the Gilmore assignment by Brittany Thomas
In this reading immediately Gilmore points out how crime was ran and influenced by minorities reeking havoc on society, which I felt was somewhat true but really unfair to say. Gilmore expresses that civil disorder has created a moral panic. The U.S has time and time again proven to be in a crisis state. Her perception of ” crisis” is that it is never bad or good but that its purpose if to influence change due to a struggle. She observes that people only struggle because they have to. Gilmore goes on to talk about the depression which was a depression which was a struggle, crisis forced people to want something better for themselves and to want something different for their lives. This is when many people started to move the suburbs out of the city. Gilmore also talks about how prisoners sought out reform not only for better living conditions but the way the sentencing is which was very interesting to be because they were getting sentenced to 1 year to life which by todays standards is crazy. instead of the state changing or improving the conditions of prisons they just wanted to create more prisons, mega prisons. instead of using the new prisons to house some of the population who were in over crowded prisons they put all new offenders into these prisons. The voters who voted for the prison project were persuaded that Crime was the countries problem and the prison was the answer. Prison was supposed to “fix” the nations crisis. The people who voted for the prison project were the same people who received major tax breaks and had secure housing so they could really careless about who was effected by a prison being built in their state. This is not unlike the poitical scene today in which people in power vote for things that will greatly negatively effect many people but will positively effect the voter exclusively. Prison is big business, both for the land owners and for the state in general which is what the voters used as a defense. At first in the cities where the prisons were expected to be built the idea was rejected but after they were persuaded that prisons would be a recession proof endeavor and that it would improve local development they jumped onboard with the idea this is just another way that prison was seen a the “fix it ” solution.
