Behind Bars

With my court date due to arrive shortly and having been incarcerated and assaulted in jail, the concept of steel doors and bars and cages enters my mind frequently. I thought it was quite silly to put a person like me who has dedicated his life to non-violence behind doors that could withstand a stick of dynamite. I wonder what it says about humanity that we do such things to others. I think it says that humanity is only interested in quick and simple solutions to its problems. That it is more expedient to strip away a persons human dignity by placing labels on them in an attempt to turn them into an IT, so society can absolve themselves of any guilt or sense of culpability in the situation. Whatever happened to the concept of re-training and re-education? Whatever happened to listening to a persons story to identify what happened to bring them to where they are and doing something about it? This is how you solve problems, not by burying the problem in a jail cell. When you simply lock someone up and throw a away the key you are saying that the problems don't exist. You are saying, "I don't care about you because you are a CRIMINAL. You are not a person." I can understand restraining violent people in this manner because of the possibility that they would harm others, but allot of people in jail are not there for violence. Yet they are thrown in with those that are violent and in doing so they are forced to survive in that environment by becoming violent themselves. I have seen this happening with my own eyes. Every society on the face of the earth uses jails and prisons except one. The one that doesn't use jails and prisons utilizes re-training and re-education and is dedicated to love and compassion for all people. It is a great misfortune for America and the world as a whole that we are not.

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