Last year,
more than 7 million American people - that's about one in
every 32 adults - were behind bars or on probation or parole.
The United States has, for years, imprisoned more people than
any other country in the world. Yet, we don't have the highest
literacy rate. And our economy continues to take a hit as
jobs are outsourced to foreign countries with a cheaper and
better educated workforce. Inner-city schools fail half of
their students and jobs are removed from communities, replaced
with guns and drugs, resulting in incarceration, if you're
lucky, death if you're not.
Nonetheless,
many U.S. states have cut their education budgets to compensate
for rapid growth in prison populations and prison construction.
The misguided priorities that inform such decisions have only
served to further marginalize already oppressed populations.
It's time that this country shifts its focus away from imprisonment
and commits its resources to education and empowerment.
In
the past 20 years, more than a thousand new prisons
and jails have been built in the U.S. Yet, our prisons
are more overcrowded now than ever. According to the
United State Justice Department, the total number of
inmates increased 35-percent from 1995 to 2005. The
nation's 'war on drugs' and the stiff sentencing laws
that grew out of that war are largely to blame. Nonviolent
possession offenses, a crime that, in another country,
would more than likely not result in a prison sentence,
make up a large percentage of the prison population.
The
numbers of individuals sentenced for drug crimes increased
nearly 65-percent between 1996 and 2003, accounting
for the largest increase in inmates in the federal system
Black and Hispanic men only make up 10-percent of this
country's population, yet they make up 60-percent of
nation's prison population. Men aren't the only casualties
here. Black women are three times more likely than whites
to end up in prison and women of color are increasingly
being sentenced to long prison terms for nonviolent
drug offenses.
If
federal and local governments were to adequately fund
the nation's public schools, ensuring all students had
access to high-quality teachers, tutoring and after-school
programs, we could stem the growth of the nation's prison
population. With support, many could be steered away
from drugs and the street life and pushed towards college
or vocational school. Instead, the country has poured
its money into a criminal injustice system that, instead
of creating special programs designed to rehabilitate
the low-level offender, corals these lost souls into
the nation's prisons. Upon release, having no education
and no skills, many return to the lifestyles that landed
them in prison. It's a dangerous cycle and only prison
architects and big business benefits.
In
1977, I was incarcerated for 7 months. I was told that
it cost taxpayers $30,000 to incarcerate me. A year
later, I enrolled at Eastern Michigan University under
an affirmative action program. Because I was poor, I
had to use loans and tax-payer supported government
grants to pay for my education. The cost of my four
year education was $24,000, less than the cost of my
short jail sentence. No longer a burden to taxpayers,
I am a significant taxpayer, helping, through my tax
contributions, to pave the way for others who've yet
to get an opportunity to make a way for themselves.
The tax dollars used to support my education were a
worthy investment, one that benefits all of society.
America should take note and act accordingly
Judge
Greg Mathis is national vice president of Rainbow PUSH
and a national board member of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference.
Email
This Article To A Friend
