[Marxism] Prison guards (was: Police unions etc.)

[Jscotlive at aol.com]

However, we do need police to nab those who run red
lights or drive  drunk, for example. And there *are* sociopaths who
commit crimes and should  be in prison. So, of the inmates in bourgeois
prisons, a significant  percentage *should* in fact be there (and would
need to be  guarded).

Reply:
 
The above is uncomfortably close to a reactionary analysis of crime and  
punishment in a bourgeois society. The overwhelming demographic incarcerated in  
prison are the underclass, which in the US is disproportionately made up  of 
ethnic minorities. Most are in prison as a result of crimes motivated by  
poverty, alienation, disaffection, etc. Crime under such circumstances should be  
viewed as an act of 'unconscious' rebellion against the system. Of course,  
violent offenders, those who prey on the weak and the vulnerable in  society, must 
be isolated while they pose a danger to society. However,  acts of violence, 
a propensity to commit acts of violence, do not arise  out of thin air. They 
are a result of material causes. Therefore it is  the system responsible for 
violent crime, and crime in general, that  we must hold to account, not those 
who are victims of the system.  Furthermore, capitalist prisons are not designed 
to make social problems  disappear, they are designed to make human beings 
disappear. They are not  concerned with rehabilitation but with retribution. 
They reflect the violence of  the economic system responsible for their 
existence. That the  American penal system is the harshest and most brutal in the 
industrialised  world reflects the fact that America society is the harshest and 
most  brutal.
 
J