This article reflects my observations and experiences across the past 15 years, in the course of raising black children. I'm not simply pointing out problems here, although that is a necessary first step; I am proposing some solutions, or at least partial solutions. There are 5 ideas here, numbered 1 through 5. Please help me put them into action if you can, or forward to the right people.
A political analyst once said, “Capitalism is predictable.” Indeed it is, and if you understand it, then you can direct it for social good, like steering a ship. Here are five ideas for social justice, using capitalism as a rudder.
Capitalism is an amoral system, as are all economic systems; so if profit can be made by some action, somebody will do it. Not you perhaps, not me, but somebody. If it takes 20 years to build the mechanisms and realize that profit, it will still happen. Remember that capitalism created, over a period of 20 years, addictive cigarettes, without regard for death and disease, and then marketed them to the vulnerable segments of our population. Sadly, the same is being recapitulated today, in the form of online gambling.
If certain sectors can realize profit from crime, then crime will be manufactured. The formula is no secret. Build an ad campaign, relentless, in all forms of media, about the threat of crime. Then fund the campaigns of judges and prosecutors who are "tough on crime". Then fund the campaigns of legislators who will enact crime bills that create crime out of thin air, or inflate the punishment for petty crimes. Mandatory minimums for example. This happens gradually, but at some point crime is created, and small pockets make huge profits off of it, while the rest of us pay the price. Worse still, a minority, primarily black, is destroyed, as they have allegedly perpetrated these crimes. The resulting injustice then inflicts its own costs on society. This will happen, it is inevitable, it is capitalism 101.
This is a feedback loop. Once the machinery is in place, as it is today, districts can jack up fines without oversight. As an example, I saw a $150 traffic ticket hike up to $550, simply because it wasn't paid in full and on time. And that is just the tip of the ice berg. Put on a zero for a misdemeanor, and two zeros for a felony. This is not an exaggeration - it costs nearly 100 thousand dollars to mount a defense against a modest, non-violent felony. I have experienced it myself. To say that this kneels on the neck of black America is an understatement. It is vital that we break this cycle.
1. Thus my first idea - reap no profit from crime. The police, the courts, small towns, do not receive any of the fines or bonds or costs. They can go to other unrelated programs, or to charity. The incentive to put people in jail, or even issue a traffic ticket, goes away. If I could enact this idea tomorrow, it would reverse the process that has been building for the past 50 years.
2. Next, it is suggested that prisoners do some form of work, when they are able, and there are many good reasons to do so. It creates a modest amount of wealth, provides training, and engenders some dignity. But there is a wrinkle, and it's a big one. It is another inescapable consequence of capitalism. If you pay these prisoners less than you would pay an employee on the outside, (Some prisoners earn just 33 cents an hour!), then the invisible hand will move. Mechanisms will form over 20 or 30 years to put people in prison and keep them there, because they provide cheap labor. Review the list of then prosecutor Kamala Harris' most influential cases. In case #9, Prisoners in California could have been released, but Harris made sure they stayed in prison, specifically because they provided cheap labor. This reminds me of an antebellum plantation owner who complains that he will go broke if he loses his slaves. Slaves are necessary for his profit. It's the same 200 years later, but the prison is now the plantation.
The idea here is to continue to employ prisoners, citing all the good reasons to do so, but pay them minimum wage, or whatever wage you would have to pay a free person to do the same work. This doesn't mean the prisoner gets the entirety of his wage. He might, he might not, that is a difficult question with points on both sides. The key here is, the company has to pay the full wage, so there is no incentive to create or maintain prison labor.
3. Next we come to the incredible difficulty of felons getting jobs after they are released from prison. President Obama wanted to “ban the box”, asking companies to voluntarily stop checking for felony status for its applicants, which goes over about as well as Nancy Reagan telling drug addicts to “just say no.” Companies perceive risk when hiring felons, which is largely exaggerated, but the perception is there, and therefore, companies act accordingly. As the insurance industry knows full well, risk can always be offset by money, just a matter of how much.
The federal government, or perhaps a state as an experiment, subsidizes the hiring of felons, at half their wages, up to $30 an hour. So if a company wanted to hire a skilled worker at $30 an hour, and he's a felon, it only costs the company $15 an hour. Guess what the invisible hand will do? Companies will actively seek out felons for hire. Suddenly felons can go back to work, instead of resorting to crime, which is their only recourse today.
