Resisting Mass Incarceration

-What affects one directly, affects all indirectly-Martin Luther king Jr. in our cities,out of control incarceration has infected poorer neighborhoods like a plague. there are more than 1.7million children in the united states with one parent- usually thier father-locked up.single parent households put severe economic strain on the remaining parent,who must support her children financially & be their homemaker at the same time.They also make it more likely that children coming from these single parented households will drift into defiant,disobedient frames of mind.many know that,statistically, they are as well slated for incarceration. see,mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today. this impacts each & every one of us on so many levels.the prison industrial complex are business models that comes with a mandatory bed occupancy requirement meaning a certain percentage of beds must be filled if not then the prison cannot be open for business. this means not only does there have to be more aggressive law enforcement practices, but also more aggressive criminal justice legislation & more mandatory minimums & longer prison sentences. but the more we collectively challenge this systematic oppression to assure our future generations do not inherit this,the more we will reveal the manipulations of the prison industrial complex to produce & hold on to cheap laborers(prisoners). I want all of us to feel the suffering of families torn apart or & plunged deeper into poverty by the absence of a locked up parent...I want us to understand how their child's incarceration curtails the basic rights of mothers, forcing them to travel hundreds of miles & pay thousands of dollars for prepay collect call services just to stay in contact with an incarcerated loved one...I want everyone to know that longer prison terms make it more likely that the next generation will end up suffering the same or greater form of oppression...I want us to understand that,until the current prison system is reformed,we all are incarcerated... Russell'Empirical"Banks. Red onion state prison. p.o.box 1900. pound,VA.24279