It has further been my impression that the parole board is no longer focused on the intended purpose and function to. make determinations on an inmate’s fitness for parole on indeterminate sentences. This meant primarily that if an inmate was serving a sentence of one (1) to five (5) years for a felony conviction, a parole board could examine the inmate’s history, his progress in the length of time served until this parole eligibility, and hear input from agencies and people from inside and outside the prison who do or do not support the notion of parole for the inmate.

Because of politics generated by public pressure, the parole board is intimidated against granting parole to an inmate, and this is especially so of inmates with crimes of violence to persons, places or things. The motivation behind the public pressure has been the media hype to generate fear in the general public. This is what politicians feed on with their appetite for sensational, inflammatory, fear-generating issues. Movies, TV, books, newspapers, and politicians create scenarios out of isolated, horrific crimes and plaster the public with the thinking: No one is safe! Crime is everywhere! We are all doomed...unless we vote for the right issues on granting more police powers and equipment, and--of course--vote for the right politicians to make sure the job of getting rid of the bad guys will be done once and for all!

An earlier rendition of this type of political hype designed to generate fear in the public was with the "Commie" scare back in ‘54 with Joe McCarthy. His Senate investigating Committees were not much more that Senate Inquisition Committees, using the media to make everyone suspect everyone. Before that, the Salem Witch Hunts were great sport for the politicians of the time. Now we have dramas of crimes being committed by all strata of society. People ranging from small children (demon seeds) to evil old men and women. These perpetrators have no socially acceptable qualities--or I should say socially redeemable qualities. They all are reprehensible and are not really part of our human race. They are "mistakes" by nature, and should be "eliminated" through imprisonment of some sort to get them out of our way. That way, there would only be us good and decent people left.

The problem with that kind of thinking is that we ignore basic human nature. There is always the "dark side" to every human personality. Some are fortunate enough to learn to redirect the energies from the darker side to positive channels and in socially acceptable adaptive behaviors. Others are not so fortunate and act out in maladaptive behaviors generated through faulty thinking. Faulty thinking and maladaptive behaviors are usually provoked in individuals through some means or other. This is not an excuse for such deviance, but more an explanation in part.

Naturally, the argument is that everyone has a choice in how they think and in how they behave. But the overlooked element in such processing is the factor of diminished capacity. This is where the element of provocation comes into play. People can make people crazy. This thinking isn’t meant as an argument for defense against criminal proceedings in a court of law, although it is a defense available to the rich and influential. What it is meant to do is to encourage "humanization" of the criminal. Although their behavior may be defined as "criminal," they remain human beings, whether we like to accept that notion or not.

At one time, Adolph Hitler was someone’s baby boy. He developed into a world-wide fiend as defined by his enemies.. .who won the war, and thereby the power to make such a determination. Had Adolph Hitler remained alive and if he would have been imprisoned rather than executed, it would have been interesting to see how the authorities would have handled his possible rehabilitation. Say he would have entered into therapy and saw the error of his ways and became truly remorseful. Say he would have wanted to befriend Jews of the world and live among them in peace in Israel. Nah! Don’t think it could have ever happened, unless the top Jews in power saw some political advantage for doing so. This analogy is not just for Jews, but for any civilized race of people.

By the way, the above was not and is not an attempt to "defend" Hitler, but to point out his potential as a human being on a "what if" basis. My point is, that no matter how changed or rehabilitated he became, it would most probably would have made no difference for parole consideration.

So the parole board is rather locked-in on the political pressures against letting prisoners go out on parole. There is the pretense that the parole board tries to parole as many as they possibly can and yet still protect the public, because of the issue of "over-crowding" in our prisons. And yet, on the other side of things, you still have legislators advocating more legislation declaring more and more human behavior as criminal. Statute after statute is written, allowing the criminal justice system more and more power to imprison people. The public remains frightened by the media’s determination that "crime is everywhere" and "...the sky is falling!," that they will not curtail such activities by the politicians.

Sure, there is crime. Crime happens where you have people and laws to govern people’s behavior. People do horrible things to other people; people kill other people; rape them, rob them, and beat them unmercifully. People have done this since the beginning of time...because it is part of human nature to do those things. This doesn’t excuse such behavior in human beings, it attempts to explain such behavior.

