The Mercutio Report 2011

table OF contents

An Interview From The Inside.....5 Who’s Running Again: John Huntsman......9 The Collection......10 The Sound......12 The Lit......14 A History

of

Healthcare In America......16

Celebrity Justice......20 Madams

in

America......24

Does America Run On God, Seperation.... 29

or

How High

the

Wall

of

Opinion: Capital Punishment......34 The Spectacle

of the

Scaffold: Why We Love Crime......38

You Go To Jail, I Collect 200 Dollars: The Private Prison....44

. . . . . .

2011. [All Rights Reserved] disclaimer: all the image use is non-commercial and for the purpose of commentary only. None of the images used on this magazine belong to us, except the ones We have created personally. images are usually credited and will be removed upon owner’s request...

AN INTERVIEW FROM THE INSIDE MERCUTIO WAS GRANTED ACCESS INSIDE A FEDERAL PRISON CAMP TO FIND OUT FIRST HAND ABOUT BEING A RESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN PRISON SYSTEM

My knowledge of the prison system is quiet honestly limited to what I've seen on TV (OZ, Prison Break, Shawshank Redemption, The Longest Yard).

Would you say this is an accurate representation?

First, let me say thank you for giving me this opportunity to do this interview. As you know, I'm currently doing time at a Federal Prison Camp (FPC). I was sentenced to 112

months for one count of medical fraud, but to answer your question about the way society views prisons from what is seen on TV is totally wrong. Prisons are mostly made up of people who made very bad choices. TV and media outlets would have you believe that murder, drugs, and even rape is an everyday way of life for those that are locked up... it's simply not true.

Also, politicians like to grandstand with this

tough on crime agenda, but what they have done is created a system of first time non-violent offenders with no way out and no help. Now do not get me wrong, there are times when bad things happen, but most days it’s peaceful.

Take us through a typical day for you. Is every part of your day scheduled?

A typical day for me starts about 5:30 am with my morning devo-

tion. Then, it is off to work at 6 am. I work food service in the dish room. It's breakfast, then a break before lunch. I work out for about an hour to an hour and a half. Then, it's back to work from 11:00 to 12:30. After lunch, you pretty much have the rest of the day off until the 4:00 national court, and then it's back to work for the afternoon dinner at 5pm. Once the last meal is over, the day is over and it's downtime until lights out at 11pm.

Are there any kinds of rehabilitation services offered or options for prisoners to get into groups to better themselves? AA? Group therapy? Etc. The answer is yes and no. Most services have been cut due to budget short falls. Programs such as AA or other drug and alcohol programs are standard. The federal system also has certain programs that are licensed or certified by the U.S. Labor Dept such as HVAC, auto mechanic, dental hygienist, just to name a few. Most prisons offer something; one just has to take advantage of the services. As far as the education goes, the federal system is big on a person getting their G.E.D. Which they believe is a gate-

way to higher education and not coming back to prison.

There are several programs designed to help re-integrate ex-offenders back into society.

One such program is the pre-release class, which goes over basic needs such as housing, job search information, and halfway house services. If I'm not mistaken, there are some re-integration programs signed into law by the President G. W. Bush back in 2007. Under the Second Chance Act, most inmates who have a strong family support system in place have a greater rate of success than with traditional government help.

There was a man who recently committed a crime just to get access to prison healthcare. How would you rate the system of care in prison facilities?

Is access to treatment simple?

For the person who committed a crime just to get healthcare, first shame on him and second it only goes to show you the decline in America. Nevertheless, to get any type of real healthcare one would have to be close to death. When cases require hospitalization, it could take months and sometimes years.

Just to see the dentist

it's over a year-long wait, not to mention eye care, which is even longer. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the worst compared to a developing nation, the prison gets a 9. If you come in the system in good health...pray and stay active and hope to leave in good health.

Are you or have you ever worried about your well-being? If so, why?

If not, who or what ensures your safety?

To be honest, no. At the camp level, most guys are working on going home so the propensity for unwanted behavior is few, but when something happens you have to be on your guard. The main thing is to show respect towards one another. I show respect, but I also give respect. Perhaps the worst thing to do is call a man out of his name. “Bitch� is the forbidden word. As far as safety, prison guards are taught to react not to prevent.

Are gangs, violence, and racial conflict a part of daily prison life? Is this simply a Hollywood perpetuated myth?

Prison is perhaps the most racially segregated place on earth; Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites ...everything is done according to race.

Blacks eat with Blacks and Whites with Whites and so forth. Everything is handled with a political flair, but when it comes down to it, Hollywood got this one right. Gangs play a very important role because it could mean the difference between life and death for some. Now there is one thing that can unite all races and that is the person who harms a child, especially the child molester “chomo”.

One last note ...homosexuality is a dualism in prison. There are those who have been in lockup for a very long time and will engage in homosexuality but do not consider themselves homosexuals but simply surviving because life in the federal system is just that life, and yet there are those that are just homosexuals and have created their own gang for survival and protection.

All in all, the gang problem is the worst of all things.

How are prisons classified? Are there some better than others? Do you have a choice into which one you are sent to? State vs. Federal prison?

Prisons on the federal side are classified on levels from high to low and then camp. The highest being a SuperMax or ADX housing.

The most dangerous and violent inmates, who have more than one life sentence, are there.

Next you have the USP (United States Penitentiary) – The Pen. Murderers, rapists, and some with life or very long sentences over 300 months. Next down you have medium-high to medium prisons those with less than 300 months also housing the usual violent inmates. After is the low or Federal Correction Institution (FCI); a mix of inmates at this level could be a first time offender or another inmate that has worked his way down from a higher level due to good time or years left to do on his sentence. There are a number of reasons for a level change. Last, we have the Federal Prison Camps (FPC), which is for people with less than 10 years. It is more or less just a warehouse for inmates with very little to do, but still have time. It is the safest of all levels. As for a say in where you will end up, it's all based off the length of time you are given. The more time... the higher the level.

The less time you get or I should say the closer you are to going home, you could be in a near home release location. State vs. Fed? Depending on the case, it could very well be a state case that could

overlap with Federal laws and the feds have the higher authority.

Besides email access, what are some other privileges provided within prison? Education? Applied skills?

Etc? There are some privileges like visits, or commissary, and basic cable. Education is not one of them. Unless you and your family can afford schooling, then classes can be taken through distance learning. Other than that there is not much more.

Btw the email system came online in 2009; perhaps in the next decade we might be able to have twitter.

I've heard ex-prisoners speak of a special way of counting time as to not go crazy while on the inside. Are you familiar with this idea?

How does it work?

I think every one has come up with their own way to do their time.

Some people only work their body leaving their minds a wasteland. While others react, watch TV, or play tabletop games all day.

Where as others learn to paint or play an instrument, basically one must find something to do other than the time.

We like to say, “ I did the time, the time did not do me”. As for my-

self, I teach classes on parenting, GED prep, and money smart classes. When I'm not teaching, I'm reading... right now I'm reading Kings, Kaisers, and Tsars which is about Queen Victoria's three grandsons and what lead to the first World War. What kinds of reforms would you like to see made in the prison system?

As far as the question on reform, it has been proven that education is the best reform. Second only to jobs. When you take a look at the high number of Blacks and Hispanics that are being incarcerated, one of the main causes is lack of education coupled with a drop out rate of over 80%. The nation has a real problem. When we live in a society where the first things to be cut when cities, states, and districts are under pressure to bring down cost are education and healthcare; when there is a lack of opportunity for young men, you create a system of survival. Prevention reform should become a major concern for lawmakers at every level. On the other hand, parents could create the best reform models by simply being involved in their children's lives.

It saddens me what is

happening in our black community the way we see our young men and women on TV and in movies. For example Basketball Wives...these young successful black women are seen fighting and calling one another bitches and hoes. BET which airs videos of young rich black men selling and singing about dope while our black young women walk around half-naked with men throwing money at them. Or gangster movies like Get Rich or Die Tryin’. It's constantly money and hoes.

This is our community raping the minds of the young... it really is a 21st century chitterling circuit and parents are just letting this happen when we do not take full advantage of what we already have in place – free public schools, our local churches, and other organizations – and hold those accountable for a hand up and not a hand out. Only then can we become a thriving force.

Perhaps there is not a simple reform solution, but we have to start somewhere and the home is the best place.

Giving people long sentences, the death penalty, or unequal treatment (especially black men) has led to a police state, which says lock everybody up and throw away the key.

Change has to come.

America has to wake up and take hold of the less fortunate and do something.

“Giving people long sentences, the death penalty, or unequal treatment (especially black men) has led to a police state, which says lock everybody up and throw away the key.”

WHO'S RUNNING AGAIN?

Jon Huntsman, Jr. Born March 26th 1960

Served as the 16th Governor of Utah from January 2005 – August 2009 Served as CEO of his family’s Huntsman Corporation Served as the 9th United States Ambassador to China August 2009 – April 2011 He is an Eagle Scout in the BSA Dropped out of High School in Salt Lake City to pursue a passion for the keyboard in the rock band Wizard Attained G.E.D and attended University of Utah Member of Sigma Chi Fraternity Served as a Mormon missionary in Taiwan Degree from the University of Pennsylvania in International Politics Under President George H.W. Bush, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to Singapore, the youngest in over 100 years At the 2008 Republican National Convention, he delivered the nominating speech for Sarah Palin His top concerns are: Health-care reform, economic development, education, and energy security Issues: Increase free trade Become energy independent Reduce business taxes Counterterrorism Aggressive regulatory reform Rebuilding our “core” Manage our resources well Regulatory reform Overhauling tax system Entrepreneurship Break oil’s “monopoly” Energy lies in variety Increase domestic energy production

tHe CollEction COWBOYS AND ALIENS Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford star in this actionpacked sci-fi western from the director of Iron Man that critics call “wickedly original, unlike anything you’ve ever seen” A stranger (Craig) stumbles into the desert town of Absolution with no memory of his past and a futuristic shackle around his wrist.

Starring: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford Olivia Wilde Directed by: Jon Favreau DVD Release: December 6, 2011

THE HELP The Help is an inspirational, courageous and empowering story about very different, extraordinary women in the 1960s South who build an unlikely friendship around a secret writing project — one that breaks society’s rules and puts them all at risk.

Starring: Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard Directed by: Tate Taylor DVD Release: November 1, 2011

THE DEBT In 1966, three Mossad agents were assigned to track down a feared Nazi war criminal hiding in East Berlin, a mission accomplished at great risk and personal cost - or was it? Thirty years later, the suspense builds as shocking news and surprising revelations compel retired team member Rachel Singer to take matters into her own hands.

