This country likes to pride itself on its exceptionalism; on how America is the shining city on the hill, on how this is man’s last best hope. This sentiment swells our hearts with pride and, sadly, clouds our judgment and our vision. There is, in fact, a dark side to our exceptionalism, and we who live inside the prison industrial complex as mini outposts, know all about it. From the outset of the republic, there has existed a strong mean streak, a desire to punish and inflict pain. Before the Articles of Confederation first united the original 13 colonies, the first prison opened in an abandoned copper mine in Connecticut. Not surprisingly, the first prison riot happened in that same copper mine not much later. As the years progressed and the country grew, our prison systems also grew, outpacing the growth of the population, outpacing any rationale but the satisfying of that punitive, exceptionally American impulse. After the Civil War, with the toppling of the south’s system of oppression, not to mention much of the rest of the country, passage of the 13th Amendment ensured that slavery and involuntary servitude were abolished, except as a punishment for crime. That last clause doesn’t get much coverage in history books, but it’s crucial to understanding the modern prison state.
Having been convicted of a crime, a whole panoply of bad outcomes could be poured down on the head of the convict. We’ve been rented out to till the fields and harvest the crops, chained together to clean the streets, and compelled to work in factories making everything from license plates to body armor and combat helmets. We’ve been used to break strikes, drive down wages, and throw any number of other monkey wrenches into the labor market. To this day, in fact, prisoners do all manner of dirty, dangerous and otherwise undesirable jobs for little to no pay. Here in California, the Attorney General’s Office and the Governor argued against applying extra time credits to non-violent, low level prisoners because they were needed to man the fire lines in our tinder dry forests. And they save a lot of money too.
In the so called progressive era of the early 20th century, prison reformers concocted mad experiments that were supposed to deter prisoners from future criminality. The Auburn System was implemented where prisoners were kept in complete isolation from one another, so as to prevent contamination of thinking. Only after costs spiraled and the need for products became evident was this practice ended. The fact that numerous prisoners went insane was also noted as a problem. Of course, how we get to today with the highest incarceration rate in the world, the longest sentences served in the world, and the biggest, most expensive prison system ever in the history of the world, that’s a story of politics and fear. Conservative politicians, seizing on the fears of the white middle class, trumpeted the war on crime as the antidote. Pretty fast, the numerous entities that make up the prison industrial complex; the construction companies that build prisons, the suppliers, the public employee unions of guards and others, the private prison companies that lease out cells, all teamed up with the demagogues, Republicans first, but Democrats no less, to convince the public of the desperate need to imprison more and more of their neighbors, particularly, if their neighbors lived in the defunded and denuded inner cities.
Why does this matter? Because it’s hard to know where to go if you don’t know where you’ve been, and because all of this remains largely unknown, even to prison reform activists, even to prisoners. There is a reason why American prisons are the worst in the industrialized world. It’s a product of our history creating our present day reality. For a couple of very revealing accounts of the truth of how prison could be run, check out Susan Olesek’s fantastic log entries from when she toured Scandinavian prisons in the Enneagram Prison Project’s website, or read Professor Doran Larson’s excellent article “Why Scandinavian Prisons are Superior” on The Atlantic’s website. Did you know that Canada has a national Prisoner’s Day, or that during the holidays in Europe, the prisons mostly empty out because the prisoners mostly go home to celebrate with their families? How about that In many prison systems, prisoners are issued a cell phone to stay in contact with their friends and families, that being forced to wear a uniform is frowned on in many places and forbidden as demeaning in some.
I’ve had the same basic conversation with activists for years now. It goes something like this, “We can’t ask for too much because the public’s not ready for it.” This applies to everything from life without parole sentences to more humane visiting policies. I always say the same thing, it might be too much for the loud, angry haters, and it might be too much for the profiteers and the supporters of the prison industrial complex, but they are not the majority. It really is past time for all of us trying to fix this mess, to stop kowtowing and start standing up to power. People on all sides of the political spectrum are, finally, coming out in favor of big change to the prisons. What are we waiting for? Part of our exceptionalist myth has always been that we are the home of the brave. It’s time to be brave. This is Kenneth E. Hartman, Executive Director of The Other Death Penalty Project, from inside California’s prison system.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
