Prisoner X Program

Illinois’ prison system is stacked to its rim.  There are currently close to 50,000 prisoners under lock and key, and there are thousands more under some form of supervised release.  Admittedly, a lot of this is justified and necessary, but there is a significant amount of this that is- as we say- doing way too much, or to be accurate, doing far too little.  Of the 1.3 billion -plus dollars spent in 2015 for the IDOC budget, only $16,545,700 was spent educating prisoners, and IDOC ranks last out of 50 states on prisoner health care spending.  Two examples of doing too little.  ‘The overwhelming majority of that 1.3 billion plus was spent on employees salaries, pensions and benefits, plus contracts for services and goods to the politically connected. Two examples of doing way too much.  As it stands right now, prisoners spend over 20 hours a day in their cells, thus making prisoners the commodity that is keeping the rural communities where the prisons are located from economic collapse.

The black and hispanic communities  that most of the prisoner population comes from, have their economic viability sapped by the corrupt Illinois criminal justice system, because its people are the commodity.  What is difficult to accept is that those minority communities in Chicago have virtually no influence or economic ties to Illinois’ prison system outside of being its main supplier.  Unpaid, of course, but supplier non-the-less.  The essay entitled “Illinois Criminal Justice History Chicago” summarizes how it was designed this way.  The Chicago media rarely covers the prisons in any deep and meaningful way, certainly not a way that analyzes the economics comprehensively. Therefore, the Prisoners Exchange has to take this matter into our own hands.

We do this by establishing the Prisoner X Program .  If you have a family member or friend in prison, acknowledge your connection to the prison system.  Also, if you understand the situation and want to become active in the struggle to reform the prison system, join the Prisoner X Program support group.  The people who are in the system or have been in the system wear the X.  It’s like a brand that prevents too many from meaningful employment, votes, education or just having a full life once they’re released.  Yet while inside it dehumanizes them, making them living human commodities.

PRISONER X SUPPORT GROUP

                                                                                                                1.  Register as a Prisoner X Supporter at the Prison Exchange website.

                                                                                                                2.  Support the Prisoner Exchange goals for prison reform.