Starring: Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, Sam Worthington Directed by: John Madden DVD Release: December 6, 2011

12 ANGRY MEN 12 Angry Men may be the most radical bigscreen courtroom drama in cinema history. A behind-closed-doors look at the American legal system as riveting as it is spare, the iconic adaptation of Reginald Rose’s teleplay stars Henry Fonda as the initially dissenting member of a jury of white men ready to pass judgment on a Puerto Rican teenager charged with murdering his father.

Starring: Henry Fonda, Ed Begley, Jack Warden Directed by: Sidney Lumet DVD Release: November 22, 2011

tHe SoUnd

THE BLACK KEYS - EL CAMINO This record is more straight ahead rock and roll raw, driving, and back to basics, says Auerbach. As Carney has put it, The Black Keys respect the past while being in the present, and that formula has made them sound like nothing less than the future of rock and roll. El Camino often recalls the blitzkrieg-paced Britishstyle rock of the 1960s and 70s, postBeatles and pre-punk: artists like T-Rex, The Sweet, and Gary Glitter, along with the heavier swing of such bands as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

Release Date: December 6, 2011 RIHANNA - TALK THAT TALK 2011 release, the sixth studio album from the R&B superstar. Talk That Talk once again sees the singer working with producer Verse Simmonds, half of the duo The Jugganauts. Features guest appearances from Jay-Z (‘Talk That Talk’) and Calvin Harris (‘We Found Love’) amongst others.

Release Date: November 21, 2011

AMY WINEHOUSE LIONESS: HIDDEN TREASURES 2011 posthumous release, a collection of previously unreleased tracks, alternate versions of existing classics, as well as a couple of brand new Amy compositions. It was said by all who worked with Amy that she never sang or played a song the same way twice. Here is a collection of songs that deserve to be heard, a collection of songs that were a fitting treatment to Amy the artist.

Release Date: December 6, 2011

THE DECEMBERISTS LONG LIVE THE KING 2011 EP from the Alt-Rock heroes. As a fitting bookend to the most successful year of the band’s career, The Decemberists release Long Live The King. Similar to the critically acclaimed, chart-topping bow The King Is Dead, the EP is a mostlyacoustic set of six Americana-based songs, recorded around the same time as The King Is Dead, and including their stunning cover of the Grateful Dead track ‘Row Jimmy.’ The EP was produced once again by Tucker Martine.

Release Date: November 1, 2011

tHe LIt

JOAN DIDION- BLUE NIGHTS From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old.

Release: November 1, 2011

BACK TO WORK - BILL CLINTON President Bill Clinton gives us his views on the challenges facing the United States today and why government matters—presenting his ideas on restoring economic growth, job creation, financial responsibility, resolving the mortgage crisis, and pursuing a strategy to get us “back in the future business.”

Release: November 8, 2011

THE “NEW” NEW RULES - BILL MAHER A follow-up to the New York Times bestselling The New Rules, The New New Rules delivers a series of hilarious, intelligent rants on everything from same-sex marriage to healthcare, from Republican agendas to celebrity meltdowns, with all the razor-sharp insight that has made Bill Maher one of the most influential comedic voices shaping the political debate today..

Release: November 14, 2011

CORE OF CONVICTION MICHELE BACHMANN Michele Bachmann is one of the most compelling leaders in America. But despite all the magazine covers and cable television stories, most people don’t know who she really is, where she comes from, or what she believes.

So she decided to tell her own story and let the reader decide.

Release: November 21, 2011

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will prevent me from being able to see a doctor about it.”

A HISTORY OF HEALTH CARE REFORM IN AMERICA: HOW NAME-CALLING DELAYED PROGRESS FOR A CENTURY Laura Sheehan

T

he Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 comprise what is frequently referred to as the “2010 Health Care Reform.” That is, supporters of the two bills tend to use that term. Oppo-

nents seem to prefer the pejorative “ObamaCare,” a term that has been bandied about so frequently that many people don’t even realize it's just a negative nickname.

In fact, the Department of Health and Human Services purchased advertising space on Google so that users searching the term

“Obamaare” would see the DHHS site listed first in an attempt to provide accurate and unbiased information to curious searchers.But health care reform has been called a lot worse: “unconstitutional,” “wholesale government takeover,” “democratic healthcare takeover,” “communist,” “fascist,” “socialist,” “Bolshevic,”

“absurd,” “unfair,” “leftwingy, ridonculous, strongarming-American-citizens pile of shit…” (Okay, that last one is pure conjecture, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some TeaPartier let that one slip at one time or another). Inexplicably, Health Care Reform has even been compared to Nazism.

You might think all this namecalling is a bit extreme (and you’d be right), but at least opponents are creative with their vocabulary, right? Wrong.

The fight for universal health coverage has been going on for almost a century, and opponents have been participating in all sorts of nasty namecalling for almost as long.

Back in the late 1800’s, America became concerned with the increasing burden of medical care costs on its citizens, and in 1915 Congress finally began debating a bill that would provide universal medical coverage. Keep in mind that by this point, Britain, Hungary, Austria, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, France, Switzerland, and Germany had already implemented some form of national insurance. (Pay attention to that last country mentioned; those Deutsche played a significant role in why America ends up being 100 years behind the rest of the developed world).

At first, the 1915 bill for national health insurance seemed like a shoe-in. President Teddy Roosevelt supported the idea, the American Medical Associa-

tion (AMA) was on board, and the country was on its way to catching up with the rest of the developed world (in terms of health care for its citizens, at least).Sure, there was opposition. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was against it, but that was because they wanted a monopoly on providing social benefits to workers. In a time before collective bargaining, unions were desperate to remain as strong as possible, so I can almost see where they were coming from. (Well, not really). Private insurance companies were against it too, of course. But for the most part, national health care was looking mighty promising.

Until World War I broke out.

All of a sudden, anything even remotely German was Bad News. Despite the fact that national health insurance was already being implemented in a dozen other countries, the fact that it was also being implemented in Germany was all the fodder opponents needed to start calling the concept

"socialist," "communist," and "un-American."

And thus, national health care was shelved for another 20 years.

Teddy's fifth cousin, Franklin, supported the idea of national health care coverage, too, but it was never a priority during Frankie's presidency. (Might have had something to do with the Great Depression, the New Deal, and all that World War II stuff). Truman was the first president to throw his full weight behind the issue, but by that time (late 1940's, early 1950's), anti-communism was at its peak. (Might have had something to do with those wars. You know, that Cold one and that Korean one?) "Socialized medicine," became the pejorative of choice for opponents. The American Medical Association, fearing that their doctors would lose out on money, turned tail on the idea. In fact, they spent more money on their anti-national health insurance campaign than any other lobbying cam-

paign in American history up to that point, publishing fearinducing propaganda pamphlets that warned, "Would socialized medicine lead to socialization of other phases of life?� Lenin thought so. He declared “socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state."

losing jobs, and without jobs, they lost their health insurance. Those who had been paying for their own insurance were hit by the economic depression and could no longer afford it. Thousands of people applied for nationally and state funded health insurance programs as a result, but not everyone was eligible.

And so America continued to lag behind the rest of the developed world. Excellent health care was available, but only to those who could afford it.

It wasn't until the 1960's that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law an amendment that would provide nationallyfunded health care for those that were too old or too disabled to work (Medicare), but even then, a huge chunk of the American public was still left out in the cold. Too rich to be eligible for state-funded medical services for the indigent (Medicaid), but too poor to afford private health insurance, millions of Americans were living in a country that boasted some of the besttrained doctors and most-advanced medical facilities, and yet were unable to partake of either.

Unemployed people who used to have employer-provided insurance found themselves ineligible for private insurance because of pre-existing conditions. Chronically-ill patients who could afford health insurance found their coverage capped at a certain dollar amount and had to pay out of pocket to continue receiving medical care. Young adults were expected to be able to afford their own health insurance, despite the fact that they were fresh out of high school or enrolled in college or hadn't been hired into the workforce yet. Uninsured selfemployed workers (who make up the largest portion of uninsured workers) delayed taking themselves (or, sometimes, their children) to the emergency room when life-threatening injuries occurred for fear of the overwhelming cost.

By 2010, one in six Americans did not have health insurance.

That's over 50 million people, including over seven million children. With the economic crash of 2008, America saw its first decline in population of those covered by private and employer-provided health insurance since they started recording that type of data in 1987. People were

Enter President Obama and his plan for health care reform. He proposed a variety of changes to the current health care system, including a Patient Bill of Rights, laws that would prevent children from being denied health care because they were already sick, provisions to grant Americans access to free preventative services (such as mam-

mograms, colonoscopies, and prenatal care), and policies to provide funds to senior citizens who are unable to afford medication.

Let the name-calling begin.

Opponents dug into their bag of tried-and-true derogatory terms and threw the arsenal at Obama. It was a plan that had worked for almost 100 years, so why bother to change it?

But then something happened that the opponents didn't expect. The general public was not swayed by the calls of "socialism!" "communism!" and "Nazism!" Sure, there was opposition to the plan, concerns about the cost and efficiency of such a huge government system, but suddenly generalized, unfounded namecalling wasn't enough to persuade Americans to fear the concept of health care reform.

So they tried a few new tactics, the most amusing of which was the argument that Obama was rushing things.

America wasn't ready to implement such a radical idea, they argued. The concept was untested and the country wasn't ready for it, they insisted.

Clearly, someone hadn't done their homework. Those of you who read the first half of this article know that every other developed nation in the world had already implemented similar policies, many of which had been in place for over a century. Obama's health care plan wasn't a risky, unplanned venture, it was an attempt

to bring America up to speed with the rest of the developed world.

When Congress finally approved the health care reform bill last year, 49% of Americans thought it was a good thing, while 40% disagreed and 11% didn't care. Not an overwhelming victory, but it was enough. Congress had spoken.

The people had spoken. Seeing a doctor was no longer a privilege for those lucky enough to be eligible for health insurance. Having emergency surgery without having to declare bankruptcy was no longer something only rich people could do.

Finally, 100 years late, every American had the right to medical care.

Opponents of health care reform realized they were wrong and apologized for being dickheads.Overnight, Americans received new health insurance

cards that gave them access to free abortions and free breast implants. Cancer was cured and cigarettes were abolished and puppies frolicked free in the streets of town.Okay, maybe not.

Health care reform is not perfect. It is going to take almost a decade to fully implement.

It has created (yet another) huge government program.

It will not solve all of the country's health care problems. Cancer has not yet been cured, cigarettes will never be outlawed, and puppies continue to contain their frolicking to designated dog parks.

