"Negative Energy Generator" - Andy Singer, US
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Criminal justice reform ignores victims of crime
A great opinion piece. It essentially highlights what I blogged about in my previous blog post where corrections officers in prisons are also silently suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).
Since, I put most of what I think about this issue, in that blog post, I won't repeat myself, here. But, this opinion piece comes back to the same point that victims of violent crimes also want the same changes in the prison system, as the corrections officers; rehabilitation of prisoners instead of packing them in prisons like sardines. Building more prisons won't solve the crime. Locking a first-time offender with a hardened criminal only increases the chances that that first-time offender is only going to become a hardened criminal him/herself.
So, governments should be using the tax dollars in building more rehab centers for criminals, instead of building more & bigger prisons. Current prison system doesn't help anyone, but actually exploits the prisoner & the whole society.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When policymakers think of the people who comprise the victims’ rights movement, young people of color from low-income communities may not be the first group that leaps to mind. But the facts suggest these survivors should be.
My organization conducted 2 years of research & found that 1 in 5 Californians experience crime – but its impact is concentrated & unequal. The majority of crime victims live in lower-income communities & repeat victimization is even more concentrated (echoing research on victimization in the entire US). When it comes to violent crime, those most likely to be repeatedly victimized are young people of color, especially African-American & Latino males.
2 out of 3 crime survivors reported being victimized more than once in the last 5 years. Many repeat victims have long histories of suffering multiple types of crimes, such as sexual exploitation, abuse or community violence. Worse still, only a small number of survivors receive any help, despite often experiencing severe depression, anxiety & post-traumatic stress in the aftermath of crime.
Young people of color from low-income communities bear an unconscionably disproportionate burden of violence & crime – & are victimized at staggering rates while also the least likely to get help to recover from trauma. Most frequently victimized, least often supported. There is something terribly wrong with this picture.
Beyond lacking access to recovery support, most crime victims also disagree with the direction criminal justice policymaking has taken over the last few decades of prison expansion. While the traditional approach to victims’ rights has focused on toughening punishments for people convicted of crime & strengthening the rights of victims during criminal proceedings, our research shows that most survivors of crime think that our current investments in justice system are unwise. 2 out of 3 California victims surveyed believe bloated prisons either make inmates better at committing crimes or have no impact on crime at all. Most survivors want greater investments into rehabilitation, mental health treatment & prevention over bigger prisons & jails.
Listening to crime victims can tell us a lot how we should reform our safety & justice systems. We must embrace survivors as unexpected advocates for justice reform. It’s time to stop pretending that building more prisons protects survivors – it doesn’t.
Procedural rights for victims are critical, & accountability for people who commit crime is an essential component of an effective criminal justice system. Yet, many victims never even get to a courtroom. National statistics reveal that over half of violent crime goes unreported, eliminating any possibility of a prosecution. And even when violent crimes are reported, less than half result in an arrest. So focusing only on criminal proceedings leaves out the experiences & needs of the majority of crime survivors.
Packed prisons & extreme sentencing for the fraction of crimes that result in a conviction also depletes the very resources needed to improve victim protection & community safety. We need to rethink what investments can serve & protect as many victims as possible, including the communities most impacted by crime. We should pay special attention to the needs of those at greatest risk of being repeatedly victimized, such as youth of color.
When victims go without trauma recovery support, they risk being victimized again & falling through the cracks in life: dropping out of school, suffering health problems, self-medicating to the point of addiction & even turning to crime themselves.
...
Instead of continuing to create harsh penalties that, in turn, create more prisons as our response to crime, we should invest in mental health care & trauma-informed services for anyone traumatized by violence, as well as safe places to go when crisis erupts, family support programs & economic recovery assistance for victims. We also need to improve the relationship between police, prosecutors & the communities they serve, so that victims trust – & can safely cooperate with – law enforcement to solve more crimes.
Despite the prevalence of pro-victim rhetoric during the prison-building era, few policymakers have asked themselves who experiences crime, who is most vulnerable to repeat crime or what survivors need to recover & avoid future harm. Most crime victims have never been at the center of attention of criminal justice policies, nor have their experiences & needs been considered as penal codes & prison populations mushroomed over the past 3 decades.
But the evidence suggests that when you ask the people most affected, survivors are less interested in spending tax dollars to fill more prisons & instead want to prioritize investments that will actually prevent crime in the first place. It is time for policymakers to finally listen – & put the perspectives of those most vulnerable to harm at the center of policies.
Since, I put most of what I think about this issue, in that blog post, I won't repeat myself, here. But, this opinion piece comes back to the same point that victims of violent crimes also want the same changes in the prison system, as the corrections officers; rehabilitation of prisoners instead of packing them in prisons like sardines. Building more prisons won't solve the crime. Locking a first-time offender with a hardened criminal only increases the chances that that first-time offender is only going to become a hardened criminal him/herself.
So, governments should be using the tax dollars in building more rehab centers for criminals, instead of building more & bigger prisons. Current prison system doesn't help anyone, but actually exploits the prisoner & the whole society.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When policymakers think of the people who comprise the victims’ rights movement, young people of color from low-income communities may not be the first group that leaps to mind. But the facts suggest these survivors should be.
My organization conducted 2 years of research & found that 1 in 5 Californians experience crime – but its impact is concentrated & unequal. The majority of crime victims live in lower-income communities & repeat victimization is even more concentrated (echoing research on victimization in the entire US). When it comes to violent crime, those most likely to be repeatedly victimized are young people of color, especially African-American & Latino males.
2 out of 3 crime survivors reported being victimized more than once in the last 5 years. Many repeat victims have long histories of suffering multiple types of crimes, such as sexual exploitation, abuse or community violence. Worse still, only a small number of survivors receive any help, despite often experiencing severe depression, anxiety & post-traumatic stress in the aftermath of crime.
Young people of color from low-income communities bear an unconscionably disproportionate burden of violence & crime – & are victimized at staggering rates while also the least likely to get help to recover from trauma. Most frequently victimized, least often supported. There is something terribly wrong with this picture.
Beyond lacking access to recovery support, most crime victims also disagree with the direction criminal justice policymaking has taken over the last few decades of prison expansion. While the traditional approach to victims’ rights has focused on toughening punishments for people convicted of crime & strengthening the rights of victims during criminal proceedings, our research shows that most survivors of crime think that our current investments in justice system are unwise. 2 out of 3 California victims surveyed believe bloated prisons either make inmates better at committing crimes or have no impact on crime at all. Most survivors want greater investments into rehabilitation, mental health treatment & prevention over bigger prisons & jails.
Listening to crime victims can tell us a lot how we should reform our safety & justice systems. We must embrace survivors as unexpected advocates for justice reform. It’s time to stop pretending that building more prisons protects survivors – it doesn’t.
Procedural rights for victims are critical, & accountability for people who commit crime is an essential component of an effective criminal justice system. Yet, many victims never even get to a courtroom. National statistics reveal that over half of violent crime goes unreported, eliminating any possibility of a prosecution. And even when violent crimes are reported, less than half result in an arrest. So focusing only on criminal proceedings leaves out the experiences & needs of the majority of crime survivors.
Packed prisons & extreme sentencing for the fraction of crimes that result in a conviction also depletes the very resources needed to improve victim protection & community safety. We need to rethink what investments can serve & protect as many victims as possible, including the communities most impacted by crime. We should pay special attention to the needs of those at greatest risk of being repeatedly victimized, such as youth of color.
When victims go without trauma recovery support, they risk being victimized again & falling through the cracks in life: dropping out of school, suffering health problems, self-medicating to the point of addiction & even turning to crime themselves.
...
Instead of continuing to create harsh penalties that, in turn, create more prisons as our response to crime, we should invest in mental health care & trauma-informed services for anyone traumatized by violence, as well as safe places to go when crisis erupts, family support programs & economic recovery assistance for victims. We also need to improve the relationship between police, prosecutors & the communities they serve, so that victims trust – & can safely cooperate with – law enforcement to solve more crimes.
