John Oliver has tackled the prison industrial complex from multiple sides — including bail and the elections of judges. On Sunday night, he went after mandatory minimum sentencing.
Oliver noted during “Last Week Tonight” that mandatory minimums helped explode the American prison population since the war on drugs that was started in the 1970s by President Nixon.
Now one out of every 100 adults is in lock-up, which Oliver said, is unsustainable.
“We have 2 million people incarcerated. If we keep going this direction, we’ll soon have enough to populate a new country with prisoners. And trust me when I say this is not a good idea,” Oliver said while a map of Australia appeared next to him. “Literally the only good thing to come out of that experiment was Hugh Jackman and it took 180 years. It was worth it, but it took a long time.”
Mandatory minimums have torn families apart and ruined lives for small amounts of drugs, Oliver said.
“Circumstances make a huge difference,” Oliver said.
Watch the clip, from HBO, below:
And it is no coincidence that mandatory minimums also coincided with the rise of the Prison Industrial Complex and for-profit prisons.
We could probably balance the budget if we stopped handing money over to people to incarcerate non-violent individuals.
This whole Reagan era, throw-them-in-jail-and-throw-away-the-key thing, should be a case study of what is wrong, always and everywhere, with authoritarian thought.
In Florida during the same period, some pseudo-Nazis thought it would be a good idea to establish some boot camps for juvenile offenders where they could frog march them around in the sun, and force them to shout YESSIR and NOSSIR and generally learn to obey their bosses in military uniforms. It was widely supported by the right wing until at least one teenager died when his oberfuhrer thought he was faking his breathing problems, and the camp nurse failed to treat him for the same reason. The ensuing lawsuits along with other problems ended the programs.
Will we ever learn that wasting money and lives in an attempt to harshly punish offenders is a bad idea? This is a corollary to the authoritarian idea that we make better, more respectful, children by whipping them to instill fear. They don’t end up respecting you, they only learn to fear and resent you.
It seems it takes a Brit to see us clearly.
Mandatory minimums accomplish nothing positive. It is likely true they make certain people feel good, but the price is ever-increasing costs to society in terms of dollars spent (which, of course, go to the prison industrial complex) and ever-increasing tears in our society. Prison has always be a question of balance between Punishment and Rehabilitation. No longer. It is now only about punishment, and the result is higher rates of recidivism, creation of damaged and destroyed lives, and the introduction of the profit motive. We’ve seen judges fall into the greed mode, making deals with longer sentences in exchange for kickbacks from the corporations that profit from incarceration.
We should be seeking to rebuild lives, not destroy them.
He’s American now, though his gentle ribbing of Australia suggests his essential Britishness is still alive and kicking.