And, of course, opponents are still name-calling and fearmongering. So where do we go from here?

I enjoy a good scary movie as much as anyone else, and probably enjoy frolicking puppies more than anyone else, but my advice is this: Let's

stop with the over-the-top, unrealistic, this-plan-will- destroy-our-country-and-makeus-all-slaves-to-the-Obamacontrolled-communist-government arguments. Let's also skip the over-the-top, idealistic, this-plan-will-solve-allof-our-health-care-problems arguments. Politicians need to stop trying to force Americans to fear change, and stop promising us unrealistic happily-ever-afters We all need to realize that medical care is a right, not a privilege, and although it took us 100 years to declare that, that's the reality now and we’ve got to accept that.

We've got a plan, it's got some public support, it's been signed in by our governmental officials, and it's already being implemented.

So let's get our heads out of our asses and out of the clouds and start making it work.

CELEBRITY JUSTICE Tylla Bradley

“OK, we know they get special treatment. So why do we let them get away with it?”

O

ne of the basic tenets of Western civilization is that no one is above the law. Kings and queens, rich and poor, men and women have repeatedly found this to be true, but in the twenty-first century, one lone group has managed to supersede the rules – celebrities. The bizarre insulation and isolating effective of the Hollywood Hills seems to create the impression that the rules that apply in “flyover” country are suspended for the elite that the little people are meant to adore. So, anarchy reigns amongst the group fiercely protected by their lawyers and publicists.

And when someone leaks an account from the protective barriers, it is instantly laughed off, justified, or the offending celebrity is pushed on the public in a whirlwind tour to show Academy Award level performances of contrition.

In reality, justice doesn’t exist in Hollywood, or anywhere else for that matter. The discrepancies of the justice system and human nature are simply more pronounced and flagrant when

a court case is examined under the bright biased lights of the media. Justice, as a concept, is a great principle that no one is able to fully enforce because of the many vagaries of the human condition and perception of what is just. The semblance of justice remains as the inept of the Hollywood and celebrity criminal element parades through court receiving ceremonial slaps on the wrist and the occasional “hard” sentence to show that they really aren’t above the law.

But, why do celebrities get off so easily?

The reasons are both simple and complex at the same time.

Easy reason: most celebrities are able to either 1) hire expensive attorneys who are capable of adequately

defending them or 2) good attorneys volunteer to represent celebrities for the publicity. Either way, quality legal defense is always a good thing. Money says a lot. Prominent L.A. attorney Blair Berk noted, “Los Angeles is a company town [and the company is the entertainment industry]. If it was Washington, I would have defended congressmen. If it was Detroit, it would have been car executives.”

Instead, she defends celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, Ryan Seacrest, and Mel Gibson.

Berk managed to compact Lohan’s two 2007 DUI arrests into a plea deal that included a cursory prison visit, community service, and another ineffective stint in rehab. This was punishment for driving, on two separate occasions, motorized vehicles when either intoxicated, high on cocaine, or both. In one case, she was in the act of chasing another car in which the person would later comment that she was afraid for her life. Still, the deputy district attorney stated that, “Lohan received the same

While many celebrities’ criminal scrapes are either quietly resolved or handled with kid gloves by the justice system, there are several who are sent to jail.

-Lil’ Wayne was sentenced to a year in Riker’s Island on firearms charges -Michael Vick went to prison for perjury related to a dog fighting ring on his property -Wesley Snipes was sentenced to 36 months for not filing his taxes

sentence (one day in jail, plus 10 days of community service) that anyone else with a second DUI conviction would get. She got no special treatment." In actuality, a second offense DUI in California warrants at the bare minimum 96 hours in jail (or up to 90 days). Of Lohan’s one-day sentence, she served 84 minutes, due to “overcrowding,” a politically correct way of saying “You deserve special treatment.”

But isn’t jail supposed to be a punishment? Granted, there are those who go for the socialization, medical care, or merely to increase their street cred, but the basic idea is that you don’t want to be there.

However, just because you don’t want to be in jail doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go. If you did the crime you most certainly should serve the time.

Something vapid socialites Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton

need to be clued in on. Both had their brushes with the criminal justice system with the Hollywood crime du jour, the DUI. After driving her luxury SUV the wrong way on the L.A. freeway, Richie served 82 minutes of her four-day sentence. She later said in an interview that that was “my way of paying my dues and taking responsibility and being an adult.” To her credit, those 82 minutes seemed to have scared her straight, however the same cannot be said of her friend, Paris Hilton. Hilton, who seems almost incapable of not being caught, spent three days of a three week sentence in jail before being released to house arrest. In 2010, she was arrested for possession of cocaine again after inadvertently showing it to a police officer while looking for lip-gloss in a purse that she first denied was hers.

Well, that’s the price you pay for being a black male in a world of predominately white celebrities. You stand out and you rarely get a pass for your wrongdoings. And, even when you do (here’s looking at you O.J., Kobe, and M.J.), you’re still ostracized until public opinion turns or you actually become some version of what people think you are.

And, while football player Plaxico Burress was recently released from jail for accidentally shooting himself, the king of the uncaught celebrities, Charlie Sheen, who himself is no stranger to gunshot wounds, domestic abuse, and prostitution, continues his diminishing blaze of self-destruction.

With a laundry list of incidents that would have sent a lesser man, even a lesser actor, to jail Charlie uses his rampant criminal misbehavior to propel his dubious career of playing characters named Charlie forward until he reached the pinnacle of his career as the highest paid TV actor thus far.

Unfortunately, he also tumbled off that pinnacle in an overly public, psychotic debacle that is sure to make it on a lot of

top ten of 2011 lists in December. As some have said, his fall makes Lindsay Lohan look like she has it together.

At least Martha Stewart actually spent some time in prison, not behind bars, but prison.

And you have to know that life without access to decorating equipment must have been murder for the multi-millionaire (former) stockbroker. Likewise, 24 star Kiefer Sutherland conveniently served his 48 days in jail for a DUI charge during the summer to accommodate his day job. His lawyer, Blair Berk, praised him saying, “Kiefer felt a responsibility to his show, and the hundreds of people that were employed, to resolve his case quickly and in a way that protected their jobs."

When in doubt, spin the story to come out as the hero. While in prison, Martha Stewart didn’t sit and contemplate the hurt she caused and the reason she was in jail. Instead, she worked as a liaison between the prison management and her fellow prisoners because they’re all in the same boat.

Kiefer didn’t go to jail because he broke the law and was being punished for his recklessness and irresponsibility. Instead, serving jail time was the “selfless” responsible choice for the actor.

OK, we know they get special treatment. So why do we let them get away with it?

The complex reason is that weird psychological relationship the public has with celebrities. James Houran, clinical psychologist and joint creator of the Celebrity Worship Scale, commented “[Celebrity worship is] a form of social bond-

ing, stress reduction, escapism and entertainment." Several celebrity trials have hinged on the fact that the defendant is simply too well-know to find an unbiased jury. One obvious, controversial example would be either of the O.J. Simpson trials. After being acquitted of double homicide, the former football star and actor managed to find his way back to criminal court where it seems that public opinion ruled the day and he found himself sentenced to 33 years in jail for an incredibly stupid stunt that would have gotten most other celebrities a slap on the wrist. Combined with the public sense of knowledge and familiarity, it’s difficult to believe that the person that seems like a close friend would be capable of wrongdoing. And, even if they did it, well, take it easy on them, just because.

Not that this approach is good for society or the celebrity. During the trial that eventually sent him to prison, notorious drug addict Robert Downey, Jr. told the judge, “It`s like I have a loaded gun in my mouth, and I like the taste of metal.” In situations like these, public attention changes drastically from harmlessly friendly escapism to a disturbing level of twisted voyeurism. Are people crying for justice because they truly believe that it is deserved, or because they want to see what Lindsay Lohan will do behind bars?

This change prompts the questions that some are afraid to

ask and many are afraid to answer. Are these crimes simply a desperate pantomime for the never satisfied audience waiting for a fading actress to turn in her last performance? If so, America literally has a front row seat to watching a troubled young woman milk her suicide for all the media attention it can get.

In Orwell’s Animal Farm, the pig’s first rule eventually evolved from “All animals are equal,” to “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." In America, everyone is equal under the law, but some people get a little more leeway for special circumstances. As more and more of the pantheon of celebrities march though the halls of justice to receive their perfunctory slap on the wrist, the divide spreads a little more. In a land where society is obsessed with their every move and they can do no wrong, there is and cannot be justice for the celebrity, to the detriment of the defendant and society. Just because justice is blind doesn’t mean she can’t hear the media circus and, right or wrong, it affects her judgment.

Madams in America: The Big Business of Prostitution

by: Heather Mingus

O

n a “slow day at the office,� Heidi Fleiss made a ridiculous $10,000.

During her first month of employment in Los Angeles, she made $300,000 and went on to make several million dollars a year. Under normal circumstances, the rabid United States govern-

ment would immediately dip into her revenue through taxation, but in this case there was one problem: Fleiss made her fortune as a high-end madam, and Uncle Sam refuses to be a john. As a result, she was arrested in 1993 and ultimately served three years in federal prison. There is a fine line between legal and outlawed

sexuality in the United States, and Fleiss is toeing that line by operating on the level of big business. But in what sexual context has she gone too far?

The argument exists that pornography, though legal, is just another form of prostitution.

That it all boils down to the same action: sex for money.

Regardless of opinions - mostly women's rights advocates that either profession's women are victims of the same emotional, physical, and psychological repercussions, videos and triple-x websites remain a legal form of entertainment.

So where is the line drawn?

While pornographic sex is real, the main argument still contests that the scenarios in which it happens are not. They are actors paid to represent a situation; therefore, they are not regarded as directly having sex for money, but performing for it. It is an exchange of money, not between two parties, but between corporations and its employees. Either way - for those comfortable with the job description - OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Association) requires that employers of adult entertainment stars protect their employees from all blood and other sexual secretions, meaning the use of condoms. While these mandates are not heavily enforced for fear of pushing production underground into unsafe work

conditions, the laws could be easily transposed into health guidelines for legalized prostitution, should the American people be open to such a profession.

about the health and safety of US soldiers who frequented them. Their actions were not deemed responsible for acquisition of disease; instead, they were pant-less victims to this female-dominated sexual Somehow, however, the johns - industry. New York City posed the consumers - are only legal a more social solution in 1902 as long as they are not directly – it promoted such regulations involved in the sex act itself. as improvements to housing, The same can be said for sex- health care, and increased ual marketing. A woman may women’s wages – but failed to be objectified and viewed as a garner the support needed to sexual object for the purposes keep its committee active. As of advertising, but laws are still recently as 2007, the state of conservative enough to draw Hawaii considered legalizing the line at direct contact with prostitution, but was unable to consumers. Advertisers acget a hearing for the proposed knowledge that overt sexuality bill. garners a strong reaction from the public, but remains unable Nevada is the only state to to earn money directly from the legalize prostitution, and only satisfaction of that need. Solici- in cities that do not exceed a tation itself is still widely taboo population of 400,000. Nevada in the United States. counties may individually elect to allow it within their borders; Over the years, multiple US however, of the fifteen that cities have made cases for meet the requirement, only 10 legalization. New Orleans only opt to allow brothels. Even in saw brief success in 1879, and Sin City, the home of America’s by 1917 its red-light districts most explicit vices, brothels were shut down over concerns remain illegal, and both prosti-

tutes and their customers are policed and punishable by law.