Despite the prevalence of pro-victim rhetoric during the prison-building era, few policymakers have asked themselves who experiences crime, who is most vulnerable to repeat crime or what survivors need to recover & avoid future harm. Most crime victims have never been at the center of attention of criminal justice policies, nor have their experiences & needs been considered as penal codes & prison populations mushroomed over the past 3 decades.
But the evidence suggests that when you ask the people most affected, survivors are less interested in spending tax dollars to fill more prisons & instead want to prioritize investments that will actually prevent crime in the first place. It is time for policymakers to finally listen – & put the perspectives of those most vulnerable to harm at the center of policies.
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
The hidden PTSD crisis in America's jails
A good article highlighting something which us, in the general public, never think about: corrections officers in prisons are also subjected to daily abuse & stress, which leads them to suffer from PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).
The main problem is the prison system. It's the same system all over the world; if a person is convicted for a crime, then he/she is thrown in a jail cell for a determined amount of time or for life. Now, if the prison system stops at that point, even then, it will not create a huge problem. It becomes a huge problem when the government officials starts listening to prison-industrial complex lobbyists, & in pandering for their constituents' votes, start broadening the definition of crime.
That's when several things start to happen:
1. Any kind of crime, major or minor, is considered huge.
2. Judges & the state prosecutors are rewarded for prosecuting as many people as they can.
3. More convicted criminals can be shown by politicians, to the general public, as the proof that their tough-on-crime stance is working.
4. As more people get convicted, even for minor offences, prisons start to fill up fast.
5. Prison-industrial complex start to get "free" labourers in the form of convicted prisoners, which is another form of slavery.
6. Governments & businesses start to pay the companies involved in the prison-industrial complex in the form of subsidies & for products made from prisoners' labour.
7. So, now, those prisons become like a business unto itself. And, as every business' primary responsibility is to lower its costs & increase its profits, those prisons start to be judged with the same metrics. That's where, the problem starts to snowball into a giant problem with very adverse consequences for the whole society.
As prisons become like businesses, they start to treat all prisoners as the same. So, even a hardened criminal is treated the same as first-time offender. In that case, a first-time offender might have benefited a lot with more of a rehab approach, instead of being locked up with a hardened criminal. But, since, rehabs cost money & prisons don't want to invest in something which cost money, that first-time offender never gets any rehab treatment, to the point, that he/she becomes a hardened criminal him/herself.
So, now, the society has to tolerate a hardened criminal, if he/she is ever released. Since, he/she is a hardened criminal now, he/she will most likely commit the offence again, which will result him/her in receiving a much harsher sentence. That will only help in overcrowding of the prisons.
Furthermore, as prisons are not allowed or discouraged from investing in prisons, prisoners increase (which also is creating overcrowding in American prisons), but the number of prison guards / corrections officers don't increase, accordingly. The ratio of prisoners to corrections officers gets all skewed, with as much as, 50 or more prisoners are handled by one corrections officer. Imagine, if that's how many children are being taught by one teacher. That would be considered unthinkable in North American education system.
Of course, handling so many criminals, many of whom themselves might be suffering from several physical & mental health problems, for which they don't receive any kind of treatment, by one corrections officer, is only going to cause those corrections officers huge stress. Since, stress is the root cause of many other health problems, those officers also become prone to several physical & mental health problems.
Further compounding the problem is the macho culture of prisons, where showing any kind of weakness is considered almost fatal by both prisoners & corrections officers. So, of course, corrections officers suffer in silence with these physical & mental issues. They take out their pent-up frustrations & anger on prisoners, which is wrong & unjustifiable, & cause more rifts in general society, when it sees how police are treating prisoners.
So, the main issue to resolve here is breaking up the prison-industrial complex:
1. Prisons need to be under governments' control, where governments should invest in rehab treatments of prisoners.
2. Government should help in the reintegration of prisoners after they are released from prisons, reducing the chances of them committing a crime again. After all, if they commit a crime again, they will go to prison once again, & the taxpayers will pick the tab anyway. So, why not invest in making those prisoners a tax-paying citizen, instead of tax-consuming prisoner?
3. Politicians should not be pandering for votes on their crime-reducing capabilities. Let objective data on crimes dictate those policies, since all data nowadays keeps saying that crimes are continuously decreasing. Politicians may also not focus on this issue if they are not receiving any money from prison-industrial complex.
4. Reducing the ratio of prisoner to corrections officers by either reducing the prisoner population or increasing the number of corrections officers or both. This may not be required if politicians don't unnecessarily expand the definition of crime & treat every crime the same way. Minor offences are treated by rehab approach & major offences are processed through the prison system.
5. Changing the macho culture may never happen but it is certainly a desirable option. It will be very hard to do since organizational cultures don't change so easily, especially, considering it's the prison system we are talking about.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Van Patten’s 18-year-old son came home to find his dad crouching on the kitchen floor, gun in hand, a nearly empty bottle of gin by his side, tears running down his cheeks. Trevor grabbed the weapon, ran up to his room, shut the door & didn’t speak to his dad – or anyone – about the incident for 13 years.
For Michael, this was the build-up of nearly 3 decades working as a corrections officer at the Oregon state penitentiary. “The only way I knew how to deal with it was to eat a bullet.”
There is little awareness of how the culture of endemic violence in prisons affects the correction officers who interact with prisoners. But with over 2 million prisoners & around half a million COs, it is a widespread & underreported problem.
Corrections officers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder at more than double the rate of military veterans in the US, according to Caterina Spinaris, the leading professional in corrections-specific clinical research & founder of Desert Waters Correctional Outreach, a nonprofit based in Colorado.
This in turn inevitably affects prisoners. While there is no hard data on guard-on-inmate assaults, interviews with current & former corrections officers revealed that COs occasionally take out the stress of the job on inmates.
In 2011, Spinaris did an anonymous survey of corrections officers, testing them for indications of PTSD: repeated flashbacks of traumatic incidents, hyper-vigilance, insomnia, suicidal thoughts & alienation, among others. She found that 34% of corrections officers suffer from PTSD. This compares to 14% of military veterans.
The suicide rate among corrections officers is twice as high as that of both police officers & the general public, according to a New Jersey police taskforce. An earlier national study found that corrections officers’ suicide risk was 39% higher than all other professions combined.
“Right now, we’re about where the military was 10, 15 years ago when it comes to them dealing with PTSD,” Van Patten tells me. Nearly 20 of his fellow officers have committed suicide since he started working in corrections. He nearly became a statistic himself.
Van Patten was assaulted when he was helping a nurse give a rectal exam to an inmate suspected of packing drugs. As he was reaching down to grab the inmate’s ankles to flip him over, the inmate came down on Van Patten’s back, dislocating his skull from his spinal vertebrae. Van Patten couldn’t walk for 5 months, nor could he hold his newborn child.
...
Most of his job, around 95% as he estimates, is pretty mundane. Every day he does a cell count, keeps an eye on inmate’s activities, fetches someone toilet paper. This goes on for 8 or, often, 16 hours straight – sometimes without a lunch break, depending on the day.
It’s the other 5% that leads to the extraordinarily high rate of PTSD: dealing with inmate violence, coming home with faeces smeared all over his uniform, trying to stop suicide attempts.
Van Patten said the biggest stress factor is not knowing when crisis situations may arise. This leads to permanent hyper-vigilance, “because we go into a place where we have control, but yet we don’t have control, because the inmates let us run the prison. If they wanted to, they could take it. They’re compliant until they choose not to be,” he said.
As soon as a CO enters a prison, he or she goes into battle mode. “We put on our armour. When you walk through the first gate, it clicks. And so does your back,” says Michael Morgan, an ex-officer at Oregon state penitentiary. “You’re in the pressure cooker” for at least 8 hours – the duration of one shift.
