The taxpayers dole out $36,000 a year, per
inmate for the BOP to own me. My
cost is
higher than the average inmate, and there is an additional $5900 minimum
to pay for
my medical care. A hardworking citizen
MUST pay federal FICA taxes, or
go to
jail. I am aging in here- I am a
grandmother of six, therefore my medical
needs may
increase.
All the heavily processed and preserved
foods over the last ten years has given
me high
blood pressure. Since last year, I have
been on medication for it. I have
also been
issued cholesterol medication. I do not
take it because the side effects
are ten
times greater than the benefit of the medication. The side effects include:
My eye
constantly jumping, so that I cannot read or write in peace; sore bones and
joints that
feel like "flu like" symptoms, and restricts any physical activity;
problems
with dryness
of my eyes; stomach aches; racing heart; itchiness, and much more.
My motto is
if the benefits of the meds are less than the benefits of not taking it,
why would I
poison my body like that? Believe it or
not, I am in very good health.
I walk five
miles a day. I do an extensive weight routine with 3 or 5 pounds to stay
toned. I do yoga, and a little Pilates when I feel
like it. I ran up and down the steep
hill at the
back of the Camp, and then up and down the 67 stairs a few times yesterday
because the
weather was nice. I will be able to
chase my grandchildren, and hang
out with
them when I get home.
Who exactly pays for my keep? Who paid this year? Was it the single Mom,
like my
daughter, who is struggling because she barely makes minimum wage? Was
it the
waitress that is mostly living off tips?
Maybe it was an autoworker, because
they make a
little bit more money?
Lets examine how prison costs adds up
quickly to 80 billion a year. I was
convicted
with 9
others. The loss amount for society is
$300,000. The cost for my incarceration,
along with
medical costs total to date is $419,000.
The cost to house my co-defendants is
$900,000. (K.D, $180,000, Judy-$252,000;
Tony-$216,000;
Dunbar-$18,000; Jay-$36,000; Khalid-$108,000; and Taylor-$90,000)
That easily
equates to 1.5 million for housing. If
you add attorneys, court room staff,
transport,
Supervised Release, and all other costs,
my case easily cost taxpayers roughly
$2.5 million
for all ten of us. This is just the
stats for one case, and one single
indictment. Many are indicted yearly and sent to
prison.
The facts today is about our United States
Constitution. Many of you do not know
that the
Constitution was the document that followed President Abe Lincoln's
Emancipation
Proclamation. Many citizens that owned plantations
were distraught
about losing
their slaves. Slavery was big business,
and America as a nation was
built on the
backs of African slaves who now are the ancestors of African-Americans,
and
definitely the fore thoughts and foundation of how this prison system came to
be.
For those of you who do not know your
Constitution, how the document continued
slavery to
this day is the wording created in Amendment 13. The Amendments, or
Bill of
Rights was supposed to protect individuals from government power in all areas.
The writers
pulled a whammy with Article 13. It
states that "anyone convicted of a
crime has no
rights". That means the system can
work you like a slave for free, or
choose to
pay you twelve cents, and do not have to pay the minimum wage. It also
means that
you have lost all rights to your children and your family. You are property
of the
state/feds, in the most literal sense.
How our forefathers kept slavery alive
was using
the Black Codes which is the FBOP codes with a simple name switch in the
document to
manage inmates. The other issue with the
Constitution is Article II
and Article
III. With Article II, United States
Attorneys have life time appointments
and are
considered the most powerful agency in the country, and have the strongest
union. If a U.S. Attorney targets you, your chances
are impossible of keeping your
life in
tack. The next slavery issue inside the
constitution is lifetime appointments
for Article
III/federal judges. They have no agency
that monitors them, and even
if they are
racist, and using their own agendas on the bench, nothing will happen
to
them. Federal Judges have been convicted
of riding with prostitutes and buying
crack, using
crack, and many other outrageous acts while on the bench. At most,
they might
receive a scale back on cases. I
actually read a letter
that stated
the 'the judge's use of crack did not affect his sentencing decision.'
An associate was trying to get her case
reviewed when she found out that her
judge was in
the newspaper and under investigation after being caught buying and
smoking
crack at the same time that he was on the bench with her case.
Article II and Article III of the United
States Constitution is the slavery trump
card. Those two articles stacked the deck against
African-Americans and other
people of
color. Those two articles represent
capitalism, and is not a part of the
democratic
process.
State judges are a part of the democratic
process, and they are placed on a
ballot, and
you vote for them. If they break the
law, they are usually removed, if
the public
sees fit. There is no removing a federal
judge or a U.S. Attorney/
Assistant
attorney. There is no accountability to
the public. That is a major
problem with
this system. People can complain all day
long, and also attempt to
put laws
into place by contacting their Senators and having them advocate, but
the problem
is that the foundation of the federal prison system is based on concepts
of
slavery. The writers of the Constitution
knew this, and also understood that
they had to
stack the deck in order to keep America unequal and one-sided as
far as the
rights and treatment. Originally, it was
our
boys and men
that suffered most. Today, women are
sentenced at an alarming
rate. There is a steady increase in the number of
women coming to prison.
Even more
hostile, is the age of the new prison population. They are "granny
dumping",
or sending older women to prison for small petty crimes at an 800%
increase. Why? I
had to think about it. As I sat in the
dining room this morning
eating an
orange, I looked around me, and everyone at the surrounding tables
were over 65
years of age. The lady sitting across
from me had a cane.
I read recently where Eric Holder stated
that this system "was broken" and
has
failed. It all depends on who you
ask. If you ask people who support
mass-incarceration,
and want harsher sentences,
they would answer that this system is doing
great.
It is costing the taxpayers over 80 billion
dollars a year, that is money
in their
pockets. even the blog that I am writing
costs 5 cents a minute.
The prison system is part of Wall
street/the stock market. The
pharmaceutical
companies
benefit millions also. Many of the
Senators that are fighting against
abolishing
mandatory minimums are connected financially to the pharmacy
corporations,
or other entities where they directly make money off of prisoner's
blight. As a nation, we need to check out these
politicians, and publish their
beliefs. This is an election year. Who is for this peculiar institution, and if
so,
why? That's the question that needs to
be asked before a citizen places
a vote.
I have wrote about a small group of
inmates to entertain. The women of
Arn-2 are
not the norm. Like many countries, if
you take away the non-violent
offenders,
and the white collar offenders and place them back into the tax
base and on
house arrest to pay large fines, you would only have the need for
one major
prison in the country. That prison would
house the violent, and
criminally
insane. One single prison is enough, not
1000's. Prison is big business.
We have a few million dollars worth of
inmates sitting at Danbury, as I write
this blog. Looking
at real numbers, and using an actual case as an example,
gives the
reader a true glimpse of how profitable mass incarceration in
America is.
Rhonda
Turpin
author,
publisher, prisoner
http://felonista.blogspot.in/
fb/rhondaturpin
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