According to the Las Vegas Sun, there has always been a push for legalized prostitution because of its potential as a source of new tax revenue.

It was proposed as a way to redevelop Las Vegas by using the additional revenue for “education and social services to create a safer environment for all parties involved and reduce sexually transmitted diseases.”

A red-light district was actually available in the 1940s, but again the US military intervened. The Army, located at a nearby base, demanded all brothels be closed. Because soldiers instead took their money into the local casinos, it isn't surprising city officials remained satisfied and did not bother to reopen the district. Since then, projects like 2004’s Little Amsterdam were suggested, but have been heavily opposed by local casino executives.

But even the casinos can’t quell the ongoing discussion of legalizing prostitution, a business estimated – at the time of Heidi Fleiss – at $10M annually in Las Vegas’ surrounding counties. But what is the social cost of legalization of such an enterprise?

India’s model of legalization allows prostitution, while banning public solicitation, pimping, and ownership of a brothel, keeping it a less public affair. While the lack of public interface would be well suited to America’s conservatives, India’s

model leaves itself vulnerable to an issue that would cause it to face extreme opposition in the United States: trafficking and underage solicitation. In India, many women are forced into prostitution, often times when they are a disgustingly young 12 or 13 years old. It is already difficult to protect America's young girls from the sexualized media and teach

the spread of viruses such as HIV and other STDs, the DMSC – the organization set up to protect the rights of sex workers in India - has largely failed. HIV is still on the rise, but its counterpart in Cambodia, where prostitution is still outlawed, has reduced HIV and STDs more successfully through the imposition of regular check-ups. This model does

them they are more than just physical bodies without the added dangers of actual pimping and solicitation. It has also opened the country up to the trafficking of these young girls from other countries, bringing unwanted immigration for the purposes of taking advantage of their allowance of sex for money. This particular vulnerability would be a tough sell to a country which currently attempts to block illegal immigration, even for the purposes of working an honest job.

not suggest that legalization on its own can slow the spread of these diseases. India's model capitalizes on the business of prostitution itself, without successfully supporting the social rights of its women. It sinks as low as involving pre-teen girls, while hardly keeping them safe. Even for women of age, how can the United States build a case for a business that contributes to the spread of HIV and STDs? What would the addition of bolder social and medical care require?

While the case for legalization as a way of containing

Sweden has the answer. It is, by far, the most progressive

model for the decriminalization of prostitution. By granting brothels the right to operate, and prostitutes the right to work safely under the protection of law, Sweden has put itself in a position to punish the johns legally. Instead of cracking down on the workers in the sex industry, the country has chosen to crack down on the root of the problem: the demand. Johns in Sweden are considered the criminals; the prostitutes are the victims. Social programs such as drug and alcohol rehabilitation and other exit strategies have enabled women to leave prostitution completely. By decriminalizing them, Sweden has offered them a way out in an attempt to eradicate prostitution completely. And it’s working. The number of Swedish women in prostitution has dramatically reduced, and the number of johns in the capital of Stockholm has reduced by 80%.

In order to have the success Sweden has seen, the United States would have to redefine its measure of success.

Heidi Fleiss would cease to exist, as would her revenue, under the Swedish model and would be heavily opposed by her deep-pocketed clients. Billionaires in the States will not want to be prosecuted for their extravagance in any arena. To some of America's extremely wealthy, everything is for sale.

There are several other reasons this model, though successful, would not be widely accepted. Beginning with the very language used to describe the issue, it is clear the social views on the subject are extremely different. The United States reveals its cultural mentality even in its basic terminology. In the United States the issue raised is always “legalization of prostitution”. “Legalization” implies that the government would be condoning and supporting a behavior that US citizens believe is wrong, and in this case, immoral. Sweden and other parts of the world, such as Germany, Canada, Thailand, and Mexico have set forth new laws under the pretense of “decriminalizing” prostitution. Their first step has been to adopt the mindset that prostitutes are victims of these

situations and should be given opportunities to grow beyond it and reintegrate back into society. Instead of condemning their actions, these countries allow them to exist in an effort to provide government-monitored rehabilitation. Sweden has proven that being given more effective social programs - and less focus on punishment - many prostitutes move on to other livelihoods. Big business must be overlooked for real success to be achieved.

Nevada counties that have already taken the step of legalizing prostitution still do not publicly tout their earnings. Though they get a cut of everything from brothel property taxes to liquor licenses, it is rare city officials speak up about the origins of this revenue. Even when the benefits of business exist, these counties are an example of how difficult it could be to get a Washington politician in support of wide-spread legalization.

Sexuality is highly taboo among top politicians in the US. They are expected to maintain an image of wholesome family values, proper nuclear family units, and no reference to any sexual activity – especially outside of wedlock. Be-

ing caught with pants around the ankles has been the death of many a political career, so most would shy away from including such legalization as a part of any platform. The economics of this business still hinge upon the validation of prostitution as a viable profession and the decriminalization of its workers. Imposition of Sweden’s successful model would mean forfeiting the economic benefits in punishment of the customers, only adding to the difficulty of gaining the support of big business in America, the only group large enough to give leverage needed to outweigh the moral opposition of the general public.

Not only would the government be asking the public to accept prostitutes as legal job-holders, but it would be asking for funding to provide adequate social programs, rehabilitation, and other medical treatments, such as HIV testing, for those who work as prostitutes. Even if they made the list, it is likely they would fall below other underfunded social programs, such as Medicare, so it is unlikely legalization would be the answer for any kind of rehabilitation. Even so, is there still the possibility for money to be made? Some say no. It is argued that the legalization of prostitution would be a draw for other illegal activities often associated with brothels, like drugs and violence. Therefore, the system would require more money be funneled into the police force to accommodate the rise in crime, balancing out any newly earned revenue.

It may not be worth it to ask neighborhoods if they'd prefer arrests for solicitation or co-

caine. Handcuffs and sirens are handcuffs and sirens, regardless.

Still, Heidi Fleiss could make anywhere from $1,500 (five times the normal rate for an average prostitute) to an enviable $1M per transaction. She stood by her business and all it entailed with no complaints from her girls - not surprising, as they see almost half of the $1M fee, stating “I don’t regret what I did at all. It’s consensual sex. These are men who are billionaires and these women are in their 20s. They are old enough to make adult decisions and adult choices.”

Social opinions aside, to earn even a fraction of Fleiss’ annual, the real trick would be getting the consent of the American people.

DOES AMERICA RUN ON GOD, OR HOW HIGH THE WALL OF SEPARATION? Alana Rozier Kuwabara

I

n preparation to answer the title question, I became utterly buried in a mass of political science, constitutional law, misguided beliefs, polarized opinions and questions answered only by more questions. As I tried to claw my way to the top of the, let’s just say it, mess that is truth and perception, what is known and what can be known, what we’re told and what we believe especially in modern America where we have become so pluralized in every facet of society as to be permanently divided and in which there seem to be fewer

and fewer reliable, unbiased sources of news and information, I realized I had to pare down, simplify – much like in the days of our Founding Fathers.

Today we would like to impose a lot of ideas and opinions on the events and people that formed our great nation, impositions which are really nonsensical. When Thomas Jefferson penned his letter to the Danbury Baptists of Connecticut in 1801 directly after his election to the office of President, there were, for all intents and purposes, only

Christians, Jews and deists in America. Yes, there were perhaps a few agnostics, perhaps some atheists and definitely a lot of Native American polytheists. But they were so in the minority as to not be considered for this context.

Generally speaking, everyone believed in a Higher Power and that belief was as normal and essential as believing the Earth was round.

The foundation of America is a much discussed, controversial issue which ought to be a very simple one. All the blinking arrows point towards

the Founding Fathers – the majority of them, not just the big names that come to mind like Jefferson, Mason, Webster, etc – were Christians or deists. This cannot be argued against.

What some would like to argue is “How Christian were they? Were they sincere or was it just what people did at the time?” I say – it doesn’t matter and you can never know. In the book of 1 Samuel, God says “The LORD does not look at the things people look at.

People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” Who are we to judge the hearts of anyone? All we can do is look at their actions. An apple tree makes apples and there’s no sense in saying that this particular apple tree believes itself to be a pear tree.

The evidence is overwhelming that when the Constitution was being framed, it was being framed within the context of men who believed in God and this is the really crucial bit, believed that, as the first Congress put it in Article 3 of the Northwest Ordinance, “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind…”

These were the same men who created the First Amendment, which we all vaguely know but literally states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

“Today we would like to impose a lot of ideas and opinions on the events and people that formed our great nation, impositions which are really nonsensical.”

or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Back to Jefferson. Jefferson did not help write the First Amendment. He wasn’t even in America at the time it was being written. When he coined the phrase “the wall of separation between church and state” it was a one-time occurrence. It was not meant to establish a basis for Federal laws but it has come to be crucial to any so-called church

v. state issues. But it’s important to remember what the Founders intended. We may like to say “Well, nuts to what they intended.

Times have changed.” But there we get into all sorts of trouble – so which laws should stay based on the current preferences of our society and which should go? The whole point of a Constitution is that it is a fixed document, not subject to the whims of a particular people during a particular moment in time. Of course it needs to be interpreted but using the guidelines of its original intent, not by imposing and redefining.

Well, what did the Founders intend? When it comes to Congress making “no law respecting an establishment of religion” they meant that there should be no Federally established religion. No “Church of America” like the Church of England that was a particular denomination and to which loyalty and adherence was enforced by Federal law. No one wanted a repeat of what had happened in England. However, it is interesting to note that when the First Amendment was ratified in September of 1789 and up until the 19th century there were multiple state-established churches.

