orange is the new black and australian prisons

I've recently become addicted to the TV show Orange is the New Black. Orange Is the New Black revolves around Piper Chapman who is sent to a women's federal prison for 15 months for transporting a suitcase full of drug money. The characters in the show are deep and complex and each episode drives the overall series plot whilst focusing on a smaller character driven plot. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

While the show is focused on the American prison system the issues that arise out of these conditions are not unique to America. In a country with relatively low crime rate, paradoxically Australia has a high incarceration rate. Prison populations are projected to rise and accelerate primarily because of harsher sentencing. So is there a disconnect between crime and punishment in Australia's states?

Prisons are an extremely expensive, blunt and harmful instrument for crime control. It costs between $90,000 to $100,000 a year to house someone in prison, this price goes up to roughly $140,000 if prisoners are female. Moreover, prison construction is extremely expensive - in Victoria it's about half a million dollars per prison bed so Victorian jails are at capacity and the state spends literally billions of dollars on prison expansion to house these people who will be sent through into jail through these harsher sentencing policies.

New South Wales has traditionally imprisoned people at twice the rate of Victoria for no gains in terms of the safety of the population. This is despite the data which shows that the crime rates in Victoria and New South Wales are similar. The quickest way to marginalise someone is to connect them with the criminal justice system so that they then become someone entrenched in a completely other way of living.

A compounding issue to all of this is that prisoners and prison guards assume predefined societal roles that are hard to break. The Stanford prison experiment (Zimbardo's Prison Experiment) was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. 24 volunteers were selected to participate in the study and were randomly assigned to be either prisoners or prison guards. The participants adapted to their roles well beyond Zimbardo's expectations, as the guards enforced authoritarian measures and ultimately subjected some of the prisoners to psychological torture. Many of the prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse and, at the request of the guards, readily harassed other prisoners who attempted to prevent it. The experiment even affected Zimbardo himself, who, in his role as the superintendent, permitted the abuse to continue. Two of the prisoners quit the experiment early and the entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days. At the conclusion of the experiment it seemed that the situation, rather than their individual personalities, caused the participants' behaviour (basically the societal environment is the driving force of behaviour).

Prisons merely breed more crime as inmates further take on their assumed roles. Recidivism rates are higher amongst people who are processed through traditional prisons compared to thereauputic and restorative justice systems. Furthermore, funds can be redirected towards important community needs such as education, health, post release programs, public housing, transport, and rehabilitation facilities across the country. Spending money in these areas would provide community service opportunities as an alternative to incarceration.

Prison acts as a broad brush for societal ills. We lock up murderers and we lock up those who have robbed a store to fuel an addiction.

There are alternatives though; Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Restorative Justice (the Koori Courts in Victoria are a prime example of the success of this method), Mentoring programs and Rehabilitation Programs have all shown success in decreasing recidivism.

Unfortunately it is all too easy for a politician to just say they are tough on crime than look at this issue with a more nuanced perspective.

not much to ask

Whenever the issue of Asylum Seekers comes up in Australia and the various 'solutions' are presented to the public, I am reminded of the words of Minister for Trade and Customs, T.W. White;

'It will no doubt be appreciated also that as we have no racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one'

He said this in 1938 when 22 nations of the Western world convened to discuss what to do with Jewish Refugees.

There is little that is more honourable than living the moral conviction of saving the lives of others. And yet when people arrive on our shores we feel comfortable to collectively turn our backs on them.

I think as Australians we need to remember the second verse of our National Anthem and the lines;

'For those who've come across the seas

We've boundless plains to share;

With courage let us all combine

To Advance Australia Fair'

Because of the nature of our privileged lives I think it can be difficult to imagine what it means to HAVE to leave your country. We privileged few, with our interconnected and often comfortable lives, cannot fathom being forced to leave your family, not knowing what fate awaits them because of your departure, or if you will ever see them again.

Our international travels, our rough nights in seedy hostels, our vomit-inducing bus trips through windy hills in foreign lands give us no insight into the plight of someone who has fled in the night.

Our "difficult" choices of where our kids should study, where to have breakfast with friends, what job to take are so petty and small in comparison to the choice between fleeing and dying.

It is so easy. No one is asking you to experience these things; no one is asking for you to even imagine them.

All that is being asked of you is for a modicum of respect and assistance for those that have left bloodshed and persecution; to display compassion towards those for whom death at sea in a rickety boat is preferable to the places they have come from. 

Don't Swear

During Rudd’s return to power and the changing of the guard that accompanied it there was an issue of one of the MPs being sworn in on the Koran. Australia, being the civilized and multicultural country that it is, vilified Ed Husic with a level of bile and disrespect that was reminiscent of the Cronulla Riots in 2005.

