To describe the American justice system as “imperfect” is something of a massive understatement. Who is actually bound by the law? Any allowance of set monetary penalties shows that the laws exist to bind workers, not owners. If a $500 fine is enough to bankrupt a worker, but is pocket change for the owner, then can that really be called ‘justice’?
And who is the law enforced against? People of color, and workers, predominantly. In some parts of the USA, a poor black man can wind up serving a life sentence for selling some marijuana, a crime most people would agree does not merit that punishment, while a rich white man can defraud millions of their life’s savings and not serve a day in prison. That injustice is structural; it’s not an accident.
And if a man commits no crime, that is no guarantee he will not be convicted of one, as we have seen time and time again. For-profit prisons have need of their enslaved workforce, and the system will provide them. As we’re constantly saying on here, the purpose of a system is what it does, not what it claims to do.
To describe the American justice system as “imperfect” is something of a massive understatement. Who is actually bound by the law? Any allowance of set monetary penalties shows that the laws exist to bind workers, not owners. If a $500 fine is enough to bankrupt a worker, but is pocket change for the owner, then can that really be called ‘justice’?
And who is the law enforced against? People of color, and workers, predominantly. In some parts of the USA, a poor black man can wind up serving a life sentence for selling some marijuana, a crime most people would agree does not merit that punishment, while a rich white man can defraud millions of their life’s savings and not serve a day in prison. That injustice is structural; it’s not an accident.
And if a man commits no crime, that is no guarantee he will not be convicted of one, as we have seen time and time again. For-profit prisons have need of their enslaved workforce, and the system will provide them. As we’re constantly saying on here, the purpose of a system is what it does, not what it claims to do.