You Have Been Lied To
By Al Cunningham
San Quentin State Prison, September 1994
California has a population of 30 million, within the 30 million, 13+ million have seen the insides of the prison and jail system. Prison building has proven to be one of the biggest industries of the century, with plans to build even more prisons within the state. Within the last 20 years at least one prison has been built a year. And where does this money come from to build these prisons? Some 20 billion dollars will go into the building of these prisons. That's 20 billion of our tax dollars. Your money and mine. It's no wonder California is in debt.
California has 24 prisons (Ed. note: now more than 30!) now with others in construction, four times that of any other state, and they are sardine-canned packed. California has 400+ county jails and sub-divisions which are also filled, with an arrest quota of 15+ thousand a day. They have 1,000+ juvenile centers, and 30 youth authority prisons and all of these places are filled and over filled, with people sleeping on cold concrete floors, hallways and gyms.
These prisons and jails use inmate labor to produce millions of dollars each month and where does that money go? Into the pockets of state and prison officials. And you wander why California is in debt? (Ed. note: these same officials are Gov. Wilson's strongest financial supporters)
We must question: Are there really that many criminals within the state of California? And if so why? Surely criminals aren't born; but rather I think they are created out of a system which promotes crime as a business. The more criminals, the more demand on our tax dollars.
It is a known fact that prisons and jails are becoming more and more like the plantations of the 1800's; Men and women are experiencing mental and physical servitude above and beyond a person's ability to perform. And with all the profits (millions of dollars) from these slaves of labor, there is not so much as a heating and air conditioning system for these individuals who must suffer the extremes of the weather-all year round during their period of incarceration_ not to mention the absence of professional medical care.
I will submit to the fact that criminals must face justice, and will agree that some even deserve long prison sentences, -but in this day and time of advanced psychology and psychotechnology, people are yet being sent to prison without any real help in dealing with their inner problems. And a lot of these people could will have been helped and never seen the inside of a prison or commit another crime if they had only gotten the help they heeded at first. It is a shame that our society would much rather spend money to build prisons and warehouse people, than form groups to help them. But I guess when you consider how much money your state and prison officials are making , it would make sense that they would prefer to continue to create criminals to insure their continued luxurious living and stealing of our tax dollars over that of help ing and preventing crime.
It costs the taxpayer $2000+ to house a prisoner one month in prison. That's $24,000+ a year, or at least this is what they would like for us to think, as it would account for miIllons of dollars being put into their pockets. There are everyday working people who don't make $24,000 a year, and they work ten hours a day on a job. There are some 135,000 inmates now being confined within the prison system in California, that's well over $2,880,000,000.00 of the taxpayer's money spent per year.
Where is the money being spent? Surely not on food, for it's the worst slop one can ever imagine consuming. Surely not on medical care, for far too many are sick and uncared for, lack proper diet and medicines, and have uncaring doctors more concerned about getting back to their bottles (alcohol) than the condition of the patient.
Thirty million people, just think! If California were a nation, it would rank fifth in the world in gross nation product, yet the average Californian has been conjured and mislead in so many ways that it is beyond their imagination just how taken they have been took.
I have been able to observe first hand just how devious high-ranking penal administrators can be in dealing with the public (not to mention their dealings with prisoners). The lengths to which they will go to distort the truth of a given matter in order to accomplish their own ends. It has been exemplified numerous times throughout the last 40 years, but the last 20 years have proven to promote a number of distortions and outright lies which continue to circulate in the media from the official prison spokesmen. These people are public relations men whose sole function is that of cleaning up administrative dirt which sometimes escapes into the public consciousness.
I grudgingly acknowledge the masterful manner in which the media has been manipulated by the keepers of these prisons in their cover-up, for there is a great degree of harassment, humiliation, rejection, excessive punishment, unfit and uncooked food, and medical malpractice being performed in these institutions. Even more, it is a proven fact that the staff has taken home on many occasions the choice cuts of meat products, dairy products, and many other products and materials, free of charge, and at the expense of the taxpayer.
Now, I understand that people in the larger society have been effectively programmed into non- acceptance of the prisoner as a human being. Yet, I must make ceaseless efforts to penetrate the public consciousness with the truth of what goes on in these prisons and jails. Contrary to the official view, California jails and prisons harbor human beings, not animals and sub-humans. I ask that the public begin making inquiries into the situations, conditions, and spending of their tax dollars, the medical care of prisoners, treatment of prisoners and their visitors, and that for once the words of state and prison administrators be given no more weight than the facts justify. If the truth of the matters spoken of in this article are known, I do not doubt that anyone with a sense of humanity and concern for human life and their tax dollars will condemn the malicious, destructive actions, attitudes, and conspiracy against tax paying Californians by those who continue to misuse their state and penal positions.
We must begin to speak up and do something about these people or else next year there will be 13 million other reasons to raise your taxes for another prison, another jail, another state and prison official's luxurious home. The choice is yours, SPEAK UP OR GIVE UP.