If mass incarceration, the War on Drugs, and mandatory minimum sentencing were not enough of an affront to society, it was recently reported that top federal prison officials received millions in bonuses – despite that fact that federal prisons are mired in scandal and corruption.
USA Today reports:
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons paid more than $2 million in bonuses to top administrators and wardens during the past three years while the agency was confronting persistent overcrowding, sub-par inmate medical care, chronic staffing shortages and a lurid sexual harassment lawsuit that engulfed its largest institution, according to government records and court documents.
The awards ranged from a $7,000 payment last year to a D.C. administrator, to $28,000 to the agency’s acting director Thomas Kane, and $25,500 for Deborah Schult, assistant director of the Health Services Division. The bulk of the payments, nearly $1 million, were approved last year and amounted to almost double the combined amounts in the previous two years.
Prison staffers are outraged that their bosses – who did virtually nothing to stop pervasive sexual harassment from inmates over the course of 16 years – are receiving “performance awards,” even as their lawsuit is pending a settlement.
“These people got bonuses off the backs of people who were actually dealing with the predators,” said Sandra Parr, a vice president of the national union of prison workers. She went on to say that top agency officials “chose to ignore it,” which allowed the problem to spiral out of control.
None of the officials involved in the scandal has responded to an inquiry from USA Today, but a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons said the bonuses were given as a “strengthening of our (senior executive services).” But the rationale for each “performance award” will not be released.
Tamyra Jarvis, the warden at a Coleman, FL prison embroiled in the sexual harassment scandal, was given $34,500 over the past two years before retiring. The Coleman prison is a primary subject of the lawsuit brought by staffers.
During the course of the case, which featured allegations that inmates routinely masturbated in front of female workers and threatened them with rape, victims’ attorneys and union officials argued that for years bureau managers and top administrators did little or nothing to intervene.
According to court documents, prison managers routinely either destroyed incident reports detailing the inmate conduct or disregarded the complaints altogether. In one case in which an inmate got close enough to ejaculate on a staffer’s leg, a manager acknowledged “shredding” the staffer’s complaint because the staffer could not positively identify the substance as semen since she was “not medical personnel.”
Besides the problem of rampant sexual harassment, federal prisons are plagued by inadequate medical care and “crisis level” staffing shortages. An Inspector General report found that some prisons had a 40 percent or more vacancy rate, citing the inability to compete with the private sector in recruiting medical staff.
But instead of using that $2 million to increase the salary for medical professionals, bonuses were given to corrupt prison officials sailing toward retirement while ignoring festering problems.
Unfortunately, this comes as no surprise to learn that a federal agency known as the Bureau of Prisons is the cause of needless suffering. The agency thrives on mass incarceration, throwing people in cages for victimless crimes.
According to its own statistics, almost half (46.3%) of federal inmates are in prison for “drug offenses,” which is a product of federal government’s inhumane, archaic War on Drugs. The drug war, borne of racism and quelling antiwar dissent, helps no one except the agencies and law enforcement who profit from it.
Despite everything we know, the new Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, has promised to ramp up the drug war and pursue mandatory minimum sentencing, thus exacerbating the problem of mass incarceration and the injustice of locking people up for victimless crimes.
Justin Gardner is a peaceful free-thinker with a background in the biological sciences. He is interested in bringing rationality back into the national discourse, and independent journalism as a challenge to the status quo. Gardner finds inspiration in the garden and people who promote peace and goodwill to all life. This article first appeared here at TheFreeThoughtProject.com
America’s prison system with all its inherent problems wouldn’t be necessary had the late 18th-century founders not rejected Yahweh as sovereign and thus His immutable/unchanging moral law as the standard for government and society.
Under the Bible’s juridical system prisons are superfluous. Convicted capital criminals are put to death expeditiously, per Ecclesiastes 8:11. Non-capital criminal are required to pay two to five times restitution (depending upon the nature of the crime) to their VICTIMS, per Exodus 22:1ff, etc. If a thief is unable to pay the required restitution, he’s to be sold into indentured servitude until restitution has been paid, per Exodus 22:3. If he refuses to pay restitution, his contempt of court is a capital crime for which he’s to be put to death expeditiously, per Deuteronomy 17:9-13.
Perfect, just like King David said it was in Psalm 19:7-11. Under such a system, crime would be all but unheard of and tax-paid-for prisons would non-existent.
For more on how Yahweh’s triune moral law (His Ten Commandments and their respective statutes and judgments) applies and should be implemented today, see free online book “Law and Kingdom: Their Relevance Under the New Covenant.” Click on my name, then our website. Go to our Online Books page and scroll down to title.
Then “A Biblical Constitution: A Scriptural Replacement for Secular Government.”
Thank goodness, Jesus came and fulfilled the Law of Moses and established the New Covenant. What am I going to do with that clown who stole $300 from me and can’t pay it back? Do I have to let him use the spare bedroom until he mows the yard 10 times?
