison, the incarceration rate is now the ... One out of every 100 adults is behind bars because one out of every 100 ...)
So if one (or more) person is imprisoned, we all (society) are trapped in the fear of “Criminals on the loose” that could attack each and / or everyone of us, anytime, mentality. Our communal fear negative energy grows and expands this astounding phenomenon faster than people can become harden criminals.
Correctional procedures need to be introduced within society, not measures of incarceration and punishment that have never worked. Two hundred and fifty years ago people were sent to the other side of the world as punishment, as we can’t geographically do that anymore, we just lock folk away that need our help and support right in our own communities, while we turn a blind eye to issues that belong to us all. “As the same rain falls on the unjust..... As the just.” Who can cast the first stone, as we all are capable of good and bad, just varying degrees of it, some get caught, some don't. The things that we love or hate about others are merely mirror images of ourselves, the things that we are afraid of, that given the right scenario, we could commit ourselves. So when we ask the question: “What is it about this person, that I like or don’t like about myself.”This simple question can be extremely liberating.
Dr Ihaleakala Hew Len of the Self Identity, self improvement program which is based on an ancient Hawaiian tribal problem solving system cleared a ward of 38 insane criminals in Hawaii that had carried out the most heinous of crimes in the past, within two years of him taking personal responsibility of all that he saw each day within the prison. Only one of the prisoners was not returned into society to live their normal lives again. A remarkable story that is worth a read on the internet.
So with up to 1% of the America population in prisons, for the first time in the nation’s history, more than one in 100 American adults is behind bars, according to a new report. Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to over 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars. Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 black adults is too, as is one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34.
We can see that prisons although called “Correctional Centres” are nothing more than crude temporary homes that “BAD PEOPLE” stay in until society says that they can return into society again. But most times these people are so ill-equipped to fit back into society and are in fact shunned so badly that up to 90% actually choose to re-offend so they can return into the crudeness of a prison home where they are at least accepted for their bad behaviour, fed, cleaned, housed, partially protected and medically looked after, like children really these emotionally damaged people never get taught basic principles of freedom because they are never given the acceptance of Grace to guide them to grow.
Prison psychiatrists that only know how to be experts in behaviour, mentally, emotionally tripping up inmates so that they fail their paroles often many times, and have to do extra time. This is an industry where all the politicians, bureaucrats and workers that gain employment by holding people in ‘bad’ behaviour for as long as they can by caging them up like animals with little correction ever happening.
Our self proclaimed Christian society where about 75% of Australians profess to being Christian, still lives in first testimonial biblical law, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; LAW.” We talk about second testimonial principals of “GRACE” (which is virtually opposite to law) but that’s all we do.... Talk about a higher way to live, but practice an old antiquated system that never worked and has become an expensive out of control dinosaur the governments try and manage, but as currently proving to be.... Unsuccessful!
THIS IS BECAUSE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO MOTIVATE PEOPLE ON THE REVERSE OF A GOOD IDEA. Meaning simply that behaviour is an illusion. I (Sam) have mixed with some of societies hardest criminals while volunteering organised group fellowship to them in prisons and I can tell you that so long as I did not judge them by their outward physical appearances, these men and woman were absolutely delightful people. Fellowship group prison volunteers talk with male prisoners on Saturdays around having tea, coffee and cakes that we would take with us from bakeries that donated them.
And weekly in the evening we would travel to a Women’s prison to take cakes again for supper and teach the female inmates line dancing. One female prisoner has always stuck in my memory, she had been a nurse, and did not have the tough appearance of many prisoners, but for whatever reason, she had killed her husband. Usually we never got to know why they were incarcerated and this helped us to be non-judgemental, (but another prisoner mentioned it.) This woman had in the past, a life, career as a nurse, and a family and making one mistake in a moment of temporary insanity (not consciously present) that will affect her for the rest of her life no matter how much good she does in her future, society will never release her from her judgmental criminal record.
This principle is as insane as was the state of the person when they commit crimes. Taking a permanent action to deal with a temporary situation. Isn't it interesting that judgmental and governmental, both end in..... MENTAL! Originating from the mind which is driven by its sensual, world mind perception.
Appearances of evil, which are the decoys. By punishing people for their behaviour not only locks that same behaviour in, but also fails to draw the person to moderation in behaviour.
Our police system debates whether it should call itself “Law enforcement agents” instead of the original “Peace officer.” This is a huge semantically propelled idea that drastically changes a police officer’s attitude to power. The past 'peace officer' was a public servant, there to serve the public. Imagine how society could be treated by a public servant that by contrast saw themselves as an agent there to enforce a system that literally has been proven to NOT work. The original peace officer new instinctively that some minor bad behaviour was temporary and treated it accordingly, often with a good telling off and sending ‘the offender’ home to reflect on their questionable deeds. Nowadays we could be tasered for minor infringements.
Lawyers, solicitors, prosecutors, court judges, in fact most professionals trained by our educational system, mostly run on societies ‘duality’ system, whereby everyone is guilty until proven innocent, win/lose, lose/win. If Judges haven’t tended their “Office of Oath” into the court at each trial, then they are on the side of the law which says that defendants are guilty until we prove otherwise. If they do tender their Oath of Office, then a Judge must protect the defendant who then he must consider innocent until proven guilty. If you are ever before a court of law, always politely ask the judge; "Your honor, have you tended your Oath of Office to the court?
