Transcript
Next Week Profit over Justice “Prison has become more profit than justice.” Every year taxpayers are given a bill to pay by their state penitentiaries. The amount is derived by an average of the base sum of $33,000, a figure which is estimated by the D.O.C to be the amount of money it takes to house an average non-violent inmate. Within the bill footed by taxpayers every last detail is included so why is it that D.O.C still charges $2.00 per month utilities and %1 of every dollar one receives from your family? The cost of living rises every year and recently big corporations such as McDonalds and Walmart have been under fire for not raising their base pay to meet living standards of their employees. Huge strikes have been put on by workers and demonstrations by workers have popped up in several states. D.O.C has not changed and in fact has decreased their wages within the last 15 years that I’ve unfortunately been in the system. The wages have gone down and the prices of everyday necessities have gone up, and I mean dramatically up. One quick example is Tobacco and yes granted it kills you but this is just the most glaring contrast of the price changes. In 2002 with the max pay wage at .50 a pouch of Midnite Special Tobacco was ¢.75 now it’s a whopping $4.34 and max pay is now ¢.45. A bag of coffee went from $1.35 to 2.95 and so on an so forth. D.O.C standards and efforts to cut cost leave and Inmate always feeling hungry. One cannot go comfortably the whole day and into the night living on the basic 3 meals offered Monday thru Friday then only 2 offered on the Weekend. Hunger is primarily driving Inmates to look for “alternative” ways of earning money to eat. Arts & Crafts was for a long time a honest way of making more money but now the materials that made for quality craft work’s were eliminated and narrowed down to water painting, drawing, and origami. It is not encouraged, and, or right but some Inmates ignorantly in some instances to better their living take to, selling drugs, “Keystering drugs”, and or babysitting cellphones for pay which is essentially food. These practices are not only security risks, but could further endanger the inmates lives putting them in tricky situations. D.O.C is more concerned with filling their coffers and re-electing Republican judges and contributing to Republican campaigns in an effort to monopolize the Arizona Ju$tice $ystem and keep bopping taxpayers over the head. Prisons receive more Tax Dollars then schools, enough said. Sadly A.D.OC. is not content with Tax-payer dollars they want to scrooge and enslave inmate workers which in effect make the system run. To top all this off and even more downright evil. A.D.O.C can’t even come up with alternate activities to help inmates make an extra buck to eat. The “hobby-craft” program is non-existent. For years manual art crafts help inmates not only thrive but stay out of trouble. All this has been reduced to water-paints, and origami. The D.O.C is putting prisoners farther and further behind the 8 ball, there is no regulation or Prisoner advocates to check and Balance this aspect of Prison. Man has evolved in astronomical literally leaps and bounds, however the the Prison System is still stuck in the Dark ages. DOC’s greed has placed a huge burden on taxpayers and inmates alike. This Burden takes a toll on an inmates work, making them work harder for less benefit mainly by lowering wages and increasing cost of living prices. Security can be compromised by inmates trying to eat better. An independent humane review of these practices would check these unfair practices, for the better of Inmates and taxpayers.
