buffalo Loc: Texas

John Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute
January 5, 2018

This is the tale of two Americas, where the rich get richer and the poor go to jail.

Aided and abetted by the likes of Attorney General Jeff Sessions—a man who wouldn’t recognize the Constitution if it smacked him in the face—the American dream has become the American scheme: the rich are getting richer and more powerful, while anyone who doesn’t belong to the power elite gets poorer and more powerless to do anything about the nation’s steady slide towards fascism, authoritarianism and a profit-driven police state.

Not content to merely pander to law enforcement and add to its military largesse with weaponry and equipment designed for war, Sessions has made a concerted effort to expand the police state’s power to search, strip, seize, raid, steal from, arrest and jail Americans for any infraction, no matter how insignificant.

Now Sessions has given state courts the green light to resume their practice of jailing individuals who are unable to pay the hefty finesimposed by the American police state. In doing so, Sessions has once again shown himself to be not only a shill for the Deep State but an enemy of the people.

First, some background on debtors’ prisons, which jail people who cannot afford to pay the exorbitant fines imposed on them by courts and other government agencies.

Congress banned debtors’ prisons in 1833.

In 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the practice to be unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection clause.
Where things began to change, according to The Marshall Project, was with the rise of “mass incarceration” when we started to imprison more people for lesser crimes.

By the late 1980s and early 90s, “there was a dramatic increase in the number of statutes listing a prison term as a possible sentence for failure to repay criminal-justice debt.” During the 2000s, the courts started cashing in big-time “by using the threat of jail time – established in those statutes – to squeeze cash out of small-time debtors.”

Fast-forward to the present day which finds us saddled with not only profit-driven private prisons and a prison-industrial complex but also, as investigative reporter Eli Hager notes, “the birth of a new brand of ‘offender-funded’ justice.”

Follow the money trail. It always points the way.

Whether you’re talking about the government’s war on terrorism, the war on drugs, or some other phantom danger dreamed up by enterprising bureaucrats, there is always a profit-incentive involved.

The same goes for the war on crime.

At one time, the American penal system operated under the idea that dangerous criminals needed to be put under lock and key in order to protect society. Today, the flawed yet retributive American “system of justice” is being replaced by an even more flawed and insidious form of mass punishment based upon profit and expediency.

Sessions’ latest gambit plays right into the hands of those who make a profit by jailing Americans.

Under such a system, the plight of the average American is measured in dollars and cents.

This is not justice.

This is yet another example of how greed and profit-incentives have not only perverted policing in America but have corrupted the entire criminal justice system.

Unfortunately, the criminal justice system has been operating as a for-profit enterprise for years now, covertly padding its pockets through penalty-riddled programs aimed at maximizing revenue rather than ensuring public safety.

All of those seemingly hard-working police officers and code-enforcement officers and truancy officers and traffic cops handing out ticket after ticket after ticket: they’re not working to make your communities safer—they’ve got quotas to fill.

Same goes for the courts, which have come to rely on fines, fees and exorbitant late penalties as a means of increased revenue. The power of these courts, magnified in recent years through the introduction of specialty courts beyond your run-of-the-mill traffic court (drug court, homeless court, veterans court, mental health court, criminal court, teen court, gambling court, prostitution court, community court, domestic violence court, truancy court), is “reshaping the American legal system—with little oversight,” concludes the Boston Globe.

And for those who can’t afford to pay the court fines heaped on top of the penalties ($302 for jaywalking, $531 for an overgrown yard, or $120 for arriving a few minutes late to court), there’s probation (managed by profit-run companies that tack on their own fees, which are often more than double the original fine) or jail time (run by profit-run companies that charge inmates for everything from food and housing to phone calls at outrageous markups), which only adds to the financial burdens of those already unable to navigate a costly carceral state.

Ask yourself this: at a time when crime rates across the country remain at historic lows (despite Sessions’ inaccurate claims to the contrary), why does the prison population continue to grow?

The prison population continues to grow because of a glut of laws that criminalize activities that should certainly not be outlawed, let alone result in jail time. Overcriminalization continues to plague the country because of legislators who work hand-in-hand with corporations to adopt laws that favor the corporate balance sheet. And when it comes to incarceration, the corporate balance sheet weighs heavily in favor of locking up more individuals in government-run and private prisons.

It’s a vicious cycle that grows more vicious by the day.

Now you can shrug all of this away as a consequence of committing a crime, but that just doesn’t cut it. Especially not when average Americans are being jailed for such so-called crimes as eating SpaghettiOs (police mistook them for methamphetamine), not wearing a seatbelt, littering, jaywalking, having homemade soap (police mistook the soap for cocaine), profanity, spitting on the ground, farting, loitering and twerking.