Corrections wisdom dictates that you deal with trauma by not dealing with it at all. “They teach us to leave it at the gate,” said Morgan. “Eight and the gate” is the unofficial motto.
But even off-duty, the guards are always on edge. At an interview over lunch, Jeff Hernandez, another CO at Oregon state penitentiary, requested to swap places at a restaurant so he could sit facing the entrance of the room. This is a common quirk among those working in corrections.
COs say working in prison has significant long-term effects on your personality. Van Patten said the job changed him within 6 months. He became more cynical, withdrawn & aggressive.
“You almost become non-human, robotic, emotionless,” said Charles Ewlad, the warden at Riverhead correctional facility at the eastern end of New York’s Long Island. When he first started, “people came to work hammered every day. That was the deal.” This is no longer the status quo, though substance abuse is still a widespread coping mechanism.
“I went to work every day & I put this persona on,” Van Patten said. He has seen inmates show up at recreational activities with a 9-inch shank sticking out of their eye, others hang themselves, & still others cut their arteries & bleed to death.
“I didn’t know how to release the stuff I kept dreaming about. You’re doing tier count & you’re watching a human being die in front of your eyes because he’s coughing up lungs & screaming with his eyes for help & there’s nothing you can do,” Van Patten said. “Even though he’s an inmate, he’s still human; you’re still human.”
On the first day of work, his son Trevor – who also works as a corrections officer – remembers seeing the remains of a prisoner who was beaten to death by other inmates. “You see people smashing pumpkins on Halloween. Imagine all of the orange being red. And then all the orange on the outside being white. That’s what it looked like on first image. That’s a human being.” An hour after that he was eating lunch, then went back to work.
‘When I was struggling, nobody helped me’
In the years & months leading up to his attempted suicide, Michael suffered from all the typical symptoms of PTSD: insomnia, cold sweats, phantom violence while asleep. He worked out obsessively & self-medicated with alcohol.
He didn’t even know what PTSD was at the time. That’s partly because it’s not something that COs talked about. The culture is tough & macho, and any sign of vulnerability, especially a mental health diagnosis, carries stigma.
“Officers can never be weak. Inmates can never be weak. It’s its own world,” said Brian Baisley, the head of the medical evaluation unit at Riverhead.
...
Jeff Hernandez, the CO at Oregon state penitentiary, recalls one incident where an officer working on the notoriously difficult intensive management unit had a breakdown & burst into tears on the job. “I know from talking to several people there really still is an undercurrent of ‘You never should have done that on the unit’,” he said.
...
PTSD is considered taboo partly because many fear a diagnosis will have negative repercussions on their career prospects.
“They won’t get diagnosed because of the stigma,” Michael Van Patten says. Many are afraid that they will be put through a “fit for duty” test with a state psychologist as a result, & will be decertified.
Some corrections officers at Oregon state penitentiary & Riverhead in Long Island do not think prison is a rehabilitative solution, merely a punitive one. “There’s got to be a better way to do things than put, say, James here in a corridor with 30 inmates for 8 hours,” says Charles Ewlad, warden of Riverhead.
“We’re doing time too, we’re just getting paid for it,” says Brian Dawes, head of the American Correctional Officer Intelligence Network. The national average annual wage for a CO is $44,910, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In California this can go up to $100,000.
In 2013, Van Patten decided to go public within his department about his attempted suicide, out of concern over the recent slate of staff suicides. “I finally thought that I’d been around there long enough, that someone had to break the ice.”
He recorded a video of himself speaking to his son Trevor about the incident. That was the first time they ever spoke about it together. The film was screened at the annual in-service training.
Jeff Hernandez remembers feeling shocked when he saw the video in that context: “I was not prepared because his personality has never been where I could even consider the possibility of him trying to do something like that.”
But some COs still feel the stigma of having mental health issues. Michael Morgan, the ex-CO, was diagnosed with PTSD. He said that when he reached out to the state’s mental health emergency hotline & the department during his extended breakdown, they were dismissive of him once he said that he wasn’t feeling suicidal.
...
Morgan’s mental health struggles started when he was pulled over in 2010 for driving while drunk. He spent 32 hours on the other side of the bars for the first time while he was waiting to be arraigned. “I pretty much hit rock bottom,” he said. “When I was struggling, nobody helped me.”
A year later, he got a decertification notice based on multiple charges. ...
“There were times when I got off a 12-hour shift that I would go out in my truck & I would turn the radio up as far as it would go for 5 to 10 minutes, just to feel something different that I could say: ‘OK, I can feel this rather than the other sensation’.”
It was during this period that Morgan ended up in the psychiatric ward. He was driving in the car with his wife when he pulled over, put on the emergency brake & told his wife to call the police on him: “I didn’t feel in control & I knew that that’s not a good thing.”
Morgan was diagnosed with PTSD on the psychiatric ward. Although this seal caused him a lot of anxiety, it actually helped him in his appeal to the decertification panel.
Once he submitted his medical paperwork, instead of firing him they transferred him from security to a non-security job under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
He is now the co-facilitator of a mental health training program at Oregon state penitentiary &, along with Michael Van Patten, is making an example of himself to raise awareness of PTSD.
“But,” Van Patten said, “you can’t change a culture over night.”
The main problem is the prison system. It's the same system all over the world; if a person is convicted for a crime, then he/she is thrown in a jail cell for a determined amount of time or for life. Now, if the prison system stops at that point, even then, it will not create a huge problem. It becomes a huge problem when the government officials starts listening to prison-industrial complex lobbyists, & in pandering for their constituents' votes, start broadening the definition of crime.
That's when several things start to happen:
1. Any kind of crime, major or minor, is considered huge.
2. Judges & the state prosecutors are rewarded for prosecuting as many people as they can.
3. More convicted criminals can be shown by politicians, to the general public, as the proof that their tough-on-crime stance is working.
4. As more people get convicted, even for minor offences, prisons start to fill up fast.
5. Prison-industrial complex start to get "free" labourers in the form of convicted prisoners, which is another form of slavery.
6. Governments & businesses start to pay the companies involved in the prison-industrial complex in the form of subsidies & for products made from prisoners' labour.
7. So, now, those prisons become like a business unto itself. And, as every business' primary responsibility is to lower its costs & increase its profits, those prisons start to be judged with the same metrics. That's where, the problem starts to snowball into a giant problem with very adverse consequences for the whole society.
As prisons become like businesses, they start to treat all prisoners as the same. So, even a hardened criminal is treated the same as first-time offender. In that case, a first-time offender might have benefited a lot with more of a rehab approach, instead of being locked up with a hardened criminal. But, since, rehabs cost money & prisons don't want to invest in something which cost money, that first-time offender never gets any rehab treatment, to the point, that he/she becomes a hardened criminal him/herself.
So, now, the society has to tolerate a hardened criminal, if he/she is ever released. Since, he/she is a hardened criminal now, he/she will most likely commit the offence again, which will result him/her in receiving a much harsher sentence. That will only help in overcrowding of the prisons.
Furthermore, as prisons are not allowed or discouraged from investing in prisons, prisoners increase (which also is creating overcrowding in American prisons), but the number of prison guards / corrections officers don't increase, accordingly. The ratio of prisoners to corrections officers gets all skewed, with as much as, 50 or more prisoners are handled by one corrections officer. Imagine, if that's how many children are being taught by one teacher. That would be considered unthinkable in North American education system.
Of course, handling so many criminals, many of whom themselves might be suffering from several physical & mental health problems, for which they don't receive any kind of treatment, by one corrections officer, is only going to cause those corrections officers huge stress. Since, stress is the root cause of many other health problems, those officers also become prone to several physical & mental health problems.
Further compounding the problem is the macho culture of prisons, where showing any kind of weakness is considered almost fatal by both prisoners & corrections officers. So, of course, corrections officers suffer in silence with these physical & mental issues. They take out their pent-up frustrations & anger on prisoners, which is wrong & unjustifiable, & cause more rifts in general society, when it sees how police are treating prisoners.
