Stop Making Industry off the Prisoners and Those on Probation

   Listening to a past prisoner, listening to someone drowning in the probation program, I wonder if we need more judges.

   He speaks of public attorneys handling so many cases, they cannot give justice to them. He speaks of judges whose calendars are so full, they are overloaded. I suggest, then we should hire more judges. He doesn't respond to the suggestion. As we continue to talk, I twice more suggest maybe we need more judges. Each time, he doesn't answer. 

   Finally, I say that I have noticed he doesn't seem to think more judges are the answer. No, not more judges, that would just add to the industry, he says. "It's big business."

   An industry, is what he sees it as. "The system is designed to help the people running the system," he says. He speaks of the prices they charge inmates, for everything from phone calls to ramen noodles. Everything is jacked up. Everyone is making a profit off the inmates. The prisoners are fair game.

  They charge you for everything so much that you can't afford all their fines. You are caught in the system. If you get a ticket for no insurance, they fine you.  "You aren't helping me," he says of them. "If I had $400 for the fine, I would have gotten the insurance."

   No, their point isn't to help the prisoners, it's to live off them.  As he said, "The system is designed to help the people running the system."

   "I think the whole system should be charged with the RICO Act," he says. I laugh. "No, I'm serious," he says, and I ask him what the RICO Act is. He tells me it's the racketeering act. Those guilty of racketeering are to be tossed in jail under the RICO Act. 

   "The system isn't designed to help the people in the system," he says. "The system is designed to help the people running the system."

   So, what's the answer to the judges being overworked? Wipe all the dragged-out cases off the books. Quit dragging people thru the system. Instead of keeping them on probation for every little thing, help them find a quicker way to the end of the tunnel. Stop making industry off the inmates and those on probation. If you get rid of all the unnecessary industrializing, the judges won't have so many cases, and you won't need to hire more.