After losing a friend to incarceration to the war on drugs, I was talking to another gentleman. He was telling me how he knew about the case and how the government informant was wrong for telling on these individuals. He said because that man had children just like the government informant did. He said and when it all boils down it’s about the kids. He said and since then he has wanted to change the way that he lives. He said that he wants to get a job. So I said you don’t have any work history. I told him even at the temporary service they want you to have work history. He was like I walked away from that life, and I’m ready to get a job, but it’s hard.
Every since that conversation it has stuck in my mind. In reality how can he just walk away from that life? I suggested that he goes back to school. I don’t know anything about his background if he has been incarcerated long term or short term. I don’t know if he has a diploma or GED or if he dropped out of school. Never the less he is a man that wants to change how he lives.
How can he or any other man or woman make it in this society after living the life of a hustler? This society is set up for failure. After reading everything that I have about the war on drugs-minimum mandatory sentencing and incarceration, I feel that the whole system is a catch 22. They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
I know a man that went to prison for attempting to sell a look alike substance. He was on drugs. He came home and he finally was able to get a job. However a man in his mid to late 30’s trying to change his life and fight the temptation of drugs. How could he do that making $6.50 an hour? This man would walk to work from one side of town to the other. It would be in the depth of winter yet he was walking to work. He could count on one how many times he had missed. In the end he ended up going back to using drugs. What incentive is making $6.50 an hour and you have children to take care of?
We know how hard it is for people that haven’t lived the life of hustling to get a job. So how can it be so much easier for them? I’m so tired of people saying they should have worked a real job. In reality it’s hard for us to work a real job, so can we imagine how much harder it is for them?
Yet we don’t see Congress passing laws and making it easier for people that want to turn their lives around. In most States after a drug conviction most women and men can’t get welfare. So if that’s not punishing them for a crime that they have already paid their debt to society for what is it?
I’m having a hard time understanding how companies will hire men and women to work for them while incarcerated but they wouldn’t hire them before they became incarcerated and they definitely aren’t going to hire them afterwards. Yet if they would have given most of these individuals the opportunity to work and support their families they wouldn’t have been in the situation they were incarcerated for.
Why hasn’t a bill been introduced into Congress saying that if a company uses prison labor that they have to employ so many ex cons after they are released?
Why hasn’t these things happened? As Americans we don’t demand our fellow Americans are treated with dignity and respect. We look down on them because of some poor choices they have made in the past and we make it so they can never put those mistakes in the past.
My last thought is this. A judge sentences a man to 25 years in prison. Then orders him a 26,000.000 fine to pay when he gets out. That man will be released according to The FBOP when he is in his early 50’s. Where is that man supposed to get that type of money from? He is getting out with a debt knowing that if it isn’t paid where will he end up? So if that’s not pushing that life style back in that man’s face then what is it doing. You have taken this man’s life away from him. So when he does return to society first and foremost he has to be able to pay the government.
While in prison these men and women receive a fine that has to be paid while incarcerated and one to be paid upon their release. HMMMM-So an inmate makes on an average of $5-10 dollars a month. Yet they have to pay anywhere between $20 on up a month on their fine. Where are they supposed to get the money from? Let’s hope they have a supportive family that steps in. If they don’t pay the fines they end up in punishment housing and can’t purchase commissary.
A man is a man before he is a convict, drug dealer, drug user or a prisoner. To try and rob them of being who they are first only creates a problem in society that we can’t deal with. Unnecessary incarceration. Robbing a man of his identity and in reality all he wants to do is provide for his family. No matter how you trace it-no matter how you look at it. It still goes back to family.
After Katrina hit in New Orleans I remember President Bush saying that he didn’t know the poverty level was that bad. Well imagine that. You see people without jobs so when someone in their family goes to provide for them the only way they know how, they are locked up for years on top of years.
So tell me how are we suppose to succeed and beat the odds?

We need to start holding our elected officials accountable and make them work for the situations in the United States.
Educated and Rehabilate and not just locking people up and throwing away the keys.


SUPPORT BILL H.R. 3072 TO REVIVE PAROLE AND GOOD TIME FOR NON VIOLENT OFFENDERS