So, the main issue to resolve here is breaking up the prison-industrial complex:
1. Prisons need to be under governments' control, where governments should invest in rehab treatments of prisoners.
2. Government should help in the reintegration of prisoners after they are released from prisons, reducing the chances of them committing a crime again. After all, if they commit a crime again, they will go to prison once again, & the taxpayers will pick the tab anyway. So, why not invest in making those prisoners a tax-paying citizen, instead of tax-consuming prisoner?
3. Politicians should not be pandering for votes on their crime-reducing capabilities. Let objective data on crimes dictate those policies, since all data nowadays keeps saying that crimes are continuously decreasing. Politicians may also not focus on this issue if they are not receiving any money from prison-industrial complex.
4. Reducing the ratio of prisoner to corrections officers by either reducing the prisoner population or increasing the number of corrections officers or both. This may not be required if politicians don't unnecessarily expand the definition of crime & treat every crime the same way. Minor offences are treated by rehab approach & major offences are processed through the prison system.
5. Changing the macho culture may never happen but it is certainly a desirable option. It will be very hard to do since organizational cultures don't change so easily, especially, considering it's the prison system we are talking about.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Van Patten’s 18-year-old son came home to find his dad crouching on the kitchen floor, gun in hand, a nearly empty bottle of gin by his side, tears running down his cheeks. Trevor grabbed the weapon, ran up to his room, shut the door & didn’t speak to his dad – or anyone – about the incident for 13 years.
For Michael, this was the build-up of nearly 3 decades working as a corrections officer at the Oregon state penitentiary. “The only way I knew how to deal with it was to eat a bullet.”
There is little awareness of how the culture of endemic violence in prisons affects the correction officers who interact with prisoners. But with over 2 million prisoners & around half a million COs, it is a widespread & underreported problem.
Corrections officers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder at more than double the rate of military veterans in the US, according to Caterina Spinaris, the leading professional in corrections-specific clinical research & founder of Desert Waters Correctional Outreach, a nonprofit based in Colorado.
This in turn inevitably affects prisoners. While there is no hard data on guard-on-inmate assaults, interviews with current & former corrections officers revealed that COs occasionally take out the stress of the job on inmates.
In 2011, Spinaris did an anonymous survey of corrections officers, testing them for indications of PTSD: repeated flashbacks of traumatic incidents, hyper-vigilance, insomnia, suicidal thoughts & alienation, among others. She found that 34% of corrections officers suffer from PTSD. This compares to 14% of military veterans.
The suicide rate among corrections officers is twice as high as that of both police officers & the general public, according to a New Jersey police taskforce. An earlier national study found that corrections officers’ suicide risk was 39% higher than all other professions combined.
“Right now, we’re about where the military was 10, 15 years ago when it comes to them dealing with PTSD,” Van Patten tells me. Nearly 20 of his fellow officers have committed suicide since he started working in corrections. He nearly became a statistic himself.
Van Patten was assaulted when he was helping a nurse give a rectal exam to an inmate suspected of packing drugs. As he was reaching down to grab the inmate’s ankles to flip him over, the inmate came down on Van Patten’s back, dislocating his skull from his spinal vertebrae. Van Patten couldn’t walk for 5 months, nor could he hold his newborn child.
...
Most of his job, around 95% as he estimates, is pretty mundane. Every day he does a cell count, keeps an eye on inmate’s activities, fetches someone toilet paper. This goes on for 8 or, often, 16 hours straight – sometimes without a lunch break, depending on the day.
It’s the other 5% that leads to the extraordinarily high rate of PTSD: dealing with inmate violence, coming home with faeces smeared all over his uniform, trying to stop suicide attempts.
Van Patten said the biggest stress factor is not knowing when crisis situations may arise. This leads to permanent hyper-vigilance, “because we go into a place where we have control, but yet we don’t have control, because the inmates let us run the prison. If they wanted to, they could take it. They’re compliant until they choose not to be,” he said.
As soon as a CO enters a prison, he or she goes into battle mode. “We put on our armour. When you walk through the first gate, it clicks. And so does your back,” says Michael Morgan, an ex-officer at Oregon state penitentiary. “You’re in the pressure cooker” for at least 8 hours – the duration of one shift.
Corrections wisdom dictates that you deal with trauma by not dealing with it at all. “They teach us to leave it at the gate,” said Morgan. “Eight and the gate” is the unofficial motto.
But even off-duty, the guards are always on edge. At an interview over lunch, Jeff Hernandez, another CO at Oregon state penitentiary, requested to swap places at a restaurant so he could sit facing the entrance of the room. This is a common quirk among those working in corrections.
COs say working in prison has significant long-term effects on your personality. Van Patten said the job changed him within 6 months. He became more cynical, withdrawn & aggressive.
“You almost become non-human, robotic, emotionless,” said Charles Ewlad, the warden at Riverhead correctional facility at the eastern end of New York’s Long Island. When he first started, “people came to work hammered every day. That was the deal.” This is no longer the status quo, though substance abuse is still a widespread coping mechanism.
“I went to work every day & I put this persona on,” Van Patten said. He has seen inmates show up at recreational activities with a 9-inch shank sticking out of their eye, others hang themselves, & still others cut their arteries & bleed to death.
“I didn’t know how to release the stuff I kept dreaming about. You’re doing tier count & you’re watching a human being die in front of your eyes because he’s coughing up lungs & screaming with his eyes for help & there’s nothing you can do,” Van Patten said. “Even though he’s an inmate, he’s still human; you’re still human.”
On the first day of work, his son Trevor – who also works as a corrections officer – remembers seeing the remains of a prisoner who was beaten to death by other inmates. “You see people smashing pumpkins on Halloween. Imagine all of the orange being red. And then all the orange on the outside being white. That’s what it looked like on first image. That’s a human being.” An hour after that he was eating lunch, then went back to work.
‘When I was struggling, nobody helped me’
In the years & months leading up to his attempted suicide, Michael suffered from all the typical symptoms of PTSD: insomnia, cold sweats, phantom violence while asleep. He worked out obsessively & self-medicated with alcohol.
He didn’t even know what PTSD was at the time. That’s partly because it’s not something that COs talked about. The culture is tough & macho, and any sign of vulnerability, especially a mental health diagnosis, carries stigma.
“Officers can never be weak. Inmates can never be weak. It’s its own world,” said Brian Baisley, the head of the medical evaluation unit at Riverhead.
...
Jeff Hernandez, the CO at Oregon state penitentiary, recalls one incident where an officer working on the notoriously difficult intensive management unit had a breakdown & burst into tears on the job. “I know from talking to several people there really still is an undercurrent of ‘You never should have done that on the unit’,” he said.
...
PTSD is considered taboo partly because many fear a diagnosis will have negative repercussions on their career prospects.
“They won’t get diagnosed because of the stigma,” Michael Van Patten says. Many are afraid that they will be put through a “fit for duty” test with a state psychologist as a result, & will be decertified.
Some corrections officers at Oregon state penitentiary & Riverhead in Long Island do not think prison is a rehabilitative solution, merely a punitive one. “There’s got to be a better way to do things than put, say, James here in a corridor with 30 inmates for 8 hours,” says Charles Ewlad, warden of Riverhead.
“We’re doing time too, we’re just getting paid for it,” says Brian Dawes, head of the American Correctional Officer Intelligence Network. The national average annual wage for a CO is $44,910, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In California this can go up to $100,000.
In 2013, Van Patten decided to go public within his department about his attempted suicide, out of concern over the recent slate of staff suicides. “I finally thought that I’d been around there long enough, that someone had to break the ice.”
He recorded a video of himself speaking to his son Trevor about the incident. That was the first time they ever spoke about it together. The film was screened at the annual in-service training.
