The other day, I was sitting around talking to an old friend. The topic of conversation jumped around for a while, and then my friend got a serious look on his face. He paused for a moment and then said, “I have a theory.” He began to explain it to me. It went something like this:
We have cut the welfare rolls in this country, while at the same time we have greatly increased the number of people on disability. We have not cut the welfare rolls because people have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps; rather, we have made the cuts by taking away the funding. The bigger the reduction of the number of people on welfare, the better the politicians look.
The problem was the people that were cut off welfare did not go away or find jobs. In order to absorb this group of people into the system, it was decided that all we need to do is broaden the definition of “disability.” While it is true that moving those that are poor over to disability does nothing to rid the country of the expense, funding for those that are “disabled” is politically easier to defend than welfare moms.
Instead of paying for preschool and early adolescent programs, we just started cutting more checks to kids with “disabilities.” There is no limit on the number of children in a family that can get disability and no real requirement that the disability be addressed or even attempted to be fixed. People are rarely retested to see if their “disability” still exists. Children are told what to say and do in the testing when it does occur.
What’s worse is that many parents encourage their children to act in certain ways in order to get the disability moniker. Children are raised to think that they are losers and without merit or ability. They are told that the world they live in is all there is and there is nothing they can do about it. Children are not encouraged to do their best or get a job. After all, you don’t get to keep your disability if you get a job. Children represent checks to the parents and little more. Sadly, for many parents, the same was done by their parents.
These former welfare recipients rarely do well in school. When they do graduate, they have little or no marketable skills, and, ultimately, a high percentage of them end up in prison. After they get out of prison, they’ll often have more children in order to have them diagnosed and become the recipient of a check. The cycle continues.
The point of my friend’s diatribe was that the policies that we use to deal with poverty do nothing more than serve as a feeder pipe to the prisons in our country. He pointed out that the largest political action group in the state of California is the prison guard lobby. Twenty-five percent of the county budget for Pulaski County goes to the Pulaski County Jail.
If your job and future relied on people going to prison rather than succeeding, why would you want the treatment of the poor to be effective? Is it possible that the invisible movements of “Big Brother” are intentionally keeping our poor down and thereby creating business for the prison industry? That was his theory.
I listened with interest as he told me his theory. I felt like an overall master plan on the part of the powers that be to fund the prison system might be a bit of a stretch, but he did have some good points.
While it’s hard to believe that feeding the prisons is part of a master plan, it’s not hard to believe that certain groups with certain goals might try to push things in a way that benefits them rather than society. Besides, if the practical effect of our policies do, in fact, serve as a pipeline to our prisons, does it matter whether it is planned or otherwise?
The thing is, it doesn’t matter what you intend, it matters what you do. If what you are doing does not get the result that you intend, you have to change course. Failure to take action is nothing more than approval of the status quo. That’s true for all of us, especially those of us way up in the CHEAP SEATS!
Bill James is a co-founder of the James Law Firm with offices in Little Rock, Conway and Fayetteville, Arkansas. His primary area of practice is criminal defense. He can be contacted at Bill@JamesFirm.com