There's a provocative diary on the Rec List concerning Bradley Manning and the other Americans unjustly held in solitary confinement. I see it as a welcome opportunity to discuss putting an end to the prison-industrial complex and the racially-biased drug war used to sustain it.
Follow me past the jump for more.
Here is a simple fact: We incarcerate more of our own people than does any other nation. This has been true for many years now.
One out of every hundred Americans is currently in prison. Many if not most are in prison because of drugs offenses that wouldn't be crimes in many civilized nations. That's why reforming our drug laws is so important.
How many people are we jailing for drugs offenses? Lots. In 2007, arrests for marijuana possession alone outnumbered all other arrest types -- combined. In addition to reducing the number of incarcerated persons in overcrowded prisons, reforming our drug laws will drastically lower the amount of violent crime, especially at the Mexican border. Contrary to what anti-immigration (and generally secretly anti-black or anti-brown) persons like to claim, drug wars, not the movement of undocumented workers, are the main driver of violence along the US-Mexico border.
Just Say Now to ending the prison-industrial complex that targets persons of color at a disproportionate rate.