Monday, November 25, 2019

Cruelty is the Point Vs Reform

Dear David Trone:

Unfortunately for me, I've had family members who've been jailed or imprisoned. I live in a relatively decent State, Maryland, yet prisoners, both convicted and those merely jailed, suffer treatment similar to that experienced in West Virginia, referenced in this article by Rebecca J. Kavanagh:

“People incarcerated in West Virginia prisons will soon be charged $3 an hour to read books and $15 an hour for video visitation with their families.” DrRJKavanaugh
“Prisoners in West Virginia are paid between 4 and 58 cents an hour for their labor.” DrRJKavanaugh
“Do I really have to write a bill to ban charging prisoners to read?”Trone Tweet

David, You probably do need to write some laws, including repealing laws:

  • that reduced access to exercise rooms and libraries.
  • Resourcing libraries,
  • counseling,
  • Psych and recovery detention centers separate from prisons.

The reason they do things like this is that cruelty is the point. They are trying to run prisons as for profit plantations. The idea is to indebt inmates by refusing them access to basic needs like books or exercise, charge them for these things, and then allow them to borrow the money only to treat them like slaves even after their time is up. Not paying them for their work advances that, plus enriches the administrators.

And they do some of this in Maryland too. If we let our Piratical, Freebooting, "Republican" privateers, they'll privatize prisons here too.

It's a racket, and the officials are the racketeers. As I've been warning! These are:

Privateers! If they can't rent it, put tolls on it, extract loans against it, they destroy it. Modern day pirates, perfectly legal thieves!
Reason Article
https://reason.com/2019/11/22/west-virginia-inmates-will-be-charged-by-the-minute-to-read-e-books-on-tablets/

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