Over 3,000 Nonviolent Offenders Serving Life Without Parole in US Prisons

By JG Vibes

A new report from the ACLU shows that there are 3,281 prisoners in America serving life sentences, with no chance of parole for committing non-violent “crimes”.

Many of these outrageous sentences are the result of strict “3 strikes” laws, mandatory minimum sentencing, and drug war persecution.

The report’s author Jennifer Turner said that the US is “virtually alone in its willingness to sentence non-violent offenders to die behind bars.” _[1]

Some of these people are guilty of theft or fraud, which are legitimate crimes and violations of natural law that should certainly be dealt with.  However, even these cases carry sentences that are far too harsh for the crime.

Additionally, a large portion of these people are serving life sentences for buying, selling or possessing prohibited items like certain types of drugs and guns.  People who deal with guns and drugs are typically maligned in the media, but owning or trading an item does not violate anyone’s health or property, and thus is not a real crime.  This goes for drugs, guns and any other object that politicians wish to prohibit.

That is by far the largest prison population in the world, no country on earth has as many inmates as the “land of the free”. Since 1991 the violent crime rate in America has dropped at least 20%, while the amount of people in prison has increased by 50% in that time. These numbers show that the rapid increase in prisoners is largely due to over prosecution of nonviolent crimes. This has nothing to do with “cleaning up the streets” or making our society safer, this is about controlling society and turning human beings into a cash crop.

The way our prison system has been structured has actually outlawed more than half of the US population. Nonviolent offenders have no place behind bars, if anything the savage conditions of prison will turn most people into violent offenders once they get out. Which is exactly what the prison establishment wants, return customers.

Most of the people caught up in the prison system are from the working class and are doing time for petty nonviolent crimes. Usually if someone has enough money or influence they can avoid incarceration by cutting deals with the prosecution or paying off officials, this obviously isn’t an option for most Americans. It has always been rare for someone from the upper class to end up behind bars. In the middle ages peasants who were not able to pay high taxes or debts were thrown in dungeons called “debtors prisons“, sometimes for their entire lives. Since these times incarceration has traditionally been a struggle of the working poor and lower classes and a tool for the ruling class to maintain power. It is quite common for political dissenters and protestors to be locked away simply for refusing to comply with the government, and in our culture it even goes several steps further.

The growing police state and the constant influx of oppressive, complicated laws are responsible for the massive increase in the prison population that has taken place over the past decade. Every single day for hundreds of years new laws have been spit out of our legislative system, most of which have been designed to benefit the ruling class who work in finance and politics. The average citizen has very little time to spend contributing to the legislative process and even if they did their opinion would hold very little weight next to the powerful lobby groups that dominate Washington. The ruling class is guilty of the most horrifying crimes against humanity and is responsible for the exploitation, displacement and murder of millions of people. These are the biggest criminals on the face of the earth, but the prison system wasn’t built for them, it was actually built BY them. So the legal system doesn’t represent absolute moral authority like it claims to, but it is simply a tool that has been created by the elite to maintain dominance over the population.

The worst thing about this whole situation is that this system is doing nothing to keep anyone safe. The propaganda that the police are “the good guys” here to “serve and protect” is the big lie that cloaks the violence and corruption of the state in an air of legitimacy. The first step to removing this false legitimacy and revealing the truth is to simply stop sugarcoating this violence in newspeak and stop pretending that the state actually does anything to prevent violent crime.

Sources:

[1] Over 3,000 US prisoners serving life without parole for non-violent crimes – Guardian