Maximillian Streisel, I’m calling in for Prison Radio. The name of my segment is “Places Like This.”
Today’s segment centers on prison reform. I don’t feel like a lot of things have been done recently. In decades, I don’t feel like anything’s been done. The incarcerated population in America today, in 2023, in this era of widespread social justice and reform, what have we seen? Suffer, we suffer the same neglect the same anti-human abuse, the same callous oppression, as we have for, like, generations. Nothing’s changed. Conditions may even be worse in some states due to recent over sentencings and over incarceration. Decades passed with hardly a single, slow moving legislature to change this environment.
Individuals don’t become rehabilitated in places like this. Instead, criminal behaviors seem to be manufactured here, you know? These environments remain quite the untouched frontier for reform. And to continue ignoring this long overdue reform is to ignore the future of humanity and how we treat each other, you know? This is the human climate. It is a major concern, it should seem to people in society. It’s as of major a concern as any political, environmental, economical, climate in today’s discussions. So today, I introduced the question, almost with tongue in cheek but with no less sincerity or impact today, I ask you, what about the human climate?
Prison reform is the first and greatest stride we can make to sustaining and improving the human climate. The anti-human behaviors that occur in places like this, on such mass scale, stay on check. They’re unacceptable and inexcusable. And they say, “that’s what one might deserve for breaking the law.” In case anyone’s forgotten, I’m just going to quickly describe what one, an individual receives for breaking the law. The incarceration sentence a judge delivers when convicting a person of breaking the law is this: the individual is separated from society, in a secure facility for a period of time excluding special sentences, certain ones, like capital punishment, but it’s very simple. That’s the most transparent and simple deliverance of incarceration. Everything else we sell for at the hands of places like this—all the neglect and deprivation is surplus. It’s arbitrary measures that occur on unfathomable scale. I call it I call it the anti-human factor.
You know, it’s like the sadistic fat and prison operations needs to be trimmed. You know, being sentenced to incarceration does not entail being harassed, assaulted, spit on humiliated by staff or fellow persons, even though it happens all the time these things remain unchecked. The sentence doesn’t include being poisoned by poor environmental conditions, you know, bathrooms covered in mega nests of black mold. I’ve seen them myself, you know? Or, or, individuals having their medical claims ignored. I’ve seen people in farm casts for like, months at a time to where they’re, they’re like neglected a surgery, or an operation and their arms end up becoming malformed and malnourished, and they never recovered to what they were. I’ve seen this. I have people’s testimonies like this. These are real stories. And the sentence also doesn’t include suffering mental ailments inflicted from out of date medication, or deprivation or neglect of amenities or modern, you know, just more modern things that the prison has been out of date with, you know? Forms of recreation and stuff like that. A lot of it needs to be updated.
Because of these anti-human conditions, individuals there, don’t really have an incentive whatsoever to change themselves. The state run prison industry claims a pretty morbid hypocrisy. It says it promotes rehabilitation. It seems to reverse that direction. And I’m far from saying we need to turn it into a country club. But we need more amenities, more incentives, better quality of life conditions. I, I’m certain people will improve their behaviors with more pro-human measures in place. And not just improve conditions or incentives but more opportunities. Also, on a separate note that I’ll go I’ll get into later on future segments. More opportunities should be made available and repurposement or reclamation. The prison-industrial complex is the single most massive waste of human potential on the planet.
My name is Maximilian Streisel. I’m 27 years alive. You can find me on Prison Radio. Please send me your thoughts and comments. I look forward to responding to them all.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
