a step in the right direction

since 1989,
over 200 exonerated prisoners
have walked because of DNA
evidence revealing their lack of
guilt &
10 or so “successful” executions
have been performed,
ending the lives of individuals
whose guilt was found to be of
great suspect, post-mortem---
as the 2.3 million or so
(highest per capita rate of prisoners
in the world), piled &
stuffed into incarceration all over
the empire continues to grow,
there are said to be anywhere
between 44,000 & 80,000
of these individuals, locked away
in solitary confinement.

maximum security prisons weren’t
enough apparently &
so the construction of the “supermax”
has brought a new spin to the tossing
of citizens into garbage cans, where in an
act of complete lack of responsibility &
ignorance, a smaller garbage can inside
the larger, has become the norm &
not the exception for those individuals
within the prison system.

Anthony Graves’ own testimony
at the first US Senate hearing of its kind
addressing the psychological torture &
human rights abuses occurring in supermax
isolation, detailed the utterly horrible &
desperate conditions of his own unlawful
incarceration which stole 18 YEARS of
own his life---
10 of them which he spent in
solitary.

the fact that this hearing took place is
a step in the right direction, for the abuse
of the abuser (if in fact said individual is
even guilty) does nothing but perpetuate
the violence wielded on society,
by society & none of us are innocent in
this, but the questions concerning what goes
on in prisons should not end here,
it should BEGIN & though people like
Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois seem to have
their heart in the right place,
he is just one man & a politician at that
(with hands bound to do the bidding of those
that fund his election)---
it is WE, the public on the outside,
the family & the friends,
the concerned & the outraged,
who need to step forward &
speak out against the powers that be,
so that those on the inside might gain
education, become rehabilitated &
have a REAL chance in the world that
spit them out the first time around.

without this kind of compassion &
defense of ALL our rights, the violence
will only increase.