<<this comes from the USA - however, given the NT's mandatory sentencing
laws, and the consideration of mandatory sentencing laws elsewhere in
Australia, I thought it would be relevant to leftlink readers... alister>>
--------------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 27, 1999
issue of Workers World newspaper
--------------------------------
LES MIZ IN BELLY OF BEAST: LIFE IN PRISON FOR TAKING FOOD
By Vanessa Lewis
On April 26, an appeals court upheld a 25-years-to-life sentence for
Gregory Taylor, a homeless person convicted of burglarizing a church pantry
in Los Angeles. His "crime" was stealing food.
The sentence was a result of California's "three strikes" law. This law
requires a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life for a felony committed by
a defendant with two previous "serious or violent" felony convictions.
The defense argued against using the three strikes law because Taylor's two
previous convictions were for nonviolent burglaries. But, according to an
April 26 Associated Press report, the prosecutor "disagreed that Taylor's
previous convictions were nonviolent, noting that robbery is the forcible
taking of property."
Taylor had often received food from the church pantry after hours before.
This time no one was there to open the pantry and he was hungry.
The judge failed to instruct the jury that it could have convicted him of a
lesser crime--trespassing--and thus avoided the three strikes law.
Anyone would agree that a life sentence for taking food is outrageous--so
outrageous that it should be relegated to fiction. Ironically enough, it is
fiction. Such an incident in 19th-century France was the basis for Victor
Hugo's popular novel--and the long-running Broadway musical--"Les
Miserables," in which a man is sentenced to life in prison for stealing a
loaf of bread.
Now it has happened here, at the end of the 20th century, when food is
super-abundant and tons are thrown away every day. But to oppressed people,
it's not that surprising.
The justice system has proved to be no friend to poor and working people.
Someone who steals--or is accused of stealing--$10 is labeled a criminal
and goes to prison. Someone who steals $10,000 or more is hailed as an
entrepreneur.
Since 1991, the number of people in U.S. prisons has risen by 50 percent,
while the rate of violent acts has decreased by 20 percent.
"Three strikes" laws are eliminating parole after a certain number of
offenses. Other laws require prisoners to serve 85 percent of their
sentences. Mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders are putting more
people behind bars for nonviolent acts.
In California three strikes went into effect in 1996, the year of President
Bill Clinton's welfare "reform" law. That same year prison construction in
the state skyrocketed, receiving a billion dollars more than university
construction.
Private corporations spend approximate ly $35 billion a year on the prison
industry in the United States, supporting prison bond issues and the
privatization of prisons.
People in prison now work for multi-billion-dollar companies taking
airplane reservations, building furniture and much more. Most are poor,
mainly people of color, and their slave labor is highly profitable.
Prisoners have become an important population of exploited labor for the
ruling class.
TERRORIST TACTICS
Since Clinton's welfare "reform" law, millions of people have been cut from
public assistance. Millions more have been forced into "work experience"
programs, where they get decreased benefits.
The welfare law gave states the power to screen recipients of food stamps
at will. In 1997, the first wave of cuts in food stamps took hold when, in
states like Michigan and California, tens of thousands were cut off.
Many of those who were cut off work full-time, yet are paid so little they
cannot afford food without assistance.
Beginning in April 1997, Los Angeles recipients were subject to racist
screening that denied food stamps to all non-citizens, with or without
legal documents.
In February of this year New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced he would
eliminate food stamps for able-bodied single adults between 18 and 50.
On May 14 the New York Times reported that "a new study estimates that
675,000 people lost Medicaid coverage and were without health insurance in
1997 because of sweeping changes in Federal and state welfare programs."
The study was made by Families USA, a consumer group that has worked
closely with the White House for the last six years.
Of the 675,000 people who lost coverage, 420,000 were children. Federal law
requires that people who lose cash assistance be guaranteed Medicaid. But
the states have not complied and the federal government has not enforced
this law.
Recently a federal district judge in New York ruled that thousands of
people had been improperly denied Medicaid. This has undoubtedly happened
all over the country.
The executive director of Families USA, Ronald Pollack, "predicted that the
problem would get worse because more and more are leaving the welfare rolls
for low-wage jobs that do not provide health benefits," reported the Times.
Nationwide, the government has been reporting a surplus in its budget for
food stamps since 1996. Social Security funds have generated a surplus for
the last 20 years. But does this mean that everyone has plenty of food, and
the elderly are getting what they need?
No, these budget surpluses are a political and accounting trick. The funds
have accumulated because these programs turn people away, or underpay them.
The social services won through mass struggle in the United States are
being ferociously stripped away by the ruling class. These social gains
forced from the government were intended to insure minimum living standards
for everyone, since the capitalist economic system leaves millions without
jobs or a living wage.
Now capitalist politicians and the military-industrial complex see these
programs as another money tree. The May 14 New York Times reported that a
House-Senate committee had approved an emergency spending bill allocating
over $11 billion for the current war on the people of Yugoslavia and other
military programs. Most of it will be taken directly from the Social
Security "surplus."
Another $350 million will be taken out of money for low- income housing
programs and $1.25 billion will come from "surplus" food stamp money.
How many Gregory Taylors will either go hungry or end up in jail for life
because of this robbery of food money? Ironically, the bill also contains
$570 million in assistance to U.S. farmers who may go under because of low
commodity prices. In other words, food is cheaper than ever but hungry
people can't get it.
Vondora Jordan, co-founder of Workfairness, an organization of people on
public assistance or in "work experience" programs and their supporters,
commented: "It's a crime a man would be put in jail for being hungry. Here
in New York City a lot of us are losing our benefits and homelessness is
growing. A lot of families are suffering due to these cuts.
"We have a lot in common with the people of Yugoslavia. The U.S.
government has made us refugees, too.
"As the people living in this country, it's up to us to go up against this
corrupt government. All workers and their families need to stand up and
demand that this money go to education, housing, food and jobs--not jailing
and bombing people."
- END -
(Copyleft Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and
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York, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
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