While the United States boasts only five percent of the world's population, it houses 25 percent of the world's inmates, according to an April, 2008 New York Times article. The cost of incarcerating that many prisoners averages $30,000 per inmate. Some 7.2 million Americans are in prison, on probation or on parole. According to a U.S. Bureau of Justice Report, that means one of every 32 Americans is somehow in the justice system, and that figure has been steadily rising since 1980.
The Real Cost of Prisons Project tries to shed light on why the United States has such a disproportionate number of prisons and prisoners compared to other countries with bigger populations and/or stricter laws. The organization has created three comic books that address three of the most prominent prison-related issues: how towns that have prisons are affected; how the war on drugs changed the prison system; and how prison affects female prisoners and their children.
Over 125,000 copies of the books have been printed; roughly 75,000 have been distributed among inmates, their families, activists and educators around the country. This Wednesday in Northampton, Lois Ahrens, editor, and Ellen Miller- Mack, author of two of the books, give a talk and reading from The Real Cost Of Prisons Comix, an anthology that includes all three comics—Prison Town: Paying the Price, Prisoners of the War on Drugs and Prisoners of a Hard Life: Women and Their Children—as well as letters from a wide variety of readers, including teachers, inmates, organizers, students and healthcare workers.
Also, a little further south in the Valley and a little earlier in the day, Dr. Jean Kilbourne speaks as part of the Center for Human Development's annual Through Her Eyes conference, an event featuring numerous workshops about the problems that female juvenile offenders face, including trauma, neglect and gender issues.
The Real Cost of Prisons Comix reading and talk: Oct. 22, 7 p.m., Broadside Bookshop, 247 Main St., Northampton, (413) 586-4235, www.realcostofprisons.org; Through Her Eyes Conference: Oct. 22, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., MassMutual Center, 1277 Main St., Springfield, (413) 439-2104, www.throughhereyes.org.
