Peter Norden’s well-intentioned exposé of the disturbing upward trends of incarceration across Australian States is laudable, but just another opinion opined from the lofty and safe Cathedral towers of academia echoing an opposition status quo “speak” which will fall on deaf ears. Those deaf ears will be a community so intellectually devoid of the ability of free thought capable of extending past the back page of the “Daily Telegraph”; so disinterested in the horror of Australian societies slavish death-wish, infatuation and sick “Need “ to glue itself to the American similitude so obviously wrong, blind and heartless.

And you think there's no conspiracy going on. Ned Kelly was wrongly done by and had little choice for the actions he had to turn to, however to make these people hero's is part to why everyone wants to be a gangster or Yank want-to-be's.

Goals are Big business and Australia has got them on the drawing board just for your children that slips through the cracks of our society, and isn't funny that both governments (US and AUST)(the bed brothers) are not putting education as a priority to invest in, and why you might ask? They have all the higher skilled people they need just for little johnny who's mum or dad will save the best spots just for him/her.( if your born in the right place, your a winner )

Just look at these links.

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.greenleft.org.au%2Fnode%2F17056&rct=j&q=prisons%20are%20big%20business&ei=dpTcTMnLOY6ycdXnocMG&usg=AFQjCNH1PyfGXvpbn9F-jn6w-Q2fTjdsBA&cad=rja

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CCUQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmediafilter.org%2Fmff%2Fprison.html&rct=j&q=prisons%20are%20big%20business%20australia&ei=ipjcTLK3N8aecbnLyMMG&usg=AFQjCNF3v55gSWVj6FnBVVdd4RtU97CsfQ&cad=rja

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CFkQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewmatilda.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fnsw-prison-state&rct=j&q=prisons%20are%20big%20business%20australia&ei=ipjcTLK3N8aecbnLyMMG&usg=AFQjCNF1yObORCUvUysq3ng_Ks3gw5FTbQ&cad=rja

And its only the beginning.

Look out people, there's a price on your heads and you haven't even broken a law yet.

BLUE

Oh, and welcome to the new world order.

BLUE

FROM WHENCE AND TO WHERE:

In the land of nowhere
Jingle the keys of crime
Where overlord is jackboot
And enemy time
Future called empty
Suppression the King
Supine the body
Medication bell ring

Correction a mantra
A transient verb
Suppression the object
No argument heard
Crashing steel door
The song 24
Prisoner in shackles
down on the floor

Mother of Son
Not hers was the crime
Wife and the children
All do their time
Nine AM Sunday
A gathering crowd
Front of the main gate
All looking proud

Prisoner excited
Expectancies rise
Suddenly remembers
The sorrow in eyes
Visit a joy?
No, a passing event!
Capitalist toy now
Asunder to rent

diver

I'm afraid this well meaning author has it all wrong. While the criminal justice system is imperfect and imprisonment does not necessarily benefit the incarcerated individual, the idea crime and imprisonment is simply a by product of social disadvantage is quite wrong. So is the idea that Politicians just lock people up for the sake of it. Gaols are a huge drain on Government resources and there are few political points gained from locking up more people then need be despite the common belief to the contrary.

Let's not fall into the trap of believing its all 'society's fault' once again. That idea has been a much more complete failure than the prison system could ever be.

12 11 2010

Peter Norden

We are ten years into the twenty first century, we claim that we live in a democracy and Crime Classification Manuals remain almanacs of crude events the correction of which is entrusted to Police Bodies armed with weapons that cannot help, only hurt.

Citadels of forced detentions hosting the sufferings of the so called ‘offenders’ and the misery of their wardens, do not help either.

Neither can a society with two kinds of laws, as if the girl holding the emblematic scales of justice had two faces, criminal and civil.

Societal institutions are the determinant of crime and it is about time that we gave some consideration to our knowledge of anthropology, physiology and sociology as this knowledge has developed in the last two centuries.

For the time being suffices to say that Courts, Tribunals and Lawyers of all sorts and degrees pervade our lives and yet there is no one, no one of us that has not suffered an injustice.