I feel like my body is being attacked by the very medicine that I need to save it. How ironic. “It’ll stabilize.” They tell me and I believe them. The very first pill they put me on had no side effects. Sad to say that one is pending a lawsuit right now for not advertising the high percentage of blood clotting it produces. After that one, they put me on one with less dosage. My body reacted negatively to that. Side effects all the time. I was crying constantly but didn’t even want to cry. Now they’re putting me on another one. I don’t know how much more I can take. Would it just be easier to not take them and take my chances? I’m quite tired.

Today I went to class expecting to learn about prisoners and how that affected communities. Usually those that are incarcerated are removed from their communities which causes it to suffer. You would think it would be the other way around, seeing how criminals are viewed as diseased and a plague on society. However, though they are not the best citizens, they still contribute something. They give (at least some) support to their families, and they buy things. Sure, they might purchase things with drug money or stolen money, but they still buy things, and that contributes to the growth of the community. Removing them from their communities is not the best idea ever. But we’re removing them from their gangs! You might argue. However, removing a criminal from the community by incarcerating him only removes their legitimate networks, such as family. Criminals are tossed into often overcrowded prisons or jails where there are tons of other criminals. You can bet that they are developing illegitimate networks.

Well I learned that, and I also learned about the inequalities that prisons bring around with them. You see, rural towns usually compete to have a prison built near them. Why would any town want a prison near them you might ask? Doesn’t that bring stigma to the town? Doesn’t that make people avoid that place? Yes that is true. Rural towns believe that prisons would bring in economic opportunities and jobs, but usually prison guards are from out of town, and prisons have a large supply of cheap labor. They don’t need to create jobs for the residents. What these folks lack, they make up in other ways.
1.) Prisoners are counted as members of the town that they are incarcerated in. This is recorded in the census. Since they are in prison, they have no income and this is also recorded. Why is this important? The government sends out poverty aid for towns with large populations and a low average income. Since there are a lot of prisoners that have no income, this drags the income level down and raises the population for what otherwise would be a very small town. Does this mean that the rural towns don’t need the money that the government spends on them? No, they still need aid because a lot of them are timber/mining towns that have a high population of poor, unemployed, and uneducated whites. However, what about crowded cities that would need that aid to provide for their growing number of residents?
2.) Since prisoners are counted into the census, when politics come into play, this is a big deal. Political power is shifting from urban areas (where most inmates are from) to the rural areas (where the prisoners are incarcerated). In another sense of things, power is shifting from mainly democratic areas to mainly republican areas.
3.) Disenfranchisement of prisoners is also an important issue. These are not model citizens, so don’t think that I am preaching them as perfect role models. There was a study done where researchers went and asked prisoners who they would have voted for. A lot of the prisoners did not vote. However, those that did were mainly democrats. Since we have had many close elections, if prisoners were allowed to vote, they might have turned out a different way. This researcher argued that if prisoners were allowed to vote, the ones that did would change the outcome of the 2000 election. The researcher also argued that the democrats would have held the Senate consecutively for more than 20 years. This is really big. All but two states have legislation that prevents inmates from voting, and some even permanently disables voting rights if someone is convicted of a felon.

There was a lot more that I learned, but I can’t remember it anymore. It’s quite an eye opening. I feel that in many ways, prisons has become a big issue. It’s something that we have created and now cannot turn our backs against. It’s easy to build prisons, but it’s difficult to tear them down. Where will the prisoners go? What are they going to turn the prison into? Prisons have increasingly called for higher spending. It takes more money to keep one prisoner incarcerated than it takes for an out of state student to attend a university. That’s right. It’s cheaper to educate people than incarcerate them. Yet our expenditures on education is lacking…Something just has to be done about this. It isn’t even about rehabilitation anymore. The government gave up on that a long time ago. Isn’t it time that we do something different?

I liked this part in her song xD

I found this picture while cleaning out my room and spent a good few minutes looking back on it. I was in Kindergarten back then, my life ahead of me. All the experiences and memories that I have right now aren’t found anywhere in this picture. I feel like there’s still an air of innocence of who I once was. The girl in the picture is not who I am anymore. She has a father and a mother who live in the same household. This girl does not know the pains of divorce or have a brother to look after. This girl does not know what love is. But, she also does not know what hurt is. I remember this girl used to run around the backyard with her cousin playing with the dogs, kidnapping the neighbor’s cat because it was cute, and being looked after by her great-grandmother. It’s quite strange to me to think of a time when I was shorter than I am now. Pictures capture the essence of a memory. I forgot that I had purple overalls. I forgot who my teacher was. Then I think about it. I’ll forgot this very moment one day. I’ll forget about what I’m wearing, the address I live at, and definitely the dinner I’m going to eat. So now I have a resolution. I must take more pictures and capture these small memories. For if there was something to fear about death, I feel that I fear losing my memory. But if I take these pictures, even if my body goes, my memories still live on in these photos.