What worked 3000 years ago doesn’t necessarily work today. You’re a total nut to think God wants us to live under the Law of Moses today.
What other false accusations would you like to make, knowing that Deuteronomy 19: 16-19 won’t be used against you by the humanist god WeThePeople? As you pointed out, the god WeThePeople is definitely not the same yesterday (3000 years ago), today and forever. You’re a total nut if you think Ted advocates living under the law that was added 430 years after the covenant.
I haven’t decided if you trying to be confusing or you are totally confused. I’m currently leaning to the latter.
Ted R. Weiland is advocating that modern day Americans live under the Law of Moses. “Convicted capital criminals are put to death expeditiously, per Ecclesiastes 8:11” Weiland is quoting executions done under the Law of Moses.
Let me say it again, “Ted R. Weiland is advocating that modern day Americans live under the Law of Moses.” That makes him two fries short of a Happy Meal and you along with him.
Are you still confused?
No, Grundune, David Hodges is not trying to be confusing nor is he confused. Whether it’s your Mormon training or your lack of Bible study that has left you uneducated in these matters it’s clear that it’s willful on your part. You’ve followed Ted R. Weiland around online for months if not years throwing out often nasty, hugely sarcastic, usually lying ad hominem attacks against him in great mockery, all the while revealing and perpetuating your ignorance as you arrogantly proclaim that you won’t read his free online materials.
Yahweh’s law is His morality. It is eternal just as He is eternal, and there are many places in the Old Testament showing His law in use from the beginning. Note that even in the creation He worked six days and rested on the seventh. Gen. 26:5 shows directly that Abraham obeyed Yahweh’s law: “because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”
Take a chance Grundune and read just the beginning of “Law and Kingdom: Their Relevance Under the New Covenant.” (Ted R. Weiland directs you to it in his message above.) There, information comes quickly and you will learn right away directly from the Bible that Yahweh’s law is still in effect. And if you believe the Bible you will undoubtedly be left with grave concern for the position you are now in with Him.
The Law of Moses was instituted by God because the majority of ancient Israelites demonstrated that they were not ready to live the higher law. Yes Abraham obeyed Yahweh’s law. He was obeying the laws given to Adam and his posterity. If you’ll remember, the Law of Moses had not been revealed and imposed yet. Moses would not be born for centuries.
A prophet called Mosiah, of the tribe of Joseph, recorded in the Book of Mormon, “And now I say unto you that it was expedient that there should be a law given to the children of Israel, yea, even a very strict law; for they were a stiffnecked people, quick to do iniquity, and slow to remember the Lord their God; Therefore, there was a law given them, yea, a law of performances and of ordinances, a law which they were to observe strictly from day to day, to keep them in remembrance of God and their duty towards him” (Mosiah 13:29–30)
Paul said, “the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.” (Gal. 3:24)
It was the law of carnal commandments because it was given to teach those belonging to the chosen race to bridle their passions, to overcome the lusts of the flesh, to triumph over the carnal things, and to advance to the place where the Spirit of the Lord could have full flow in their hearts.
In the military we called it “doing it by the numbers”. It is a way of teaching new recruits. A very basic and repetitious learning technique. But after the recruits are molded into soldiers, it is no longer necessary. The schoolmaster was no longer necessary when the Savior finished His mission and revealed the higher law.
Now I know you don’t want to believe anything that contradicts Weiland, but he’s wrong when he preaches that we should still be living under the law of carnal commandments. Christ did away with the “schoolmaster rules”. The period of living laws designed to point the attention of the people forward to Christ is over. Christ came and fulfilled His mission. We now are to live His higher law.
It all needs to be dissolved, from the Vatican down.
Theft and corruption by the federal government, you must be kidding. 😉
Stop making a fool of yourself, David. Jesus did not say “stone her” as you said. Jesus said, let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.
Obviously the time for stoning women for adultery was over because no one is without sin.
So why do you prefer man’s system of professional accusers, who get away with murder, over Jesus’s subjecting any hypocrites to intense scrutiny?
Ted R. Weiland must be furious with you. Your blundering with the scriptures has proven his ministry is wrong. All along Weiland has steadfastly maintained that we should still be living under the Law of Moses and that Jesus didn’t change anything when He came.
Yet when you claimed that Jesus’ told the woman’s accusers to stone her that would have been the exact same thing the Pharisees who administered the Law of Moses would have ordered meaning nothing had changed, stoning for adultery was still in effect.
BUT JESUS DIDN’T SAY “STONE HER”. Under the new covenant, there could never be stoning again and Jesus demonstrated the change very eloquently when He said, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. No one could ever stone a woman again.
Weiland is wrong and so are you. Stoning allowed under the Law of Moses is now impossible, proof that Christ fulfilled the Law of Moses and did away with stoning.