Louisiana’s prison system is a disgusting and corrupt money-making machine that wheels and deals in human lives on the cheap.
This system sacrifices fairness for profit. Instead of treating prisoners like human beings, it treats them like cattle. Instead of thinking of them with a human value, it thinks of them with monetary value.
According to NOLA.com | Times-Picayune, an inmate is worth $24.39 per day to the state, and sheriffs use the profits to get new equipment and hire more prison workers.
Louisiana has been declared the prison capital of the world. To put that in perspective, our incarceration rate is five times higher than Iran’s.
Our prison system is a cold, hard machine that crushes human beings under it. The system garners and trades human lives for money and is embedded in our state financially and politically.
In the 1990s, the federal government ordered Louisiana to reform its overcrowded state prisons. Louisiana, unwilling to free people, shifted state prisoners to local prisons. Local sheriffs’ departments and for-profit prisons now had to look after an influx of people.
The state then paid local police forces to house the prisoners. Suddenly, police had an incentive to house more prisoners. They saw inmates as an opportunity to make money. They lobbied for tougher laws and enforced laws more harshly, increasing the incarceration rate.
This so-called reform created a disgusting cycle. Tougher laws led to higher incarceration rates, which resulted in more money for prison officials and law enforcement agencies. Parish jails, where low-level offenders end up, typically have worse conditions, educational opportunities and social programs than the state prisons.
NOLA.com | Times-Picayune said Louisiana spent the least money per prisoner in 2012. So that gigantic $690 million spent on prisons in Louisiana is as cost-efficient as this system gets.
Congratulations on being cost efficient, Louisiana. Meanwhile, prisoners are stuck with poor living conditions, a lack of education and a lack of social outlets. But, law enforcers make money, so who cares what happens to the criminals?
We need serious prison reforms, but police care more about profit than improving
communities.
According to the NOLA.com | Times-Picayune, the Louisiana legislature recently reduced
sentencing on marijuana crimes, but this sentence reduction won’t help people already in jail.
The Louisiana Sheriff’s
Association, which might actually be the devil incarnate, spends money to make sure this system doesn’t change. The LSA endorsed Gov. John Bel
Edwards, and he has family in the association. I doubt he will bring the real change we need. When constituents see that a prison is offering a hundred new jobs and is outfitting the police with all new gear, reelection is simple and easy. Nothing changes.
Louisiana residents need to wake up and smell the systemic oppression, and they need to pressure their representatives for reform. Louisiana needs to restructure its prison system from the ground up. We need to reappropriate funds from
incarceration to education and end the system that benefits from crime.
David Schneider is a 20-year-old religious studies sophomore from New Orleans, Louisiana.