There is no room in the American police state for self-righteousness. Not when we are all guilty until proven innocent.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, this is no longer a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

It is fast becoming a government “of the rich, by the elite, for the corporations,” and its rise to power is predicated on shackling the American taxpayer to a debtors’ prison guarded by a phalanx of politicians, bureaucrats and militarized police with no hope of parole and no chance for escape.

BigMike Loc: yerington nv

America has a role to play in God's plan and it looks to me as if God plans to peel back enough layers of corruption for us to be useful again. Lets help Him where we can. He knows we don't want to be governed by criminals.

coffee

So right!! They make the law and rules for their selfs!! It's a mess! Anyone else would be in jail!! What a joke!!
We need good leaders but where and when??!!

BigMike Loc: yerington nv

See my post above.

God will show us when to do what. Just be ready. It could be as simple as being nice to someone who doesn't deserve it...or needs it.

It might be something else, so wear your ass-kicking shoes.

cold iron Loc: White House

Who are these people you speak of??
Did you miss all the laws broken by Obama and Holder? Fining people for trying to build a home on their own land because of a rain puddle at $10,000 a day? Fining a baker $130,000 for not baking a cake for a gay couple?
I guess you have no problems with it when a Nazi is doing it.

Radiance3

==============
Gay wedding is not within the framework of God's plan.
Leviticus 18:22 -
'Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable".

On the contrary the liberals/democrats way of life promote/defend this grotesque cohabitation.
It is evil in the sight of God.
Gays target the Christian baker knowing that they will deny them. And as soon as the Christian baker refuse, the gays sue for huge amount of money. It is plain extortion. They already have dirty way of life in the eyes of God, and they also have a dirty means of making money for a living by extortion. That is the democrat/liberal way.

They have the freedom to find other bakers who are not Christians, and will be happy to bake them the cake. But they target Christians. The dirty scheme of the gays is to EXTORT.

vernon

Why don't you ever say something in your own words.do you ever have a lucid thought.

buffalo Loc: Texas

The left wing politicians of the DC chicken are just as "guilty" when it comes to criminality. Both the left and right wings of the DC chicken hold themselves and their corporate benefactors above the law. Both wings support a private, for profit corporate prison system with evermore stricter laws and punishment, at taxpayer expense of course. Just like ALL corporate welfare

buffalo Loc: Texas

If you don't like what I post, don't read what I post...

cold iron Loc: White House

When Mr & Mrs. America care not about who or why they vote for someone, then we end up with politicians/bureaucrats that love to pass off their responsibility to anyone/corporation that will do his work for a fee. Now, remember, the fee is your money, not his. Things will never get better until we get smarter, good luck there.

badbob85037

I'm not filthy rich but as I age I haven't gotten poorer. I get paid for what I do and only get better and better has always came with more money. If it didn't no matter how much better I got no one can fix stupid.

buffalo Loc: Texas

Unless and until corporate influence, corporate payoffs to politicians and lobbying (corporations arr NOT people) are removed from politics, it will matter not who the sheople vote into office.

cold iron Loc: White House

Where did you get educated? Corporations are made up of thousands of people, their called "shear holders". On top of that, corporations are beholding to the law. If they break the law the
CEO's, CFO go to jail and get big fines. But, when our leaders are like Obama, Hillary, they make deals with Corps who are buddies of them. They all kind of crap can come out of that. Like all
your drugs can get very costly or just fade away. I take it you are not from America.

buffalo Loc: Texas

Corporations do not vote! To consider a corporation a person is a distortion of what a "person' is. Through their ability to lobby in Congress and donate unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns, corporations have rigged the game to favor them and not real people. Can a real "person" have limited liability like a corporation? Can a real "person" declare bankruptcy, change its name and continue harmful activities. Can a real "person, like Monsanto, spin off a health harming product (Roundup) into another corporation with no assets to avoid payouts on lawsuits? Corporations are NOT people and money is NOT free speech. Corporations are what's wrong in DC. Most politicians in DC are just monkeys for and beholden to their corporate organ grinders instead of the voting citizenry.

Since when did a CEO or CFO go to jail? Which ones went ot jail for the financial crisis they caused in 2008? For that matter when is the last time a politician went to jail? Unless on those rare occasions where they pissed their fellow criminals ...er...politicians off. Obammy, bitch clinton were no more monkeys for their corporate organ grinders than bushie, or frump are.

I am as goddamn American as YOU! The rest of your drivel makes no sense.

cold iron Loc: White House

Real people can change their name. ???
Yes, a real "person" can declare bankruptcy. ???
Can a real "person" have limited liability like a corporation, YES they can!! You need to go back to school.
People like Hillary who has lots of money can make lots of her own FREE speech, may not be true, but.
Yes, most of Congress is beholding to the lobbyist, we can not legislate honesty. We can only punish lawbreakers.