“Drug Wars”
Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, April 26, 2012
The prisons are full and profit only
the investors in the rich companies
that plan, build and manage the “Custody
Industry.” All that the prisoner sees
is injustice: blacks serve more time than whites,
the rich with high-priced lawyers pay a fine,
the poor endure the filth, the rapes, the fights,
and learn to do sophisticated crime.
Released with prison records few can find
a decent job, or a safe place to live.
Back on the streets often their only friend
is the one who had sold them drugs, who give
them yet another chance to forget pain.
Their land will never let them forget shame.
Homeless men on Corinthian Avenue in Philadlephia
Returning last year to the street where I once worked with homeless men and youth gangs in North Philadelphia, I took this shot from the car window. The scene was all too familiar.
Views from the Edge 
Reminds me of the words of a song – When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn.”
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Thank you Gordon and Steve for speaking, speaking, speaking. If only more would listen, listen, listen, and act, act, act.
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All we can do is speak our hearts and minds, and speak we will, and you will, too. Thanks, Mona.
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My Mom lived in California for 12 years. She tells me that one of the biggest groups lobbying for the infamous “Three Strikes” rule was…the prison guards’ union.
As a member of a public employees’ union myself I take no pleasure in pointing this out.
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Ouch. Thanks for sharing…I think :-). If “full employment” means filling the prisons in order to retain and hire prison guards, I’d have to think again. Fortunately, as you know, there are productive ways to reach toward that goal. Sad.
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