Well… I also have an issue with Ed Husic being sworn in on the Koran. I also have an issue with all of the other MPs who were sworn in on religious texts as well.

Ed Husic with our Governor General

4 out of 5 of Australia’s current MPs were sworn in on a religious text. With the majority using a bible - a small proportion used the Torah and the Koran. Within the Australian legal system swearing on a bible is still the norm during witness testimony and jury selection.

Maybe they have not read the section of the bible that expressly forbids swearing an oath:

“But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King.  And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black.  All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” Mathew 5:33-37

But this is beside the point.

Having our MPs swear an oath to God while using a Bible only helps reinforce religiosity as the norm in Australia (in particular Christianity). The problem is that I don’t want someone’s religious beliefs affecting their decisions during formal legal proceedings. I realize that this is not something to can be entirely stamped out (thought crime is so very 1984), however by affirming on a bible it does some harm by re-affirming that this is something we consider to be respectable and something that we value.

Which religions are we going to allow people to be sworn in on? If a MP professes belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster and wants to be sworn in holding a pack of pasta should that be allowed?

So, a), someone holding their hand over a book does not guarantee their integrity, their belief in the rights of Australians, or that they will not lie, cheat, or steal their way through office. A book cannot do that.

But, b), I also believe that there can be little integrity to be found in swearing on a book that contains the following: 

"I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be quiet." Timothy 2:12 

 "Then God said: 'Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I will point out to you'." Genesis 22:2 

 "Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse." Peter 2:18 

 "When the men would not listen to his host, the husband seized his concubine and thrust her outside to them. They had relations with her and abused her all night until the following dawn, when they let her go. Then at daybreak the woman came and collapsed at the entrance of the house in which her husband was a guest, where she lay until the morning. When her husband rose that day and opened the door of the house to start out again on his journey, there lay the woman, his concubine, at the entrance of the house with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, 'Come, let us go'; but there was no answer. So the man placed her on an ass and started out again for home." Judges 19:25-28

(note: I have left out direct quotes from the Koran, because I couldn’t be bothered finding the section where Mohammed takes a 9 year old wife)

And so on, and so on. We're condoning a set of fundamentally immoral books.

I realize that this is impossible to effectively stop, but we can mitigate or discourage this by making an affirmation on the constitution.

We empower ourselves with responsibility over our actions, responsibility over our destinies, and responsibility for directing, maintaining and creating our own ethical and moral frameworks, which is the ultimate goal - isn't it?

The idea that we don’t know right from wrong but must take our inspiration for it from a book that was written by hot headed and neurotic desert tribes is insane.

So yes I have a problem with Ed Husic being sworn in on the Koran, but I also have an issue with every juror, every witness and every MP having the bible as the default rather than our constitution.

fuck the police

Fuck the police coming straight from the underground

A young nigga got it bad cause I'm brown

And not the other color so police think

They have the authority to kill a minority

Fuck that shit, cause I ain't the one

For a punk motherfucker with a badge and a gun

To be beating on, and throwing in jail -NWA

The dominant story around police in society is that they are the guardians of the public – they exist to protect us from harm, from ‘the bad guys’. Just look at the narrative that is portrayed on TV every night with shows like CSI, Law & Order, Criminal Minds, Highway Patrol etc.

The role of Police has expanded over time and now fulfills a number of roles in society. Every society has some societal policing mechanism. Saying ‘fuck the police’ is equivalent to saying ‘fuck the public transport’ - it seems at odds with the reality. However we can fundamentally question the role that policing has taken in our society even if we agree it is too simple to say ‘fuck the police’.

Too broadly break down the role of police we can see a number of separate roles:

-       First responders; this is shared with the firefighters and the ambulance service. Strangely enough we do not say ‘fuck the firefighters’ or ‘fuck the EMTs’. 

 -       Reactive Actors of Justice. Yes part of their role is catching the ‘bad guys’. Importantly someone only becomes a ‘bad guy’ once they have done something ‘bad’. As we know from the numerous American shootings, until the ‘bad guy’ starts killing innocents they have done nothing wrong. 

 -       Behavior Enforcement and regulation of Spatial Merit. This role takes on a darker narrative, one that is well known to anyone who has lived or worked in marginalized communities. Police exist to enforce the rules that govern which bodies may occupy which spaces, and the ways in which bodies interact with each other within space.

The major issue is that the police institution itself is founded upon oppressive policies that uphold a social hierarchy; it is no wonder that people of colour, homeless people, and the mentally ill are so often on the receiving end of a baton.

