Crime And America: A Fable

by Ted Rall

But the law didn't see things the same way. Kenny and Ian had both robbed that bank (well, tried to rob it anyway) in a lame effort to finance a pair of new Mustangs and a few bags of smack, and it didn't matter that Ian had promised that they'd surrender to the police rather than hurt anyone, or that Kenny was busy watching the front door when Ian released a six-pack of slugs into the guard's chest, or that Ian had a rap sheet a mile long while Kenny hadn't even gotten a parking ticket.

They were murderers together, and they got 20 years together.

Kenny didn't have a problem with that. He'd learned the hardest way possible that how you choose your friends can become a matter of life and death, and he accepted full responsibility for what he'd done (though at night when the buzz of the fluorescent lights kept him awake, he knew that he'd never killed anybody, never pulled a trigger of a gun, much less when it was pointed at a human being).

At first glance, the prison didn't seem that bad. There was a good library, an exercise facility and even cable TV because the old rabbit ears couldn't penetrate the prison walls. Fights between inmates weren't tolerated, and if you worked hard at a job of your choosing, you could earn points toward early release.

The punishment was the confinement. For 20 long years, you'd never see a new movie, or walk into a bar and have a beer, or exchange knowing glances with a cute girl on the bus. To be sure, you could lose yourself in a book or a movie on cable, but their images of freedom only made prison that much worse. It was a terrible, awful fate, and there was nothing to do but wait.

About halfway through Kenny's term, some politician running for governor visited the prison. The politician didn't see the long nights when some prisoner would start sobbing uncontrollably, or the face on a guy when he got his divorce papers in the mail. He saw the cable TV and the weight room, and there he saw opportunity.

A year after the politician's election, the cable TV was gone, replaced by a loop tape of old episodes of "The 700 Club" designed to keep inmates away. The weight room was closed, and the library budget was slashed to the point that there were never any new books. Soon there was nothing much to do but sit around in your cell, staring at the wall while imagining the politician's face being smashed into it.

As the years passed, it became evident that society no longer considered confinement to be sufficient punishment for crimes, and that prisoners were to be tortured rather than reformed. Sensing the new zeitgeist, guards began turning a blind eye to even the most sordid violence.

It was also important that prisoners be deprived of all but the most minimal medical care in order to serve as a deterrent to those who might consider following a criminal career path. The number of points you needed to be considered for early release kept increasing until the program was eliminated because the goals had become unachievable.

Once Kenny was beaten so badly that he lost the few teeth that hadn't rotted away due to lack of proper dental care. But he understood the anger of law-abiding people on the outside; after all, people like him had made it unsafe to walk the streets.

When Kenny was released, he vowed to turn his life around. Of course, he wasn't really free. He had to check in once a week with his parole officer, and he learned to ignore campaign posters and articles about politics in the newspapers. As a convicted felon, he'd never be allowed to vote again.

Job applications were the worst; they always asked at the bottom whether or not he'd ever been convicted of a crime, and if so, when and what crime. He didn't know whether or not his prospective employers could check him out, but lying was a parole violation and telling the truth guaranteed a rejection.

Hadn't he already served his time? Hadn't all of his 20s and 30s been spent rotting behind musty concrete walls? Still, Kenny was grateful to be out. He refused to let a few minor inconveniences manufactured by petty-minded bureaucrats trip him up.

It took a few years, but finally Kenny found a job and a small duplex apartment. He worked long hours, and it paid off when he was promoted to assistant manager.

Then he came home one day to find a flier in his mailbox. It was from the police. A dangerous convicted murderer was living in the neighborhood, it said, and under a new law all of his neighbors were entitled to know that so they could "take proper precautions." A picture of himself, 23 years younger, stared at him from the paper in his hand.

He found the broken plate-glass window when he entered his apartment, no doubt the work of some newly educated neighbor. Everything he owned, which wasn't much, had been either broken or stolen.

He walked to a pay phone and called Ian.

"What the hell is it with these people?" he asked his fellow ex-con. "They keep piling up more and more punishment on top of what I've already served. Why don't they just get it over with and send me back to prison?"

"Well, I do know about this jewelry store," Ian started.