Making money off of prisoners

LeAnne Clausen's prison cell: Drawn by LeAnneI just received another set of letters from prison, written by LeAnne Clausen. (Actually, they are e-mails typed up by friends of hers, based on her correspondence from prison, and sent out via a group created on the social networking web site Facebook, but no matter!) LeAnne is one of the 11 peace and justice activists who were arrested last November for "crossing the line" at the School of the Americas Watch in Columbus, GA, at the annual protest there. (She also participated in FOR's December 2007 peace delegation to Iran, and has traveled to Iraq and other countries with groups like the Christian Peacemaker Teams.)

LeAnne's reflections, like all good prison writing, address the systemic nature of oppression in our incarceration industry (what some refer to as our "culture of punishment") as well as tell personal stories. She talks of her cellmate, of the immigrant women who she and other inmates try to help with translation of their court documents (despite widespread anti-immigrant bias in the prison, among both inmates and staff), of food fights in the dining hall, of the women paying rapt attention to a documentary film on Matthew Sheperd being broadcast on the TV in the gathering room. (You can read all her writings on her blog, Journal of a Young Activist.)

Her latest installment included a commentary on the Catch-22 financial predicament that subjects many impoverished people to time behind bars. I had just read the latest newsletter from the Prison and Jail Project (P&JP), based in rural Americus, GA, and the issues that LeAnne raised were strikingly familiar.

In an entry dated April 11th, LeAnne writes:

Every night I am here I watch girls cry, usually on the phone, usually because someone hasn’t come to bond them out. This is a pervasive strain in the unit, the issue of bond. The people who are here, for the most part, are people who can’t afford to not be here.

My roommate, who finally got out today, went through a terribly painful ordeal as her family went to each member and friend, borrowing money, expecting them to make it back here before each deadline, still not enough, pawning more possessions, again not enough, dissolving into tears after being so hopeful day after day, that they’d already packed. Another girl was given rising bail -- $2000 the day of court, $3,000 next, $4,000 the next -- or off to prison for the next three years without a chance to go home after sentencing.

Federal cases are worse, you may spend years in this building while your case is being processed, and never see the light of day past your six inch window strip. Two gir!s here are in this predicament. I am extremely lucky. I have a definite ‘out date.’ The chaplain I met with this week suggested I focus my Bible study on Paul, who pastured and taught even as he was a prisoner among prisoners, that this might be a good frame and function for me as a young pastor behind bars.

For those of you who pray, pray this week for my young friends in the Holy Name 6, who were treated quite badly in police custody after their nonviolent protest against the war Easter Sunday. They are young, but I think they have admirable convictions. If you can, please contribute to their legal support on my behalf.

What her story reminded me of, from the latest P&PJ newsletter, was their own efforts to monitor the courthouses in that rural area. They have found, time and again, that the criminal "justice" system exploits those without money, education, or power, by forcing people to make life decisions that either put them behind bars for extended periods of time and/or finance the corrupt system. What is particularly egregious is how many of these aspects of the courts have been outsourced to private companies, who stand to make a profit on all aspects of this cycle.

We have a grave need in our country for a reshaping of our justice system.