What will a prisoner do when he gets out of prison? A lot depends on what he has to start with. If he's got a little grub-stake and a little support he will very likely have to struggle, but he'll probably make it. In spite of all the lies and propaganda you hear, most released prisoners succeed as law-abiding citizens if they have a little something to give them a toehold in the community.
Understanding that it's true that for anyone to succeed and especially for a released prisoner to succeed, the person needs a little capital and a little help, the political extremists running Pennsylvania have contrived to sabotage prisoners.
Conservatives have never displayed very good sense or very much foresight. The conservative politicians in charge of your state are greedy, petty and penny-grubbing. To them a dime is a big deal especially if they can squeeze it out of some poor person.
These conservative tyrants have control over tens of thousands of prisoners. To the tyrants, it's like owning slaves. After all, most prisoners are darkies anyhow.
The materialistic, but unrealistic conservatives want to exploit the prisoners like assets, like property, like coal in a mine. They realize that prisoners have a little money. Many prisoners have little prison jobs paying 19 cents an hour. The conservative politicians lust after those pennies.
Some prisoners have families or loved ones who are willing to ransom them and send them a few dollars now and then. The conservatives drool over the pittance. They want the money and never mind that the families are the poorest people in the state.
A very few prisoners have managed to preserve some tiny remnant of personal property. The greedy conservatives want it, too! Greed wants every penny!
In their mania to get their hands on the few cents that prisoners have, conservative politicians have done what they habitually do; go to manic extremes. They have devised a whole series of schemes to wring pennies from prisoners. The idea is that the prisoner should get out of jail utterly hopeless and penniless. That way, the prisoner is sure to fail in the community and come back to enslavement where he can be exploited further.
The conservatives don't have a very tight grip on reality. To them prisoners are suddenly the Goose That Laid The Golden Egg! They devised a scheme to grind money out of prisoners, especially the oldest and sickest prisoners for medical services. It's now typical for a prisoner to spend 30% of his months wages for one trip to the doctor. That's about $1000.00 in "street money!" What do you pay? If you're a guard, your pay zero. Taxpayers pay for you.
The conservatives contrived a scheme to gouge trial costs and fines from prisoners. Another scheme to force the prisoners to buy luxuries only from the Republican State Monopoly.
Most recently, the conservatives have dreamed up another example of the very worst in the American ethic of greed. If a prisoner breaks or wears out state issued materials, he will be punished and made to pay for the broken or exhausted item!
In the real world, a negligent person who damages the property of another might be sued. In that case, the victim could collect not the replacement value of the damaged item, but the item's value as an used piece as it was at the time it was damaged. In addition, the value of the item would be based upon facts, not upon the victim's exaggerated idea of what an item should be worth.
Of course the conservative politicians who run the Department of Corrections are not constrained by anything like logic, law or morality. Not only does the DOC force the man to pay the "replacement value" of the item as if it were new, but the DOC also invents what the "replacement value" should be!
Almost everything used by a prisoner is made in great numbers by another prisoner who is paid only pennies an hour. The stuff is made from inferior materials on inferior machinery in the most slipshod way.
The following table shows some of the items which the state will now collet on if and when a prisoner damages or wears out the item. The table also shows the price that the Department of Corrections will charge the prisoner. For comparison purposes, the real cost of the NEW item is also listed along with the percentage by which the state is cheating the prisoner. Of course this is the cost for a brand new item, not an old, used one like the prisoner broke.
| Official Lies Designed To Punish And Gouge Penniless Prisoners | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Item Charged To Prisoner | Exaggerated Cost Charged To Prisoner |
Real Cost Of The Item | Percentage The State Cheats The Prisoner |
| Mess Hall Sandwich | $ 3.50 | 40c | 875% |
| Plastic Mess Hall Food Tray | $ 5.00 | $ 2.23 | 224% |
| Steel Cell desk | $ 125.00 | $ 51.75 | 242% |
| Fluorescent Light Fixture | $322.00 | $148.88 | 216% |
| Old Porcelain Cell Sink | $ 200.00 | $ 79.00 1 | 256% |
| Old Porcelain Cell Toilet | $ 180.00 | $ 85.95 2 | 209% |
| Prisoner-Made Undershirt | $ 3.50 | 99c | 354% |
| Prisoner-Made Boxer Shorts | $ 3.25 | $ 1.07 | 304% |
| Thermal Long Underwear | $ 4.50 | $ 4.02 | 120% |
| Prisoner-Made Handkerchief 3 | 50c | 95c | 53c |
| Prisoner-Made Shirt | $ 13.00 | $ 4.04 | 322% |
| Prisoner-Made Trousers | $ 14.40 | $ 6.37 | 226% |
| Prisoner-Made Sweatshirt | $ 11.50 | $ 5.95 | 193% |
| Prisoner-Made Jacket | $ 16.00 | $ 4.66 | 343% |
| Prisoner-Made Coat | $ 46.00 | $ 17.64 | 261% |
| Prisoner-Made Baseball Cap | $ 3.10 | $ 1.27 | 244% |
| Prisoner-Made Knit Cap | $ 2.50 | 89c | 281% |
| Prisoner-Made Shoes | $ 28.00 | $ 16.45 | 170% |
| Prisoner-Made Socks | $ 1.50 | 39c | 385% |
| Prisoner-Made Bath Towel | $ 4.15 | $ 1.54 | 271% |
| Prisoner-Made Wash Rag | 85c | 21c | 405% |
| Prisoner-Made Mattress | $ 58.00 | $ 10.76 | 539% |
| Prisoner-Made Plastic Pillow | $ 8.25 | $ 2.98 | 277% |
| Prisoner-Made Bed Sheet | $ 9.25 | $ 6.21 | 149% |
| Prisoner-Made Pillowcase | $ 3.00 | $ 1.97 | 152% |
The conservative ethic is obviously extortion and the prisoners learn. The idea of prison is to teach prisoners to behave lawfully. The principle way that prisoners learn is through examples. The example set by the conservative politicians is certainly not lost on prisoners.
The conservative ethic teaches that the strong exploit and victimize the weak. They teach that it's okay to cheat, lie and extort if you have power. To prisoners, of course, power and strength are synonymous with guns and violence (another principle taught by conservatives).
Prisoners learn that "justice depends on who you are and you've got better chances trusting in yourself."
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