Crimes Against Humanity - The Shame of Separating and Imprisoning Children

What do we as Americans stand for, a flag or principled values? We are in a terrible state in this country - for some a state of denial, for some a state of shock and for others a state of perceived resistance. But the worst among us are those who are in a state of obedience to crimes being committed against young children and families in the name of their government, deterrence and nationalism.

Many of my friends know that I spent a substantial amount of time in prison in the mid 60's opposing conscription and speaking out against the Vietnam war. The thoughts I'm putting to paper here are influenced greatly by that experience. The experience included detention centers, maximum security walled penitentiaries and toward the end a farm prison camp with no walls but fences that could be climbed. I have listened recently to pundits referencing immigrant camps, refurbished Walmarts, cages, dormitories and on and on. They are all however, talking about very young children as well as teenagers, being separated, at times brutally from their parents, clearly as an act of punishment. This is abusive and criminal. None of us would sit quietly by if it happened to us. Legislators wouldn't allow it if it was their children or grandchildren. White House staff wouldn't allow it if it was their children or grandchildren.

We should all be ashamed and we should all speak up.

Let me be very clear as we see, read and hear about these children and families. Prison is prison, is prison, is prison. Let's call it what it is. This is what we do in our prisons. We control people's ability to leave a variety of geographical or physical locations. We control who people talk to or who they have as visitors. We control mail. We control where people sleep, toilet themselves, eat and spend leisure time. We use a bureaucracy of insulting rules to control large groups of people being held in involuntarily settings because someone tells us it's ok and the right thing to do. Most of these rules are meant to intimidate and frighten potential resisters and rule breakers. Sometimes we do these things in the name of rehabilitation (name only in most cases), sometimes we're more honest and do it in the name of punishment and deterrence. Guess why we're doing it to children and families today seeking asylum in America? Clearly punishment, control and deterrence. Yes laws and policies need to be changed but people can and should be treated humanely in this process.

People need to understand that peoples lives, relationships, mental health and future interactions with families and society are influenced by all of these types of actions. Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, reaction to authority and violence, as well as general attitudes toward peers and society are incubated in these settings. Some ,if not most lives, will be changed forever

I have known people destroyed to the core by prisons, mental health facilities or any institutional setting that tries to destroy individualism. I have also met and known heroes, saints and great people who knew how to beat the dehumanization, yet it was always a chore and steep prices that were paid.

But here we are today as a country, accepting and promoting  the separation of babies and youngsters from mothers and fathers and placing them in tents, buildings, dormitories and cages or cells. It is wrong. It is illegal. It is abusive and it has to stop as quickly as possible.

In the end though, we all create our own prisons. Sometimes the cages and cells, fences and walls  don't matter. The reality is that there can be prisons created out of big White Houses, where people and families live and work in their own isolation. Prisons can be created in huge domed buildings in Capitols where mostly old white men in crumpled suits look at each other with blank looks or smirks. Imprisoned by their friends, their money and donations. In their self importance, they try to punch their way out of paper bags all day long and they fail.

As you lay down your head to rest and as you rise in the morning, please think of these youngsters and families and in the end speak up for them. We have to. We really have to.