Taxation Without Representation

(Originally Posted on December 2, 2015)

I’ve been working on an essay I feel strongly about, but it may take awhile. Even with my vast ignorance about blogs and the internet, I understand it’s important to have a steady schedule in order to keep your readers loyal. I have no idea how many readers Prison Vitality has, but even if it’s just a couple, I value you. I’ll try to produce regularly, but ask your forgiveness if I fail sometimes. Even in a dungeon, people and events sometimes make demands on your time. So, while you patiently await my next essay, I thought I’d share some news.

Recently a Federal court ruled that inmates in the U.S. have the right to grow beards for religious purposes. In many states this was not a big deal because they’ve always allowed inmates to manage their own hair, religious or not. But in Texas and other southern states this decision was greeted with resentment and criticism. In this prison the warden stages a passive-aggressive retaliation against those who dare to grow a beard. If you wish to grow a beard here for religious purposes, you must go through the red tape of written requests and the approval seems a bit arbitrary: I have a friend who is an orthodox Jew and he was denied permission to grow his beard while another friend who’s a Baptist was approved. Even upon approval, if you go against the warden’s unsubtle wishes and grow a beard, you’re not going to look neat or be comfortable. No shaping or trimming of Federal beards allowed. Yet, you must shave your beard completely once a year for a photograph. They argue it’s for security, but other state prisons who’ve never had a problem with hair freedom have no issue with it. What’s strange is if the beard is religious, how can you make someone shave it? That’s like forcing a Muslim to eat pork once a year.

I think the state’s resentment about beards comes from a psychological page lifted from the military. When I joined the military and arrived with a bus load of other civilian recruits, the first thing they did was shave our heads and issue us uniforms. I didn’t recognize a single person from the bus, because our individual appearances had been taken; we all looked the same. The military does this to deemphasize the individual. You’ll hear the word “teamwork” over and over during basic training. They want you to think collectively, not individually. The military has no place for the rebel, be it in behavior or appearance. You cannot control a group of independent minded people, so they stamp out what they can in boot camp.

There’s little difference from a first day in the military and a first day in prison. The day is full of rituals designed to humiliate and demoralize, to destroy individuality and exert control. Not that all of that abuse and head shaving can completely eliminate the independent spirit of a prisoner or soldier, but there’s definitely a subtle influence. Against your will, you find yourself being more docile and easy to control.

Who knew a beard could be such a symbol of individual rights?

In other news, the FCC recently announced that it would regulate the fees that phone companies and prisons charge families with incarcerated loved ones.

To understand how monumental this is, you’d have to know the history and long struggle of activists nationwide to end this perfect scam. The FCC called the fees charged by phone companies and prisons for the past few decades “unconscionable”. I like that word, “unconscionable”, even if it’s really just a euphemism for evil.

The fees and kick-backs to the jails and prisons varied, but none of them were remotely reasonable or “conscionable”, the prices vary from state to state, county to county, but the FCC noted that in some places the fees were $17.00 a minute. If the families themselves had committed a crime or were rich, one could almost understand those evil fees, but instead, we’re talking about the poorest families in the nation, the bottom one percent. They pay their taxes and poverty isn’t a crime, yet every justice system in the country decided it was justifiable to prey upon them because they dared to love someone incarcerated.

Naturally, prison officials and politicians have vowed to fight the new FCC regulations, stating that the FCC doesn’t have the authority. The FCC ruling will not just lose these sheriffs and wardens millions in revenue, but billions.

Texas in particular loves to prey upon its poorest families. Not just the phone rates for prisoners to talk to their children, but in numerous diabolical ways. The hundred dollar medical fee for instance: If a prisoner gets sick and needs medical intervention, that prisoner is charged a hundred dollars. Who really pays that fee? Inmates are forced to work but receive not a penny in income and rely almost exclusively on friends and family for commissary and other needs. The prison still provides medical care if the inmate has no money, but they’ll never forgive the debt. If sometime in the future a family member or friend sends money for stamps, toothpaste, food, etc, the state garnishes the funds until they get their hundred dollars.

Perhaps the most “unconscionable” part of the hundred dollar medical fee isn’t the financial burden for families, but the cost in lives. Because inmates usually receive so little commissary money, they avoid that medical fee like the plague, no matter how ill they become. As a result, a perfectly treatable and minor malady lingers until it requires emergency treatment which is then often too late. I know of one guy who died unnecessarily from an untreated staph infection. I know another guy who died last month from cancer of all things. Guys refuse medical care all the time for a lousy hundred bucks. This may sound crazy to you, but remember that life is relative, until you’ve been a prisoner, it’s not easy to understand. I’m neither stupid or crazy and yet I too am guilty of endangering my health for want of a hundred bucks.

What confuses me about the larceny Texas commits against its poorest families is how it can be legal. These families already pay taxes to fund prison health care; how is it legal to tax them twice?

There are dozens of these little scams the system uses to double tax the poorest families in Texas. Writing paper for instance. The writing paper sold in prison commissaries is made using inmate slave labor and funded by tax dollars. After it’s made it is then sold back to the inmate from the commissary at up to 4 times what that paper would sell for retail, say, at Wal-Mart. Maybe prison officials justify these “unconscionable” acts to themselves by thinking it’s only inmates they’re victimizing, but it’s not, it’s the families. Their taxes paid for that writing paper and yet they have to pay for it again.

Writing paper is only a sample of the products the prison system makes using tax dollars and then resells at exorbitant prices. Other items include everything from T-shirts and underwear, to shower shoes and picante sauce.

Too bad the FCC cannot regulate “unconscionable” double taxing of the bottom one percent.