When I think of the possibility of me in prison, I end up scaring the tar out of myself. The idea of spending one night, one year, or a lifetime behind bars is run-for-the-hills-frightening. Am I willing to go to jail for not paying taxes? Or am I willing to go to jail for any other form of civil disobedience?

Below you will find a list of my top fears in regard to going to jail/prison. Whether or not my fears are disproportionate to the reality of life in prison is irrelevant. The first one is the scariest, but the others are in no particular order.

• Rape. This scares me the most.
• Sharing a small cell with one or more crazy people.
• Having mean, intimidating people glaring at me.
• A shiv in the back.
• The drab, lifeless environment of concrete and metal.
• The inability to do what I want…when I want.
• The deep depression that I will undoubtedly experience.
• Thoughts of suicide that might manifest themselves.
• The bad food.
• Inability to be with friends or family.
• No privacy or time for myself.
• No laptop or Internet at times I want.
• I might have to kill someone to protect myself.
• If I survive and go out in “the real world,” I will be different in a most negative way.
• I might lose my girlfriend, Yuka.

I’m willing to bet that my list would be similar to others. Why is prison so bad? What’s the point of prison? Are people really getting reformed and reprogrammed into better citizens? Why does the government allow the reputation of prison to include rape, racism, and non-reform?

Most people will agree that prisons don’t work (at least that’s what I think). The system doesn’t “fix” the “criminal.” Lots of people are content to think that prisons are okay to exist as a place to separate the bad from the good and it doesn’t matter what happens on the inside. The main objectives are to relocate the riffraff and to create a deterrent for possible “criminals.”

But what happens when people go to jail and become a rape victim? What if your son or daughter “went away” and they never hurt another person before going? What if little Joe got busted for marijuana and got raped in prison? What if little Sally got sent away for forgetting to pay a traffic ticket and got raped in jail?

“According to SPR.org, a website devoted to combating rape in prison, one in ten male inmates is raped in prison, mostly by fellow prisoners. Among women the number is one in four and the offenders are more likely to be prison staff members,” Wikipedia, Prison Rape and Sexuality.

Does the punishment fit the crime?

So if I don’t pay taxes and the IRS finds me, tries me, and sends me to prison, I will have a 10% chance of getting raped. But actually since I’m a white guy, the chance will be higher because “white inmates are disproportionately targeted for abuse.”

What should I do?

I will think about this for a day or two and then write my answer in my next blog post.

Your Friend in Liberty,

John Buchanan

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