The criminalization of poverty

[kpete]

barbara ehrenreich...

In what has become a familiar pattern, the government defunds services that might help the poor while ramping up law enforcement. Shut down public housing, then make it a crime to be homeless. Generate no public-sector jobs, then penalize people for falling into debt. The experience of the poor, and especially poor people of color, comes to resemble that of a rat in a cage scrambling to avoid erratically administered electric shocks. And if you should try to escape this nightmare reality into a brief, drug-induced high, it’s “gotcha” all over again, because that of course is illegal too.

One result is our staggering level of incarceration, the highest in the world. Today, exactly the same number of Americans -- 2.3 million -- reside in prison as in public housing. And what public housing remains has become ever more prison-like, with random police sweeps and, in a growing number of cities, proposed drug tests for residents. The safety net, or what remains of it, has been transformed into a dragnet.

It is not clear whether economic hard times will finally force us to break the mad cycle of poverty and punishment. With even the official level of poverty increasing -- to over 14% in 2010 -- some states are beginning to ease up on the criminalization of poverty, using alternative sentencing methods, shortening probation, and reducing the number of people locked up for technical violations like missing court appointments. But others, diabolically enough, are tightening the screws: not only increasing the number of “crimes,” but charging prisoners for their room and board, guaranteeing they’ll be released with potentially criminalizing levels of debt.

more:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175428/tomgram%3A_barbara_ehrenreich%2C_on_americans_%28not%29_getting_by_%28again%29/#more
via:
http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/2011/08/criminalization-of-poverty.html

[GliderGuider]

1. Eventually this road ends in Tottenham. nt

[gordianot]

2. Do you think creating poverty has consequences.

Could this be happening in the UK?

[eShirl]

3. if you wanted to reinstitute slavery via ultra-cheap prison labor

this would be how to do it

[lonestarnot]

4. We know how to do it.