Thoughts on Business, Prison, Masculinity, "Terrorism," Violence, Mental Health, Drugs, Poverty and How They All Coincide

I'll take a leap of faith and say that most people would say that they want the world to be a safe, clean, and easy place to live. In the severely severed society we live in today, the measures on how to go about achieving this goal vary immensely. In this post, I want to discuss the different factors that could be contributing to the inhibition of our safety and security. I would like to emphasize that this is not an attack on any particular group of people, that I believe any given individual is just as much of a product of society as the next individual, and that all I will be attempting to do here is analyze these things in an attempt to offer some ideas that I think could be beneficial. 

The Purpose of Government and Prison

Without an authority to regulate the behaviors of businesses, corporations, and individual citizens there would not be anything to hold people accountable for taking advantage of others. With that precursor, it is important that government fulfill its duty to keep citizens safe and ensure that they are not suffering beyond repair.
When individuals do not follow these rules and regulations, they ought to be reprimanded for these actions so that they understand that they are intolerable and should not be done again. The goal of this reprimanding is to ensure that the individual does not engage in these behaviors again. Thus, the next step should be mental health and rehabilitation. In today's correctional facilities in the United States, this is not what is being done. According to the New York Times article, "Two-thirds of prisoners reoffend within three years of leaving prison, often with a more serious and violent offense." From that, one can consider that perhaps the prison system is not effective in producing better, reformed individuals out of their prisoners. The article also stated "Getting a college degree while in prison is the only program that has ever been shown to be 100 percent effective for years or decades at a time in preventing recidivism." To ensure that people leave prison as a reformed and law-abiding citizen, it appears to be much more effective to enrich the prisoners rather than torture and harshly punish the prisoners. 

The Impact of the War on Drugs

In the early 1970s, President Nixon introduced a campaign to eradicate drug use. Incarceration skyrocketed. We have since seen a 500% increase in incarceration in the United States- disproportionately impacting people of color and the lower class. This was exacerbated through the rhetoric and policies of both the Reagan administration and the Clinton administration. Instead of treating drug abusers as struggling addicts in need of rehabilitation, they were painted as criminals who needed to be put away. 

With an increase in drug arrests came an increased need for prisons. What did this lead to? Private prisons. A correctional facility's main objective should be producing reformed citizens- not making a profit. What are some problems with for-profit prisons? Prisoners are exploited to do horribly cheap labor, due to a loophole in the 13th amendment that allows prisoners to be forced into labor as a form of punishment. To cut costs, food is often shorted. Prisons have a minimum occupancy that they must uphold, and thus there must be enough arrests and incarcerated individuals in the prison. Rather than try to take care of the prisoners and rehabilitate them to get better, their goal is just to fill their prison in any way they can because it's just business. 

The three largest for-profit prison corporations have spent more than $45 million on campaign donations and lobbyists. Again, instead of investing in the prisoners and rehabilitating them to produce better citizens, they spent their money on campaigning and lobbyists but it's just business. 

One might hear that and think that prisoners are all murders, rapists and thieves, but it turns out that almost half (48%) of those in federal prison are there for drug crimes. This is 11 times more than it was in 1980--right around the war on drugs.Another aspect to consider is that "most people incarcerated for drug charges are non-violent, have no prior record, and are addicts rather than major drug-traffickers." One can then infer that a huge chunk of prisoners in federal prison would benefit much more from rehabilitation instead of prison, and thus prison is not the right place for them. With needs to fill these private prisons, drug addicts suffer in prison rather than getting better in a rehabilitation facility. 

Also, something to consider--that 100% of all military IDs, canteens, helmets, and bullet proof vests are created through prison labor. Even the government is benefiting off the exploitation of prison labor.

Another large portion of those negatively affected by mass incarceration are illegal immigrants. Almost 400,000 illegal immigrants a year are held in privately owned correctional facilities.

Correlation Between Poverty, Crime, and Mental Health

The global distribution of wealth is constantly worsening. The world's 62 richest billionaires own as much wealth as the bottom 50% of the world. There isn't much of a debate on poverty and crime going hand in hand. "Poverty and crime combined together leave people with two choices: either take part in criminal activities or try to find legal but quite limited sources of income - when there are any available at all." 

Poverty also has a significant impact on mental health. "The World Health Organization has described poverty as the greatest cause of suffering on earth." Not only can poor mental health lead to severe poverty, it can also result from it. This becomes a horrendous cycle where a deteriorating mental health then leads to more severe poverty. Thus, with poor mental health conditions in a state of despair, it can lead people to use drugs as a way to cope with the unfortunate states of their lives. According to the National Council on Drug Abuse, "A person in an impoverished situation may abuse drugs or alcohol as a way to cope with the dangerous environment she lives in, a way to deal with her financial stresses or a way to cope with physical or emotional abuse. Many times, drugs and alcohol are easily accessible in impoverished neighborhoods where some people actually sell drugs in hopes of overcoming poverty."

Correlation between Masculine Societal Expectations and Crime

James Messerschmidt, a professor from the Department of Criminology, Women and Gender Studies at the University of Southern Maine has discussed the reasons why the expectations of masculinity can lead men to participate in violence and crime. Masculinity is usually characterized by earning lots of money, being successful, being unemotional and stern, being powerful and having power over others, being heterosexual, and these behaviors are all rewarded and the lack of these behaviors are punished. When using the words "rewarded" and "punished," I don't mean literal, tangible rewards or punishments. I mean that our society raises our male youth to believe that these characteristics are what it means to "be a man."

