zlacker

Excellent points and well argued. If the United States' solution to the lack of living wage employment is to just dump African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans into private prisons and the rest of the unemployed or underemployed into our military, the United States should not get to deprive these people of their vote, even while they serve time in prison. I think the US should have to live with the voting decisions of its prisoners. (we might then think twice about incarcerating whole swaths of people because we can't find a way around offering our people social services for a chunk of the money without turning a profit) I definitely think the eagerness with which we dump people in prison with "intent to sell" and ridiculous mandatory minimums has a lot to do with who we actually want to get a vote in the first place, just right out of the gate. So to me, it makes perfect sense that we harshly stigmatize a person after they have paid "their debt" to society by depriving them (or continuing to deprive them) of the vote, of a voice, of a say in places where they are the minority, and by keeping them unemployed.

(It's crystal clear that we don't want these people voting, not ever!, because it might shift power centers and it might allocate funds to the needy, etc.)

But we prefer the poor to always feel that they are non-people with a "debt" to society; and automatic debt they pay from the day they are born. The thing is, it starts out that way, and we know it to be true. So, we will always see these incarceration measures as punitive; this validates the current power structure and those who benefit from it. And of course that doesn't "work" (if by work we mean "rehabilitate folks), and of course people end up right back in jail -- our society has figured out a great system to keep these people marginalized forever. Other countries who approach incarceration like rehab (Norway?) see actual positive results from its incarcerated populations---but we clearly aren't aiming for positive results for the poor. We are definitely not interested in this data or we would be doing something about it. Heck, it's cheaper for taxpayers! But we don't want it to be cheaper for taxpayers; we (when I say we, I mean those who voices are heard loudly- the wealthy) want profit to those in power while at the same time, ensureing their power endures because they really don't want to deal with the bees escaping from that jar they have shaken for centuries. "We" hate the downtrodden in this country, "we" certainly don't want them to have a first chance, let alone a second chance. When "we" realize this, those of us who care about this and who definitely don't want to be a part of this kind of a "we" will need to speak out and unify. But too many are unable to see the machinery at work making this kind of awareness more difficult, too many buy into a meritocracy that awards them accolades when it does. I would think engineers and scientists, many of them would have an urge to be skeptical of the criminalization of poverty.