Cassi Creek: A form
letter arrived this morning from the Nashville Regional office of the Dept of
Veterans’ Affairs. Dated 13, August
2013, it assured me that my claim is being considered and apologized for the
delay to date.
I’ve made
several requests for updates beginning at 6 months after filing my claim. There is no indication as to which request
for status is being answered. Still,
this is the first formal acknowledgement I’ve received about this claim in 11
months. I guess this is progress. I hope so.
Bits and pieces:
The U.S, leads the world in the number of people
imprisoned. Many of the total are locked
away for non-violent offenses. There has
been a tremendous growth in the private prison industry. Rather than build new state prisons, the
various states have found it cheaper to commit the convicted to private lockups
that exist ton warehouse prisoners at the lowest possible cost/day.
California’s prisons are so overcrowded that they have been
ordered to release non-violent offenders rather than keep them in inhumane
conditions. Private prisons seem to be
somewhat more exempt from the requirement to provide safe, humane conditions to
the inmates they confine
Along with
the judicial notice of overcrowding and dangerous conditions within state
prisons, the realization that non-violent drug offenders might better be dealt
with in a non-jail manner. As the drive
to legalize marijuana increases, so too does the call to release prisoners whose
only crime was ingestion of an illegal substance.
Currently,
our long war on drugs is a failure. It
neither prevents importation nor does it prevent users. We have enriched numerous drug cartels when
we could have generated a profitable agricultural industry.
We used to
make jokes about Mexican prisons – truly nothing to joke about. Now ours are crowded, ruled by gangs, and
filled with people who can’t afford to pay the high prices required to purchase
one’s release from or evasion of privatized jails. If you are old enough to recall, sing along.
“ So here we’ll stay, cause we can’t pay.
Just send our mail, to the Tijuana jail.”
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