The name of my essay is “Control,” by Charles Kareem Diggs of Phoenix Penitentiary in Pennsylvania.
After a careful review of history, you sense a feeling that the millions of lives were lost senselessly. The energy and wealth used to eliminate human beings was done for control. This control is one reason for wars. The land and its people are the prize. History teaches that wealth gives you power over citizens’ lives. The Constitution is rooted in land ownership. It is worshiped as a central nature of man, without it, you could not vote or have any part of government.
The Civil War was about land control and its property. If you control the land, you control every thing and person on it. The Constitution of America is principled on control of people and the Earth we live on. The central function of modern state is the protection and regulation of private property systems; to defend the owner’s property. Those who own property and wealth have rights and privileges and powers that the rest of society don’t enjoy. The poor and propertyless are excluded from control and decision making and any form of ownership of property is one of the important bases of power.
Prisoners should wonder, “How does the Constitution, wealth, land, and control have anything to do with us?” It has everything to do with the millions of persons in prison and on parole and probation. Tax dollars are being used to dehumanize your humanity and cause you to continue self-destructive activity. You would think [with] the high rate of felons repeating crimes the state and federal government would shut down its prison systems, court systems, and figure out what they are doing wrong.
The simple answer is: crime and long imprisonment is the lottery for people who thrive on control, and endorsing the maximum punishment against citizens who may very well have severe mental health sicknesses and emotional underdevelopment. Mostly children continue to repeat the same bad acts over and over again until they usually mature out of this stage. Perhaps the other percentage of children have yet to mature out of bad behavior. These are questions that are rejected by the managers of punishment and cruel imprisonments. For some reason, the author of torture and denial of natural needs is a cure for bad behavior. After 42 years of study, I have yet to find anywhere in creation where torturing and depriving women and men of their basic needs will cure them or rehabilitate them.
It is believed the system in place serves to maintain a high level of confusion and helplessness in the prisoner’s psychic. This leads to the conclusion that the solution must come from the prisoners themselves. History reveals that those in slavery will obtain freedom by their own hands and actions. Prisoners should take control of their actions and organize to have a national crime strike in every city. The felons should have meetings and choose weeks or weekends to begin crime strike. This outreach for change will eventually catch on, and we can start thinking that we don’t need to commit crimes to exist.
Some people have never tried to operate in the world without criminal activity. We may want to start with no murdering for a week. It sounds stupid at first. Why not? Those who have been drug addicts use the same method. They tell themselves, “I’m going to get off drugs.” You stop slowly, and then you abandon the desire for the drug. Crime could be addressed the same way. It is the only way to take back control of our lives. Thank you for listening to my piece.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
