Survivors Guide to Prison Page #7

his innocence and losing hope.

I remember reading

about Bruce Lisker's case

in the magazine

Justice Denied.

They allow people who allege

that they've been

wrongfully convicted

who have a plausible story

to write about their case

with the hope that more

public attention will come.

When I read about Bruce's case,

it was reaffirming to me

that I was on the right path

because even though

he hadn't been exonerated,

he was still looking for help,

he hadn't given up.

[Matthew] You can't give up,

no matter how long it takes.

And it could take a long time.

One of the biggest factors

in why the US

has the largest prison

population in the world

is the length

of our prison sentences.

The average sentence

for burglary in Canada

and in England

is around six months.

In the US,

it's around a year and a half.

In other developed countries,

a drug offense might land you

a year,

year and a half in jail.

In the US,

it's five to ten years or more.

If you're a black man

in America,

your sentence

will be 20% longer

than if you're a white man

for the exact same crime.

The federal law still

holds marijuana

as equal to heroin,

which is unfathomable.

These bullshit laws

that are old

and prehistoric

needs to be changed.

I met a woman that

had a first offense,

nothing more than $5 worth

of crack cocaine

and was sentenced to jail

in 1979

and didn't come home

until 2014.

And she said to me,

"I don't know how

to use no phone.

I don't know how to send a text.

I don't know how to email."

I'm sorry.

High incarceration rates

and longer than necessary

prison terms

have not played

a significant role

in materially improving

public safety,

reducing crime,

or strengthening communities.

In fact,

the opposite is often true.

And as it turns out,

we've known this

for a long time.

In the 1970s,

criminologists had developed

this consensus that, you know,

prisons just didn't work.

But this consensus

was interrupted

by a political movement,

racial anxiety,

racial resentment, and also

to capitalize on, you know,

growing public fear as crime

rates were beginning to rise.

And, you know,

as politicians found

that this get-tough rhetoric,

you know, sold well

to the public,

all of the research and studies

that suggested that prisons

didn't work

were shoved lightly

to the side,

and we went on

a prison-building boom

unlike anything the world

had ever seen before.

And this was compounded

by the war on drugs.

The drug war was born

with a particular group

of people in mind as the enemy.

We must wage what I have called

total war

against public enemy number one,

the problem of dangerous drugs.

Poor people, particularly,

black people

were defined as the enemy

in the war on drugs.

They were defined

that way politically

but also through media imagery.

[male reporter] The nation's

crack cocaine epidemic

is taking

a new and dangerous turn.

[Wayne] White people,

brown people, and black people

all use drugs

and sell drugs at the same rate.

But if we look at who's serving

time in America's prisons...

[Matthew] The law enforcement

apparatus

is deployed disproportionately

against people of color.

Oh, look at that.

And the war on drugs also bears

a major responsibility

for racial bias

in our prison system

as African-Americans

are arrested for drug offenses

at 10 times the rate of whites

and serve longer sentences.

Although people of color make

up only 30% of our populations,

they make up 60% of our prisons.

By the most

conservative estimates,

if we keep going

the way we're going,

one in four black men born today

will go to jail

at some point in their lifetime.

An estimated 5.3

million Americans are denied

the right to vote based

on a past felony conviction.

And that impacts men of color

more than anyone else.

This has got to change.

You know, with any war,

there is some collateral damage,

and although white people

may not have been

the original targets,

they may not have been

the inspiration for the war,

many white people,

particularly poor

and working-class white folks,

have found themselves swept in.

I'm very patriotic.

Love my country.

Not real happy

with my government,

but I love my country.

Paul Rickett

is a US Army veteran

who served in the Gulf War.

I was out like about three weeks

when I got busted for LSD.

I never sold acid.

I never made a dime off of acid.

I took acid on the weekends.

I reimbursed my buddy

for what he paid for it

so that he wasn't giving it

to me for free.

If you want to call

that trafficking,

then I guess I'm a trafficker,

But it was personal use.

We would just fry

and play Frisbee

and listen to rock 'n' roll.

Drug offenses

are another major reason

for America's overflowing

prison population.

The US locks up more people

for drugs

than any other country

on the planet.

There are over

half a million Americans

locked up for drugs

on any given day,

and Paul was one of them.

He was facing a lot of time.

[Paul] Facing 10-year

mandatory minimum.

Then they offered him a deal.

For not forcing the government

to go through

the time and expense of trial.

All he had to do

was plead guilty.

And after some painful

consideration, I took it.

And after all those years

in prison,

one thing bothered Paul

the most.

You know, here we are

in this modern society

where we're a melting pot

and everybody's

getting along for the most part.

And then in prison,

you know,

it's completely the opposite,

you know.

As soon as you get in there,

if you weren't a racist

when you went in,

they require you to be one

as soon as you get in.

Every single jail

and prison in America,

every one I've ever been to,

it's all divided up by race.

Everything's segregated

in there.

You have the white phone,

and you have the Mexican phone,

and you have the black phone,

and you have the Asian phone.

It seems the racism that

helped spark the explosion

of America's prison system

still burns like a raging fire

within its walls

shamefully hidden

from the public eye.

[Bruce] It was a very strict

code of,

depending on your race,

this is what we do.

Even the prison guards

promote this.

Some people theorize

that it's a way for the guards

to keep control over us

because if we all got along,

then who would really

be running the prison?

Us or the guards?

There's one guard

for every 100 guys.

Prison society

is further divided

from race into gangs.

So it helps

to either be in one

or be from

the right neighborhood.

On my ride to prison,

the guy that was next to me,

he was just a regular dude

from Long Beach.

He played basketball

at Poly high school.

He was a regular dude.

He had a flat top.

You know what I mean,

and, you know,

he was going to prison for...

he had took a deal for...

I believe

it was like spousal abuse.

Him and his girl...

it was a terrorist threat.

In the United States,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes