To put it simply, it’s really about the business and profits of putting people in jail.
In China, it is against the law to move without the government’s prior written permission – which is almost impossible to get, if you’re even lucky enough to get a response at all. If you leave your house for more than x-number of days, you need to have permission.
What does this all mean? I suppose it should either mean you can’t travel — or you must always worry about getting thrown in jail when you “break the law” for leaving your home for too long.
What this actually really boils down to is, you can basically be thrown in jail for literally doing nothing wrong. If you piss the wrong people off (by saying the wrong thing, reading the wrong things, etc), you will more than likely go to jail, because anyone in China can be found guilty of this one particular law. A law that forces people to leave their villages to big cities to find work – which means they have to break the law or starve to death while trying to support a family.
It’s crazy and very sad. But, it’s also extremely profitable for the very few who build jails.
As crazy as that sounds, our own government has a very similar set of laws here in our own country — the three strikes law. Someone who commits three non-violent felonies – like possession of an illegal substance (which can be as minor as medicinal marijuana), driving under the influence (which can often include pharmaceuticals), and even being drunk or under the influence in a public space. In California, it is simply that common to have such offenses lead up to a minimum 25-year-to-life sentence.
This is completely unfair, and it is sold to the public as a way to keep criminals off the streets. No one is against ridding crime. But it is never a problem to get convicted rapists and murderers lifetime sentences. It might be complicated, but it certainly never leads to the guilty walking away free.
So why the excessive need for such legislation??
The whole notion of three strikes legislation was begun by the prison industry as a way to insure their industry could be bankrolled by the federal government with lucrative building contracts. A good example of a few such companies are Wackenhut Corrections and Master Enterprises Inc, private builders of federal prisons.
We’re all in favor of locking up criminals. But at what cost will it be to our whole society when you lock up people for non-violent offenses?
There are tons of non-violent offenders out there who are almost immune from ever seeing the inside of a jail.
For example, there are CEO’s out there putting dangerous products in our marketplace – but not a single one will ever see the inside of a jail because of it (limited liability laws for corporations) and bankers out there abusing usury laws (skyrocketing interest rates for small loans and credit cards), and of course, healthcare companies letting mothers die because they had the audacity to have acne as a kid and can’t get coverage for chemo treatment or medicine – because they can call acne a “pre-existing condition”. And by the way, that’s exactly how insurance companies get richer – by denying coverage while charging you a very high premium and deductible. Here is an example of a website that describes, in detail, “bad faith” insurance issues (insurance companies who often rip off clients for flimsy reasons).
But to lock up people for life because of three minor offenses? That’s just nuts – and it costs taxpayers too much money, while making jail-builders too much profit.
Republicans love to say that Democrats are weak on crime and terrorism. The truth is, Democrats are in love with obeying the law and protecting and enforcing it. They are, in essence, nerds who love to master their knowledge of the law. Republicans aren’t in love with that part of the law, but instead are in love with finding ways to profit off of it. The War on Terror, just like the War on Drugs, has bankrupted this country, morally and financially. But, hey, at least we got ourselves into a couple of expensive wars which have made some very prolific warmongers (the military industrial complex) very, very rich.
And that is exactly how you make crime into a business…or rather, the crime of “crime profiteering”. (You become motivated in putting as many people in jail as possible, so you can call your ideas “a success”)
