The Failings of the U.S. Prison System

By David Starr

 

It’s well-known that the United States has the world’s largest prison population. According to an NAACP Criminal Fact Sheet, the USA represents 5% of the world’s population yet has 25% of the world’s prison population. The NAACP puts the number of people in jail and prison at 3 million.

 

Thus, U.S. officials are in no position to judge other countries.

 

Racial hostility has of course been a factor for who goes into prison. More from the NAACP Fact Sheet:

 

• 32% of the US population is represented by African Americans and Hispanics, compared to 56% of the US incarcerated population being represented by African Americans and Hispanics.

 

• In 2014, African Americans constituted 2.3 million, or 34%, of the total correctional population.

 

• African Americans are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites.

 

The Fact Sheet also contains how much was spent on corrections, $81 billion, among other factors:

 

• Spending on prisons and jails has increased at triple the rate of spending on Pre-K-12 public education in the last thirty years.

 

• Prisons are overpopulated. Since 1970, our incarcerated population has increased by 700%.

 

• Since 1991, the rate of violent crime in the United States has fallen by about 20%, while the number of people in prison has risen by 50%.

 

The stress and fear produced by a rotten prison system has resulted in some prisoners taking drastic measures. Fight Back! News reported that, “Since August 2024, a dozen Black men at Virginia’s Red Onion supermax prison have set themselves on fire in a desperate attempt to escape conditions that amount to prolonged torture. Red Onion is infamous for the abuses it has carried out against prisoners since its opening in 1998.”

 

Fight Back! News gives examples of those who resorted to self-immolation and responses by the victims and their supporters. Kevin Rashid Johnson, long-time member of the Black liberation movement, and a political prisoner, uses Prison Radio communiques to get news out into the public, like the tragedies of individuals who resorted to self-immolation. Johnson is held in Red Onion. Two prisoners who are cell mates named Econ (as he describes himself) and Trayvon Brown resorted to self-immolation. “Econ informed Johnson that the self-immolation was an attempt to get transferred out of Red Onion, even if just temporarily to a hospital, as the conditions have become so intolerable.” 

 

And the conditions are such that “Guards have been serving food with maggots, carrying out religious persecution, using racial slurs, and denying medical treatment.” 

 

Ekong Eshiet, a Muslim from Africa, was quoted in a Prison Radio interview, saying that “I would rather die than stay up here, because everyday I’m dealing with discrimination, whether it’s about my race, my last name, or my religion.” Guards have beaten Eshiet  routinely and have rubbed pepper spray into his burn wounds. A response by Johnson and Eshiet involved going on separate hunger strikes. Eshiet, in particular, said, “I’m doing my best…like with the hunger strike way. But if I have to, I don’t mind setting myself on fire again.”

 

On Dangerous Ideas with Lee Camp, there was a discussion about prisoners who resorted to self-immolation. This can be seen here.  

 

The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is an organization that is focused on the conditions of prisons. It is fighting to have reforms in the prisons so those incarcerated are protected. The EJI published a report which stated, “Today, prisons and jails in America are in crisis. Incarcerated people are beaten, stabbed, raped, and killed in facilities run by corrupt officials who abuse their power with impunity.” Prisoners are usually denied medical care, difficulty in coping with their disabilities, hardly have mental health and addiction treatment, and are in turn ignored, punished, and put into solidarity confinement.

 

The U.S. Constitution requires that incarcerated people are protected from being beaten, stabbed, and raped. But prison and jail officials blatantly violate this needed protection. One major example is Alabama, which has the most violent prisons in the USA. The Constitution is ignored and the results are homicide, sexual assaults, and stabbings. Dangerous drugs are commonplace, along with extortion of incarcerated people. In the meantime, prison guards tend to ignore these atrocities.

 

Mental illness has increased among incarcerated people. Those who are in solitary confinement are especially experiencing anxiety, paranoia, and major depression. Instead of providing psychological treatment, prison officials usually ignore this method and resort to physical force, which makes those incarcerated further decline in their mental and physical capabilities. The correctional staff and officials are usually not held accountable and thus the continuance of abuse and corruption.

 

Another problem is corporations getting in on this barbaric scam for profit. The emerging of private corrections companies has only worsened the situation. According to EJI, these companies keep more than two million U.S. citizens behind bars. “Factoring in policing and court costs, and expenses paid by families to support incarcerated loved ones, mass incarceration costs state and federal governments and American families $182 billion each year.”

 

Rising costs have compelled state and federal policy-makers to reduce incarceration. But companies have made private monopolies off the prison system. Or more like the prison industry. Keeping 121,420 out of 1.5 million people in state and federal prisons, this is a sickening path for more privatization of them. Thus, profiteering off of the system and misery of prison life for incarcerated people. 

 

What it boils down to is the rule of capital, where profits are far more important than the interests of people. And with the Trump regime returning to power, there could be further profiteering off of other people’s misery. Private prison companies are all for monopolizing the prison system. 

 

The releasing of prisoners after they have done their time are thus supposed to be rehabilitated and can function properly in society. But according to the Brennan Center for Justice (BCJ), “It is not difficult to understand why our prisons largely fail at preparing people to return to society successfully. American prisons are dangerous. Most are understaffed and overpopulated. Because of inadequate supervision, people in our prisons are exposed to incredible amounts of violence, including sexual violence.”

 

Due to reforms over the years especially enacted by right-wing legislators, prisons are being used to profiteer off of, and efforts at rehabilitation is not a priority. The right has this “get tough on crime” mentality, seeing, as usual, that the problem as purely B/W. To be direct, this is a stupid way to cope with a problem without looking at the shades of gray. When the right is called out on it, they, in typical fashion, arrogantly dismiss suggestions or proposals as “radically liberal.” 

 

There is a lack of, or no, rehabilitation and educational programs within many prisons. Further, according to the BCJ, “Prisons tend to rinse away the parts that make us human. They continue to use solitary confinement as a mechanism for dealing with idleness and misconduct, despite studies showing it creates or exacerbates mental illness. Our prisons also foster an environment that values dehumanization and cruelty.”

 

For the “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave,” the prison system’s barbarity and it being known to have the largest prison population worldwide, there are bloody stains on that old patriotic slogan.