(For example, Massachusetts required all men to attend and pay taxes toward some form of Christian church until 1883) And it is of the utmost importance to note that while the courts have often chosen to interpret this “Establishment Clause” to mean that the U.S. Government should

not show preference toward one religion over another and, even now, the very concept of religion over the concept of non-religion, this was not the original intent. In fact, the reason, as we well know, for the Bill of Rights was to make provision for certain civil liberties that were not included in the Constitution. And a protection against Federally-established religion and for personal religious liberty were issues not included

ment and you would be too if you’d risked life and limb to create your own country after pulling out from under the thumb of a monarchy.

Now, the Danbury Baptists wrote to President Jefferson concerned over the First Amendment because they felt that by including provision for the “free exercise of religion,” the government was saying that right of religious expression was something the

gious liberty and expression from the eye and hand of the Federal government. Consider the following quotes from Jefferson written before and during his presidency: “[N]o power over the freedom of religion . . . [is] delegated to the United States by the Constitution.” Kentucky Resolution, 1798 “In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Consti-

“The mosque near Ground Zero...I could not, even if I wanted to, disagree with it on the basis of it being Islamic.” in the Constitution because they went without saying.

To the Founders, these were at once obvious and also not things under the purview of the Federal government to mandate. These were matters for the States to look after, if anything. And that is a very important point that this article doesn’t really have time for. The tension and war between big and little government is on-going. Suffice it to say, though, that the men who wrote and ratified both the Constitution and its Bill of Rights were anti-big govern-

government gives rather than something that God gives (i.e. inalienable) and that therefore the government could decide to one day take it away.

Boy, were they right to be concerned. In the 20th Century, Congress has taken Jefferson’s personal response to the Danbury Baptists and made it the foremost document, using it to twist the First Amendment in order to rip religion, particularly Christianity, out of our public lives.

Jefferson was also concerned about the safety of our reli-

tution independent of the powers of the general [federal] government.” Second Inaugural Address, 1805 “I consider the government of the United States as interdicted [prohibited] by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions . . . or exercises.” Letter to Samuel Millar, 1808 All of this to say, the manner in which the First Amendment and Jefferson’s “wall of separation” mention have been used by the Federal government to interfere or

regulate religious expression is the exact opposite of their original intent. And so, into our public consciousness grows this idea that religious expression is for private home viewing only, so to speak, and any public expressions – be them the Ten Commandments hanging in a school to a coach leading the team in prayer before the big game – violate “our rights” and by that people tend to mean “our Constitutional rights” which people don’t always realize means “goes against what is written in the Constitution and/or its Amendments.” I would argue that we don’t have a “right” to find public expressions of faith unconstitutional based on the evidence presented here and in countless other articles, books, speeches and the Constitution itself.

Now, imagine our Nation actually “under God, indivisible” where freedom of religious expression means that any people – government officials, public school teachers, little league coaches – can pray and express their religion anytime and anywhere to anyone they please without fear of the government telling them they can’t.

First of all, I would imagine that we would have more respect and even the dreaded, often misused term “tolerance” for religions other than our own when we don’t believe that those who express them offend our “rights.” To each his own, would be more our motto. I imagine that we would politely ignore and tolerate the religious expression of others in public settings

rather than set out for a law suit.

Secondly, issues like the mosque near Ground Zero wouldn’t really be issues.

Personally, I found the location to be inappropriate, but as someone who correctly understands our Constitutional right to freedom of religious expression, I could not, even if I wanted to, disagree with it on the basis of it being Islamic. What many people fail to remember when they so vehemently rail against this or that, claiming their rights are being violated, is that those on the opposite side can claim the same. I wouldn’t want the Federal government standing in the way of a Christian

church being built, regardless of the circumstances surrounding it. However, as a Libertarian-leaning Independent, I have no problem with the people voting against its construction. That is how our nation was intended to work. Sorry – now we’re getting into that area which I said we didn’t have time for.

So, let me conclude this segment with a statement that I feel summarizes and bullseyes much better than I can.

Jefferson in Notes on the State of Virginia (Philadelphia: Matthew Carey, 1794), Query XVIII, p. 237.

“And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have lost the only firm basis, a

“There are many social issues spinning today that, in a nation run by God, would not even exist, not the least of which is prayer in schools.” conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?” As to the question “Does America Run on God?” or is America “still” a “Christian” nation, we’d have to ask a few more questions to even get close to the truth but I believe the most important one is “What is a Christian nation”? If a Christian nation is one where the majority of its citizens claim adherence to the Christian faith, then, yes, America is a Christian nation. But does this tree believe itself to be a pear tree while dropping apples from its branches? Or perhaps an apple tree which only seems to produce rotten apples? If we look at many of the overwhelming sentiments of our nation, we may conclude that God doesn’t run America in our day-to-day. There are many social issues spinning today that, in a nation run by God, would not even exist, not the least of which is prayer in schools. And there would likely be more public prayer, Creationism easily taught in public schools as an option for the origin of our world, and more consideration towards the way government was set up and ordained by God in the Scriptures.

While we must judge a tree by its fruit, we can also judge it by its trunk. Christians are the trunk of this nation and religion has kept it from the well-documented ills and disasters of godless nations.

The preferences of Americans have ebbed and flowed since Jefferson but the majority has stayed the same, the foundation and those who protect it have stayed the same. I think that is what counts when determining our identity.

I leave you with this final thought from, if the Bible is to be believed, God Himself through the apostle Paul in Romans 13: “1 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your

good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

“6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.”

CAPITAL AND PUNISHMENT Gabriel Finochio

T

here is, in our capricious culture, an insidious and isolated idea called “Humanitarianism” that has affected the psyche of our civilization. The idea is a modern one and had its genesis in the nineteenth century under the influence of the French philosopher Auguste Comte.

The essential belief that he described is the worship of the “great being”—Humanity. This emphasis on Anthropolatry is meant to focus attention on the perfection and happiness of Humanity through human methods and efforts. The trouble is, however, that almost every practical thing in our society that this idea has touched has turned to stone, that is, it has become heartless.

The most inhumane policies and procedures now affecting us are those proposed by the Humanitarian. But because there is not enough room in all the books of the world to demonstrate the idiocy of this belief, I will limit myself to dealing with only one of those quite cogent, but quite insane, proposals. It concerns the idea of Capital Punishment.

The Humanitarian Theory on Capital Punishment proposes that it is barbarous and immoral to punish a man for crimes on the basis of his guilt, and that that basis is merely the negative action of revenge and not the noble action of rehabilitation. Therefore, the only legitimate motives of punishment are to deter other criminals by example or to mend the criminal from his crime.

And because the Humanitarian is helplessly and hopelessly

caught in the narcissism of his philosophy, he is predisposed to the belief that crime itself is a merely pathological disorder, and therefore, the “mending of the criminal from his crime” becomes merely therapeutic.

Now the only real issue at the root of the Humanitarian Theory is simply that it isn’t

human, that is, it isn’t moral. It is based upon the subjective stances of Humanity, not upon the objective truths of Morality.

In contrast, however, the idea of Justice is a moral idea; it is eternally preoccupied with the ideas or right and wrong; it is perpetually pursuing the facts and fancies of life in order to reach the right fact and the right fancy; it is continually calculating the various aspects and prospects of society. Justice is truly the only idea that is completely synonymous with the word “Progress”; that is, it is the only idea which is always correcting itself and improving itself. Coincidently, it seems to be the only idea that the modern world does not associate with Progress. A few thousand years ago the Jews were given a law that proscribed an “eye for an eye” as the guiding principle of justice. And a thousand years later Christ fulfilled that law by proscribing that we “love our enemies”.

But a few decades ago the modernist Gandhi said, with Tolstoyan logic and ignorance,

“an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” It seems that he had been blinded to the profound truth about the foundation of justice. Justice is based upon objectivity; in essence, it is based upon the idea that truth exists; and that truth forms the basis of reality and deserves to be sought and known in order to give every crime, in every context, a fair trial. Had Gandhi understood the meaning of justice he may have understood why Justitia, our Lady of Justice, is blind; he may have also stumbled upon that very great and grave reason why she carries a sword.

The Humanitarian does not consider these characteristics of Lady Justice; he cannot, for is too focused upon Lady Macbeth. For he is much too preoccupied with the endless labyrinths of the criminal’s soul and not enough with finite boundaries of the crime. There are times when I wish the Humanitarian was blind so that he could see the error in his own neurosis and the truth of his client’s circumstance. Now it is quite important that we (that are sane) are not blinded, because we need to observe and contemplate those characteristics of that bold and brave woman who represents our system.

The first observation is, of course, that she is blind; and this, again, simply means that her judgment shows no partiality or favoritism to the man accused of the crime. Now this condition of obstructed vision is essentially a rebellion against materialism. It is the defiant charge that there is more to this world than meets

the eye. It is the iteration and example that it is better for you to enter into life with no eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire. Therefore, the first consideration of Lady Justice is that she is an intensely spiritual person recognizing in man the dignity that is inherent within him and which can never be removed, even to death; his soul. If a man must be given the dreadful sentence of death, at least his sentence maintains his dignity. It is a pronouncement of condemnation and of restoration. It says that he must be given human death; which also means that he must be given human dignity. He will die as every other man will die; not, as the Humanitarian would have it, live like no other man will live; traduced by a gamut of scientific tactics whose application intensifies or lessens according to the whims of his torturer, the “psychotherapist.” It is, therefore, the materialistic exceptionalism that the Humanitarian Theory advocates that is at odds with Lady Justice. The Humanitarian wants to see the man that he tortures; he wants to touch his flesh and invade the catacombs of his soul. He is not satisfied to know that the man is a man; he is not satiated to know that the man committed the crime. The Humanitarian would not only remove the blindfold from Lady Justice, but he would fix a microscope to her eyes.

The second characteristic of Lady Justice that is perverted by the Humanitarian Theory is the weighing scale. Now as there are two separate balances, which check and compliment the each other,

so there are two uses for that primal and enlightened mechanism in a court of law. The first is to present and weigh all the evidence. One of the most excellent ways to process and ponder that evidence was developed in the mediaeval period and is known as a trial by jury. The idea of the jury is that a man must be convicted, in symbol, by the conscience of his community. If a man is found guilty then it should be evident (as the word implies) to all; hence, the requirement of a unanimous verdict. The Humanitarian Theory, however, proposes that a man can only be convicted, in fact, by the specialist of his subconscious.

