David Rothenberg's Reviews

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There are books that are read because they are entertaining, others because of the style and insights of the author, and a few because of the subject matter. There are multitudes of reasons for selecting a book. But infrequently I find one that I suggest you read because it is essential to do so.

Joel Dyer’s THE PERPETUAL PRISON MACHINE: How America Profits From Crime is an ESSENTIAL…to give you a clear understanding of this nation’s self-destructive mission and the incarceration of a generation of black, brown and poor white American men. The sum and substance of Dyer’s book is that we have a greater need to punish than to solve our problems, that the illusion of crime has surpassed the reality of it, and that we have allowed elected officials and the media to accelerate the building of prisons, and sacrificing, along the way, our schools, parks, environment, health care and housing in the process. It is an incredible indictment, but not one difficult to follow as Mr. Dyer serves up the blueprint of how and why it has been done. For anyone who has had contact with the criminal justice system in this country, it hollers TRUTH.

In the early years at the Fortune Society, where I worked for seventeen years as an advocate for men and women coming out of prisons, and kids in trouble with the law, I learned painfully about the duplicity in our system. The first time I saw a wall sign at Fortune calling for " White faces needed in court next Tuesday," I discovered what others had learned by experience. A black man facing a white judge had a better chance for probation if he had white advocates in his corner. If he was white himself, it would be even better. Over the years, it became standard to see the duplicity in arrests, convictions, sentencing, parole eligibility and violations based on color. It laid the foundation for my understanding of the roles played by race and class, an obscenity that defies the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. As a result, we have incarcerated a generation of black and brown men.

Understanding the economics was slower in coming. But in the mid-1970’s, an ex-con named Bob Brown infiltrated a conference held at the University of Illinois in Champagne-Urbana organized by architects, construction companies, and vendors. The vendors were not like the hot dog guy on the corner, but those who have booths at the Americans Correctional Conference negotiating million-dollar deals with prisons for the sale of soap, cigarettes, phone hook-ups, blankets, toilets, barbed wire, oatmeal…and on and on. You name a product and you might find an institution ready to buy. Some of these same products sponsor cop shows, which create a constituency for prison building and maintenance.

The result of such strategies is the basis of Mr. Dyer’s book, one that should be read by every American of conscience, all elected officials at every level, political columnists and newspapers and magazine editors and TV news producers. If they have any questions about Mr. Dyer’s thesis, they should challenge him to an open forum and let him and the prison aristocracies present their views.

Last week, while reading Mr. Dyer’s book, I received a letter from a New York state inmate, revealing that all of his collect phone calls to home were through MCI, which has a contract with the state of New York. All phone calls must be collect and, of course, inmate families are usually at the bottom of the economic ladder. You have probably seen all the endless TV commercials boasting low rates available for anywhere in

the world, but not from prisons. MCI has inflated rates, and a three-minute call from a state prison to New York City goes for $6, charged to the family. According to a recent New York Times article on the subject, MCI grossed $68 million from New York state prisons in 1998.

Multiply that shameful fact by all of the other special contracts arranged by Correction Departments, and you gain a glimpse of the investment that big business has in the expanding prison industry.

Mr. Dyer outlines how prisons are kept at full capacity, and continues the construction of new prisons and jails. Since violent crime has gone down, drug laws and arrests have become more severe. A large percentage of inmates are from a drug sub-culture, most of whom could be maintained more cheaply at community level drug programs. Greed and race determine the route the country has been moving.

The drug laws keep the jails filled and the TV cop shows convey the impression that violence is at everyone’s doorstep. We lock more people up based on fear rather than reality and should you bring that argument to the fore, you are asked to defend some horrendous violent crime that has taken place in Oklahoma, Wyoming or Chicago. There are institutions in place for such acts, but violent offenders are often cut loose from institutions to make room for the next wave of drug arrests.

The challenge served up by Joel Dyer is how to break the circle. It is clear that we are reaching an abyss. Cops who shoot Amadou Diallo and shove broomsticks up Abner Louima’s rectum assume that the public appetite for punishment justifies their having a blank check.

The first step in combating this malaise, one that is destroying the heart and soul of this country, is to be well armed with facts - know the problem and who are the problem makers. What is the process that brought them to this greed and racism, marching hand in hand, creating an institutional dynasty. Avarice is the motivating factor, and racism is the tool that is used to justify the madness.

Joel Dyer provides all this and more in the book THE PERPETUAL PRISON MACHINE, and any activist who wants to affect meaningful change must read this book so that they can maximize their effectiveness.

I would suggest that those of you who belong to church or civic action groups form a discussion group and have everyone read this book. And then, armed with information, you can move on a local level, challenging candidates, newspaper stories and television coverage. Begin at the grassroots in your own neighborhood.

That is some of the reasons why I describe Joel Dyer’s THE PERPETUAL PRISON MACHINE as an "essential."

Click the link below to buy this book on Amazon.com:

The Perpetual Prisoner Machine

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