More importantly what have we learned about the cause of crime? Two hundred years ago stealing bread was punishable by prison or losing a hand or both - but the criminal was hungry not violent or selfish. And, over our last 100 years of human history the vast majority of criminals have also been mostly hungry [metaphorically] not scheming or corrupt...Modern day hunger has it's source in sorrow and desperation.
Nearly every night television networks [local and national] lead with some form of crime. The crime is usually tied to a type of firearm - a gun. This daily 'news' is so common that any life-form visiting from another galaxy would quickly refuel and leave, likely heading for the refuge of a nice black-hole somewhere else in the Universe.
Around my kitchen table one evening from crime and criminals going to prison, the discussion naturally cycled around to America's 2nd Amendment - then ran amuck from there.
But we can't r-e-a-l-l-y discuss the 2nd Amendment without first understanding 'why' it was included in the Constitution of our newly formed Republic. Just as important the original intention and meaning behind the wording of the 2nd Amendment in 1787 is quite removed from the tweaked interpretation the NRA would have everyone believe 233 years later - today.
Very simply, from the perspective of the leaders who organized 13 rebel colonies - the founding fathers had just thrown off the burden of a tax happy parliament and an oppressive king. The founding-fathers also intended that not only should ordinary citizens have the right to share in governing themselves, the individual citizen had a right to defend themselves against [a rogue] authoritarian government...So, in the future, if members of our Congress arbitrarily suspended the U.S. Constitution then began to block freedoms - We The People - not only had the right to protest--we had the responsibility to protest...
*"A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
During the Revolutionary War era, "militia" referred to groups of men who banded together to protect their communities, towns and later States, when the newly formed United States declared its independence from Great Britain [1776]. Colonists at that time witnessed rulers and governments use soldiers to oppress people and believed the [new] federal government should 'only' be allowed to raise arms [with full-time paid soldiers] when facing foreign adversaries. For all other purposes citizens believed the government should turn to part-time militias or ordinary citizens using their own weapons.
Problem was, local county militias had proved insufficient against the well trained and well organized British military. [So would not have prevailed without a great deal of help from France and native Huron tribes.] Addressing that weakness, framers of the new constitutional then gave the new federal government authority to establish a trained, standing army even in peacetime. However, opponents of a strong central government [anti-federalists] argued that a federal army might deprive individual states of their ability to defend themselves against possible oppression. In short anti-federalists feared Congress could someday abuse its constitutional power.
To address that issue, shortly after the U.S. Constitution was officially ratified, James Madison proposed the 2nd Amendment as a way to alleviate concerns for state militias. But - nothing Madison or any of our founding fathers set down in any constitution could anticipate irrational logic of an individual. In 1789, citizens with weapons owned single shot muskets...Two centuries later rapid fire semi-automatic and automatic weapons are owned by many ordinary citizens.
The first mass shooting that began with 21 deaths at the San Diego McDonald's in 1984 - was not the work of a citizen protesting a rogue Congress. And the weapon used by the delusional shooter was not what James Madison intended by the 2nd Amendment, regardless of NRA propaganda. Decades of copycat mass shootings meant, essentially, with the development and sale of military style weapons that any single individual has gained the ability to function as a one-person militia.
Which brings this l-o-n-g account to Prison Reform In America--Which also brings us to the individual who uses a gun to threaten human life - the source of citizen gun violence. But easy availability [of so many types of guns] is only one means of wounding or ending a human life. People shooting people is the result of a mental and emotional void with their own violent roots established long before we meet them on the 6 o'clock news.
*"Children are influenced by the society in which they are born and raised. They in turn influence society." David Liederman So, if this society, this Republic is to 'shine' as it should we can't address crime unless we address punishment. The way to address punishment is to address DESPAIR...And desperation begins in childhood, years before anyone is arrested and/or sees a courtroom.
America, indeed no society can afford to have even one child lose heart by the tender age of five!
Each and every one of the people in prison today was once a cute toddler with promise until something derailed their life - like some form of abuse...[America's level of criminal incarceration is the highest in the developed world at 716 per 100,000.]
Amazingly, it's preschool and elementary school where our Prison Reform should begin. On any given day in America there are 440,000+ children in Foster Care and the average child lives in Foster Care from two to five years, removed from dysfunctional homes. Too many kids are in Foster Care much longer than five years with no family or permanent home of their own. But worse yet when a foster child turns 18 - ready or not - they're out on their own.
There is hours of national television coverage and advertising for homeless pets needing rescue - but that same effort is glaringly absent for homeless and foster children who need rescue and adoption. Why is that?
Social Workers are asked to do much with dwindling resources for long
hours and marginal pay. Their caseloads are typically 19 families with
an individual file load of 24 to 31 children.
State and federally elected representatives cut budgets in the very [social] areas that should never see resources diluted. Socially we need more not less coordinated programs in our schools where teachers can identify families and kids at risk - better coordinated with social services - working with community police. And 'service' oriented not punitive, so parents who need help actually seek help for themselves and their kids. [Typically kids in crisis are born to parents who grew up in crisis.]
With a childhood of abuse and/or shame from neglected neighborhoods that don't receive the same education/tax resources as middle class areas - kids can grow up feeling despair and resentment. By the time they meet-up with police they've already been 'punished' in many forms, so prison isn't such a deterrent.
*A trend toward privately run prisons is less incentive for important rehabilitation programs because private prisons are a for-profit business - it's all about the headcount. Since 2000, the number of private prisons in the United States increased 39%.
Society watches the news appalled at reported crime[s] and crime statistics, when much of that could be prevented at a lesser loss in people and financial cost. Our society expects a great deal from police, teachers and social workers who need expanded annual budgets and greater community support - not less. [And certainly 'not' de-funding!] If America's professionals in law enforcement, education and social services have what they need - America benefits. Should prison reform also be part of updating our [social] infrastructure?
We can't rescue everyone, because we can't identify all the people needing rescue, but presently we're not even doing our best - so we throw away thousands of perfectly good people who don't need to end up in a prison...
https://medium.com/@BraveNewFilms.org/heres-how-to-contact-all-535-members-of-united-states-congress-call-email-tweet-20b8a1c54195
Sherrie Todd-Beshore is a mystery-suspense novelist and former journalist.
Via amazon.com or patchworkpublishing.com
*Romantic Mystery-Suspense: "Fine Points Malice And Payback"
*Romantic Mystery-Suspense: "Shadows And Light"
