Prisoner Prods Politician
By: George Feigley
AK 2760
1111 Altamont Boulevard
Frackville, PA 17931

Honorable stewart J. Greenleaf
Senate Box 203,012
East Wing Capitol Building
Harrisburg, PA 17120

Dear Senator Greenleaf:

Shortsighted former policies have created 2 monsters, each with a life of its own. Firstly, the unrestrained explosion of prison building has created glutens continually clamoring for more and more convicts. It's simply a trafficing in human beings; a kind of slave trade used as a device to subsidize local economies. It's an artificial industry of imprisonment which supposedly compensates for the failure to create real industry.

The second monster is even worse than the immoral practice of using imprisonment as welfare for local economies. Foolish and failed policies have created a force of almost 16,000 guards and hangers-on. This is a self-perpetuating army of parasites hungrily guzzling at the taxpayers' trough. Each one of these drones is interested in expanding his position, power and profit. Not one of them produces anything to help the economy or the industrial base. A junkman would be more productive. These people should be retrained as parole agents and downsized through attrition.

In a kind of self-destructive economic suicide, former imprisonment strategies now cost the taxpayers $3,700,000.00 a day! The treasury is bleeding to death. And what is the benefit? Is the society happier, better or safer than it was 25 years ago? Do you personally feel safer, happier or better than you did before the imprisonment binge? Just think about it for a minute; what did your money buy you?

Something is wrong with a culture which is so intolerant and vindictive that it locks away such a large percentage of its citizens. Never before has Pennsylvania stooped to imprisonment on this scale. The prison population has grown at 3 times the growth of the general population. What can justify such irrational policies?

Twenty percent of the present prison population are persons who are eligible for parole and should have been released long ago. Another 20% are persons who have been sent back to prison for trivial technical parole violations. Instead of paying taxes and adding to the useful work force, they are costing the taxpayers over $90 a day. If someone had the good sense to purge the system of just those 16,400+ prisoners, it would save about $1,500,000.00 a dayl

I've been imprisoned for 26 years where my minimum was 15 years. This system hasn't made me "better," it's made me older! I've witnessed the system decline into a morass. I understand how important the status quo is to some politicians. I realize how difficult it is to admit that a cherished policy is a flop. I see how painful it is for a politician to reassess reality - But, it's time for a change:

  • 1. A parole board which puts citizens back into society and helps them succeed instead of trying to reimprison them,
  • 2. Alternatives such as fines or curfews for technical parole violators,
  • 3. Use of prison only as the last resort always trying alternative, less expensive vengeance first,
  • 4. Sentencing schemes which are remedial instead of vindictive and abolition of all mandatory sentences,
  • 5. Decriminalizing of drug use,
  • 6. Closing of prisons, stimulation of the real economy and retraining of prison guards as parole agents.

It's like the death sentence. The question must never be what does the offender "deserve." The question must be what will benefit the society as a whole? what do the people deserve? The citizens do not deserve to be made a party to murder, torture or torment and they don't deserve to be bled white with imprisonment expenses justified by exaggerated and unfounded fear and insecurity. That's social McCarthyism.

The government should empower and improve the society, not enfeeble it.

Any reader who happens to agree with these views, is invited to printout this article (or to write a letter of your own) and send it to Senator Greenleaf or any politician. You may email Greenleaf at sgreenleaf@pasen.gov

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