As the election looms closer, it’s easy not to think of people in prison at all, except maybe as statistics. Those in prison are easy to dismiss. Yet it would surprise most people that the people in here are very politically astute. There is a reason for that: it’s because elected officials’ politics disproportionately impact marginalized communities. Perhaps more than any other demographic, their policies directly affect our lives.
The census counts incarcerated people as residents of the prison in which they are housed, which are most often in rural areas, rather than residents of their permanent, pre-incarceration communities. “Residents in Chicago are actually having their political power deflated,” Kasey Henricks told Medill Reports in 2019. Henricks, a professor of sociology at the University of Tennessee, co-authored a 2017 report on racial inequality in Chicago that found the political power of predominantly white downstate communities is “artificially inflated” at the expense of predominantly Black and Brown districts that are impacted by mass incarceration.
Tough-on-crime doesn’t lead to a crackdown on embezzlement. It doesn’t lead to more police in predominantly white and affluent neighborhoods. It means “we’ll keep those poor Black people out of your neighborhoods.” What poor and Black and Brown communities need is further economic investment and development, jobs and opportunities. These communities are already overwhelmed with institutionalized racist and classist oppression. They don’t need to be cracked down upon. They need to be lifted up.
The Reader does this now? Pity. It used to have a different priority than corrections/politics (like every other paper in town), but it is what it is. Since this is an opinion piece, I won't be too hard on it. I'll simply say I've been reading the same opinion for 30+ years.
I think they mean the state exists to protect and should actually do it. It's fair to examine parenting and education as the root cause of full prisons. But politicians and dishonest media don't want solutions just blame to gain votes.
Nonsense. Your a waste. And a drain on resources. Of course you should be marginalized. You’ve done that to yourselves. Quit blaming “racism” because your culture is generally uncivilized and unable to live peacefully or prosperously ANYWHERE on the planet. No one wants U!!!
51stWard it really means that election time is coming and they will tell people what they want to hear…and then revert to “Progressive” pro-crime policies once they are re-elected.🙄
Well, if you do the crime... do the time. Deal with it. I hope they put every single criminal away for a long time so the rest of us can go for a stupid walk without fear. Deal with it.
Well compare the Crime to the Race of the offenders committing them and show me the math that supports the White Supremacy theory? 300 Black Children Shot and 57 Killed last year. How many of those lives were lost to Racists or Police behind the trigger 🤔 I WILL WAIT ✋
Dear Reader: 80% of the crime being committed AGAINST black people are BLACK criminals. You dam right we want candidates who are 'tough on crime.'
No, no, no, that's not what they mean, come on now, tough on crime means exactly that, keeping the criminal element off the streets so they don't terrorize people's neighborhood.
That’s right. It’s seems politically well connected folks and large financial institutions can break the laws, committing outrageous crimes and they’re not even prosecuted!
Great article! The last season of the Motive podcast covers the IL prison system. It’s worth a listen.
And that’s why nothing will ever change. You simply can’t stop putting race into every problem.
Coded language. That's what it's always meant
Need to get tougher on crimes like obstruction and treason.
Yup. That why you see clowns like Ray Lopez RLopez15thWard screaming we should lock up people for shoplifting while, at the same time, Ray begs a judge to not sentence Patrick Daley Thompson to prison for stealing $210,000 from a bank
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