"The vilest deeds like poison weeds/ Bloom well in prison air:/ It is only what is good in Man/ That wastes and withers there." -- Oscar Wilde More than three decade ago, I was a soldier in basic training. There is no member of my training brigade who stands out in my memory more than "Slim". He was not a person; he was a wooden figure. Nevertheless, to a soldier in training, he was very person-like. He had an unpredictable character all of his own when others interacted with him. Slim was an oaken-caricature of a battlefield soldier. He was spring-loaded and situated on a well-greased 12 cm thick steel shaft, which was firmly seated in concrete. Between Slim's knees was another far more sophisticated apparatus that governed the direction in which he would (with lightning speed) turn 45, 90, 180 or a full 360 degrees. On Slim's right side was a burlap bag filled with sand. On his left was a 10 cm by 10 cm padded arm; it hung loosely on a steel hinge that raised and lowered according to the amount of thrust that was applied horizontally to the sand bag. That arm protruded at least 1&189; metres from Slim's centre of gravity. Slim was a training tool whose purpose was to make a soldier proficient in bayonet "thrust and recover" techniques, as various drill sergeants would remind us. On the face of it, that bayonet practice, and Slim, looked harmless enough. You were told: "thrust, recover and duck". The first group of trainees in line was confident that Slim's padded arm would never touch them. Of course, you had to be real slow to get caught by Slim when he was not wound too tight. On the other hand, after 30 trainees had each given Slim at least four hard thrusts, he would progressively be wound so tightly that his movements were no longer predictable, and the force of the fencepost-like arm swinging at 80 kilometres an hour sent quite a few trainees to the dispensary/hospital with things other than just the wind knocked out of them. What is happening in the US today reminds me of Slim and an endless stream of trainees. In a misguided effort to get tough on crime, people want to thrust misery upon prisoners. Prisons have become torture-factories in which rehabilitation, dignity and humane treatment are alien concepts to many prison administrators. Unfortunately, most self-serving politicians have duped the voting public into the belief that prisons (and dehumanising prisons) are viable solutions to the crime problem. More than 75% of the men, women and children in prison today will eventually be released. That means that back into society's midst will come those who have been brutally beaten, robbed, raped and thoroughly dehumanised both physically and mentally -- while most people self-righteously condoned it with permissive silence. Prison administrations are being encouraged by that silence to thrust every manner of physical and emotional brutality upon prisoners. The public acceptance of the practice lends more and more legitimacy to it. We are talking about the same public who were so offended by such behaviour in the first place that they sent those people to prison. It is my hope that at some point in the very near future logic will tell the silent that prisoners are getting wound pretty tight. Are they going to wait until another stranger, neighbour, friend or family member is hauled into the dispensary/hospital before they realise it is time to stop giving the silent nod to politicians?
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He is happy to answer letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G2-51, GD&CC, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA.]
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