One is hard-pressed to name a social justice movement that has not been opposed by deployment of the police. How can the police not be brutal, violent, racist and oppressive? That is the job they are forced to fulfill.

I think that a key issue is that we have lumped too many different roles on the police. Certainly we can shift the roles that the police have from them to broader society. While a complete abolition of the police system would require a change in social order, some alternatives to the current police system set out to empower people to keep their communities safe, while encouraging everyone to live lives that are free of violence and oppression. A society with little or no policing requires strong community organizations to mediate and react to conflict when it does occur.

Communities need to embrace a proactive, problem-solving approach that focuses on prevention, where it is everyone’s job to promote safety.

Ward Clapham, Vancouver’s retired police chief, proposes a new paradigm or mind-set that is made up of three ideas: initiative, partnership, and prevention. This concept of societal responsibility is in line with the original concept of modern policing put forward by Sir Robert Peel.

The police are the public and the public are the police and the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it. – Sir Robert Peel

What we need to do is question what is illegal and why it is so. Are our sentencing and our laws in line with a system that maximizes well-being? Why not limit the police force to crimes against someone's freedom (e.g. robbery, assault, identity theft, rape, etc.).

The other part of the equation is to fundamentally question what role we are happy for the police to take. Should they be the first point of call for rape victims? Abused wives? Noise complaints? Cats stuck in trees?

Community-based sexual assault centres are valuable alternatives to police. Anti-crime design is another such method; creation of public spaces that actively prevent crime. 

When society acquiesces to saying that the government has the monopoly on force we legitimize any brutality that is brought back against us. It is one half of an answer to these questions to protest police brutality. The other is to invent and embrace alternatives, to imagine an option other than handcuffs and batons. We should be deeply questioning who we allow to use force? Why do we allow this at all? Are there non-violent mechanisms for resolution?

I know this article raises more questions than it answers, work for another day methinks. So let me sign off...

… Fuck the police


note: An law school professor and former criminal defense attorney tells you why you should never agree to be interviewed by the police.

no conversation is sacred

Unless you have been living under a rock… with your hands over your ears… while singing loudly… and that rock was on Mars you will have heard about the NSA PRISM program. PRISM has involved the warrantless wire tapping and monitoring of millions of US citizens and non-citizens around the world.

The scale and audacity of this project has been staggering. NSA internal slides included in Snowden’s disclosures purported to show that the NSA could unilaterally access data and perform "extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information" with examples including email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP chats (such as Skype), file transfers, and social networking details. All of this data is stored at a newly built facility that has the potential storage of a zettabyte (1 000, 000, 000 gigabytes).

This is a huge breach of citizen privacy and we should be very worried that their answer is ‘if you have nothing to hide this won’t be a problem’.

note: If anyone is wondering why the answer nothing to hide is an answer that already acquiesces too much individual privacy read Daniel J Solove’s short essay “I’ve got Nothing to Hide” andother misunderstandings of privacy.

The simplest answer is that we all have something to hide. We all have passwords on our Facebook and we have all detagged a photo that we were not proud to be in.

Just as worrying as this breach of privacy is the very flippant way that our politicians (international politicians and American), and our broader society is responding to this.

However what scares me more is that the invasion of privacy can so easily be taken one step further. Mobile phone microphones can be activated remotely, without any need for physical access. This "roving bug" feature has been used by law enforcement agencies and intelligence services to listen in on nearby conversations. The FBI has the ability surreptitiously listen in on conversations in a car, through the car's built-in emergency and tracking security system. This technology is not far off, but has been used since the 80s. How comfortable do you feel knowing that every conversation that takes place near a mobile phone could be listened and used against you at some future point.

The reality is that what may be used against you may not even be a crime. During Martin Luther King's campaign for equality in America the FBI concluded that King was dangerous due to communist infiltration, the FBI shifted to attempting to discredit King through revelations regarding his private life.

The FBI used information gathered from wiretaps and intercepts to demonstrate that King was engaged in numerous extramarital affairs. The FBI distributed reports regarding such affairs to the executive branch, friendly reporters, potential coalition partners and funding sources of the SCLC, and King's family.

Can you really say that every conversation that you have is not an issue because you have nothing to hide? The “nothing to hide” argument is a simplistic understanding of privacy vs. security. It represents a singular and narrow way of conceiving of privacy, and it wins by excluding consideration of the other problems often raised in government surveillance and data mining programs.

The onus should not be on the individual to prove their innocence, but on the accuser to prove their guilt. If the government thinks I have nothing to hide then why are they listening to my conversations?