EXPOSING THE LIES ABOUT VIOLENT CRIME AND PRISONS

 

©Wendell Griffen, 2022

 

 

On Monday (February 14), Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson announced that he wants Arkansas legislators to appropriate up to $100 million to build another prison that can house 498 people. Divide $100 million by 498. The number you will see on your calculator is $200,803.21.

That is how much Hutchinson wants Arkansans to spend to build more cages to house people.

According to an online report issued by the Prison Policy Initiative, Arkansas has an incarceration rate of 942 per 100,000 people (including prisons, jails, immigration detention, and juvenile justice facilities), meaning that it locks up a higher percentage of its people than any democracy on earth (https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/AR.html).

When people opposed to his plan shouted “No more cages” from the gallery of the Arkansas House Chamber during his speech to legislators, Governor Hutchinson said, “Let me emphasize that this need for a new facility is not a reflection of a change in incarceration policy. It is simply the fact that we have a growing state, and we are growing in projections of 1.4 percent" each year.

Hmmm. So instead of investing in early childhood education, salaries for teachers, and school buildings, Hutchinson wants to spend $100 million for a prison.

 

Instead of investing more money in healthcare, Hutchinson wants to spend $100 million for a prison.

 

Instead of investing more money in community colleges and job training programs, Hutchinson wants to spend $100 million for a prison.

 

If Hutchinson proposed to spend $100 million to create more cemeteries because “we have a growing state” people with good judgment would condemn his plan as morally outrageous. People with sound judgment do not spend the money that could improve education, health, and income on incarceration. Arkansas leads the world in incarcerating its residents because we place more value on incarceration than education, healthcare, and improving the lot of our people.

 

Why? Because too many people are addicted to the lie that more jails and prisons make a society safer. That lie was repeated in the closing words of a February 17 editorial in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in these words.

 

That necessarily means more cars on the road, more people paying taxes--and a need for more prison beds. Some disagree. But we wonder if any of them would volunteer to have a released criminal move next door.

Our opinion on the matter comes from an accident of copy editing. Or maybe pagination. Because right next to Tuesday's story on the front of the Arkansas section about the protest during the governor speech was another article. Its headline read: Gunfire in LR claims 2 lives

over weekend. And that says more than any protest against prisons might.

 

There is no evidence that Arkansas is safer than any other democracy in the world because it leads the nation and rest of the world in locking people in prisons. There is no evidence that building another prison will make Arkansas safer. There is no evidence that prisons prevent or cure violent crime. None.

 

Hutchinson, the editorial writer at the Dem-Gaz newspaper, and the rest of the prison-loving crowd know that is true. They are not idiots or fools. They are frauds. They aren’t concerned about truth.

 

They simply want more places to put the people they have long wanted to not vote, educate, and live around. As the population of Black and Latinx people increases, they want money for more prisons.

 

Not more schools.

 

Not more teachers.

 

Not more physicians and nurses.

 

Not more job training programs.

Not more community mental health clinics and therapists.

 

Not places where the rising non-white population can live and grow freely.

 

Unfortunately, Arkansas voters have consistently elected politicians who not only have poor judgment. Their penchant for poor judgment is worsened by sacralized racism and white supremacy.

 

Hence, the only statewide daily newspaper of general circulation ended an editorial about nonviolent protestors being roughly treated by law enforcement officers after the protestors shouted “No more cages” during Hutchinson’s speech by quoting a headline about two homicides in Little Rock.

 

Violence comes in many forms. Destroying the Ninth Street Black business district to build a concrete pathway called I-630 was violence.

 

Killing, mauling, and terrorizing unarmed Black and Latinx people in the name of “law enforcement” is violence.

 

Forcing Black people in east Little Rock away from their homes to lengthen airport runways was violence.

 

Forcibly removing the elected Little Rock School District Board of Directors and state takeover of the LRSD was violence.  

 

The proposal by the superintendent of the Little Rock School District, which has the largest population of Black and Latinx students, to close four elementary schools in neighborhoods where Black, Latinx, and low wealth children live is violence.

 

Politicians working to divert funds appropriated by the federal government for Covid 19 relief to expand jails and build prisons is violence.

 

How dare Governor Hutchinson and his political cronies – including the editorialists at the Democrat-Gazette – feign concern about violence. They oversee a statewide enterprise in violence every day!

 

Call them hypocrites. Call them liars. Call them frauds. Because they are.