“Orange is the New Black” is one of my current favorite shows but in addition to it’s entertainment value, the show actually has a lot to say about the American prison system. For those unfamiliar, the show is about a woman who is imprisoned for a drug trafficking crime from a decade earlier.
The show was originally a book — a true story written by Piper Kerman, who actually experienced a year in a women’s correctional facility.
American prisons shouldn’t be housing people convicted of minor crimes from years ago. Our tax dollars shouldn’t be paying for them to live there or to help make their lives excessively harder when they get out.
From a piece in today’s Daily Signal:
If a student is jailed, the odds become significantly slimmer that he will graduate from high school: “Juvenile incarceration is estimated to decrease the likelihood of high school graduation by 13 percentage points and increase the likelihood of adult incarceration by 22 percent,” reported a 2013 MIT study. Another study, by Pew, found that “serving time reduces hourly wages for men by approximately 11 percent, annual employment by 9 weeks and annual earnings by 40 percent.”
When it comes to social capital—arguably the most important contributor to economic mobility—those who have been imprisoned also are hurt.
There is a better way than mandatory minimum sentences that only serve to further corrupt young adults and fashion a future toward further imprisonment. This is an issue both Republicans and Democrats can come together on to make a difference in a big way for taxpayers but especially for human beings who deserve a second chance.
You can read more about the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2014 here and get informed.
In the meantime, I’m on Seasons 2, Episode 6 and dying to know how they bring this season to a close.
Jen says: I do agree about mandatory minimum sentences. However, basing our criminal justice system on a Hollywood sitcom seems rather short sighted.
Example in point. Martha Stewart got to spend 18 plus months at a minimum security prison for lying to Federal authorities. She has been a model ex con since then, including resurrecting her media empire and regaining her life, while living within the restrictions of her sentence/release guidelines. I would venture to say that her conviction and prison stay not only was justice served, but served as a deterrent to other white collar criminals who might decide that there is no real penalty for committing stock fraud and perjury other than maybe a fine.
The legalize drugs crowd likes to take up these kind of cases as a banner for decriminimalizing drug use. I have a hard time believing that Hollyweird has accurately portrayed our justice system with their little episodes featuring orange jumpsuits and am more inclined to thing they are snickering over those taken in by it and who are now marching around demanding removal of jail time from sentences because some poor twenty something finally got nailed for drug trafficking years down the road.
Maybe we should know what happened to the teenagers said trafficker was selling to before feeling so sorry for her.
GWB says: Ericka, I have to throw the BS flag on this:
If a student is jailed, the odds become significantly slimmer that he will graduate from high school: “Juvenile incarceration is estimated to decrease the likelihood of high school graduation by 13 percentage points and increase the likelihood of adult incarceration by 22 percent,” reported a 2013 MIT study.
This assumes causation, rather than correlation, and probably turns the causation totally on its head. Incarcerating someone probably does not make them less likely to graduate – doing the bad things that get you incarcerated is the more likely culprit.
I agree that possession crimes should probably not net you a lot of time in county or state lockup. However, most people in jail for possession are NOT really in jail for possession – they are there because of a record. (Much like there are very few innocent people in jail – they might not be guilty of the crime of which they were convicted, but they were very likely not innocent by any stretch of the imagination.)
Having said that, I don’t think our prisons should be concerned with rehabilitation at all. Period. They should be a place where you repay your debt to society. You should work in order to eat anything more than essentially bread and water, and you should do it 16 hours a day. Prison should be punishment. Period.
Rick says: That’s a sweeping generalization. You’re simplifying a complex issue. Since 1980, the prison population has grown by about 800 percent, while the country’s population has increased by only a third. We have 5 percent of the world’s population – but 25 percent of its prisoners. It’s not that they are innocent of the offenses that put them there, it’s that the penalties are too harsh for the crimes. Many of these people are in prison because we have criminalized vast areas of conduct involving nonviolent offenses and compounded that with a distorted system of sentencing.
Xavier says: Just out of curiosity, is that picture demographically accurate? If not, I’m notifying the NAACP and the LGBT Coalition.
And CAIR.
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