Jeff Hernandez remembers feeling shocked when he saw the video in that context: “I was not prepared because his personality has never been where I could even consider the possibility of him trying to do something like that.”
But some COs still feel the stigma of having mental health issues. Michael Morgan, the ex-CO, was diagnosed with PTSD. He said that when he reached out to the state’s mental health emergency hotline & the department during his extended breakdown, they were dismissive of him once he said that he wasn’t feeling suicidal.
...
Morgan’s mental health struggles started when he was pulled over in 2010 for driving while drunk. He spent 32 hours on the other side of the bars for the first time while he was waiting to be arraigned. “I pretty much hit rock bottom,” he said. “When I was struggling, nobody helped me.”
A year later, he got a decertification notice based on multiple charges. ...
“There were times when I got off a 12-hour shift that I would go out in my truck & I would turn the radio up as far as it would go for 5 to 10 minutes, just to feel something different that I could say: ‘OK, I can feel this rather than the other sensation’.”
It was during this period that Morgan ended up in the psychiatric ward. He was driving in the car with his wife when he pulled over, put on the emergency brake & told his wife to call the police on him: “I didn’t feel in control & I knew that that’s not a good thing.”
Morgan was diagnosed with PTSD on the psychiatric ward. Although this seal caused him a lot of anxiety, it actually helped him in his appeal to the decertification panel.
Once he submitted his medical paperwork, instead of firing him they transferred him from security to a non-security job under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
He is now the co-facilitator of a mental health training program at Oregon state penitentiary &, along with Michael Van Patten, is making an example of himself to raise awareness of PTSD.
“But,” Van Patten said, “you can’t change a culture over night.”
France to force big supermarkets to give unsold food to charities
That's a very sensible law. It was not very surprising to read that "the average French person throws out 20kg-30kg of food a year – 7kg of which is still in its wrapping. The combined national cost of this is up to €20 billion. Of the 7.1 million tonnes of food wasted in France each year, 67% is binned by consumers, 15% by restaurants & 11% by shops. Each year 1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted worldwide."
There was also a Maclean's article from May, in which, it was stated that a staggering 40% of the food produced in the developed world (& 30% worldwide) is never consumed. It’s food that’s discarded from farm to fork, tossed in the field because it’s not the right size or shape, cycled through stores & restaurants, & chucked out of every single family’s home refrigerator. In fact, half of the estimated US$1 trillion worth of food the UN says is discarded each year is the wilted lettuce & expired milk that’s dumped by consumers, with another 20% tossed by grocery stores & restaurants. Dana Gunders, a scientist at the US National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), found $150 billion worth of edible food ends up rotting in American landfills & producing methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more damaging than CO2. Meanwhile, food production uses 80% of all fresh water consumed in the US. If food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, after China & the US, & a major contributor to global warming.
It goes on to say that "according to the Ontario-based consulting firm Value Chain Management International (VCMI), Canadians waste $31 billion in food each year." Out of this $31 billion of food wastage, almost 47% is by consumers at home; that's almost $14.5 billion of food wastage by Canadians at home.
Ironically, unlike France & UK, Canada doesn't have a national food wastage policy where it might be mandatory for non-consumer establishments (shops, restaurants, hotels etc.) to not waste food by donating it to charities or animal farms for animal feed. Even if the government comes up with such a policy / law that will help in saving some $13 Billion in food wastage in Canada, which is in itself huge savings, the biggest chunk of food wastage would still not be resolved; food wastage by consumers at home. In France, 67% of food is being wasted by consumers at home, too.
I often see myself people wasting food in North America & Europe. They don't think twice before throwing away good food because it has passed the arbitrary expiration dates or the bread has gone a little stale or simply, a kid just doesn't want to his/her fruit & toss his/her apple/banana/peach etc. in the garbage bin.
It would be very unfair of me to only blame the people of the developed West for wasting their food. I have also seen how economic well-off people in the developing world also waste food. For instance, Pakistanis waste food by the tonnes in weddings & in restaurants. And they are followers of such a religion (Islam), in which wasting food is strictly discouraged. People in weddings will fill their dinner plates full & will eat not even half of it, & then throw the rest in the garbage, whereas, there are families sleeping hungry not even half a kilometer away from that event. Pakistanis, the purported followers of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) who never wasted food in his life, don't even think twice before wasting very good quality food.
Nobody is teaching the general public that there are billions of people around the world who would literally kill someone for that fruit or vegetable or that stale bread or that milk or yogurt or pizza etc. People need to be shown how they themselves are throwing away their money when they throw out the food.
People in the West need to see how there are hundreds of thousands of people in their own backyard who go hungry every day because they don't have enough income to buy healthy & nutritious food for themselves & for their families. They should be shown how their food wastage is affecting their own pockets & preventing someone else from not having that food. Food donation is a huge thing in the West & hundreds of people donate food, on a regular basis or on special occasions, to charities, but that pales in comparison to how much those same people throw away food from their fridges.
There should be some kind of national advertising blitz, similar to the one showing dangers of cigarette smoking, so people can realize what & how they are contributing in this national & worldwide food wastage. Children in their schools need to be shown how other kids in their own country & abroad are going hungry while they are throwing away food, just because, they don't like the taste or look of that given food. Children could be rewarded, by their parents or school, for not throwing away their food.
As I always say, the world has enough resources to easily sustain our world population. Problem is that those resources are distributed not equally. On macro level, some countries are famine stricken while others are wasting billions in food wastage, on a micro level, economic well-off public has too much food, while their poor neighbours are sleeping hungry at night. If the whole food supply chain is made efficient to minimize food wastage, we are not only going to save enormously on critical world resources of air & water, & consequently, positively help climate change, but we will also produce only enough food which will be used by consumers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
French supermarkets will be banned from throwing away or destroying unsold food & must instead donate it to charities or for animal feed, under a law set to crack down on food waste.
The French national assembly voted unanimously to pass the legislation as France battles an epidemic of wasted food that has highlighted the divide between giant food firms & people who are struggling to eat.
...
Supermarkets will be barred from deliberately spoiling unsold food so it cannot be eaten. Those with a footprint of 4,305 sq ft (400 sq m) or more will have to sign contracts with charities by July next year or face penalties including fines of up to €75,000 (£53,000) or 2 years in jail.
“It’s scandalous to see bleach being poured into supermarket dustbins along with edible foods,” said the Socialist deputy Guillaume Garot, a former food minister who proposed the bill.
In recent years, French media have highlighted how poor families, students, unemployed or homeless people often stealthily forage in supermarket bins at night to feed themselves, able to survive on edible products which had been thrown out just as their best-before dates approached.
But some supermarkets doused binned food in bleach to prevent potential food-poisoning by eating food from bins. Other supermarkets deliberately binned food in locked warehouses for collection by refuse trucks to stop scavengers.
The practice of foraging in supermarket bins is not without risk – some people picking through rotten fruit & rubbish to reach yoghurts, cheese platters or readymade pizzas have been stopped by police & faced criminal action for theft. In 2011, a 59-year-old father of six working for the minimum wage at a Monoprix supermarket in Marseille almost lost his job after a colleague called security when they saw him pick 6 melons & 2 lettuces out of a bin.
Pressure groups, recycling commandos & direct action foraging movements have been highlighting the issue of waste in France. Members of the Gars’pilleurs, an action group founded in Lyon, don gardening gloves to remove food from supermarket bins at night & redistribute it on the streets the next morning to raise awareness about waste, poverty & food distribution.
The group & four others issued a statement earlier this year warning that simply obliging supermarket giants to pass unsold food to charities could give a “false & dangerous idea of a magic solution” to food waste. They said it would create an illusion that supermarkets had done their bit, while failing to address the wider issue of overproduction in the food industry as well as the wastage in food distribution chains.
The law will also introduce an education programme about food waste in schools and businesses. It follows a measure in February to remove the best-before dates on fresh foods.
