I can’t put out of my head a piece by Sasha Abramsky in the American Prospect about the actual conditions in many “Super-Max” maximum security prisons, now all the rage around the country. Yes, the inmates are probably dangerous. Yes, they’re in there for mainly unspeakable crimes. But this form of punishment strikes me simply as inhumane. Here’s her description:
The cells are arranged in lines radiating out like spokes from a control hub, so that no prisoner can see another human being–except for those who are double-bunked. Last year, the average population of the Pelican Bay supermax unit was 1,200 inmates, and on average, 288 men shared their tiny space with a “cellie.”… Meals are slid to the inmates through a slot in the steel wall. Some prisoners are kept in isolation even for the one hour per day that they’re allowed out to exercise; all are shackled whenever they are taken out of their cells. And many are forced to live this way for years on end.
It’s no surprise that many mildly depressed inmates become catatonic under such conditions. There seem to be no opportunities for rehabilitation whatsoever, appalling loneliness of a kind that would turn any human into an animal, and conditions far worse than the ones we are imposing on terrorist prisoners of war in Guantanamo Bay. It seems to me that this kind of set-up should be changed for the better. Look, I’m not soft on crime. But I think the way we, as a society, simply abandon many people in prison is a terrible indictment. Perhaps one form of volunteerism that could be encouraged by the new Freedom Corps might be focused on prison inmates. I don’t mean in Supermax jails where such efforts might be fruitless – but in many others, where this vast and growing population, at enormous expense, lies ignored.
JOEL GREENBERG’S AGENDA?: It’s rare to find an editorial in the Jerusalem Post arguing that a New York Times correspondent is furthering a far-left agenda, so it’s worth taking a look at the piece. It concerns a front-page Times report by Joel Greenberg on some soldiers apparently resisting deployment to the West Bank and Gaza in protest of Israeli army policies toward the Palestinians. It was a major piece and may well, in the Post’s eyes, have exaggerated the support for such resisters among the American public. I can’t judge the veracity of the report, but it does seem to me relevant that Greenberg himself was once such an army resister. According to the Post,
An Associated Press article of November 25, 1984, about the refusal of Israeli soldiers to serve in Lebanon stated: “And the worst thing is, we’re still there (in Lebanon),” said Sgt. Joel Greenberg, 28, a Philadelphia-born Israeli who lost his position as squad leader when he refused to go to Lebanon. Like the other conscientious objectors, he isn’t sure he will refuse again.” A news release of the Zionist Organization of America (August 6, 1999) quoted: “Greenberg served a jail term in 1983 for refusing to serve with his army unit in southern Lebanon [Moment, May 1984]”. Greenberg subsequently became a journalist, and was a staff reporter (1986-90) for The Jerusalem Post.
Here’s an interesting question. Should Greenberg have disclosed this history in the piece or should the Times have assigned the story to its other excellent reporter, James Bennet? I’m not sure I know the answer to that, but Greenberg’s past political views – taken to the point of conscientious objection – are certainly useful information to know.
GREAT INSULTS: Here’s a contemporary one, from the invaluable Joseph Epstein, in Commentary last month:
I have never met a reader who has derived pleasure from the novels of Joyce Carol Oates, yet she continues to publish novel after novel, at a rate slightly faster than most office temps can type.
ROMEO AND ROMEO: Two Kansan teen-age boys consensually fooling around – one 18, one almost fifteen – has resulted in the 18-year-old going to jail for seventeen years. The 18 year-old’s sentence was made harsher by a previous sex-crime record (he would otherwise have been jailed for around four years). But it still seems to me an extraordinarily tough sentence for consensual oral sex. If the 18 year-old’s partner had been female and nearly 15, he would have gotten a maximum sentence a third as long as his current punishment. That’s a result of a sensible “Romeo and Juliet” provision in Kansas law allowing for greater leniency if the two partners are teenagers, and one is under-age. I’m not defending sex with a minor, even if it’s allegedly consensual and with another school-mate. But there is no escaping the fact that this kid is being triply punished not because he had oral sex, but because he had gay oral sex. The state’s defense of its unequal treatment of gay and straight sexual crimes is its own sodomy law, which explicitly allows straight oral sex but makes consensual private gay oral sex a crime. This is called unequal protection for the same crime. If it isn’t unconstitutional, it should be.
KRUGMAN NOW SAYS HE WAS JOKING: The guy can’t stop writing about it (makes two of us, I guess). Now Paul Krugman is saying that his original response to his $50,000 Enron junket was not meant to be taken seriously. It was all a “self-deprecating” joke. Stop it, Paul, you’re killing me. For the record, here are his preliminary remarks: “This was an advisory panel that had no function that I was aware of. My later interpretation is that it was all part of the way they built an image. All in all, I was just another brick in the wall.” Ha ha ha. I’m sure he thought he was being funny. But making light of the fact that he was getting paid a small fortune for a board that had “no function” and that was designed to burnish the image of a criminal racket, is humor that actually makes a point. The point is and was that Krugman sees and saw nothing wrong with feeding at the corporate trough for doing next to nothing. I guess humor is subjective and maybe others find this funny. But even if it was humor, it sure wasn’t self-deprecating. Like everything Krugman writes, it was self-inflating. If he gets any more inflated, one of these days he’s gonna pop.
THOSE COLORS: Every day, I get an email saying that someone can’t read the site clearly because of a) the purple links and b) the white-on-blue type. As to a), we’re working on a quick fix. As to b), you’ll see a little button at the top of the Dish that says “Black and White.” Click on it and you’ll get a more traditional-looking website. You can also get the same effect on other pages by clicking the print button. Thanks for keeping us on our toes.
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