July 3, 2013

Comment Response

From The Novelist Portent by Johnny E. Mahaffey (author's profile)
This post is in reply to comments on:  Prison Pathophobia thumbnail
Prison Pathophobia
(May 16, 2013)

Transcription

Johnny E. Mahaffey
June 9, 2013

To bluelotus:

I've seen inmates die under situations that had they not been in prison, and had the right care, would've lived. And it's to be expected I suppose. Prison is a business now, no different than any other. Except, people are the product; housed as tax collecting numbers claimed by the system. An audit of the entire U.S. prison system is long overdue. There are too many people making too much money from the incarceration of humans as dehumanised prison ID numbers. More numbers, equal more funds, and more funds equal more promotions and raises; it's a never ending cycle of political self-service from the state heads, to the solicitors, to the judges, all the way down to the turn-key jailers. In South Carolina, inmates are the new cotton.

Empathy is a word unknown to modern law. I seriously think that some of the medical staff try; but some... well, you can tell why some staff - medical and all other - work for prison instead of a regualr public facility where their demeaner and ideology would result most definitely in unemployment, if not their own incarceration. Some are moving forward, creating a career in the imprisonment racket; while others have fallen here not from choice, but other, failed, careers, and its everyone's fault but their own it seems - or at least they'd have you think that. And it's those disgruntled individuals that make the others look bad.

Stress is a leading cause of many healthy problems, so why someone would do a job that makes them so miserable is beyond me. Why would you literally kill yourself over a meagre pay-check with practically no health benefits. Excuses are just excuses, it's a big world with more opportunity than people like to admit. The thing is, fixing or improving things usually takes effort, and the ineffectual efforts of the embittered that hinder the whole process attempted by the honest.

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JT Posted 11 years, 5 months ago. ✓ Mailed 11 years, 5 months ago   Favorite
Then don't be embittered!

(I'm not suggesting that you are - just responding to what someone can do when they are caught up in the system).

I've worked in prison as a counselor. I know how bad the system can be - but I have to say that I cared enormously about my men and women (I've worked in both male and female prisons).

Every once in awhile a name pops into my head or I hear a name on the radio that is close to a name I know. And I wonder how so-and-so is doing.

So, I look them up. (Well, I only ever look up to see if they've been arrested again. Anymore than that is intrusive).

The thing is, more often than not, they have. It's heartbreaking to think of all those men a and women who blew yet another chance. The last name that popped into my head belongs to a man who was just sentenced to 15 years.

He was out of prison only a few weeks. He was young, smart, handsome. And he had a young child that he said he wanted to help raise.

When he next sees his son, the boy will be a young man. It's heartbreaking.

I know that prison is unfair and dangerous. But all you can do is what you can do yourself.

That's what I told them my job was: to have hope.



JT

CJP Posted 11 years, 5 months ago. ✓ Mailed 11 years, 5 months ago   Favorite
Thanks for writing! I finished the transcription for your post. It is interesting to read about the prison system in America, it is quite different to the one here. Keep writing.

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