Thursday, March 12, 2015

Second principle practice - American gulag part one

From "Captive Market" by Michael Ames in the February, 2015 issue of Harper's Magazine:

The United States currently holds about 2.3 million men, women, and children inside secure concrete and metal boxes from which they will almost certainly not escape. 

Our nation is exceptional in this way, with incarceration rates that far surpass those in Russia, Iran, or any other country on earth. 

One in twenty-eight American children has a parent in jail. African Americans have for decades been arrested for narcotics at more than three times the rate of white Americans, despite using drugs at roughly the same rate. 

There are more black men in the prison system right now then there were male slaves in the antebellum South. 

Counting parolees and probationers, the corrections system controls the lives of nearly 7 million people. Half of all federal inmates are in prison for drug offenses, and post-9/11 immigration roundups have provided a new human- inventory stream. Between 2001 and 2011, the number of detainees held each year by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) more than doubled—from
209,000 to at least 429,000—making foreign migrants one of the largest demographics in federal custody.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote 7 principles and values. The second principle is "Justice, Equity, and Compassion in Human Relations" There is a huge values gap between what we, as Americans say we believe in and value, and our practices what we actually do. How can be close this values gap and bring our values more into alignment with espoused values.

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