The measures are part of wider drive to halve the amount of food waste in France by 2025. According to official estimates, the average French person throws out 20kg-30kg of food a year – 7kg of which is still in its wrapping. The combined national cost of this is up to €20 billion.
Of the 7.1 million tonnes of food wasted in France each year, 67% is binned by consumers, 15% by restaurants & 11% by shops. Each year 1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted worldwide.
The Fédération du Commerce et de la Distribution, which represents big supermarkets, criticised the plan. “The law is wrong in both target & intent, given the big stores represent only 5% of food waste but have these new obligations,” said Jacques Creyssel, head of the organisation. “They are already the pre-eminent food donors, with more than 4,500 stores having signed agreements with aid groups.”
The logistics of the law must also not put an unfair burden on charities, with the unsold food given to them in a way that is ready to use, a parliamentary report has stipulated. It must not be up to charities to have to sift through the waste to set aside squashed fruit or food that had gone off. Supermarkets have said that charities must now also be properly equipped with fridges & trucks to be able to handle the food donations.
The French law goes further than the UK, where the government has a voluntary agreement with the grocery & retail sector to cut both food & packaging waste in the supply chain, but does not believe in mandatory targets.
A report earlier this year showed that in the UK, households threw away 7 million tonnes of food in 2012, enough to fill London’s Wembley stadium 9 times over. Avoidable household food waste in the UK is associated with 17 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.
There was also a Maclean's article from May, in which, it was stated that a staggering 40% of the food produced in the developed world (& 30% worldwide) is never consumed. It’s food that’s discarded from farm to fork, tossed in the field because it’s not the right size or shape, cycled through stores & restaurants, & chucked out of every single family’s home refrigerator. In fact, half of the estimated US$1 trillion worth of food the UN says is discarded each year is the wilted lettuce & expired milk that’s dumped by consumers, with another 20% tossed by grocery stores & restaurants. Dana Gunders, a scientist at the US National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), found $150 billion worth of edible food ends up rotting in American landfills & producing methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more damaging than CO2. Meanwhile, food production uses 80% of all fresh water consumed in the US. If food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, after China & the US, & a major contributor to global warming.
It goes on to say that "according to the Ontario-based consulting firm Value Chain Management International (VCMI), Canadians waste $31 billion in food each year." Out of this $31 billion of food wastage, almost 47% is by consumers at home; that's almost $14.5 billion of food wastage by Canadians at home.
Ironically, unlike France & UK, Canada doesn't have a national food wastage policy where it might be mandatory for non-consumer establishments (shops, restaurants, hotels etc.) to not waste food by donating it to charities or animal farms for animal feed. Even if the government comes up with such a policy / law that will help in saving some $13 Billion in food wastage in Canada, which is in itself huge savings, the biggest chunk of food wastage would still not be resolved; food wastage by consumers at home. In France, 67% of food is being wasted by consumers at home, too.
I often see myself people wasting food in North America & Europe. They don't think twice before throwing away good food because it has passed the arbitrary expiration dates or the bread has gone a little stale or simply, a kid just doesn't want to his/her fruit & toss his/her apple/banana/peach etc. in the garbage bin.
It would be very unfair of me to only blame the people of the developed West for wasting their food. I have also seen how economic well-off people in the developing world also waste food. For instance, Pakistanis waste food by the tonnes in weddings & in restaurants. And they are followers of such a religion (Islam), in which wasting food is strictly discouraged. People in weddings will fill their dinner plates full & will eat not even half of it, & then throw the rest in the garbage, whereas, there are families sleeping hungry not even half a kilometer away from that event. Pakistanis, the purported followers of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) who never wasted food in his life, don't even think twice before wasting very good quality food.
Nobody is teaching the general public that there are billions of people around the world who would literally kill someone for that fruit or vegetable or that stale bread or that milk or yogurt or pizza etc. People need to be shown how they themselves are throwing away their money when they throw out the food.
People in the West need to see how there are hundreds of thousands of people in their own backyard who go hungry every day because they don't have enough income to buy healthy & nutritious food for themselves & for their families. They should be shown how their food wastage is affecting their own pockets & preventing someone else from not having that food. Food donation is a huge thing in the West & hundreds of people donate food, on a regular basis or on special occasions, to charities, but that pales in comparison to how much those same people throw away food from their fridges.
There should be some kind of national advertising blitz, similar to the one showing dangers of cigarette smoking, so people can realize what & how they are contributing in this national & worldwide food wastage. Children in their schools need to be shown how other kids in their own country & abroad are going hungry while they are throwing away food, just because, they don't like the taste or look of that given food. Children could be rewarded, by their parents or school, for not throwing away their food.
As I always say, the world has enough resources to easily sustain our world population. Problem is that those resources are distributed not equally. On macro level, some countries are famine stricken while others are wasting billions in food wastage, on a micro level, economic well-off public has too much food, while their poor neighbours are sleeping hungry at night. If the whole food supply chain is made efficient to minimize food wastage, we are not only going to save enormously on critical world resources of air & water, & consequently, positively help climate change, but we will also produce only enough food which will be used by consumers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
French supermarkets will be banned from throwing away or destroying unsold food & must instead donate it to charities or for animal feed, under a law set to crack down on food waste.
The French national assembly voted unanimously to pass the legislation as France battles an epidemic of wasted food that has highlighted the divide between giant food firms & people who are struggling to eat.
...
Supermarkets will be barred from deliberately spoiling unsold food so it cannot be eaten. Those with a footprint of 4,305 sq ft (400 sq m) or more will have to sign contracts with charities by July next year or face penalties including fines of up to €75,000 (£53,000) or 2 years in jail.
“It’s scandalous to see bleach being poured into supermarket dustbins along with edible foods,” said the Socialist deputy Guillaume Garot, a former food minister who proposed the bill.
In recent years, French media have highlighted how poor families, students, unemployed or homeless people often stealthily forage in supermarket bins at night to feed themselves, able to survive on edible products which had been thrown out just as their best-before dates approached.
But some supermarkets doused binned food in bleach to prevent potential food-poisoning by eating food from bins. Other supermarkets deliberately binned food in locked warehouses for collection by refuse trucks to stop scavengers.
The practice of foraging in supermarket bins is not without risk – some people picking through rotten fruit & rubbish to reach yoghurts, cheese platters or readymade pizzas have been stopped by police & faced criminal action for theft. In 2011, a 59-year-old father of six working for the minimum wage at a Monoprix supermarket in Marseille almost lost his job after a colleague called security when they saw him pick 6 melons & 2 lettuces out of a bin.
Pressure groups, recycling commandos & direct action foraging movements have been highlighting the issue of waste in France. Members of the Gars’pilleurs, an action group founded in Lyon, don gardening gloves to remove food from supermarket bins at night & redistribute it on the streets the next morning to raise awareness about waste, poverty & food distribution.
The group & four others issued a statement earlier this year warning that simply obliging supermarket giants to pass unsold food to charities could give a “false & dangerous idea of a magic solution” to food waste. They said it would create an illusion that supermarkets had done their bit, while failing to address the wider issue of overproduction in the food industry as well as the wastage in food distribution chains.
The law will also introduce an education programme about food waste in schools and businesses. It follows a measure in February to remove the best-before dates on fresh foods.
The measures are part of wider drive to halve the amount of food waste in France by 2025. According to official estimates, the average French person throws out 20kg-30kg of food a year – 7kg of which is still in its wrapping. The combined national cost of this is up to €20 billion.
Of the 7.1 million tonnes of food wasted in France each year, 67% is binned by consumers, 15% by restaurants & 11% by shops. Each year 1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted worldwide.
The Fédération du Commerce et de la Distribution, which represents big supermarkets, criticised the plan. “The law is wrong in both target & intent, given the big stores represent only 5% of food waste but have these new obligations,” said Jacques Creyssel, head of the organisation. “They are already the pre-eminent food donors, with more than 4,500 stores having signed agreements with aid groups.”
