Education, Incarceration, Drugs and Paranoia

Tomorrow school starts for the kids here in Humboldt County, California. California was previously tied for last place in school (test) results with Mississippi. Then George W. Bush gained the Governor's mansion in Texas by framing his opposition for planting a bug in Karl Rove's office. In a short time Texas dropped to last place in the United States saving California and Mississippi from that embarrassment. It was no coincidence that Texas also relieved California of another dubious distinction; having the largest prison in the country as well as the highest per capita rate of imprisonment.

The Top Ten
The mainstream media would have you believe that people are mostly being sent to prison because of violent crime, and that we need to lock more people up to make our streets safer. It's simply not true. Here are the top ten charges for which Californians are now entering prison:

possession of a controlled substance
possession of a controlled substance for sale
robbery
sale of a controlled substance
second degree burglary
assault with a deadly weapon
driving under the influence
first degree burglary
petty theft with a prior
vehicle theft

Note that all but two of these are non-violent offenses. None of these violent charges are even on the top ten list: murder (first and second degree), rape (and all other sex crimes), manslaughter, and kidnapping. In fact, more often people are being sent to prison now for charges such as forgery, fraud and theft than for charges such as rape or murder. source

My own view is that the two violent crimes mentioned here are often caused by the use of certain drugs. Speed, cocaine and other stimulants induce a state very much like paranoid schizophrenia. Speed freaks commonly have an arsenal, think small random sounds are people coming to get them etc. Very dangerous people. Junkies can be dangerous when they need a fix. In spite of that I don't think prison is the place for these people. More on drugs later.

The decline of education is a problem that bears much greater scrutiny. Poor education means worse jobs which in turn means less money. Today's economy is getting worse and worse. High tech jobs are going overseas rapidly to countries with educated work forces. Menial jobs are being automated or going overseas to cheaper labor forces. Haiti is a good example of this. There is a good chance that something you are wearing right now was made in Haiti. And over 2,131,180 people now reside in America's Prison Industrial complex many of them working for prison industries as virtual slaves. All of these groups competing with American workers.

Why do people use drugs? Why do they produce and sell them? The second question is easier to answer than the first. People produce and sell drugs because it is a lucrative business requiring little education other than chemistry in the case of producing "designer" drugs. Lots of money. Why do people take drugs? That is a harder question. Lack of education might be one answer. Who would take their first hit of speed or crack if they understood they would almost certainly end up addicted and in a state of paranoid schizophrenia? Depression and lack of hope for the future is another reason. No job or a poor job certainly lead many to drugs and alcahol which in turn lead people to have no job or a poor job in the future also.

Why is our educational system so poor? I don't think it is because we are not "tough" enough, though people certainly seem to have a complex about that. Being tough to the weak means being mean. Being mean will not solve any of these problems, particularly the education problem. Babies are born wanting to do nothing but eat and learn. They soak everything up as fast as they can. Parents usually can't adjust fast enough to comprehend how much their children have learned. When they start school most are disappointed. They don't want to go back the second day other than to play with the other kids. The first lesson they learn is that learning is work. A hard job. I took my son out of the public school after a short while and taught him at home. I didn't do a great job but his test scores etc. soared into the 90^th percentile and he is very literate. 2 years back in the public school system now and he can handle it better. He'll need to learn that skill for the work place, what's left of it.

Henry Ford is a name I have mentioned often in my rants here. For his backing of the Nazis and the holocaust. He also has a lot to do with the state of today's education system. The days of the little school house with a dedicated teacher who knew all the kids and their families quickly disappeared with the advent of mass production both because, being enamored with the cheap products of mass production such as Ford motor cars, they started building large schools on the principals of factories and because of the advent of buses they could bus kids from a distance to facilitate these large factory schools. This may have had some advantages in the days when most people lived on farms and kids were cheap labor and otherwise chatel but the whole system needs to be examined in light of what we have and what is going on today.

It is little wonder that we have the problems we have today. Drugs, unemployment, underemployment bad government, the largest prison system on earth and a dumbed down electorate.

More later.