San Quintin
A large portion of the BBC news concerned with America and maybe 15% of reporting concentrates on the United States. Let there be no doubt about the fascination our countries enjoy with each other's business. Today, on Radio 4, a lengthy piece on US prisons, which have swelled four-times between 1975 and 1995 and incarcerate 2.3 million people. The US has less than 5% of the world's population and over 25% of its jail-mates. Go figure. What's more, prior to '75 the US presented itself as a progressive country avoiding terms for rehabilitation. Thanks, in part to the 1960s and Nixon+the rise of the moral majority and conservative right, Uncle Sam got scared and went towards a zero-tolerance policy. It is also Big Business. The UK and Europe contemplate this as crime rates and drug use mostly on the rise during the same eqoque. I often note the UK's 'soft' punishments compared to America - a murder might get nine years or a violent rape less than five. Still, Europe's capital cities no more violent then Chicago or New York or Los Angelese and in most instances, much less violent.
California enacted the Three-Strikes Law in 1994 when I returned home for my extended summer - in a state vote, 72% in favor and 28% against. Simply, anybody convicted of three crimes went to jail for life, regardless of the crime's severity. Federal judge Mike Ballachey who married me and Sonnet disgusted by California's inhumanity - he was forced to sentence minor offenders, and often poor and usually black, to their end without opportunity of rebuttal. The BBC sure picks up on this and a law officer notes how his jail includes a man sent up for stealing a pair of socks. Does not make America look good, sir. And the result: in 1993 California had 336,381 incidents of violent crime. Slightly less than the year before of 346,524. In 2000, violent crime 210,531, while crime generally down across the nation. In 2003 the Supremes weighed in, holding 5-4 that such sentences do not violate the 8th Amendment which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment." By 2007, California state prisons held 170,000 in a system designed for 83,000.
My photo, uncredited, from the WWW. I drove by San Quintin about every day on my way to Sonoma and Help The World See.