The logistics of the law must also not put an unfair burden on charities, with the unsold food given to them in a way that is ready to use, a parliamentary report has stipulated. It must not be up to charities to have to sift through the waste to set aside squashed fruit or food that had gone off. Supermarkets have said that charities must now also be properly equipped with fridges & trucks to be able to handle the food donations.
The French law goes further than the UK, where the government has a voluntary agreement with the grocery & retail sector to cut both food & packaging waste in the supply chain, but does not believe in mandatory targets.
A report earlier this year showed that in the UK, households threw away 7 million tonnes of food in 2012, enough to fill London’s Wembley stadium 9 times over. Avoidable household food waste in the UK is associated with 17 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
City in the sky: world's biggest hotel to open in Mecca
I think if Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) come back to life now & go to Mecca, he wouldn't be able to recognize his own city, & more than likely, he would cry on what the keepers of the Two Holy Mosques have done to such a sacred city. I'm not even going to discuss how he would feel at the status of Muslims around the world.
As the article states, Mecca has become the "Las Vegas for pilgrims." In the article, some one else calls Mecca, the "Mecca-hattan." Really? Will this make Muslims happy that one of the two sacred cities for them is being compared with the "Sin City" & Manhattan?
No, it's not the fault of the writer to compare Mecca with Vegas. I's the fault & greed of the Saudi Royalty who have built so much secular / worldly grandiose monstrosity around the "House of Allah" that it is definitely a miracle that one can even see that sacred House from the air (even that, if you are hovering directly above it).
On top of that, as the article points out, that with these monstrous & very expensive developments, akin to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, & Doha, the poor residents & pilgrims are slowly being priced out of the city. It's like a gradual gentrification where rich elites are trying to get rid of the poor from Mecca by making the real estate in it so expensive that poor people can't visit or live in the city. Just like the poor people in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, & Doha live far outside of the city center, since they can't afford the luxurious lifestyle of the people (who are usually European & North American expatriates) who actually live in the city center.
Ironically, the lifestyle of the Prophet, whom the Saudi Royalty, Saudis, & the whole Muslim world purport to love & follow his ways, was, essentially, of a modern-day poor man. He could count his assets on his fingers. But his followers, in this day & age, apparently count their blessings & show off that wealth by staying at 5-star hotels, like InterContinentals & Hiltons during their pilgrimages.
I am blaming those Muslims (non-Saudis & commoners) because those Muslims are creating demands for these kinds of monstrosities. I mean how can these Muslims feel the hardships & learn from the pilgrimage when they stay in these 5-star hotels with all the luxuries, & perhaps, more luxuries than their own homes. That's why, several Muslims proudly boast that they have performed pilgrimages multiple times, even though, the cost of each pilgrimage is becoming astronomical. Because, pilgrimage for these Muslims is like a walk in the park.
Yes, I agree that in Wahhabism or in true Islam, old sacred sites should be torn down because they do give rise to idolatory. Heck, even now, when Muslims visit Medina, some Muslims start praying to Prophet like, Allah forbid, he is their god. So, destroying non-religious sites is one way to not encourage idolatory but building Paris Hilton stores & Starbucks in their places is also very wrong.
Just imagine, if this same Royalty would've spent this wealth in helping Muslim refugees in Iraq, Syria, Burma, then those Muslims wouldn't have to find shelters in non-Muslim European & South-East Asian countries. Heck, if all those rich Muslim pilgrims who stay in these ultra-pricey hotels during their pilgrimage spend that money on helping their poor brothers & sisters in Islam, they would earn more rewards than showing up in Mecca to show off their social status by booking hotel rooms in these monstrosity of hotels.
If you are still thinking that all these gaudy construction is all well & good, then ask yourself these questions:
1. How many big multibillion $$$ hotels have been, or are being constructed, around the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem? (Judaism holy site for pilgrimage)
2. How many big multibillion $$$ hotels have been, or are being constructed, around the churches in Christianity's Holy Land? (Christianity's holy sites for pilgrimage in Jerusalem)
3. How many sacred pilgrimage sites of Hinduism, Sikhism, or Buddhism are being overshadowed by monster hotels right beside them? (a quick Google search will help you know the answer).
So, why do Muslims, whose Prophet preached to let go of the world & its wealth, are the ones to not only build such buildings & desecrate their holy sites by physically making them so small & miniscule (generally, us, people don't like small things in this world), but also enthusiastically create demand, by shelling out thousands of their money, for someone to build such things?
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4 helipads will cluster around one of the largest domes in the world, like sideplates awaiting the unveiling of a momentous main course, which will be jacked up 45 storeys into the sky above the deserts of Mecca. It is the crowning feature of the holy city’s crowning glory, the superlative summit of what will be the world’s largest hotel when it opens in 2017.
With 10,000 bedrooms & 70 restaurants, plus 5 floors for the sole use of the Saudi royal family, the £2.3bn Abraj Kudai is an entire city of five-star luxury, catering to the increasingly high expectations of well-heeled pilgrims from the Gulf.
Modelled on a “traditional desert fortress”, seemingly filtered through the eyes of a Disneyland imagineer with classical pretensions, the steroidal scheme comprises 12 towers teetering on top of a 10-storey podium, which houses a bus station, shopping mall, food courts, conference centre & a lavishly appointed ballroom.
Located in the Manafia district, just over a mile south of the Grand Mosque, the complex is funded by the Saudi Ministry of Finance & designed by the Dar Al-Handasah group, a 7,000-strong global construction conglomerate that turns its hand to everything from designing cities in Kazakhstan to airports in Dubai. For the Abraj Kudai, it has followed the wedding-cake pastiche style of the city’s recent hotel boom: cornice is piled upon cornice, with fluted pink pilasters framing blue-mirrored windows, some arched with a vaguely Ottoman air. The towers seem to be packed so closely together that guests will be able to enjoy views into each other’s rooms.
“The city is turning into Mecca-hattan,” says Irfan Al-Alawi, director of the UK-based Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, which campaigns to try to save what little heritage is left in Saudi Arabia’s holy cities. “Everything has been swept away to make way for the incessant march of luxury hotels, which are destroying the sanctity of the place & pricing normal pilgrims out.”
The Grand Mosque is now loomed over by the second tallest building in the world, the Abraj al-Bait clocktower, home to thousands more luxury hotel rooms, where rates can reach £4,000 a night for suites with the best views of the Kaaba – the black cube at the centre of the mosque around which Muslims must walk. The hotel rises 600m (2,000ft) into the air, projecting a dazzling green laser-show by night, on a site where an Ottoman fortress once stood – razed for development, along with the hill on which it sat.
The list of heritage crimes goes on, driven by state-endorsed Wahhabism, the hardline interpretation of Islam that perceives historical sites as encouraging sinful idolatry ... . In Mecca & Medina, meanwhile, anything that relates to the prophet could be in the bulldozer’s sights. The house of Khadijah, his first wife, was crushed to make way for public lavatories; the house of his companion Abu Bakr is now the site of a Hilton hotel; his grandson’s house was flattened by the king’s palace. Moments from these sites now stands a Paris Hilton store & a gender-segregated Starbucks.
“These are the last days of Mecca,” says Alawi. “The pilgrimage is supposed to be a spartan, simple rite of passage, but it has turned into an experience closer to Las Vegas, which most pilgrims simply can’t afford.”
The city receives around 2 million pilgrims for the annual Hajj, but during the rest of the year more than 20 million visit the city, which has become a popular place for weddings & conferences, bringing in annual tourism revenue of around £6bn. The skyline bristles with cranes, summoning thickets of hotel towers to accommodate the influx. Along the western edge of the city the Jabal Omar development now rises, a sprawling complex that will eventually accommodate 100,000 people in 26 luxury hotels – sitting on another gargantuan plinth of 4,000 shops & 500 restaurants, along with its own six-storey prayer hall.