Only the doctor that can scientifically and psychologically analyze the defendant is privy to the truth; and this is first false weight of the Humanitarian Theory. Now I am not necessarily suggesting that Humanitarians disbelieve in the idea of a jury, although some may; but nature of the Humanitarian Theory logically implies that the person best qualified to properly reside over a case in question is the one who can most accurately determine what is likely to deter or cure the criminal. Therefore, because opinions on these issues are outside of the realm of jurisprudence, this cannot be the judge; and since these opinions are obviously outside of the grasped of the ordinary man, the jury is also ostracized. The position of penal pontiff ultimately falls upon the shoulders of the specialist in the science of psychotherapy; it must be a penologist.

The other abstract aspect of the weigh scale is that, given

the sentence, the even the penalty should be proportionately balanced. There must be fixed degree’s of consequence just as there are fixed degree’s of crime. If the nearest grocery store were to attach random prices to each identical can of pea soup, there would be a public outcry among the senior citizens; nay, there would be revolutionary war. This is because the idea of integrity is attached to the idea of justice.

If the sun rises on Sunday then it ought rise on Monday.

Likewise, if the penalty of a transgression is different for every similar action then the product is moral anarchy.

The whole point of considering the penalty for an offence is so that a permanent penalty can be ascribed to that offence. A judge who decides to act outside of orthodox interpretation of the law is denounced as an activist judge because he is saying that there is no permanence to the law.

The Humanitarian Theory proposes that every proverbial judge be an activist judge; that every sentence be unique even if it is for the same crime. This kind of arbitrary adjudication and experimental entropy is an assault on the second application of the weighing balance: the consistency of conviction.

The third characteristic of the Lady of Justice is that she is armed with the symbol of action and consequence, which a sword. Now the Humanitarian Theory desires that she be armed with the symbol of science and progress, which is a scalpel. But the sword is the only thing that can defend

and enforce a law, and the very idea of establishing a law is consonant with enforcing it.

But because the Humanitarian Theory is a quite modern theory, it is, like most modern theories, sentimental. The very term “punishment” is repulsive to the Humanitarian. He views it as a vindictive and archaic idea that, if taken to its logical end, will leave all of humanity without eyes. Of course, he is right, in the sense that, according to the idea of punishment,

if all of humanity deserved to have their eyes gashed out, then they may perhaps do that.

The problem is that the Humanitarian doesn’t ever contemplate the kind of apocalyptic transgression that humanity would be guilty of to deserve such a fate. Would all of humanity spitefully and simultaneously pluck out each other’s eyes? The absurdity of the question is obvious. The truth is that the basis for punishment is surrounded by the idea of just Desert; does the criminal deserve the punishment.

In fact, the concept of Desert

is the only link between justice and punishment; without it there is no justice at all; there is only judgment or speculation, which thrills the Humanitarian. The Humanitarian will object here and say “What about punishment as a deterrent to crime or as a cure to rehabilitate?” And that question is an excellent one; however, it does not have anything to do with the idea of justice. Nobody talks about a “just deterrent” or a “just cure”, simply because they only wish to have a “deterrent” or a “cure”. Justice is concerned with the idea of Desert, and punishment is merely the means by which that concept is appropriated.

Punishment is, therefore, necessary for the process of justice to be complete.

Now the chief objections to Capital Punishment by the Humanitarian Theory are that it makes no attempt to rehabilitate the criminal and that it assumes the role of infallible authority. The problem with these objections is that they are not based upon the only excuse for punishment at all, which is expiation. This is the meaning of the old Jewish idea of an “eye for an eye”, and it is rationally the only relevant idea for dealing practically with crime. Take for example the curious case of John Wayne Gacy. This man raped and murdered 33 boys between 1972 and 1978. Now the question for the humble Humanitarian is, “How many eyes must be taken before one is required?” In other words, how many lives must be taken before one is required? Gacy, who, adamantly denied his guilt, although being thorough

conviction beyond a shadow of doubt, should have been given his just Desert so that expatiation could take place. The truth is that Gacy’s life was not enough to pay for the diabolical damage and destruction that he caused. His atonement is only through his minimal repayment; which was the forfeiture of his own life. Now consider the case of another Capital crime; the .44 Caliber Killer David Berkowitz. He was convicted of, and has admitted to, killing six women and shooting seven others in New York City between 1976 and 1977. He was sentenced to six-consecutive twenty-five years-to-life sentences, and after serving over thirty-four years of prison, he has been eligible for parole every two years since 2002.

But because of his firm conviction that his sentence was in some way just, he has refused parole for the past ten years.

He knows that his crime was larger than his sentence and his conscience is prodding him towards some semblance of expatiation. As the unparalleled Russian novelist, Dostoesvky, wrote about the protagonist of his monumental and masterful work, Crime and Punishment, “If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be punishment as well as the prison.”

The paradoxical perspective of the Humanitarian Theory is that, although it is unwilling to make an allowance for the calculated process of retributive justice, it gladly accepts the peculiar process of irresponsible injustice. The same people that condemn the procedure of Capital Punishment exacted upon a guilty human life will condone the procedures of abortion and euthanasia exacted upon an innocent human

life. There certainly is a problem in our society with Capital Punishment; only the problem is not with the criminal, the problem is with the crime.

“Punishment is, therefore, necessary for the process of justice to be complete. “

THE SPECTACLE OF THE SCAFFOLD: WHY WE LOVE CRIME AND WHAT WE SHOULD DO ABOUT IT Jonathon Saia

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uly 5th, 2011. We had been waiting for three and a half years.

Every deposition, every juicy bit of gossip, every over-analyzed clip of the defendant’s apathy in the courtroom was leading up to a unanimous guilty verdict. The American people wanted her to die. And then Nancy Grace told us she was innocent and Jesus wept.

The Casey Anthony trial has been touted as the most important judicial event since O.J. Simpson was similarly acquitted for a heinous crime. In both cases, television shows were preempted, magazine covers ubiquitously showed us their faces, and every one in the country had an opinion.

Following her verdict of Not Guilty, Anthony was voted the Most Hated Person in the World; 15 years later and the name O.J. can still make our blood boil.

But why? Why did we care about them in the first place?

O.J. is easy. He was the perfect storm of sensationalism.

Famous, adored, attractive person pulls the rug from under our feet. We couldn’t believe it was true. We felt betrayed, lied to, and wanted to know why. Not only that, but here was a black man who

killed a white woman. Race was at the forefront of everyone’s mind in the Simpson trial, especially after Det. Mark Fuhrman admitted to having used the “n” word in the past.

The idea of racism superseded the idea of justice and illuminated the racial divisions in our country. If O.J. were found guilty, the system was racist. If he were found innocent, a man got away with murder. And we refused to be seen as racist.

Even now, the outcry is drawn on racial lines. In 2004 for the tenth anniversary of the criminal trial, NBC conducted a poll concerning Simpson’s guilt: 87% of the white people can-

vassed believed that O.J. did it; not surprisingly, only 29% of the black people did. Thankfully, Simpson has dug his own grave, writing the ludicrously incendiary book If I Did It, laying out how he would have killed them – which the Goldman Family has exploited to the nth – and gotten himself 33 years in prison for armed robbery; a sentence so stringent because, as many of us believe, he got away with murder.

Casey Anthony, on the other hand, was a nobody; just

another young, pretty girl, from Florida, sponging off her parents, strapped with the consequences of having unprotected sex. Until she killed her daughter. But thousands of children die every year, many of them at the hands of their parents, so why was she different? Two words: Nancy Grace.

For the half a dozen of you who didn’t see any of the Anthony trial, Nancy Grace is a salacious, bombastic, yellow journalist who uses her nightly forum to “investigate” missing child cases, talk down to guests, and present us with melodramatic, MTV style video packages designed to make the accused look their absolute worst.

That said, without Ms. Grace, little Caylee’s remains may have never been found.

It was her obsessive persistence to convict “Tot Mom” that kept the investigation moving – and in the minds of the American people. Ironically, like all publicized murder cases, the focus shifted from the victim to the accused. As much as Grace claimed she was “seeking justice for Caylee,” it is impossible to divorce her quest from its outcome: she made Casey Anthony a celebrity.

Of course this is nothing new.

We have always loved, as Foucault called it, “the spectacle

of the scaffold.” As far back as the Romans, we have been lining up to see people get eaten by lions, burned at the stake, quartered, and beheaded. We know the names and faces of Nero, Caligula, Elizabeth Bathory, and Vlad the Impaler better than we do the saints.

Countless books have been written about the Nazis and serial killers. And in many of our homes, we hang a naked dead man on our walls.

If you asked people to name some of the most famous people of the 20th century, chances are the names Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, Leopold and Loeb, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Jack Kevorkian, Terri Schiavo, Lorena Bobbitt, Jon Benet Ramsey, Michael Jackson, and, of course, O.J. Simpson would be somewhere on their lists. But again, why? Why do we care about these people?

Most people would say the media. True, the media dictates the news, tells us what is important and what is not. But they have to know that there will be an audience. And what about the centuries that CNN didn’t exist? The days before the New York Times and Facebook? Our obsession with crime and criminals didn’t begin in the 20th Century. It didn’t even begin with the printing press. Some of man’s earliest cave drawings are depictions of battle. What the 20th century’s technology has brought us is immediacy. No longer must we wait for the latest Marquis de Sade to be smuggled into our town by

“As far back as the Romans, we have been lining up to see people get eaten by lions, burned at the stake, quartered, and beheaded.”

way of fake book jackets and bribery; we have 24 hours of violence, tragedy, carnage, and despair at the click of a mouse every second of every day. Plus, something that we forget in our blanket blame of the media is that we are the media. The media is not made up of aliens from some alternate galaxy (although some could argue where Grace or Ann Coulter hang their hats); the media is made up of people like you and me: parents, friends, siblings, co-workers, conservatives, liberals, independents, gay, straight, black, white, men, women, young, old. The media gives us what we want because it too is what they want. So why do we want it? What is it about these horrible things that make us watch?

Let’s examine them closer.

What fascinated us about Charles Manson and the Tate/ LaBianca murders was the outright lunacy of the crimes.

Manson wanted to instigate a race war that in a convoluted ideology would see him as the leader of the world, which prompted a two-day killing spree in the Hollywood Hills.

Actress Sharon Tate, pregnant wife of Roman Polanski, and a few of her wealthy, white friends (including Abigail Folger, heir to the coffee fortune) were slaughtered in a gruesome way that Hollywood has been trying to duplicate ever since. And of course the media circus that followed with camp outs, swastika carvings, Messianic claims, and an utter ambivalence for the consequences only fueled their fame and our desire to see them.

What fascinates us today is not that a famous person was killed – she was a B-star at best – nor really even that she was pregnant (our allegiance has shifted to Lacy Peterson for that quota), but how his accomplices have changed.

