According to Roy Walmsley – the Director of the International Center for Prison Studies – the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. How could this happen to us? I’ve always been led to believe that the United States is the land of the free, and that our citizens enjoyed liberties that people could only dream of in other countries.
There are many factors that have caused our prison population to balloon to ridiculous levels in the last few decades, but the main culprits are mandatory minimum laws and the War on Drugs. By now I would be shocked if anyone reading this didn’t have a basic understanding of why these policies are hurting the country and how they’ve changed the landscape of our incarceration system. Rather than getting into another long spiel about the various effects of the legislation (if you’d like to learn about the topic in more depth I’d personally recommend “Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure” by Dan Baum) I just have to wonder why this is allowed to go on? It’s pretty clear the policies haven’t had a positive effect on the country, so why are Republicans still so steadfast in their beliefs that these laws are a necessity for our country?
The reason that changing legislation related to the drug war has been such an uphill battle is that the Republican Party largely relies on fear based propaganda to get their message across. Fear that the government is going disguise an attempt at fixing our insurance system as an opportunity to round up “God fearing Christians” into death camps. Fear that immigrants are coming to take our jobs. Fear that drugs are going to turn all of our children into toothless meth heads turning tricks in the bad part of town.
They have nothing if they’re not trying to appeal to the base instincts of their electorate. Think about it, what’s the average tax plan like for a Republican nominee? You can bet your bottom dollar that at the very least it’s going to involve lowering taxes for somebody, likely a rich friend of whoever drafted the bill in the first place. But that reality doesn’t faze the electorate. Just as long as their representative promises that the big scary government isn’t going to take their guns or raise their taxes they’re perfectly content to go on their way.
So why is the GOP so hesitant to meaningfully address rising incarceration rates? Because they’re afraid that the base that they’ve spent decades training to be so afraid of the world is going to dog pile the first Republican candidate who runs on a platform of just punishment instead of locking criminals up and throwing away the key. Unfortunately, it’s just the nature of the beast.
Using fear as a political weapon is a double-edged sword, and while the practice is disgusting in its own right it’s downright deplorable that people’s lives are being used as political capital. And you know what? It’s on you and me to change that. So for the love of God, please vote in every election you can. Vote for people who’ve been disenfranchised for smoking a leaf, and vote for those who will lose their voice in the years to come due to these policies.
Featured image courtesy of Martin on Flickr, available under a Creative Commons license.