These expectations can lead to violence in an effort to achieve success and dominance that men are raised to believe is necessary to fill their societal role. Not only that, but the rhetoric of "boys will be boys" which excuses behavior of men by insinuating that it is innate and unchangeable, when really they are not. While men may have more testosterone which makes them more inclined to participate in risky behavior, it does not mean that they should be held to these expectations nor should their malicious behavior be excused.

Efforts that men make to repress their emotions in order to seem serious and unfeeling can have detrimental affects on their mental health and growth which can lead to violence. Another issue that causes men to be violent is their need to uphold their reputation of heterosexuality. "Elliot Rodger, who carried out the 2014 shooting in Isla Vista, referenced this type of threat in a video explaining his motives. "I don't know why you girls aren't attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it," he said." Without this pressure brought on by society for men to fulfill these expectations, these kinds of crimes could decrease, By eliminating these norms in our society, men may feel less inclined or inspired to participate in crime in order to achieve these goals.

The Danger of "Bad Guys" and "Good Guys"

I'd like to start with a quote from Humans of New York. “I can’t stand moral absolutism. You know, there’s always that guy who wants to point out that Martin Luther King cheated on his wife– as if he obviously couldn’t have been a great person if he did something like that. Or someone will bring out an inspirational quote, and get you to agree, and then inform you that Hitler said it. As if a good thought couldn’t come from Hitler. Moral absolutism keeps us from learning from the past. It’s easy to say: ‘Hitler was a demon. Nazis were all bad seeds.’ That’s simple. It’s much harder to say: 'Is that humanity? Is that me?’” 

I think, by human nature, we try to process things by boxing them into categories. This becomes problematic when it comes to humans because individuals are not static and unchanging. Mankind is full of complex individuals that do not always behave how they are predicted. 

What makes someone a bad person? Can a good person do bad things and still be a good person? Does a bad person become a good person when they do something good? Is it actions or intentions that make someone good or bad? Both? Neither? Are "goodness" and "badness" calculable? Are they subjective? 

The answers to these questions are not obvious. Americans specifically have a good guy vs. bad guy mentality. We are often taught that it is "us vs. the bad guys." This is described as social identity theory. In simplest terms, this encompasses in groups and out groups. In groups are groups with which an individual identifies and out groups are groups with which an individual does not identify. For example, the term "terrorism" and "radical Islamic terrorism" tend to be used interchangeably by many, when in reality they are two very different ideas. Terrorism, by definition is the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims. When a white boy shoots up a black church, that is terrorism. When a mass of police disrupt a peaceful protest against police brutality with violence, that is terrorism. When the United States dropped the very first atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, that is terrorism. What is the difference between terrorism and defense? 

This polarization of us vs. them creates divides between races, religion, races, classes, and cultures which then results in tensions that can and do lead to blind hatred and violence. Good vs Bad is too black and white to actually apply to the complexity of human beings. It is for that reason that we cannot characterize criminals as simply "the bad guys." Committing a crime should not write someone off as bad and unforgivable, just as much as being a "good guy" should not exempt someone from being held accountable for their actions. Just look at Brock Turner. He was a white, wealthy swimmer at Stanford University, and he barely suffered any repercussions for the brutal rape of an unconscious woman behind a dumpster.

So Now What?

With all these factors in mind, a possible solution arises to combat the issues that combat our society. An emphasis on mental health, feminism and the destruction of strict gender roles, raising the minimum wage, the de-privatization of correctional facilities, immigration reform, and education. 

A more vast prevalence of accessible mental health resources can help poorer individuals who use drugs to combat the mental health issues that can help cope with that poverty. Helping drug abusers have better access to rehabilitation for drug use rather than sticking them in crowded, inhuman prisons will improve their recovery processes and decrease the likelihood of those drug abusers returning to prison. Promoting gender equality and the destruction of gender roles could decrease the drive that correlates with masculinity and crime. Raising the minimum wage with rates of inflation so that people working full time under the minimum wage can make a living wage. This will decrease the likelihood of individuals resorting to crime for survival. Decreasing the privatization of prisons and correctional facilities could help to decrease the administration of prisons of business-minded functioning. Then, it could increase efforts to instead make the focus of those facilities to be producing reformed citizens to society so that they can function well when the return to society instead of simply returning to a correctional facility soon after leaving. Immigration reform that will allow more people into the country legally will decrease the amount of illegal immigrants. It will decrease the amount of illegal immigrants put in detention centers who are stuck their for months even years sometimes to await a trial. Lastly, educating individuals on different factors of other cultures and the complicated set up of businesses, societies, systematic inequalities, and other kinds of divides could be extremely helpful. An emphasis on effective, affordable education to combat those issues rather than each other could help take down the powers that be who uphold these corrupt, unjust standards from which they benefit.

This post included a very large of ideas, and there's no way of knowing if I am right of if my proposed solutions would have any impact that would make any change. These are just ideas I have from the information I have gathered. It is indescribably upsetting every day how dehumanized so many people across the world are due to factors out of their control. It just doesn't seem like the system we have set up is working. I would very much love to hear thoughts, criticism, opinions, concerns, questions, etc. on all the ideas I explained here. Thank you for reading!