I am about to throw some astonishing facts at you--and all these facts came from one days reading in a newspaper. To a certain extent ours is a free press--I got all this information out of the newspaper--but what astonishing information.
Quote: "While corporate profits were surging to record levels last year, the number of jobs cut approached those seen at the height of the recession. Corporate profits rose 11% in 1994...13% in 1993," while corporate America cut over a half million jobs in 1994.
This is unbelievable--and yet very, very believable. You know the gap between the rich and the poor in America is greater than it is in any civilized Western nation. You know that American corporations are exploiting labor in underdeveloped countries. There are dozens of reasons why Americans are being fired, and yet corporate profits are soaring.
In the same day's newspaper there is a story about the rising crime among teenagers, and the rising cost of keeping teenagers, of keeping all offenders in prison.
A really good newspaper would draw a connection between these two stories. Is it any wonder that crime & violent crime is rising, Countless studies have shown a clear correlation between a rise in poverty and a rise in crime. What hope is there for most of these teenagers--no hope except a low paying, dead-end, grinding job. Why not turn to crime, to drugs. What does the future promise them? Nothing good--and yet around them, a select few are enormously rich.
Meanwhile these rich few must pay a great deal of money to house these violent criminals. Would you like to hear the exact figures? They astonished me--and they tried to hide the exact figure from the public. The newspaper did not give yearly figures--it gave the cost of housing one prisoner per day. Most readers won't take the time to figure out how much that is per year. I did.
The actual gist of the article is that it is cheaper to house Michigan offenders in prisons in other states. It costs $207 @ day to house a prisoner in Michigan. In a high security prison in Colorado it costs $179.50, and in a regular security prison in Pennsylvania it costs $98 @ day. How much is that a year? $76,000 in Michigan, $66,000 in Colorado & $36,000 in Pennsylvania, and yes Michigan is sending some of its overflow of prisoners to both these states.
But still, think of those unbelievable figures--$76,000 @ year, 66,000 dollars @ year--most Americans don't earn that much money a year, will never earn that much money in any given year--and yet we are idiotic enough to spend that much every year to house-feed-care for certain violent people.,
We are idiots--greedy idiots. It makes more sense to try to give them a decent wage in the first place, rather than end up paying something like $100,000 a year to protect ourselves from them, and to jail more & more of them.
Copyright © 2004 Henry Morgenstein