Wrinkles:
A) Where does the money come from? Wealth is created whenever somebody goes back to work. Thus there is wealth to be had to pay for this idea; the trick is mapping it back around. There is less violent crime, as people return to work, and that means fewer people in prison, perhaps those savings can pay for this program. An obvious source is item 1, the fines and costs that aren't going to local districts to build new court houses and police stations any more. This establishes a practical feedback loop. The fines and costs from prosecuting crime map back to a program that returns those people to work. This would take some thought and I'm not trying to gloss over it, but a basic understanding of Adam's Smith's concept of capitalism tells us that wealth is being created by this program, and therefore, there should be some way to pay for it.
B) How to implement? It has to be done through the tax code. The W2 proves employment, and establishes the wages. The government then reimburses the employer half of the annual salary, up to $60,000.
C) A company doesn't want to wait til April 15 to realize its refund. It wants to hire someone tomorrow and pay him half right out of the gate, with government paying the other half. There are ways to do this. ObamaCare had the same problem, and they solved it. Government pays part of your health insurance each month, so you don't have to front it, and then at tax time they make sure the books balance. If something jumped the tracks, you might ow a ton of taxes, but that doesn't usually happen. Develop a similar program to fund felon employees right away, and then at the end of the year make sure the books balance. The company doesn't owe any taxes, and doesn't get any more refunds, because it got them every month throughout the year. I'm not trying to make it seem over simple, but something like it has been done before, and could be done again.
D) If done at the state level, what's to prevent felons from all over the country flocking to that state? The subsidy only applies to people who have been a state resident for at least ten years.
E) Somebody gets the bright idea of committing a little felony, the smallest one there is, and then gets better jobs at higher pay forever more. This seems like a bad thing, but aha, it applies economic pressure in just the right way. We will, over time, put people in office who will expunge minor felonies, and then rewrite the laws so that they are more like they were in 1960, when a felony was indeed a heinous crime. There won't be any "little felonies" any more. In particular, we will finally decriminalize drug use - which is long overdue.
F) How do we sell this idea? Because you can already hear the blow-back. “Why should I supsidize criminals? They get what they deserve. Actions have consequences.” Fortunately these hot-button one line questions have simple one line answers. “Because if they can't find employment they'll break into your house and steal your stuff - or steal somebody else's stuff and go to jail and your tax dollars have to support them there.” So the answer is obvious. But the question will be asked over and over again, on facebook, and in the halls of government; and we have to answer it again and again, just that concisely.
From a marketing perspective, don't call this bill the "Supporting Felons Act", call it the "Return to Work Act". You can see how that has a different feel.
4. The government pays for half the rent of a felon up to $600 a month. Landlords perceive risk, just as employers perceive risk - leaving felons both homeless and unemployed. This idea has all the same challenges, and all the same merits, as (3) above.
5. Every citizen should be able to vote. The Constitution was written to favor the slave states, to give those states a voice commensurate with the population, even though most of those people could not vote. This amplified the votes of the plantation owners. If a man owned 50 slaves, his vote, and his voice, was multiplied by 30, as if he voted 30 times over. The same happens today, but again, the prison is the plantation. The votes of the people who run the prison are multiplied by the number of prisoners inside, who are counted in the census, but cannot vote. This amplifies their voice in government and in public policy. Such disproportionate power will inevitably be used to reap profits at the expense of others. In the meantime, prisoners have no say in their treatment, their sentences, or the judges and prosecutors who rule over them. This includes prisoners who are innocent, the bycatch of our flawed system, e.g. the Central Park Five. Maine and Vermont allow everyone to vote, and these states have not descended into lawlessness. It's time for the other 48 states to do the same.
Summary: At present, all the economic forces drive our criminal justice system in the wrong direction. They encourage the creation of crime, the inflation of crimes from misdemeanor to felony to violent felony, the escalation of punishments for those crimes, and finally, mass incarceration. Several key ideas can change the landscape, so that the forces of economics discourage crime, and define and prosecute crime in a more humane and practical manner. I have described 5 ideas in detail, but there are dozens of changes that must be made in order to undo systemic racism.
It would be best if these ideas were enshrined in the Constitution, so they could not revert back on the whim of some future governor or president. In the meantime, we can pass laws, state by state if necessary, to address the crisis that confronts us.
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