It is becoming well known that prisons are big business, thanks to the internet and other informable output. Our society is more breadth for the schemes of the status quo to hoodwink the populace into believing that mass incarceration was a recent American invention. The real purpose of the American industrial complex is to make money off the backs of the have-nots of our society.
This is not to say that we believe in a lawless society, it’s just giving clarity to the situation. It’s not that the wealthy people commit crimes as the poor do, they do. It’s just that the system in America is in place to accommodate the wealthy. For instance, an aspect of the status quo such as Martha Stewart, Lindsay Lohan, and Jeffrey Epstein, etcetera, who have served extremely short period prison terms in the past.
One would be hard pressed to find a rich person serving hard time in United States prison. From other schemes that garner wealth off of the have-nots, gerrymandering. It is a technique of growing legislative districts to ensure that favored incompetents face no serious competition in general election.
The same scheme is employed in the prison system. Prisoners are counted in areas that they are housed at rather than their outer community where they last resided at before their incarceration, which by law is illegal. According to a 2009 study by the Prison Policy Incentive, there are eight legislative districts in Pennsylvania that would be legally small were not for prisoners.
Certainly we must not overlook the effects of gerrymandering. In particular, gerrymandering has adverse effects on the Black community by counting Philadelphia residents in other areas. As opposed to their natural regions by the census Bureau allocation of government funds, which subsequently lead to inadequate funds for our neighborhoods. And for which results in a lack of funding to our schools, rehab, recreation centers, libraries, et cetera.
This then causes said communities becoming impoverished and down-ridden with crime and a lack of jobs.
All for the sake of greedy politicians for whom have an interest in these rural areas Coal Township, Rockview, Raynaud, etc. These funds go to rural areas, communities, illegally so as to enrich and improve way of life for their voters, supporters at the expense of prisoners. Whom are illegally counted as residents of these areas when they are not.
We as citizens of Philadephia need to become more vocal in our stance against gerrymandering, because it is financially destroying our community. Most often communities of color. We need to become more aware and involved against this illegal practice. For more information about prison-based gerrymandering go to www.prisonersofthecensus.org or contact Peter Wagner. The transfer of electoral power from cities to counties, from Black to white, makes a mockery of the one-person one-vote, just to fill it up your or any other city’s growing political laws, [inaudible] rural Pennsylvania’s illegal, ill-gotten gain.
(Sound of a cell door closing.) These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
