The Five People You'll Meet In Prison

The Five People You'll Meet in Prison by Brandon M. Stickney

Part prison diary, part expose, I really didn't learn anything new about the American prison system (in this case the New York state penitentiaries). I saw this guy on the WGN morning news and he was funny and engaging but the book less so. 

The American prison system is set up to punish and the best a prisoner can hope for from the administration and officers is malignant neglect. Stickney meets five people who are kind to him, including a corrections officer.

I think the only thing that I got from the book was an uncomfortable reminder of the number of similarities between American prison life and American life. This is not a new insight from me.

The American prison system is the largest in the world and is thus one of the largest slave plantations on the planet. As far as administration is concerned, it's a win/win. Taxpayer funds for each prisoner and almost free labor out of them. Stickney noted New York state spends $60 grand a year on each prisoner, and perhaps actual spending on prisoners more in the range of $14-20 grand. That's quite a profit. In that situation, as product, as a commodified person, they'd want to treat the prisoners with the least amount of damage. But that's not the case.

Torture, yes, just so the torture would be preferred not to the death (unless they're insane or retarded). In any event the torture is enforcement only, to protect the prison (not the prisoners from each other), but it still happens.

Otherwise it is indifferent neglect and the inmates run the day to day maintenance. 

So am I saying the USA is a prison? No, but it does have a lot of coincidences.

If we treat the USA as a prison system, then the great American dream is to move from prisoner to cop, to boss. Maybe that explains why Americans all want to be take charge like cops and bosses.

Maybe a different take from some other research might help. Below you see trend of household income for the bottom 60%, 61-99% and top 1% from 1986 to 2014. Consider the bottom two thirds prisoners, upper one third cops, and top bosses.

Now see the trend true to scale:

No new insight other than a similar repressive system.