In the weeks since its debut on HBO, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver has slowly, if assuredly, evolved from being little more than a weekend knockoff of its progenitor The Daily Show, to finding its own unique voice and ability to take advantage of the more in-depth “coverage” afforded by the lack of self-censorship otherwise required for commercial television and longer segments due to the lack of on-the-clock commercial breaks necessary for its Comedy Central brethren.
That maturity and evolution revealed itself in full flower during last night’s lengthy segment on America’s horrific and insane — and getting horrificker and insaner — prison and incarceration policy.
Aside from being really really funny at times, the lengthy segment was one of the smartest, most complete, most accessible treatises I’ve seen on TV — or anywhere really — in a very long time, if ever.
It concludes with a laugh-out-loud Sesame Street-style song on the broken state of America’s prison policy, after covering obscenities along the way such as the explosive growth in our prison population; the failed “War on Drugs”; racial disparities in sentencing; our grotesque cultural fetish with “hysterical” prison rape humor; some fairly jaw-dropping Congressional testimony (courtesy of Sen. Al Franken); to the privatization and profiteering of the national Prison Industrial Complex which has culminated, as a judge described in 2012, in “a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts”.
This smart piece is well worth watching in full for too many reasons to list here…
[Note: For a somewhat less amusing, if no less important take on one related issue not mentioned by Oliver during his otherwise surprisingly complete overview, see the second part of Ernie Canning’s three-part 2012 BRAD BLOG essay on the so-called “War on Drugs”, which discusses how legalization might well disrupt the economics of the Prison Industrial Complex and its increasingly relied-upon pool of slave — yes, slave — laborers.]
CORRECTION: Our original article had the name of HBO’s show wrong, as well as the quote from a federal judge about the privatized prison system in Mississippi. Both have been corrected above, thanks to commenter “Niemand” pointing out the errors below.
finding was actually “cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts”
that’s “inhuman,” no e
oliver nearly stumbled over it as well, we’re not used to a judge being so blunt
also, the show’s called “last week tonight”
Niemand – Thanks, much! Have corrected both errors in the story above. Much appreciated!
That was excellent.
The prison population is the most vulnerable we have and one of the most — if not the most — mistreated and abused. Vigilantism seems to be part of what’s going on — as if it is not up to the court of law but up to the individuals in contact with the perpetrators to decide and mete out punishment. And the helpless inmates are also being used to satisfy a sadistic streak or as a platform to vent rage and frustration by those in direct power over them — that is, guards and/or prisoners who have gained power within the prison.
But what does that say about the rest of us? The conditions in our prisons suggest that the collective “we” condone and perhaps secretly approve of rape, beatings, solitary confinement, and inhuman conditions behind bars. We appear to want our prisoners to receive greater punishment than what is mandated in a court of law. We tend to assume that the prisoners are all thoroughly guilty and deserve what they get, and then some.
If “we” did not actually want this on some level, we would take or at least attempt to take strong legislative steps to prevent this from happening.
Or, we simply don’t care, but I think it’s more than that. Look at nearly any TV show/movie with any level of violence in it, which is most of them. The bad guys are unequivocally bad and are violently punished. That’s what we seem to like and expect.
When one is aware of all the police brutality and death of ordinary citizens going on around the country, it’s easy to believe how horiffic it must be especially in a for profit prison.