The Curious Autodidact

Orange is the New Black the HBO series was recommended so I watch the first season via Netflix and was less than impressed having read the book. It has certainly gotten people thinking about prison who might not have realized the costs the criminal justice system is as our national budget and what a cycle it is when people have little support upon release.

The New Jim Crow‘s author Michelle Alexander appears on Moyers and Company in an segment titled Incarceration Nation to helps us to think a bit differently about our prison system and what really goes on.

Just recently launched is the new Marshall Project to bring attention to the problem of incarceration as a big job source for rural communities and the privatization of our prison system nationally.

The ACLU also just announced it will spend some of its energy focused on the high  rate of incarceration, one of the largest internationally, has gotten out of hand in the USA. They have hired Alison Holcolm to head their new initiative “Campaign to End Mass Incarceration” and she is a positive intelligent force to lead their campaign to bring the injustices to light.

Perhaps we will wake up to realize that these prisoners are someone’s son, someone’s brother, and in many cases someone’s dad. The increasing of women as prisoners is also startling and the children of these prisoners suffer most without a parent available leaving long scars. I remember years ago reading about Jean Harris‘s campaign to keep a connection between mothers and their children when she was at Bedford Hills, this was considered groundbreaking back then.

When will be wake up to realize educating prisoners is the only chance to keep them from continuing a life of crime and away from drugs?