The Grand Mosque, meanwhile, is undergoing a £40bn expansion to double the capacity of its prayer halls – from 3 million worshippers currently to nearly 7 million by 2040. Planned like a vast triangular slice of cake, the extension goes so far back that most worshippers won’t even be able to see the Kaaba.
“It is just like an airport terminal,” says Alawi. “People have been finding they’re praying in the wrong direction because they simply don’t know which way the mosque is any more. It has made a farce of the whole place.”
As the article states, Mecca has become the "Las Vegas for pilgrims." In the article, some one else calls Mecca, the "Mecca-hattan." Really? Will this make Muslims happy that one of the two sacred cities for them is being compared with the "Sin City" & Manhattan?
No, it's not the fault of the writer to compare Mecca with Vegas. I's the fault & greed of the Saudi Royalty who have built so much secular / worldly grandiose monstrosity around the "House of Allah" that it is definitely a miracle that one can even see that sacred House from the air (even that, if you are hovering directly above it).
On top of that, as the article points out, that with these monstrous & very expensive developments, akin to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, & Doha, the poor residents & pilgrims are slowly being priced out of the city. It's like a gradual gentrification where rich elites are trying to get rid of the poor from Mecca by making the real estate in it so expensive that poor people can't visit or live in the city. Just like the poor people in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, & Doha live far outside of the city center, since they can't afford the luxurious lifestyle of the people (who are usually European & North American expatriates) who actually live in the city center.
Ironically, the lifestyle of the Prophet, whom the Saudi Royalty, Saudis, & the whole Muslim world purport to love & follow his ways, was, essentially, of a modern-day poor man. He could count his assets on his fingers. But his followers, in this day & age, apparently count their blessings & show off that wealth by staying at 5-star hotels, like InterContinentals & Hiltons during their pilgrimages.
I am blaming those Muslims (non-Saudis & commoners) because those Muslims are creating demands for these kinds of monstrosities. I mean how can these Muslims feel the hardships & learn from the pilgrimage when they stay in these 5-star hotels with all the luxuries, & perhaps, more luxuries than their own homes. That's why, several Muslims proudly boast that they have performed pilgrimages multiple times, even though, the cost of each pilgrimage is becoming astronomical. Because, pilgrimage for these Muslims is like a walk in the park.
Yes, I agree that in Wahhabism or in true Islam, old sacred sites should be torn down because they do give rise to idolatory. Heck, even now, when Muslims visit Medina, some Muslims start praying to Prophet like, Allah forbid, he is their god. So, destroying non-religious sites is one way to not encourage idolatory but building Paris Hilton stores & Starbucks in their places is also very wrong.
Just imagine, if this same Royalty would've spent this wealth in helping Muslim refugees in Iraq, Syria, Burma, then those Muslims wouldn't have to find shelters in non-Muslim European & South-East Asian countries. Heck, if all those rich Muslim pilgrims who stay in these ultra-pricey hotels during their pilgrimage spend that money on helping their poor brothers & sisters in Islam, they would earn more rewards than showing up in Mecca to show off their social status by booking hotel rooms in these monstrosity of hotels.
If you are still thinking that all these gaudy construction is all well & good, then ask yourself these questions:
1. How many big multibillion $$$ hotels have been, or are being constructed, around the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem? (Judaism holy site for pilgrimage)
2. How many big multibillion $$$ hotels have been, or are being constructed, around the churches in Christianity's Holy Land? (Christianity's holy sites for pilgrimage in Jerusalem)
3. How many sacred pilgrimage sites of Hinduism, Sikhism, or Buddhism are being overshadowed by monster hotels right beside them? (a quick Google search will help you know the answer).
So, why do Muslims, whose Prophet preached to let go of the world & its wealth, are the ones to not only build such buildings & desecrate their holy sites by physically making them so small & miniscule (generally, us, people don't like small things in this world), but also enthusiastically create demand, by shelling out thousands of their money, for someone to build such things?
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4 helipads will cluster around one of the largest domes in the world, like sideplates awaiting the unveiling of a momentous main course, which will be jacked up 45 storeys into the sky above the deserts of Mecca. It is the crowning feature of the holy city’s crowning glory, the superlative summit of what will be the world’s largest hotel when it opens in 2017.
With 10,000 bedrooms & 70 restaurants, plus 5 floors for the sole use of the Saudi royal family, the £2.3bn Abraj Kudai is an entire city of five-star luxury, catering to the increasingly high expectations of well-heeled pilgrims from the Gulf.
Modelled on a “traditional desert fortress”, seemingly filtered through the eyes of a Disneyland imagineer with classical pretensions, the steroidal scheme comprises 12 towers teetering on top of a 10-storey podium, which houses a bus station, shopping mall, food courts, conference centre & a lavishly appointed ballroom.
Located in the Manafia district, just over a mile south of the Grand Mosque, the complex is funded by the Saudi Ministry of Finance & designed by the Dar Al-Handasah group, a 7,000-strong global construction conglomerate that turns its hand to everything from designing cities in Kazakhstan to airports in Dubai. For the Abraj Kudai, it has followed the wedding-cake pastiche style of the city’s recent hotel boom: cornice is piled upon cornice, with fluted pink pilasters framing blue-mirrored windows, some arched with a vaguely Ottoman air. The towers seem to be packed so closely together that guests will be able to enjoy views into each other’s rooms.
“The city is turning into Mecca-hattan,” says Irfan Al-Alawi, director of the UK-based Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, which campaigns to try to save what little heritage is left in Saudi Arabia’s holy cities. “Everything has been swept away to make way for the incessant march of luxury hotels, which are destroying the sanctity of the place & pricing normal pilgrims out.”
The Grand Mosque is now loomed over by the second tallest building in the world, the Abraj al-Bait clocktower, home to thousands more luxury hotel rooms, where rates can reach £4,000 a night for suites with the best views of the Kaaba – the black cube at the centre of the mosque around which Muslims must walk. The hotel rises 600m (2,000ft) into the air, projecting a dazzling green laser-show by night, on a site where an Ottoman fortress once stood – razed for development, along with the hill on which it sat.
The list of heritage crimes goes on, driven by state-endorsed Wahhabism, the hardline interpretation of Islam that perceives historical sites as encouraging sinful idolatry ... . In Mecca & Medina, meanwhile, anything that relates to the prophet could be in the bulldozer’s sights. The house of Khadijah, his first wife, was crushed to make way for public lavatories; the house of his companion Abu Bakr is now the site of a Hilton hotel; his grandson’s house was flattened by the king’s palace. Moments from these sites now stands a Paris Hilton store & a gender-segregated Starbucks.
“These are the last days of Mecca,” says Alawi. “The pilgrimage is supposed to be a spartan, simple rite of passage, but it has turned into an experience closer to Las Vegas, which most pilgrims simply can’t afford.”
The city receives around 2 million pilgrims for the annual Hajj, but during the rest of the year more than 20 million visit the city, which has become a popular place for weddings & conferences, bringing in annual tourism revenue of around £6bn. The skyline bristles with cranes, summoning thickets of hotel towers to accommodate the influx. Along the western edge of the city the Jabal Omar development now rises, a sprawling complex that will eventually accommodate 100,000 people in 26 luxury hotels – sitting on another gargantuan plinth of 4,000 shops & 500 restaurants, along with its own six-storey prayer hall.
The Grand Mosque, meanwhile, is undergoing a £40bn expansion to double the capacity of its prayer halls – from 3 million worshippers currently to nearly 7 million by 2040. Planned like a vast triangular slice of cake, the extension goes so far back that most worshippers won’t even be able to see the Kaaba.
“It is just like an airport terminal,” says Alawi. “People have been finding they’re praying in the wrong direction because they simply don’t know which way the mosque is any more. It has made a farce of the whole place.”
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