“Up the Ridge” is an award-winning documentary about the United States prison INDUSTRY which moves HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of inner-city minority offenders to distant rural outposts – such as moving people from North Philly to Lancaster. More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year and the federal government $5 billion more.
Although, the Prison Board has run willingly into the arms of Carter, Goble, Lee, I hope that some of our citizens will consider how foolish it is to construct a new prison. It is well-known and completely researched that prisons are a failure. They do not rehabilitate. The prisons do great and costly harm to citizens. The new prisons have been defined as instruments of torture in and of themselves. The prison industry results in the suicides of not only inmates; but many prison employees as well.
We did not need to pay R. Kimball $100,000 to tell us how big a prison we need. This resolved nothing. Noone was rehabilitated. The tax money that is collected from blacks, Hispanics and women is going to pay for this new prison construction. The $55 billion dollars a YEAR in public funds is going into the pockets of white men; and making them incredibly rich. Five states — Vermont, Michigan, Oregon, Connecticut and Delaware — now spend as much as or more on corrections as on higher education. Locally, Maryland is near the top, spending 74 cents on corrections for every dollar it spends on higher education. Virginia spends 60 cents on the dollar.
The projected $169.4M for a new Lancaster County Prison would go directly into the white hands of Carter, Goble, Lee. CGL has grown from performing $5,000 planning studies to one of its most recent contracts, construction of justice, law enforcement and jail facilities in Wake County, N.C., with estimated construction costs of $450 million. There are no people of color on the CGL website http://www.cartergoblelee.com/about/history.php; and I have not seen any black employees of CGL at Prison Board meetings.
America is still making money from black people. But instead of slavery and plantations, we incarcerate them in maximum security prisons. We can take a quick look at the completely disproportionate ratio of black contractors and black employees of Lancaster County Prison compared with the number of black inmates.
And, where the plantation owner used to whip his slaves, we now have high-tech TASERs and EBID Electronic Bodily Immobilization Devices. These are the same devices used to stun animals for meat-processing. They have resulted in a number of deaths of African-Americans. Most recently, on April 14, 2009, Cora Mitchell’s 16-year-old son, Robert Mitchell, who was a special education student, panicked when police pulled over a car driven by his friend and he jumped out of the car and ran. He was killed by the police with a TASER. The friend’s car was pulled over for an unexpired licenseplate. Robert Mitchell did not have any warrants; and his body did not have any contraband on it.
Oh, but this could not happen in Lancaster! I have witnessed mentally ill, mentally retarded black women beaten by sadistic guards in Lancaster County Prison. The guards have used these devices on women, who have committed minor crimes such as disorderly conduct at the unemployment office.
Can we stop to look at who is the monster in the picture? Jim Laughman, who is a public servant of Lancaster County, and is paid to care for our mentally ill citizens; and who states in an official report about a prison suicide that Luis Villafane “chose to seek suicide.” A person who suffers from a disease characterized by suicidal ideation turns to Lancaster County MH/MR and Primecare for help with his illness; and dies a couple days later. Jim Laughman and Primecare deny responsibility; and blame the death on the patient. There are real monsters in Lancaster County Prison; but they are not the inmates.
