Haves And Have Nots

There is a huge disparity In the proportion of poor people in jail, compared to the proportion of poor people in the general population. In other words, poor people are more likely to go to jail than middle class, or rich people. Disproportion carries over into race. The prison system is overwhelmingly black and brown. Why is this so? Is this just a coincidence, or is it a predictable consequence of social Darwinism in a capitalist system?

I do not pretend to posit that everyone in jail is simply on the losing end of a system that by it's very nature, requires unfortunate souls to feed it. The majority of people in jail have done something to get there, but there is a context to their story. What are the conditions in their lives that have brought than to this point?

I worry that the quickening pace of technological advance is going to leave more and more people behind, with little chance to effectively compete for the good life. Unskilled laborers are so plentiful, that they have to settle For the lowest wages the law will allow.

Our present and future generations will have to compete effectively not just with each other, but with much of the Industrialized world. The prison industrial complex, in large part, will be fed with the collateral damage from our school systems, our fading social safety- net, and our slow-to-evolve businesses.

I am privileged to get to see many children, in my professional and personal lives. I find it absolutely amazing how children are on the path to privilege and poverty, almost as a kind of social inheritance, from birth. For those who inherit poverty and the accompanying poor school systems that their neighborhood can afford, someone is projecting how much prison space will be needed for them in the future.

I am not recommending that people from lower socioeconomic status' abandon all hope. I am recommending exactly the opposite. Knowledge is power, and understanding the paradigms in which we live is paramount. I am recommending that people work to truly understand the times they live in and the historical context that brought them to this point. The stakes are incredibly high.