How did Leslie van Houten go from Homecoming Queen to stabbing a woman 16 times?

Inversely, how did Tex Watson and Susan Atkins go from being cold-blooded assassins and psychotic derelicts – Atkins had sex with a man who shot himself at the moment of climax, dying while inside of her, to which she described as her greatest orgasm – to Born-Again Christians? The Manson Murders make us look deep into our own humanity and wonder, “Could that happen to me? Could I ever lose my sense of self and become wrapped up in abhorrent behavior?” Similar questioning explains our fascination with Patty Hearst.

Ted Bundy makes us address our bias for attractive people.

We simply feel they are above suspicion or immorality. Same goes for Scott Peterson. In 1977, Bundy broke out of prison and people actually printed

up t-shirts that said, “Run, Ted, Run” to support his escape.

We didn’t want to believe that the man we may have dated or fantasized about last week could actually kill us when we weren’t looking. Bundy also brought the debate of violent pornography and its effects to the table, using it as his defense. If he never would have watched violent pornography, he might not have committed the murders. So should we ban pornography to save ourselves from the Ted Bundys of the future?

Leopold and Loeb were two attractive, upper class young men from very affluent families who decided to kill a teenage boy just to see if they could.

They had no motive other than hedonism and a feeling

of superiority. Should we fear the intelligencia? And how can we hope to protect ourselves when the least likely of people could be our killer? This was part of what was so shocking about Jeffrey Dahmer, a man with no violence in his background from a good, normal family – who happened to eat people and sleep with dead bodies. Again, how do you get from A-Z and will it happen to me?

John Wayne Gacy was the model citizen. He was involved in local politics, a pillar of the community, and entertained children at birthday parties. He also raped and killed 33 boys and buried them in his house.

Gacy falls under the “Kane Effect”: can you ever truly understand another person?

JFK showed us that no one, not even the President of the United States, is beyond reach. His death was violent, tragic, and public. We have analyzed those 486 frames of the Zapruder film more than any movie a Bergman or a Welles ever made, still almost 50 years later trying to discern its truth. How could it happen?

Why did it happen? And will it happen again? Lee Harvey Oswald was not only the accused assassin of our beloved President, but the first man ever killed on live television.

Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein continue our fascination with Hitler. How can one person get so many others to do their bidding? Manson, Jim Jones, and Marshall Applewhite are microcosms of this

phenomenon. Also, Hussein and bin Laden, being foreigners, were not as tangible or controllable as a BTK or a DC Sniper. We feared them because they were out of our jurisdiction; therefore, felt helpless to defend ourselves. This is why their deaths, in addition to their symbolic weight, gave us such pleasure.

Jack Kevorkian and Terri Schiavo ignited debates about the rights and qualities of life. If I can choose to live, why can’t I choose to die? Lorena Bobbitt put Freud’s “castration complex” to the test. Jon Benet Ramsey – and Casey Anthony – brought out the parent in all of us in order to understand how you could kill your own child. And Michael Jackson – like O.J., Robert Blake, Phil Spector, Paris Hilton, Kobe Bryant, and Lindsay Lohan – forced us to look at our idolization of celebrity and their special treatment within the judicial system.

But there has to be something more to all of this than just “morbid curiosity,” right? Philosophers, psychologists, pundits, media critics, and lay people have tried to discern a definitive reason why we love violence and crime and aggressive behavior when it can simultaneously create such a negative visceral reaction within us. Even more than understanding why we love violence, though, we as a culture are obsessed with trying to figure out the effects of our violent

media. Does violence beget violence? Bundy thought so.

The parents of the Columbine victims thought so. But how do you explain the millions of people that watch violent media and don’t commit violence?

Can we still consider Aristotle’s Catharsis Doctrine as a valid explanation? Is viewing violence a way of purging ourselves of our animalistic tendencies still bubbling ‘neath our skin after millennia of evolution? And is there something about being American – the nationality of most of the world’s famous serial killers that makes us more violent?

Is it our obsession with guns as Michael Moore thinks? Or something deeper?

Nietzsche thinks that, “dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences them is not something dreadful also.” Darwin would say we love to see others suffer because it eliminates a competitor. One could deduce from Freud’s idea of masochism as sadism turned inward that we need to witness terrible things to counteract our guilt brought upon by our superego’s need

for dominance.

There are innumerable factors that make us tune in to atrocity after atrocity, but there is one that unites them all: the anxiety of death. No matter who we are, no matter where we come from, no matter what we accomplish, we all share the knowledge that someday we will die. When we acknowledge death by watching Saw, The Human Centipede, Hostel or play Mortal Kombat or sit on the edge of our seats for the most gruesome details of Caylee Anthony’s remains, we are reminded that we are very much alive. We have stared into the face of death and conquered it. We fear and admire killers like Gacy or Bundy – and by extension Jason and Michael Myers – because they have the dual power to inflict and evade death, out there among us, ready to kill – and conquer death – again. We are jealous of their power over death and long to understand and channel it.

We yearn to see death because death has been hidden from us. Gone are the days of public executions in the town square. How many of us watched Saddam Hussein’s hanging? How many of us clamored to see a photo of bin Laden’s demolished head?

How many of us slow down to see a car accident on the side of the road? The closest most of us can get to death is through media. Not even funerals, with our attempts at recre-

ating the way they looked in life, allow us to stare death head on. Is it any surprise we watch videos like Faces of Death or boxing matches or the Indy 500 or jump out of airplanes or mountain climb? Where else can we experience death and live to tell the tale?

Arendt argues in On Violence that the “praise of life and the praise of violence” are the same. “Have not men always equated death the ‘eternal rest,’ and does it not follow that where we have life we have struggle and unrest?” Take this and counter it with the idea of Thanatos, or the Death Urge: if life is seen in the context of pain, death is a relief from that. The next time you watch a horror film, ask yourself, “Am I identifying with the killer or the killed? Am I enjoying their suffering to feel like a conqueror of death or because I long to be dead myself?”

So if watching trials, viewing horror movies, reading Stephen King novels, playing Call of Duty, or writing letters to Richard Ramirez in jail are all to overcome our fear of dying, should we look upon them as having negative effects on our culture? If the media is sensationalist because the human race is sensationalist do we need to change the format?

Does Videodrome have the

don’t buy the inevitable Casey Anthony tell-all or watch the Barbara Walters Special. But if you acknowledge that even though we are at the top of the food chain, we still harbor biological and social traits that need to be addressed, then violent media and the exploitation of crime should – and must – be here to stay.

right idea or does Network?

Part of the reason we love to hate violence is that it taps into our basest emotions. We like to forget that we were once animals, roaming the hills for survival. The human race is supposed to be better than this. Yes, we are evolved. Yes, we are intelligent. Yes, we do have opposable thumbs. But we’re still animals, endowed with survival instincts, sexual urges outside of acceptable society, and selfish genes that allowed our ancestors to make it through the centuries.

The beauty of America is that we have choices and with each purchase, each Neilsen rating, each principal that manifests to action, we are voting. If you feel that society should be “above” sensationalism and the glorification of violence,

But where can it go from here? Will we return to gladiator days and public executions? Or is this even a “return” since UFC fighting and football and trials airing on HLN are barely a step removed?

What can we see that we already haven’t seen?

We’ve seen dead bodies ad nauseum, rape, degradation, childbirth, live suicide, live murder, torture, open-heart surgery, fat sex, midget sex, geriatric sex, kiddie porn, beastiality, sadomasochism, scat, watersports, fisting, bukake, double penetration, every millimeter of the human body, and the construction of a creature out of humans by sewing someone’s mouth to another person’s ass.

If we asked our grandparents if they as children imagined a world where sex, crime, and violence in all of their glorious forms would be commonplace, chances are they would say no. What will our grandchildren ask us? Whatever forms crime and its representation take on in the second half of the 21st century, chances are we will say yes.

YOU GO TO JAIL, I COLLECT $200 DOLLARS: TURNING CRIME INTO CAPITAL Joshua Grant

“Get your pencils out. You're about to learn how to make a lot of money, really fast.”

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ollywood and the criminal justice system. Who would every imagine these two segments of society would have anything in common. Of course, we witness the dog and pony show that is a celebrity court case and I, myself, have sat down to enjoy hours of gritty yet entertaining prison dramas like HBO's Oz and Fox's Prison Break. However, the relationship between these two giant industries runs much deeper because they in fact share a common interest: turning prison into profit. The Hollywood machine makes no qualms about its business being about bringing in the bucks. A shirtless cast of A-list hunks fighting for their survival is guaranteed to fill movie houses across the country. But how, might you ask, does the criminal justice system turn a profit? You're probably thinking to yourself, it would be unethical for a government entity to make money from sending people away, and you would be right. However, the beauty of this country is that not everyone has to agree. When the chance of riches is thrown into the equation, sadly, ethics is left behind. This is what happened in the late 1970's when four businessmen conceived the idea of the private prison.

Most of us have very little knowledge of the prison system. Why would we? We don't have the intention of going so who cares how it functions?

Although, in order to understand a private prison, one must understand the concept of prison itself.

Prisons date back as far as ancient Egypt. Dungeons, as they were called back then, were used to confine criminals until corporal or capital punishment could be administered.

The prison system as we know it did not come into existence until the 19th century when utilitarian Jeremy Benthem developed a building design known as “panopticon.� This design allows an observer to observe all inmates of an institution without them being able to tell whether or not they were being watched. It was this notion of observation and control that introduced incarceration as part of a prisoner's punishment rather than simply a holding cell. From Benthem, the correctional rehabilitation system was born.

How does this happen, you might ask? Conventional wisdom points to three factors:

This form of corrections is still used throughout most of the Western World. Many industrialized nations have also opted to deal with their non-violent offenders outside of the prison walls through drug rehabilitation programs, community service, and well-managed probation and parole. Unfortunately, America has moved in the opposite direction. According to the International Center for Prison Studies, the United States is harsher on criminals that any other rich country.

At any given point, there are between 2.3 and 2.4 million Americans circulating behind bars. In other words, one out of every 100 adults is doing time.

The United States incarcerates five times more people than Britain (the home of the prison system), nine times more than Germany, and 12 times more than Japan.

Private prisons began in the late 70's/early 80's when crime was increasing due to the country's War on Drugs. Increased incarceration on smaller drug related offenses led to overcrowding and rising costs.

This new expense became quite a problem for federal, state, and local governments.

Politicians were looking for a way to decrease correctional spending. They did not have to fret very long. In 1983, the Corrections Corporation of America was born. Founded by businessmen Tom Beasley, Dr. Robert Crants, and T. Don Hutto, the CCA offered to take some of the burden of off the government’s hands. One year later, the CCA received their first contract in Houston Texas.

