Thursday, October 9, 2014

Prison System

I was watching a tv show and found out that in the 90s there was a Transgender Woman sentenced to a man’s prison for 30+ years for murder. The trial itself was weird because the case involved the transgender woman’s AUNT and her plotting to kill the AUNT’s husband for his insurance money. The transgender woman was going to use the money to finish her transformation into a complete woman. The aunt just wanted the money. The AUNT was found not guilty.

But the transgender woman was found guilty and sentenced to a male prison. Honestly in that moment I fathomed a WOMAN being in a MALE prison for 30 years. I was frightened for her. I did not support what she had done, but I also felt like her well-being still counted for something.

And then I thought further: Prisons are really just like giant boxes you shove people in you either don’t know what to do with or don’t WANT to deal with. It’s like the old asylums used to be for people with mental illness. In fact since a lot of people in prison probably ARE suffering from mental illness you can make the direct correlation between old asylums and current prisons.

At some point you have to find a way to change the system. Humanity is being lost in it. You can’t say you’re “pure” and in better stead than these people if you then subject then to harm in a rat cage you design for them. You can’t say the devil is down below your feet if you construct his system of inhumane degradation.

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