“THE MONSTER” is a concept that has been floating around the back of my mind for several years.  In late 2001, in response to a question asked by a friend in a letter: “How do small rural counties benefit from the criminal justice system?"  The Monster poured forth in a marathon letter that became the birth of “The Monster” theory on paper.  “The Monster” is a pseudonym referring to the state and local criminal justice systems and their associated prison industry complex.  The following is a cleaned-up, and somewhat expanded, version of what that letter contained: 

Now here comes my opinion: 

I believe the corruption starts right at the top with the present Füerer of California—Gray Davis.  He appears to be power and money hungry, and to achieve his goal of a dictatorship, he must control the poor working class population.  This is being done through the criminal justice system and the prison industry complex.  Davis inherited “The Monster,” his predecessors were no different, Davis is just the present Füerer.  He is not all that much different than the middle ages with productive penal colonies and indentured servitude: make the poor work for the rich for essentially the price of feeding and housing them.  The rich prospered and the poor survived—but never advanced.  They then fed the poor religion to control them.  Do not confuse this fed religion with righteous religious beliefs. 

That was then, this is now.  The methods are similar but the goals are different.  Rather than individuals profiting from this, it is more a welfare system for poor or greedy rural counties. 

You ask, how does the individual county prosper?  Their ultimate goal is to have a prison itself built in their county or community.  In the case of Kern County several prisons.  This effectively is industry brought into a rural county, complete with a large, state or federally funded, local payroll and associated spending.  This is all state or federal money coming mostly from taxpayers in the urban counties.  The trickle-down effect of this influx of state and federal money feeds the local economy of the rural county.  New businesses open to serve all of those prison employees.  It is so lucrative you have private prison corporations fighting to get a piece of the pie—to capitalize on all the human misery involved.  The taxpayers have their heads in the sand as to what is actually going on, which is the urban areas are funding a welfare system for the rural counties through the “prison industry complex,” and all of this under the guise of keeping them safe through the tough on crime criminal justice system.  You see, there is a huge financial incentive to get a conviction, no matter what the human cost.  It is not about guilt or innocence or justice, it is about statistics—winning at all costs and not losing, and providing inmates to feed The Monster. 

Next you ask, how does this benefit counties without a prison?  Well, they are still part of the system, they just don’t get as big a piece of the pie.  Surely, no one believes a small rural county, like Shasta County, with its small population, has the money to locally fund a Monster the size of its justice system.  They don’t!  It is mostly state and federal funds being pumped into their local economy via their Monster.  For instance, when a rural area wants to build a new jail, it is built mostly with grant money from the State Board of Corrections.  Such a project will bring money into the local economy through the construction industry business who pay local salaries and spend money in all the other local businesses.  The trickle-down effect.  The same thing with the special investigation units, the special prosecutors, trial costs, judges salaries, etc.  These are all funded by the state or federal governments, and it is all money brought into the local economy that otherwise would not be there.  From this the local government derives taxes and more power. 

It is the same old thing—money and power.  Who is guarding the guards?  Who’s watching the watch dogs?  The fox is guarding the hen house!  The local prosecutor is analogous to the hen.  You end up complaining about the hen.  To whom—the fox!  The fox isn’t listening, he likes this productive hen’s results.  It gives him more power as the hen feeds The Monster.  The problem must be attacked from the top, not the bottom.  The individual case must be fought from the bottom, but that is different from the real problem.  The real problem will require a voter/taxpayer revolt, and some fiscal governmental responsibility.  First, the taxpayer/voter must be educated.  Made aware of The Monster. 

The Füerer, Gray Davis, now has a huge budgetary mess.  However, to save his dictatorship, he is talking about enhancing the criminal justice system, The Monster, through: using civil commitments to keep from releasing prisoners when their time is up; changing jury compositions from 12 to 8 jurors; no longer requiring unanimous verdicts, etc.; while at the same time wanting to cut spending on education, hospitals, libraries, social services, etc.  All of the things that support The Monster are to be enhanced, while all the programs for the lower classes are threatened.  Well, they don’t need or want the lower classes to be free in society, they require them as inmates in the prison industry complex—Monster Food!  The rich can fund this through their tax money.  That’s what The Monster really wants. 

Long ago, insurance companies realized that fire prevention was far more cost effective than paying out fire damage insurance claims.  They had a financial incentive to fund the first fire departments, just like the taxpayers have a financial incentive in crime prevention—they just don’t know it.  However, the present government does not want to educate the lower classes, not really, that would effectively be crime prevention, which would severely impact the feeding of their prison industry complex—The Monster.  Can’t have that!. 

The Monster wants to increase prison sentences and have no rehabilitation.  It refuses to release senior citizens who are confined to wheel chairs, and who according to The Monster are still dangerous.  That is pure nonsense.  They may have been dangerous 30 years ago, when they were first locked-up and healthy, but it is no longer cost effective to hold them in high security prison settings.  Except, that is, their continuing incarceration, and special care needs, creates additional jobs within the prison industry complex. 

Watch the prison population grow as the prison terms get longer and longer, but, also watch the budget to fund this Monster grow.  No one gets released, but this doesn’t really solve anything.  Because there is a never ending influx of children turning adult, of whom a percentage become fodder for the justice system and the prison industry complex.  The prison population, under the Monster system, continues to grow—again and again—with each new generation and longer prison terms.  There was an old joke: that soon half the population of California would be employed guarding the other half.  That old joke gets closer to reality every day.  Let us not ever forget George Orwell’s “Big Brother” prophecy.  The September 11, terrorist attacks have now allowed our Big Brother government to further erode our civil rights protections bringing us even closer to Orwell’s prophecy. 

What’s next to keep The Monster fed after Prop 36?  The voters want drug diversion because they believe prison to be too expensive to house drug addicts, but the average voter still doesn’t see the big picture.  What does The Monster do to keep the prison beds full after Prop. 36?  Short term prison population is controlled by manipulating parole violations.  When they need to fill beds they violate people for petty non-criminal things.  For long term prison population increases, the local Monsters put more effort into unjust prosecutions, and their new tool—civil commitment.  They release mentally ill persons from mental institutions, people who cannot care for themselves, and who soon will be caught-up in the criminal justice system.  In the end they will occupy a prison bed.  Next, rather than release a prison inmate when his sentence is served, they civilly commit that person so that he can fill the hospital bed previously occupied by the former mental patient who now occupies his old prison bed.  Prop. 36 did nothing!  The beds are still full, and The Monster is happy.  He doesn’t want the taxpayer to discover his new appendages—the civil commitment complex, and the drug program complex. 

The civil commitment programs are under the guise that the prisoner must be civilly committed, rather than released, because since he once committed a crime, he might possibly commit another crime at some obscure date in the future.  If you think this is confined to sex offenders—think again.  Read Penal Code §2962, and remember: this is only the beginning of this scheme.  They always start with the most despised group, then when that is firmly in place, they expand from there. 

But wait, what did Prop. 36 accomplish?  It brought The Monster’s newest appendage, drug programs into the local communities, complete with their bureaucratic infrastructures.  In the case of the small rural county, here comes yet more money form the state funding into the local community economy.  The urban taxpayers again fund The Monster who lives and spends its money in the rural county.  The Monster prospers. 

Can it be stopped?  Sure!  Reagan did it when he was Governor of California, but his successors have revived The Monster—it feeds again.  A taxpayer revolt that stops the money would stop The Monster.