1. People are sentenced for far too long.

2. The system criminalizes acts that should not be criminalized.

3. Unpredictability. Many laws, particularly federal ones, are so vaguely written that people cannot easily tell whether they have broken them.

It is clear these play an important role in our overcrowded prisons, but only holds water if you are referring to those housed within state or federal institutions. For those who have the luxury of being sent to private prison the reason for the numbers is much easier to define: Money.

Since then, the CCA along with other private prison corporations (Cornell and the GEO Group), now boasts up to 60

facilities and more than 72,000 inmates bringing in roughly 55 billion dollars a year. This money is then funneled into the bank accounts of shareholders and some of America's biggest corporations. When you're making money like this, you want to make sure business stays booming.

How is this done? It's not as difficult as one would think.

Get your pencils out. You're about to learn how to make a lot of money, really fast.

According to Joel Dyer, author of the The Perpetual Prison Machine, three factors must be in place to ensure the private sector a constant stream of revenue: 1. The accelerating consolidation of the media 2. The rise in influence of political consultants 3. The prison industrial complex, which refers to the collection of interests, whose financial well- being rises and falls with the size of the prison population.

Together, these three developed a method to turn crime into capital. During the 1980's, news networks achieved high ratings by focusing and dramatically increasing their coverage of violent crime. This is not to say that there was no cause to be alarmed, but the idea of being shot while walking down the street was a bit of an exaggeration. Besides the high ratings, the lingering side

effect was Americans became concerned about their safety.

According to behavioral scientists, many Americans still believe crime to be one of the biggest problems in the United States today. Even though, according to Justice Bureau statistics, we are much safer now than ever before.

This anxiety of crime and the development of polling systems led to politicians using being tough on crime as a means of getting elected. This led to criminal justice policies such as “three strikes” laws

and “truth in sentencing.”

However, it wasn't just the politicians desire for a safer America that created this criminal crack down. It was also the promise of deep pockets. Private Correctional Corporations send lobbyists all over the country, encouraging judges and politicians to be tough on crime. This self-interest and greed create the prison industrial complex. Send them to prison. I make a profit. I cut you in. The business of turning crime and prisoners into profit has become one of the fastest growing industries in the na-

tion, an industry with hundreds of billions of dollars available to anyone who can get a contract. Corrections is now the fastest growing category in most state budgets.

Let's get specific. Where does the money come from?

To understand that, one must witness the enormity of the prison industry. A simple Google search will bring up industry mail-order catalogs, newsletters, and dates for conventions and trade shows. It is estimated that over 1000 corporations attend these annual events each year, hoping to get a contract to have their wares used in the facility.

There is even a Corrections Yellow Pages that lists companies by goods and services offered. Picture Comicon, but with prison wardens and orange jumpsuits.

Supplying goods and services to prisoners, guards, and police is a massive market.

Getting an exclusive contract could take your small business to Fortune 500. Since 1990, the United States has been constructing prisons facilities to hold an average of 93,000 beds per year. Consider getting the contract to provide soup, toilet paper, or bread for 93,000 people everyday for five years. Companies like Dial and Crest have been known to sell $100,000 dollars of their product to one jail alone.

VitaPro Foods, which supplies

Texas prisons with a soy based meat substitute, had a contract of $34m dollars a year.

Often times, phone companies stand to make the most from prison contracts. When you or I shop for phone service, we look for the companies with the cheapest rates and lowest fees. We want to be able to call without worrying about receiving a jaw-dropping bill at the end of the month. Imagine if your phone company gave you a percentage of the profits they made off your calls.

The incentives for choosing a phone provider would be different. This is how the system works in prison. Phone companies pitch their payphones to prisons across the country, but instead of prison owners looking for the provider with the

lowest rate, they look for those with the highest. When a loved one calls you from prison, the call is generally placed collect, which means the recipient is paying all of the charges, leaving no expense to the prison itself. If the arrangement is made, which it most always is, that the company will kickback a share of the profits, choosing an inexpensive provider is out of the question. Every time a man calls his wife or child to say, “ I love you,� the prison and phone company are making money hand over fist.

Despite the giant healthcare contracts, medical treatment leaves much to be desired.

Lawsuits upon lawsuits have piled up as families of inmates sue over the care provided to their loved ones. HIV and AIDS

patients are not given access to expensive drug cocktails to help combat some of the disease's effects. Those afflicted with cancer find themselves receiving the bare minimum in chemotherapy and other treatments that fight cancer-causing cells. Needless to say that having a life threatening illness in prison is quite often a death sentence.

Have a van or bus lying around? You can make a killing in the prison trade by providing transport. As beds overcrowd and new prisons emerge, transporting prisoners is a daily activity. Transport companies vie for huge contracts, in which they charge a flat fee per head, to move prisoners back and forth across the country. In order to maximize profits, trans-

port companies want to move as many prisoners as possible, but doing so in very few trips.

This creates a system in which a prisoner could spend weeks being bounced around from one holding facility to another.

Left in the care of untrained guards, abuse of prisoners during transport is the norm.

It isn't just corporations who are benefiting from incarcerations. The public sector is doing well also. Over the last 20 years, there has been a steady increase in law enforcement salaries, state of the art equipment, and overall numbers since the War on Drugs.

Prison guards salaries have consistently increased year after year as their responsibilities increase due to the influx of new tenants. Prison workers unions have become some of the strongest supporters and lobbyists for tougher laws.

State law-enforcement budgets have quadrupled over the last 20 years as money is funneled into the system so that politicians can be tough on crime.

Cities often boast of the number of police officers they have on the beat. This propaganda reinforces the belief that having strict laws and more police is keeping you safe at night. This is a lie. There is no evidence to prove that an increase in police presence has a direct affect on the crime rate. A study done by Purdue and Rutgers University estimated that a 10% increase in the number of people behind bars would reduce the crime rate by only 0.5%. Interestingly enough, states that lock up the most people see an increase in crime. How? Small time inmates emerge as more accomplished criminals.

Instead of rehabilitating into productive citizens, they are becoming learned in the ways of big time crime.

Perhaps the most vile of this entire money making machine is the use of prison labor. Unicorp is the government body that produces products with prison labor. The company websites informs of annual sales being over $500 million dollars a year. Prison jobs

“The question then becomes how do we lower crime, cut prison costs, and stop the unethical practice for the prison trade?� include sewing, construction, manufacturing, telemarketing, canine training, license plate making, producing airplane parts, and making logos for Lexus. Companies like Microsoft, Spalding, IBM, Compaq, Texas Instruments, AT&T, Victoria's Secret, and Chevron to name a few, all profit from prison labor.

So let's assume you simply don't care how prisoners are treated. Hey, they broke the law. They deserve whatever punishment they receive. It's not my problem. Actually, it is.

It's costing you. Public records show sending a person to prison could cost anywhere from $18,000 to $50,000 a year. A Pew Center study on the states illustrated how money is lost. In the State of Washington, for example, each dollar invested in a new prison in 1980 averted more than nine

dollars of criminal harm. By 2001, as the emphasis shifted from violent criminals to drugdealers and thieves, the cost benefit ratio reversed. Each new dollar spent on prisons averted only $0.37 cents’ worth of harm. The last report released on prison expenditures reported that day to day prison expenses totaled to $28.4 billion dollars. This breaks down to about $22,650 per inmate a year ($62.05 per day). Medical care, food service, utilities, and contract housing comes to $7.3 billion a year; that's 26% of a prison's operating budget.

Now take those numbers and multiply them times the 2.3 million Americans incarcerated and you will see where your tax dollars are going. Want to cut spending? Just found a place to do that.

Those in favor would argue that this cost is why private prisons are necessary, but how will profits continue to be made if crime rates decrease?

Will everyone eventually pass through the private prison system? Will new laws be created to ensure an increase in inmates? Or will people simply start going to jail for ridiculous crimes like illegal cable hookup or jaywalking? None of us want to find out.

The question then becomes how do we lower crime, cut prison costs, and stop the unethical practice for the prison trade? For starters a less punitive system would work better. By eliminating mandatory sentences, re-instating substance abuse and community service programs, having an effective probation and parole program, we could dramatically

decrease our prison population. The majority of people in prison are non-violent first time offenders.... mostly drug users. Drug reform is about more than the freedom to smoke a joint in the park. It is about fixing a broken system.

President Obama has recently made an attempt to put an end to the War on Drugs, and create some laws and reforms that can actually put an end to the perpetual prison system, all of which he did within about 18 months.

1. He reversed the government's antagonism to state medical marijuana laws. It is now up to local authorities to determine whether medical marijuana facilities are operating legally.

2. He also supported ending the ban on federal funding for needle exchange programs, reducing the number of drug related HIV/Aids cases.

3. He pushed to repeal the crack/powder disparity. This will have a vast affect on the racial gap currently plaguing our prison system. Drug users will become equal in the eyes

of the law.

The next step should be ending the prohibitive marijuana laws. Minorities suffer in a disproportionate number compared to white America. Arrests for marijuana possession, typically of tiny amounts, account for 44 percent of drug arrests nationwide and disproportionately affect African-Americans.

Few are being sentenced to long prison terms, but most are acquiring criminal records that will handicap them for life. Forty percent of Americans, possibly more, now believe that marijuana should be legally regulated and taxed.

The money saved from these new practices could attack crime at its root. Extra funds could be shifted to crime prevention social programs such as education and welfare aid to children, combating the poverty rate, which is from where most crime begins. However, this is only a small step and organizations have been fighting for this reform for decades.

We also need a change in the way our media and political

systems work. News organizations shouldn't be committed to making profits rather than being committed to informing the public with accurate information. A hunger for high ratings helps keep people in prison.

There must also be meaningful and intelligent debates in the political sphere. This can only be ensured if politicians did not allow themselves to be compromised by campaign donations. This country must also examine its relationship with minorities and the poor. We can longer be a country who believes in every man for himself, or a society that depicts minority groups as the scary, violent others. Hegemony is a powerful force and media images stick in the minds of disenfranchised youth. Very often, if you call someone a thug, they eventually become one.

Sadly, like most fundamental changes that take place in this country, we always seem to have to learn the hard way.

As we stand at the precipice of economic ruin, it is time for this country to have a serious talk about the driving force of this nation and the direction we want to take in the future.

Capitalism is a beautiful thing when regulated and controlled; it has made a country great.

But when a rich, industrialized nation who believes so strongly in freedom and democracy, begins to lock up its citizens for profit, the question becomes is it really worth it?