To me, the logical approach would be to try to go beyond the symptomatic "criminal behaviors" and delve into some causal factors. Right away, this kind of thinking usually makes people turn away, because of earlier attempts by "liberal" humanists to "blame" a criminal’s crimes on Mom, Dad, Teachers, and poverty-stricken neighborhoods. These elements are just part of the socio-economic factors that assist in not only provoking criminal behavior, but in actually determining criminal behavior in people. This is done through values. And these values are tempered through learning experiences in the environment of people, places, and things.

Sure, there is crime. Crime happens where you have people and laws. This does not diminish the impact and severity of crime in our society. But is should encourage rational thinking for the issues which need to be addressed if we wish to minimize occurrances of crimes in our ccmmunities. Reactive measures are popular, now.

An old--and still valid--argument for causal factors is the one which divides society into basically the "Haves," and the "Have-nots," the rich and the poor...the unequal distribution of wealth and power. Then an argument to justify positions has those with wealth and power imposing laws to repress the poor and powerless. The rules from the wealthy and powerful to the poor and powerless is that they must learn to suffer gracefully and to maintain that level of tolerance for frustration if they want to stay out of jail. It isn’t a clear-cut, black and white issue, but is intermingled with complexities. But for the purpose of an overview, it may be simply stated as I have done here.

In earlier history, when societies were plagued with similar problems of such unequal distribution of wealth and power, the "poor and powerless" would join and naturally outnumber the wealthy and powerful and a revolution would begin. This was where the conflict burned brightest in the political postures of the Communists and the Capitalists.

The Communists had great ideas and ideals, just as the Capitalists had great ideas and ideals. The only problem with either economic philosophy was they both invariably become corrupt and turn in on themselves. The Capitalists won in the recent world wide struggle (in this last century) because of successful propaganda by the "Free World" or Capitalistic Societies.

The minority rich were able to convince the poor under their influence to fight for them against the demonic "liberators" of the working class (poor people). Macho America denounced the "Commie Pinko Fags" and the foreign Commies were shown to be comprised of a bunch of raggedy peasants who simply wanted to plunder decent human beings of their dignity and respect for all that is holy and decent in the world.

Even though the peasants in the "Free World" outnumbered the wealthy, the poor people still looked up to those with wealth and power, like some slaves did for their owners in the Civil War. To the chagrin and outright denial of contemporary black activists, some of the slaves "sho did love deymassas." This is also true of the poor in America. It isn’t because the poor people in America are particularly ignorant, but more for what propaganda has done for their thinking processes.

The success of the propaganda was translated through the medias which depicted those with "revolutionary" dispositions to be of a "terroristic" nature and character. Terrorists are the ultimate scum of the earth, usually fighting against democracies (Capitalists) and kill babies, Nuns, children, and kindly old people senselessly in their demonic pursuits against decent human beings. So if people in the real world begin to complain about government and attempt to come together for political power, there is an uneasiness about becoming part of the "terrorist" groups around the world; very un-American activities at best.

We are lulled into a pacifist stance, hoping that things will work out well like in the movies; happy endings. Uncle Sam is able to cover up the greed of his privileged class of wealthy and powerful by averting chaos from the impoverished masses (growing number of homeless, etc.) by deficit spending (most of which ends up in the coffers of the rich, but sustains a weird status quo where the public may be kept at bay with pittances from their government.

Even this kind of writing seems to be revolutionist in nature, which seems to be food for budding terrorists. Perhaps I’d better get back to prison concerns, right? Smile? Anyway, it probably isn’t as politically sensitive an issue to write about because prisons, and the human rights concerns that American politicians are so fond of pursuing, aren’t really a front-burner concern for the American public at this point in time.

I am encouraged to believe that there are a great number of people out there in the larger community who do care about what goes on in the prison systems across our country. The problem, in my way of thinking is how to get the most accurate picture possible to these people, rather than lose focus with reactive assessments and assertions about the systems. This is what I strive for in what I write, although I can feel when I’m headed too far to the right or left in what I share. Sometimes I am encouraged to over-state a problem concern out of reaction to the thought that the issue might be over-looked if not enunciated to an attention-grabbing degree. My hope is that although it seems nearly insurmountable to correct the problems of today from both...